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| This is what our classroom looked like - Rabbi Meltzer at the head |
Rabbi Meltzer was my first rebbe at HTC’s Yeshiva High
School (now called Fasman) in Skokie, when I was in 11th grade. I had
transferred there from Telshe Yeshiva in Cleveland.
Although Telshe had an excellent limudei kodesh
program that trained its students how to learn Gemara—and they also had a
pretty decent secular studies curriculum back then, from which I did, in fact,
gain a lot—I was never comfortable with the hashkafa. It was far too
“separatist” for my taste.
My family was far more integrated into the broader culture
than Telshe approved of. For example, we had a TV and went to the occasional
movie. I was (and still am) a fan of secular music, and my parents never
discouraged me from that—even though my father came from a very strict
Chassidic background and later returned to that lifestyle culturally upon
making Aliyah in the early ’70s. Philosophically, however, he remained an
adherent of Torah im Derech Eretz.
That is how I was raised.
Telshe forbade all of those things, making me feel
uncomfortable and even guilty for enjoying them. I recall one mussar shmuess
where the Rosh Mechina (the high school principal) forbade even going bowling,
labeling it chukas hagoy.
Needless to say, my transition to HTC was quite a relief...
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