Blowing out the Candles for Shalom Bayit

The Talmud says that the reason the Sages instructed us to light candles at the onset of Shabbat is shalom bayit, tranquility in the home. Of course, on the most basic level, this simply means that we should not sit in the dark on Friday night, since it is not conducive to the evening meal. Over time, especially when light became a permanent feature of homes, the act of lighting candles became ritual, something that one does even in a room flooded with light.

But what if lighting flames in the home harms shalom bayit?

This question describes what goes on in many families with autistic children, according to Frances Victory, who has interviewed such families for her dissertation. Here's her report, from the Jewish Week:

And during the interviews, some mothers of a child with autism said they could not light Shabbat candles because they were afraid their child would “play with it, blow it out, touch it, or throw things at it.” It never occurred to me that lighting Shabbat candles on a Friday evening might not be possible for every Jewish woman who wanted to.

I tend to agree with the mothers here. The underlying purpose of lighting candles is shalom bayit, and it would seem ludicrous to compromise shalom bayit - to introduce fear, anxiety, and danger - in order to light Shabbat candles. One may technically use electric bulbs - even fluorescent - to fulfill the rabbinic instruction.

One mother, however, figured out a way to preserve the customary candle-lighting while keeping her shalom bayit intact. Victory continues:

 One mother of a child with autism said this:
“We do light Shabbat candles and she (her daughter with autism) takes great pleasure in blowing them out. We do let her do that. She walks away when we light the candles but she comes back down when we sing Shalom Alechiem.”

It is worth reading the whole article. It is enlightening.

Comments on the Globes Interview with Moshe Feiglin

This interview with Feiglin is fascinating on many levels. A few comments are in order:
1) I think his views on non-Jewish citizens of the State of Israel are simply horrifying. He argues here that it's not racist to want to make them second class citizens because deep down they know that they're second class citizens.

2) I am extremely wary of someone - anyone - who confuses "my ideas about Judaism" with "Judaism." It's one thing to disagree with R. Elyashiv or R. Ovadiah on some issue within Judaism. It's another to imply that their views are not really the "Jewish" view.
3) I am in almost complete agreement with him about education: parents, not ministries, should have control over a kid's education, and vouchers would be excellent. The one place I part company is on the issue of a core curriculum. Free public education is predicated on the idea that it will make more productive citizens, and thus it is legitimate to condition funding on the teaching of content that will indeed accomplish that goal.
4) He seems to be an advocate of "compassionate conservatism", in which case the interviewer's invocation of Ayn Rand was pretty stupid.
5) I'm not sure how he squares his economic libertarianism with his views on unrestricted school vouchers. I can understand a perspective that wants to completely abolish public funding of schools. I can understand an argument that only core subjects should be publicly funded, and that parents should pay for discretionary education. I can even understand (but strongly oppose) a state that attempts to completely control all aspects of education. I cannot understand a position that is in favor of public funding of education but opposed to any sort of governmental regulation of how that money is spent. That's the worst kind of welfare statism, and completely inconsistent with everything else Feiglin says.

For the Sake of Clarification: I'm not a Rav Bina Hater

I thought that my last post was balanced in that it acknowledged that Rav Bina's methods work for most of the students who attend there. My criticism is that the yeshiva does not do enoughto minimize collateral damage.

I've posted about Rav Bina before - once I praised him for his ads sticking up for Maj.-Gen. Yair Naveh (while a bunch of other blogs were piling on, I might add - see the comments there), and once I reviewed a biography of his father-in-law, Rav Boruch Milikowsky. Looking back on the latter post, there are some similarities between Rav Bina and his father-in-law.

Fisking the defenses of Rav Bina

There have been a number of defenses and justifications of R. Bina's approach since yesterday's article (and my comments on it) appeared. This post will address two of them - the spirited defense of an alumnus, and Rav Bina's official response.

Rav Bina's Response:

Dear Alumni, Parents and Friends of Yeshivat Netiv Aryeh,    

Throughout my nearly 40 years of teaching, I have spent every morning before davening asking Hashem to help guide me to make the right decisions for the benefit of my students.

This may be wholly accurate, but it is also entirely irrelevant. The key question is not whether he asked God for guidance, but whether that petition was granted. 

You can imagine my pain when I became aware of the recent hurtful and unbalanced article about me and the yeshiva.

I'm sure it was painful and hurtful. Possibly even unbalanced (as a corrective, something I'm sure he can understand). I note that he did not say the article is inaccurate.

As you know, I treat all my students like they are my own children and work to provide them with a warm and caring environment with the ultimate goal of creating generations of Jews who care and respect Torah, the Jewish people and the Land of Israel. 

I have not seen anybody suggest that he does not mean well. On the contrary, he apparently cares very, very deeply about his students. This, once again, is entirely irrelevant to the issue at hand. Good intentions, as we all know, are no guarantee of proper actions. Even abusive parents love their kids. To put a blunter point on it, Motti Elon could have written this paragraph with all sincerity, too.

At yeshiva, we try to enhance our students' relationship with Hashem and their families by giving them tools they will be able to use to evolve into leaders in their communities.

This is PR talk. Empowerment. Leadership. Blah, blah, blah. 

