HASHKOFO-----lack of in bais yaakov

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keep|the|faith Posted - 18 October 2001 14:51

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I have a short but complicated question. A couple of weeks ago I met a women who is in the process of becoming a ger. And I was trying to have a normal intellectual conversation with her but I ended up being shocked with myself and feeling very frustrated.

Well I am frum go to a Bais Yaakov school and have the perfect Frum background but I have no basic understanding of my religion. these ppl who want to become Jewish go thru the whole process of learning the basics. They don’t miss out a thing they do level 1 2 3 etc whereas me being a frum girl am on level 3 but I missed out on level 1 and 2.

Why doesn’t my school give me this basic Hashkafa? instead I have to read books while juggling schoolwork just to find out real stuff. We can spend all this time on goyim, teaching them everything but when it comes to our own backyard, it stinks.

Doesn’t it say that charity starts at home? aren’t we meant to sort out our own kids b4 moving on to s/one else’s? I have another question ... I met two ex yeshiva bochurim they were geniuses and were the toptoptop in their yeshivot but deliberately eat pork, smoke on Shabbat and keep nothing. They justify it all with proofs from the torah. How can Judaism become so skew? if they are the top that we have to offer then what went wrong?

MODERATOR Posted - 18 October 2001 15:49

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You are very correct. Unfortunately, there are frum kids today - especially girl - who are groping for knowledge of basic Judaism. It's one of the main reasons there’s such a wild demand for these boards.

The reason this happened is because everyone was interested in a "higher" level of education - Rambans Maharls etc. - and it was mistakenly believed in the BY's that there was no need for teaching things like why Hashem cares if you’re frum, which was left for "Baalei teshuva" to learn.

The idea was, teach the girl some "intellectual" stuff so they’ll be intellectually satisfied with Torah so they wont become Maskilim. Or at least, studying Torah will keep them off the street.

Also, its easier to read a Ramban from the text than to answer such questions, since the answers are not found in any one organized place. So Ramban on Chumash became the curriculum. Now, what happened is the teachers teaching our youth today do not know the answers since they were never taught them, and the many students are starving for the information.

The information is there. The way to get it is posted all over this forum. But you have to go beyond what you are taught in school.