American education is failing. Academic performance is down,
the teaching profession has been weakened, classical knowledge has been
displaced by progressive educational theories, technology has damaged students’
attention span, and religious ideas—particularly the biblical foundations of
American civilization—have largely disappeared from public education.
That needs to change. It should not be the case. American
education needs to go back to its original focus. And a good place to see where
that is still happening is in religious parochial schools, like those of the
religious Jewish community.
This is not to say that the entirety of Jewish education is
the avenue upon which American education should embark. There are, in fact,
several versions of Jewish education, ranging from the sublime to the
ridiculous. But if one looks at its broad mainsteam, one will find a very
successful paradigm to follow.
The authors maintain that what is missing from the current
American educational paradigm are the good old-fashioned religious values that
were once the bedrock of a solid education. One that would produce
well-educated and moral citizens with values that reflected those of the Bible.
The Bible they are referring to is what the founding fathers
call the “Old Testament,” which is what we call Tanach. And, more importantly,
the portion of Tanach that makes up what we call the Torah. Often referred to
as the Judeo-Christian ethic.
What has replaced those religious values is a progressive
ideology that has abandoned the morality outlined in the Torah, which so many
of the Founding Fathers saw as the basis for their national ethos. Today’s
youth are subjected less to educational values and more to ideologies that, in
many cases, are anathema to the Torah.
That the many cynics among us deny that this country is
based on the Godly values of the Torah and seem to believe that the so-called
New Testament is what really guides them is belied by the many references made
by the Founding Fathers to Jewish history and the Torah. Jefferson and Franklin,
for example, wanted to use imagery from the Jewish Exodus from slavery in Egypt
as the official logo of the United States. Or the imagery of the pillar of
smoke by day and pillar of fire by night that led our ancestors through the
wilderness on their way to the Promised Land (Israel)…
To continue reading - and/or to comment on this post -
click on this link: substack. You must subscribe to receive new posts. It's
easy and it's free.