Well, at least I hope it is; I hope he doesn't think he's running an elite institution (like his father did).

This is what the yeshiva has done and this is what the yeshiva, with Hashem's help, will continue to do.

No doubt, but at what cost?

To my 3,000-and-growing alumni and families - Thank you for your continued support. It means a lot to me personally and to the entire Netiv Aryeh staff and family.    

This is his defense - you found what 5-10 people to talk out of 3,000 alumni? That's a 99.7% success rate. The reality is that the trail of wreckage is much broader than 0.3% of alumni. I think the NYJW article correctly states that there 's a "significant minority" that have a very different narrative of what goes on there.

With much love,
Aharon Bina 

On to the more spirited and substantive defense, posted by Doni Joszef:

It was only a matter of time...

Indeed.

Several months ago, a family friend let me in on a secret: An exposé was in the works, and its target was none other than Rav Bina.

Which Rav Bina?

Yes, THE “Rav Bina.”

Not helpful...

The Rav Bina we’ve all heard crazy stories about.

Oh, that Rav Bina.

The Rav Bina people love to hate.

More like, "the Rav Bina people love to tell crazy stories about" because, admit it, they're pretty crazy. The one about the guy davening mincha at the kotel in shorts? Classic. No malicious intent.

The Rav Bina that made me miserable, and made me think twice about myself, and made me wait for his sporadic 45 second naps at 4:00AM as I sat in his living room, silent and obedient. The Rav Bina that stood under my Chupah, shedding tears as he officiated my wedding. Yes, that Rav Bina.

OK, he has a very iconoclastic educational methodology that is really and truly based on love. And it works with some people. We get that. The NYJW article says that.

The Jewish Week has taken the myth out of Rav Bina’s legendary reputation.It’s public. It’s official. It was only a matter of time.

Because when parents, teachers, and students make decisions about who to entrust with their well-being for a year or two, it should be based on myth and legend, not fact and public record.

Of course, the “I Hate Rav Bina Blog” (gotta love the cleverness of that name) began spilling some of these secrets a few years ago.Feeling a sense of personal responsibility, I chimed in and posted my two cents. I wanted to defend Rav Bina. Or, at the very least, balance the skewed image being portrayed.

Not sure what you're getting at here.

The nature of the blog was more personal, provocative, and attacking. So was my response. The nature of the Jewish Week’s article was more balanced and principled – so is this response.

OK, here we go. A balanced and principled response. Excellent. Recognition that there's a difference between a haters' blog and a reputable publication. Even better.

Of course, I’d love to get heated and passionate and opinionated as I subject Rav Bina’s opponents to the tortures of my demeaning textual sarcasm. But I’d be acting on impulse. Hock is fun. But it’s not very mature.

You have already distanced yourself from R. Bina, since he uses demeaning (verbal) sarcasm as a way to build character. His defenders have tried to justify it, but none have denied it. But you think it's immature, and I agree.

I also would not call Rav Bina's detractors and critics "opponents."The latter term implies that it's something personal, which it is not.

Instead, I’d like to address the underlying issue: Where do we draw the line between healthy tough love and verbal abuse? Was Rav Bina’s approach, perhaps, a misguided one?

That and more: is the line between tough love and verbal (and emotional) abuse fixed, or does it depend on the student and his circumstances? And was there sufficient "truth in advertising" that enabled prospective students and their families to avoid being blindsided by his unconventional educational methods?

I am torn.

My own therapeutic approach is diametrically opposed to Rav Bina’s general style. I am a soft love type of guy – professionally and personally. 

But this is not about personal predispositions and "style." It's not chocolate vs. vanilla.

As such, my tendency is to empathize with the victims and feel pained by the stories I’ve heard and the experiences that I myself had to endure when things were less-than-sunny in mine and Rav Bina’s interesting relationship.

The implication here is that you have overcome your natural empathy because Rav Bina got results, in your case. But are those who did not emerge unscathed from the crucible of Rav Bina's affections somehow at fault and not deserving of empathy? Or are you suggesting that they are acceptable collateral damage?

But I trusted him. 

I did then. I do now. 

And this has made all the difference.

You skipped some steps here. You trusted him then, so you made it through the harrowing process? You trust him now, so you are willing to accept that this entire trail of wreckage is for the best? Or a fabrication? And how did he earn that trust? Before things got less-than-sunny or after? I will concede that Rav Bina's unconventional methods work with some students. The question is how we - as a community - ensure that the students who would thrive under his system get the opportunity to, and those who would be harmed by it know to stay the heck away. Gary Rosenblatt has helped clear that up. You, so far, have not.

Rav Bina’s greatest strength is also what brought this entire saga into fruition. He says it like it is. He’s politically incorrect if he needs to be. He laughs at conventional norms that most of us just accept because we’d rather just go with the flow. Rav Bina is upfront and authentic – perhaps, some may argue, to a fault.

There's a fallacy at play here. We tend to think that if someone says something wildly unpopular and unconventional, they must be right. Otherwise, why would they go out on a limb and say it? But in reality, just because people say unpopular, unconventional, and politically incorrect things, it does not mean that they're right. In a frum context, I'd call this the "ish emes" fallacy, and it's generally said about anyone who fulminates and bashes and rants. I have no problem with unconventional, believe me. I have a problem with misjudgment at another's expense.

