Background:
Unlike many Sephardim and Teimanim, most Modern Ashkenazi day school students are getting [at best] a mediocre background in Laining skills, Masoretic Notations, and know how in Diqduq.
The result? Mediocrity (or worse) whilst laining at their bar mitzvahs and an inability to master the nuances and subtleties of "Miqra" in general. This also implies at best a Bedi'avad reading of Q'riat Shema twice a day. Imagine such a leniency on a mitzva d'oraitto! Unthinkable!
Furthermore, much of Peirush Rashi is lost on students who lack Masoretic Sensitivity and Ibn Ezra, Redaq, and Minchat Shai may become completely out-of-reach.
Furthermore, some parents [and most peers] push the BM boys to read MORE instead of read BETTER, which often may subject the congregation to even more faulty laining.
So I am joining a campaign for heightened awareness and I am participating in drafting a Resolution to address this situation.
The first step is to complete the Resolution document
The second step is to disseminate it to shuls and on the internet.
The third step would be to implement changed attitudes by teachers, parents, and peers. Quantity should be sacrificed in the name of quality. A perfectly read Hafatara and Maftir [with a possible additional aliya or 2] would become the new paradigm replacing the mediocre entire sidra, etc. Expectations should be altered.
The fourth step would be to begin training day school students in good Hebrew diction and cantillation techniques. Q'riyyat Sh'ma with its trop could be mastered by boys and
girls by age 9 or so, even if only by rote learning.
Within a generation, Ashk'nazim would be reading Tanach as accurately as Sephardim and Teimanim do now, and then the quantity of laining could be restored. Teachers would then be better prepared to train future generations in our Masoretic Traditions [pun intended]
KT
RRW
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