During the month of August, we ran the following poll:
The Key to Maintaining the Tradition
In a stark contrast between fundamentalists and traditionalists, let's visualize the following four scenarios:
Scenario 1: A man is trapped by himself on a desert island. A set of Shas is a parachuted down to him. A Bat Qol rings out - study this and do this!
Scenario 2: A young boy or girl is raised by a warm Jewish family. All of the Jewish life cycle is sincerely observed in the home- but the child gets zero booklearning. It's all handed done by tradition, mimeticism, rote, imitation.
Scenario 3: An orphan is raised by a Jewish Community. While there are no loving parents around, the orphan is inducted into a society to learn Judaism by osmosis without any book learning. Questions are answered but no reading takes place.
Scenario 4: An orphan enters into a Rebbi - Talmid relationship, similar to the classic model of master-apprentice. This would be shimush without texts.
We asked:
In your opinion, which of these three scenarios would most likely produce the "best Jew?"
Your response:
Scenario 1 - 04.5%
Scenario 2 - 40.0%
Scenario 3 - 04.5%
Scenario 4 - 51.0%
1 comment:
The Rav, on many occassions, makes a distinction between Torat Imecha and Musar Avicha -- describing them as two distinct methods of passing on the mesora. There is the more personal method of the mother and the more formal, academic method of the father. I am just wondering if these poll results, in some way, reflect these two methodologies and the close standing of the two more popular choices reflect a subtle issue of which method, Torat Imecha or Musar Avicha, may be more important.
The bottom line, though, is that they are both important. This poll may show the conflict in opinion that may arise if we are forced to choose but obviously, the best -- and the ultimate need- is to have both.
Rabbi Ben Hecht
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