The good news: people get exactly what they sign up for. 

Except when they don't. 

The bad news: people don’t always think before they act. 

You are blaming the victim. Though there may be some contributory negligence, people generally DO think before spending upwards of $20,000. Take a look at YNA's website - is there any intimation of what a student can expect? Anything about "tough love"? You say caveat emptor. I say, be honest about your approach, or else Gary Rosenblatt will keep you honest.

Some people need a softer, more sugarcoated type of place. There is no shortage of options.

You're right. There are. And now, armed with a better understanding of Netiv Aryeh's non-sugarcoated approach, many students who would otherwise end up there can find the right options.

No one is particularly at fault here.

When a kid gets to YNA and is completely blindsided by Rav Bina's tactics, nobody is at fault? A kid from out-of-town, a recent ba'al teshuva, someone just following his friends - somebody recruited that kid and didn't tell him what to expect. You're right that parents should be more diligent, but sheesh, man, if this is such a big part of the yeshiva, can't you be up front about it?

Rav Bina is blessed with an uncanny intuition. He has a gift. He grasps you in his realness. But he’s also human. He’s not always on the ball. Nobody is.

So out of 110 shana aleph kids every year, how many does he not grasp? Let's get some raw numbers. Is he right 99 times out of 100, or is he the proverbial broken clock that's right twice a day? How much collateral damage is acceptable? Maybe if he'd be more up-front about what he's trying to do, he wouldn't have to rely on his own flawed judgment when accepting students.

Many would have benefited greatly had they thought twice about which yeshiva to attend. If you aren’t ready to be challenged, if you don’t respond well to pressure, if you’d rather be fine-tuned than re-wired – go to another yeshiva. You’d be doing yourself and Rav Bina a tremendous favor.

It would help if the yeshiva told prospective students that they can expect re-wiring, not fine-tuning. Stop blaming the victim.

Tough love is not abuse. 

Except when it is.

It looks like abuse because it pains its recipient.

Tell that to the judge.

But egos are only broken through submission, and, sometimes, tough love is the only way to break past the countless defenses that our egos cleverly devise. Many of us could use a bit of ego adjustment. We need to be right-sized, even if it hurts.

I don't think your psychoanalytic model of the ego is particularly sound, let alone whether it needs to be broken and forced into submission through tough love. But even accepting all that, the process you describe is a last resort, not a popular program for teenagers. You're advocating chemotherapy for someone who just needs an aspirin. It's frankly horrifying.

I needed it, and I got it. Today I can appreciate what I then resented. I got exactly what I paid for. And I’m eternally grateful.

I'm glad that electroshock therapy worked for you, but I'd still sue the shrink who administers it to all his patients for malpractice.

Abuse is an act of aggression.Tough love is an act of affection.

Why on earth would you assume that they're mutually exclusive?

The wild & crazy Rav Bina tales can often paint the portrait of a ruthless aggressor.

No. They paint the portrait of a wild & crazy man.

You sometimes get the feeling that Netiv Aryeh looks a lot like Zimbardo’s infamous prison experiment, where inmates are tormented by the bullying of their guards. 

You especially get that feeling when former "inmates" testify that Rav Bina forges group identity by labeling them as outsiders.

Nothing could be further from reality

Beg to differ.

and anyone that has ever met Rav Bina – even those who testify against him – knows that he has a gentle heart and a sensitive soul. He is a softy, despite his legendary reputation.

Awww, c'mere ya big lug.

Seriously, how is this relevant, even if true?

Rav Bina is The Soul’s best friend, and The Ego’s worst enemy.

See my comment above about your psychoanalytic model. The Ego and the Soul are not mortal enemies. 

Sometimes we need some shaking in order to awaken. He shook me hard. And I thank him for that.

Again, what about success rate, collateral damage, proportionality, and truth in advertising?

Netiv Aryeh is my home away from home. It is for many of us. And it always will be.

Irrelevant.

A lollypop can look a lot like love, and a drill can look a lot like abuse. But when you have a mouth full of cavities, there’s no choice but to drill. A loving mother forces her child to endure the pain; she knows it’s in her child’s best interest. Many yeshivas choose the safer route, showering their students with candy and sugar. Rav Bina chooses the less popular route. He drills.

But sometimes there's no cavity. And Rav Bina, as uncanny as you think his judgment of character is, sometimes forces the child to endure pain unnecessarily. Which is abusive.

I know it's part of YNA's culture to think that it's a yeshiva for "real men" whereas other yeshivas are for wimps. I get that. And I think it's part of the problem - what red-blooded 18 year old wants to go to a yeshiva for sissies? So you dupe a kid into thinking it's the right place for him. Well done.

Perhaps the victims were not ready for a cleaning.

Or maybe they didn't need one.

Perhaps they still needed lollypops.

Or just liked them occasionally.

It’s a shame they signed up for the dentist.

Maybe they just didn't think they would be visiting the dentist from Little Shop of Horrors.

Moral of the story: Don’t blame the dentist for trying to do what he does best. Ego can be a tough cavity to drill. But in the end, you walk out cleansed.

 The dentist who runs straight to the drill without a check-up, even if he's a great driller, is guilty of malpractice.

Notes on the Jewish Week Article about Rav Bina

The New York Jewish Week has a feature article this week about Rabbi Aharon Bina, the Rosh Yeshiva of Netiv Aryeh. It describes his "tough love" approach and how it inspires much love and much loathing, and very little in between. If you couldn't surmise who is behind the article, it was co-written by Gary Rosenblatt.

The article is very solid, but there are two elements that I think could have enhanced it immeasurably:
1) Rav Bina's approach is explicitly modeled on that of his father's, Rav Aryeh Bina. The elder Bina was a legendary educator and founder of the prestigious Netiv Meir yeshiva high school, whose alumni is a virtual Who's Who among prominent Religious Zionists (incidentally, the list skews left by Religious Zionist standards, and Junior has come to the defense of some of his father's students). Rav Aharon Bina, however, is not his father, and does not run an elite institution like his father did. In order to really understand who Rav Aharon Bina is and what he is trying to accomplish, one must start with his father, and with the relationship between father and son.
2) This issue gets back to the problem of the "charismatic educator" (let's define charisma as the condition in which the educator's personality overshadows the material being taught) that I've written about several times, most recently when the Motti Elon scandal first broke.Rav Bina fits Paul Shaviv's description of a "Pied Piper" rabbi (cited in that post on R. Elon). Let's see:

A charismatic teacher will deeply affect and influence some students, but will almost always leave a trail of emotional wreckage in is/her wake.

Check.

The emotional dependency and entanglement between teacher and student leads to boundaries being crossed.

Check.
 

The teacher becomes party to knowledge about students and their families that reinforces the teacher’s view that they are the only teachers who ‘really’ are reaching the students. The teacher, however, is neither a trained counselor nor a social worker. That knowledge becomes power.

Check.

A really charismatic teacher can end up running a ‘school within a school’. 

Check (until he started his own school).

The teacher will often employ techniques (and texts) which take students to the extremes of emotion or logic, and will then triumphantly show them how they are holding they key to resolution (‘At this moment, you have agreed that life has no meaning -- but here is the answer’).

Check.

As soon as they are disillusioned or dropped, they are written out of the teacher’s story. Often such students, very hurt, leave the school.

Check (once had a kid at my Shabbat table tell me he was no longer religious because of R. Bina. There are other such stories, and some appear in the NYJW article. I suspect many of these kids would drop observance anyway, but it's telling that Rav Bina becomes the object of their loathing).

Mild characteristics of cult leaders may be observed. 

Check.


I don't think Paul Shaviv is a prophet, and I don't think he was writing about any particular educator. He's been around the block a few times, and he has learned to identify global issues. The NYJW article misses something when it makes the issue about Rav Bina specifically, since the problem is present in virtually every school, even if he might be an extreme example of it.

Three Notes on Education

A. Ethical Issues in One-Year Programs
 
It started as a Lookjed thread, but was then picked up by the Jewish Week (and Orthonomics). Apparently, some one-year programs use underhanded recruiting practices, but the vast majority do not.

Most of these programs can only take in a limited quantity—either due to finite resources or in order to maintain a good balance with other, generally Israeli, components of the school—so their recruitment efforts are based on quality, on being “top tier.” The past few years has seen a proliferation of “boutique” yeshivot and seminaries that are not interested in taking more than 25-40 students per year.

There are, however, a handful of schools, mainly men’s yeshivot, that want to and can take in larger numbers, 100 students a year and more. From my experience, these are the schools whose recruitment efforts leave something to be desired.

I was an RA at MTA (TMSTA-YUHSB) during the 1997-98 academic year. My floor consisted of high school juniors and seniors, enabling me to get a good look at recruitment practices in a large school. One yeshiva, while not offering a “bribe” per student, hired an MTA rebbe to be their US-based alumni coordinator. That particular rebbe also happened to teach the class from which the yeshiva was trying to draw recruits; the conflict of interest was known and discussed then. Another yeshiva set an earlier deadline for students to commit or lose their places. This put extra pressure on the students, some of whom committed to that yeshiva even before they heard back from their first choice.

In sum, sleazy recruitment isn’t new and is limited to a handful of places, but I’m glad it’s finally coming out.

Regarding the badmouthing of yeshivot, this was a pet peeve of mine when I taught high school. A student would be considering yeshivot A and B. One rabbi would badmouth A, the other would badmouth B, and the student would end up in community college. Well done, fellas. As b. Shabbat 34a says, even prostitutes know that the mutual badmouthing is bad for business.

B. The Judo of Education

The Japanese martial art of judo is known for using the opponent’s strength against him. Though teachers and students should not be thought of as opponents, there are certainly confrontational elements in the relationship. Sometimes a teacher has to directly challenge a student with disciplinary action. Far preferable, though, is when the teacher enlists and integrates (or “sublimates”) the source of distraction or disruption into the educational environment. Two examples from this past week:

As noted in Sunday’s New York Times, in the latest of a string of articles that discuss how social media and hand-held devices are rewiring our brains and driving us to distraction (story of my life),  it’s becoming increasingly difficult to hold the attention of students whose attentions are seriously divided. My wife came up with a pretty good idea for certain occasions. She introduced her students to certain search techniques, and now she encourages them to find relevant “intertexts.” She gives questions like “where else in Tanakh does this word/ theme appear,” and they’re off. And this generation is quite adept at making associative connections—lateral thinking.

The other example involves my first grade son. Thank God, he’s a bright boy, but sometimes needs to escape to disengage. We’ve given him paper and markers so that he can disengage without being disruptive, but he’s proud of what he draws and feels a need to describe it to his friends during class. His teacher called last week at wit’s end. I suggested that the main thing was to avoid confrontation, which my son has a tendency to escalate. I suggested that if they’re learning, for example, about Noach, let my son draw a scene from the narrative and then describe it to the class. Yesterday, my son came home with a 4-panel magnum opus on the rivalry of Cain and Abel, with a glowing note from the teacher about how he presented his handiwork to the class. Teachers can be taught, too.

C. Teachers Paying House Calls?

My daughter attends a school that’s part of the Shas network. The network recently issued a directive that homeroom teachers must visit each student at home, so the teacher came by tonight. I’m frankly fascinated by this idea, and I think it’s brilliant. First the negative—they do not provide any means of transportation for these teachers, and not every student is easily accessible by public transportation; we had to pick the teacher up from the other side of town. This bit could have been thought out better. Overall, though, the idea is an entirely positive one. Obviously, a few minutes in the student’s home can’t tell you everything, but it can tell you a whole lot: the student’s status within the family, family dynamics, the family’s socioeconomic and religious status, and so much more. It’s a window into the student’s world, and it can only help the teacher do her job. Kudos to Shas for this wondergful initiative.

A Modern Day Korach?

Although Korach comes off as a wholly negative figure in the Torah, later works, especially works influenced by kabbalistic literature, take a far more ambivalent attitude toward him. Reb Tzadok especially maintains that Korach was a tzaddik and that the only reason that he was killed only as an acquiescence of God to Moshe's will (!).
There are numerous - too numerous - explanations of Korach's wrongdoing. In fact, one man's Korach can be the next man's Moshe. Nevertheless, we can rather safely say that Korach was anti-establishment even though, as a cousin of Moshe and a Kehatite, he was on the fringes of the establishment. Moshe's response of "rav lakhem benei Levi" may indicate that he felt that Korach's "rebellion" was insincere, merely a ploy to gain popular support. Chazal pick up on this by considering Korach's dissent "not for the sake of Heaven." Yet the critique may have in fact been a solid one - and if not in that generation, then in a later one.
Chazal view the prophet Shmuel as a descendant of Korach. Some read Shmuel as a tikkun for Korach because he established the monarchy and helped make plans for Jerusalem (I remember hearing such an idea from R. Kalman Baer of KBY). Yet Shmuel can also be read as a continuation of Korach's anti-establishment and populist revolt. He reforms the Israelite leadership and travels around Israel instead of remaining at a single holy site (I have four previous posts on Shmuel as the synthesis of Eli's establishment with Chana's rebellious streak: [here, here, here, and here]). Thus, even if we take a view of Korach that is wholly negative, we may still believe that his critique remains valid in a different context. His call for equal opportunity, an end to nepotism, a meritocracy, or transparency may have been a misguided political stunt, but that need not mean that such a critique is always irrelevant.
Which leads me to my modern-day Korach, Rabbi Benny Lau. As his name indicates, he is a "blue-blooded" rabbi, a nephew of former Chief Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau and a cousin to several "rising stars" within the Rabbanut - including the rabbi of my own city of Modiin. Yet Rabbi Lau has consistently called for the reform - I have personally heard him call the Rabbanut "passe" and express a wish that it be totally shut down. He has written the following (HT and translation by: Menachem Mendel):

We have arrived at an ugly abyss of hanhagah haredit and our only option is to rebel against it: this is not our Torah, this is not our worldview, and these are not our sages. Our children need to hear us rising up against the violence and the silencing. We need to shout at the top of lungs: this is not the way of the Torah! We believe in God and His Torah and refuse to bow our heads before this evil papacy. We must strengthen one another in believing in God and His Torah and to strengthen our belief in the uprightness and goodness of all of our children.

[MM points to similar sentiments from R. Lau here as well].
These are clearly Korach-esque sentiments, coming from the very family of the hanhaga haredit that he calls for a rebellion against. Yet unlike the original Korach, the contemporary application is apropos and, from what I can gauge from the few times that I've met R. Benny, wholly for the sake of Heaven. 

Ironic Orthodoxy

As is customary at the end of the end of the gap year, one of the seminaries where my wife teaches recently held a banquet at which individual students pay tribute to each teacher. My wife is always curious about these tributes as she likes to see whether the students really "get her."

This year, the student who spoke at the banquet recounted how she enetred the year as a skeptic, fairly well convinced that her critique of the halakha's attitude toward women would prevent her from adopting an Orthodox lifestyle. She described that my wife's "Women in Halakha" class changed that perception since she saw that it was possible to life with the questions and critiques. Another teacher later told my wife that she thought it was a misrepresentation - the student made it seem that my wife is somehow uncomfortable with Orthodoxy but has made an uneasy truce with it. The truth? Well, my wife and I are on the edge - or perhaps not so much on the edge - of what I've begun to call Ironic Orthodoxy.

The Ironic Orthodox generation is the generation that comes after the Great Post-1967 Orthodox Awakening. The Ironic Orthodox are largely day-school and yeshiva educated. With their grandparents they share a certain comfort in their own Orthodox skin; to them, Orthodoxy is familiar, natural, and organizes their lives. With their parents they share a familiarity with the world of Jewish learning and are even able to access that learning to a large degree.

The Ironic Orthodox generation does not buy into the apologetics: not about the status of women, not about the integrity of the transmission of the Oral Law, not about the "timelessness" of obviously time-bound religious laws, customs, and ideas, etc. This generation is hard to inspire; its demeanor is skeptical and ironic, somewhat aloof and dispassionate. Their irony is not a dramatic irony - like Statler and Waldorf observing the and criticizing the show yet remaining very much a part of it - but a jocular or sarcastic attitude or perhaps even a post-irony that simultaneously adheres to and mocks traditional religious structures. Yet it's not a bitter or angry mocking. It seems to be more of a taking-for-granted of life's absurdities and of the failure of ideology to explain or animate the full gamut of practice. It does not necessarily advocate or seek change.
The acclaimed Israeli TV show "Srugim" is an example of Ironic Orthodoxy - from the camera lens's perspective, even if it does not necessarily describe any character in particular. The lens captures both the familiarity and the absurdity of contemporary Orthodox living. In an odd way, despite the fact that, as Shai points out, the only "normal" character in the show is hiloni, its portrait of contemporary Orthodox life is far from unsympathetic. Blogs, especially those that combine deep literacy, adherence, and irreverence - are examples as well.
Another, lesser known example might be the new Orthodox reality show "In Over Our Heads." It's too early to tell where this is going to go, but it seems to take Ironic Orthodoxy as a starting point. Its second episode is most poignant in this regard: a woman who had never really practiced taharat ha-mishpacha learns about the laws and also gets a dose of ideology to boot. The ideology is ridiculed throughout, as are some of the practices - particularly harchakot - yet when it comes time for the actual dunking to take place, it turns out to be much more meaningful than the woman had anticipated.

I do not have an explanation or justification for this, though I tend to regard it as a generally positive phenomenon. When it devolves into anger and bitterness, it can get ugly. Moreover, I'm skeptical of attempts - Yoav Sorek and Elchanan Shilo come to mind - of attempts to turn this post-ideological phenomenon into a new ideology. I have some additional thoughts along these lines, but wish to restrict myself to observations at this point.

Rahav and Oron

It's official.
This evening, I attended a ceremony to give Hebrew names to the planets Uranus and Neptune. I was invited because I was one of 15 people to suggest the name "Rahav" for Neptune (I explained it here). Well over 4000 votes were cast for each planet, and the two winners, Rahav and Oron, both won in landslides (c. 2900 votes for Rahav over c. 1200 votes for Tarshish; Oron defeated Shahak by c. 2800 to c. 1500).
I would have liked it if the organizers had recognized those who proposed the winning names, even if only by some kind of certificate of recognition. Instead, the organizers and academic heads talked, barely mentioning that the 'laypeople' in the audience were the ones who actually did the grunt work in this case, and then everyone got magnets with the names. Disappointing, but either way, this is definitely going into my translation resume.
Shout out to BZ for his efforts, especially since he basically introduced this contest to the English-speaking world (which I believe I was the only representative of at the ceremony), even though his proposal of "Shahak" for Uranus settled for runner-up.
I wonder if anyone else has ever named a child and a planet in the same week.
The Hebrew news item is here. This is, as far as I know, the first public announcement in English.

Book Announcement/ Review: The Single Volume Rambam

[Full disclosure: I was involved in the publication of this volume, as I translated the Hebrew introduction into English and have helped them with their website and English language communications. That said, I gain nothing from increased sales.]

Debate has long raged between the community of philosophers and the community of Torah scholars regarding the intellectual legacy of the Rambam, with each side claiming him as his own. The Rambam of the beit midrash and the Maimonides of the university can seem so different that it is hard to reconcile them into one person. In fact, many have gone to great lengths to minimize or discount those aspects of the Rambam that seem at odds with the beliefs of the particular scholar.

There is, however, a third Rambam, who is often ignored. He is not the contemplative, philosophical Rambam of the academy, nor the great halakhic authority whose every word teaches mountains of halakhot. He is everyman’s Rambam, the Rambam that was preserved best by those Yemenite communities who saw the Rambam and his Mishne Torah as a practical guidebook for every aspect of Jewish life. Of course, some could delve deeper and some remained closer to the surface, but the image of the Rambam was one of inherent and supreme simplicity. They viewed the Yad as its author intended it – as a comprehensive but intelligible guide to Jewish life.

The vision of the editors of this volume is to restore this forgotten image of the Rambam. They did so by doing primarily two things, though they have done a host of other things as well: they have published the entire Mishne Torah in a single volume with no commentary, and they have meticulously restored the version of the text based primarily on the best Yemenite manuscripts, omitting the thousands of errors that have crept into the various printed editions. In addition, there are several helpful indices to help the reader navigate the text.

I recall hearing Rav Lichtenstein opining that learning Rambam Yomi is far more useful than learning Daf Yomi. With the Rambam, one truly gets a systematic overview of the entire Torah she-Be’al Peh in a coherent, organized fashion.If the goal is ‘beki’ut’, mastery and familiarity with a broad corpus of information, the Yad is a far better vehicle to that end than Daf Yomi. Furthermore, the Yad presents a much more holistic vision of all of Torah that is best appreciated through the overall structure of the Rambam’s magnum opus. It remains, to this day, the single best restatement of Torah she-Be’al Peh, and perhaps the single greatest monograph, ever produced by the People of the Book. The present volume refocuses the learner on that aspect of the Rambam which is the aspect that the Rambam himself chose to highlight in his introduction, and which guided the name that he chose for his masterwork.

Of course, the present volume certainly has value as a desk reference and in schools where multi-volume editions can be cumbersome or where specific passages of the Rambam are studied on their own. The volume is quite beautiful as well. Nevertheless, its greatest contribution is in the restoration of that aspect of the Rambam that has been omitted from the yeshiva as well as the academy – the man who created a digest that would allow the average Jew to understand and live the fullness of his heritage.

The volume is (or will be) available at local Jewish bookstores. It is being distributed in the US by R. Yankel Levitz (718-377-0047), and available worldwide through the project’s website: http://www.mishnetorah.com/en/

Follow-up n the Issue of Ordaining Women

In addition to the post I linked to below, I made another point about this issue here.
I see four sources of pressure that push toward the ordination (call it what you want) of Orthodox women:

1. Feminism within Orthodoxy - the desire of Orthodox women to gain titular recognition of their achievements and positions. This is part of the general trend toward egalitarianism and feminism (two separate movements, of which I';m more comfortable with the latter than with the former, ve-acamo"l) within the Orthodox world. This pressure, on its own, is generally counterproductive in that it generally provokes disproportionate reaction. It's necessary, though, in order to drive the movement once other pressures are created. Note, for example, that the institutions of to'enet din and yo'etzet halakha were both born of necessity (the former from the misogynist structure of Israeli divorce courts, the latter from the recognition that women are far better purveyors of hilkhot niddah than men are).
   
2. Other Jewish movements - this is not to say that other denominations put pressure on Orthodoxy to do anything. That would, again, only provoke reaction. However, the fact that there ARE non-Orthodox women serving as rabbis in non- or quasi-rabbinic positions (Hillel directors, federations, funds/ endowments, think tanks, community learning programs, NPOs, etc.) puts pressure on the Orthodox community. Many Orthodox women who are equally or better qualified than non-Orthodox applicants to the same position are at a disadvantage due to their lack of recognized credentials. This flaw is not fatal, but it is definitely an obstacle.
3. The changing role of the "Rabbi" - the historical role of the 'rabbi' is the subject of many books and dissertations. There is no doubt however, that it has changed yet again in the US in recent generations. Any religious functionary is now a 'rabbi' - from the first-grade rebbi to the kashrus supervisor to the 'kiruv professional'. Some would argue that the title has been rendered meaningless. I would not go that far; rather, it has a connotation of being a provider to Jewish religious services. Semikhah itself has followed suit. One may get semikhah online with shemayisrael.org. Ner Israel offers a semikhah for mastering 5 volumes of the Mishnah Berurah; I've even heard of a semikhah in Israel (for 'kiruv professionals') which involves a test on 50 blatt Gemara of your choice as well as mastery of the Kitzur Shulchan Arukh. It's hard to know why exactly this change took place, but here are some possibilities: a) the desire to generate more respect for these otherwise minor functionaries (it would be interesting to look at Torah U-mesorah archives to see if they ever made a decision to have the rebbeim addressed as 'rabbis'); b) the general compartmentalization of Jewish proficiencies due to advances in technology and communications: a rabbi used to have to know all about paskenin maros as well as treyfos. With the advent of refrigeration and overnight mail, he needs to know neither in order to be effective. Thus, instead of a single, general role, you have numerous smaller ones, all of which are called 'rabbi'. It could be that smaller roles existed in earlier times, but were not called rabbi> Rather, it was melamed, magid, shochet, mohel, etc. Those divisions may still exist, but all are still titularly 'rabbis' (Rabbi Ploni Almoni, Certified Mohel) - kind of like 'doctors'. Thus, the term has become a marker that says 'this person is an authority/ service provider in the following area'. As this perception grows, there would be an increasing need to do the same for female 'service providers'. In several senses, this has already happened - both with new titles like 'yo'etzet' and 'to'enet' (which, I believe, will ultimately be subsumed under 'rabbi' like 'mohel' and 'shochet' were), and older ones like 'rebbetzin' and 'rabbanit'. Nevertheless, none of these terms offer the blanket coverage that 'rabbi' does. Only the wort ostriches still believe that women do not fill roles that are currently being filled by 'rabbis', or that they lack the requisite knowledge that it takes to be a rabbi. It's about title, nothing more.
   
4. Money - there's money to be made and money to be saved by women who have some type of clerical title. Perhaps the financial pressure is not yet so great, but it's there, and it will grow. As we all know, economics are a much greater stimulus of halakhic innovation than ideology or anything else.

There is not yet pressure to find a title for the husband of such a female Orthodox clergyperson. That's why I like Maharetzin.

My Daughter's Kushya

My second grade daughter, currently learning Parshat Vayechi, came up with the following question:
Q. Why did Dina not get a bracha?
My wife and I think it's a great question.
She also came up with an answer:
A. It probably would have been something really girly, like "get married and have lots of kids".

In the U.S. , it is normal for schools to begin in synagogues.
In Israel, it is normal for synagogues to begin in schools.

Imagining a Conversation with my Former Self

I had Shabbat lunch with a KBY “shana alef” student (as well as several others) today. We ended up engaging in a prolonged and broad discussion about a number of issues, from Rambam’s view of women and R’ Yehuda Halevi’s essentialism to the Brisker Derech to the authorship and structure of classical rabbinic tests. In many ways, I felt like I was having a conversation with a former version of myself (that’s obviously a bit of an exaggeration, but you get the point). That’s probably why I was much more patient and understanding of some of the positions this student espoused: I remember my own evolution, how my own worldview evolved during my years at Yavneh (and through the years in YU, Gush, and since; intellectual restlessness is, in my opinion, one of the greatest advantages and disadvantages of having ADD).

I remember latching on to certain ideas that became monoliths in my maturing mind, only to have them replaced at some later date with another. I remember the constant construction and demolition of these conceptual edifices; having a hammer and thinking that the whole world looks like a nail (more yeshivish version: having a chakira and then seeing it in every Tosafos in the mesechta); thinking that it’s really possible to find the unified theory of life/ Torah/ Judaism/ God, that all of halakha, history, and Torah can be somehow merged into a seamless and harmonious whole, and that finding that grand harmony is somehow within reach; stewing in my own juices as I bounced ideas off of Rabbeim and, more importantly, friends.

I know that this kid’s thinking will evolve. There were ideas that I hesitated to present to him because, frankly, I know how I would have reacted to them (i.e., negatively) had I been in his shoes. It will come, but in due time.

This actually got me thinking. What would I have thought of my current self had I met me 15 years ago? Or even 10 years ago? Had I met that later version of myself walking down the street, how long would it have taken for me to realize “Hey, that’s future me!”? Would I have liked what I saw? Would I have been disappointed that many of the grandiose dreams (that we all had in our late teens and early 20s) seemed to have died? Would I have been shocked that I became a baalebos – one who no doubt learns a good amount, often gets to work with Torah on a professional basis, and even maintains an entertaining and well-read religious-themes blog – but a baalebos nonetheless? Would I think that I’m an apikorus? Would I be shocked that I’m living in a bourgeoisie hell (I had the opportunity to make a ha-Tov ve-haMeitiv at lunch today, and before the bracha I made a ‘l’chaim’ to having good friends and neighbors to suffer with in our bourgeoisie hell, so the phrase is on my mind)? Would I be disappointed that I’ve given up the search for the unified theory of everything and become content that certain questions are unanswerable, that dissonance and difference lurk everywhere, that Jewish meaning is constructed in a manner that, to recycle an old saying about women, can be beautiful or faithful, but rarely both?

I’m not going to lose any sleep over these questions. This is a thought experiment – perhaps conditioned on the fact that I’ve recently read both The Time Traveler's Wife
and The Five People You Meet in Heaven
. I ultimately think that, for most of us, to meet an older, fatter, balder, and less passionate version of one’s self would be like a cold shower. I’d want to give myself food for thought, a way to expand horizons, and maybe some good books to read. I would definitely not want to be too dismissive, obnoxious, or condescending (which I totally would have been had it been nearly anyone else, especially a shana alef Gushie).

And I’d tell myself to enjoy the ride.

National Teaching Award

Mazal Tov to my close friend and former chavruta (and sometimes commenter) Aytan Kadden on being selected one of five National Teachers. You make us proud.
Link

A Kohein and the Daughter of a Non-Jew

There’s an article in the most recent RJJ Journal (which Gil has done us the favor of posting here) that discusses the halakhic issue of a kohein marrying the daughter of a Jewish woman and a non-Jewish man. The article reminded me of one of my worst moments as a Jewish professional, a story which I will retell here (concealing all information that might point to the identity of the principals).

It was my first year out of kollel, and we were living in the States, in an out-of-town community. We were involved in several communal institutions. At some point during the year, a situation developed in the community where this halakha would come into play. I was familiar with this halakha, but it did not register until my wife pointed it out to me that this was such a case. At that point, the couple was dating seriously and on the verge of engagement.

The boy’s family was part of the MO community, and the girl was a ba’alat teshuva from a somewhat remote suburb. I was not the rabbi of the community – in fact, the community was between rabbis at that time. I discussed the issue with another rabbi/ educator in the community, and we agreed that the best course of action was to get in touch with the former rabbi of the community, who remained close with the boy’s family, and basically lay it at his doorstep. I had absolutely no interest in getting involved, in having my name linked to the issue, or anything. I felt that I should call it to the attention of someone who could handle it, but nothing more than that.

Unfortunately, said former rabbi made a blunder that I still cannot get my head around. He indeed called the boy’s family and told them of the halakha, and mentioned that I had called him and brought it to his attention. The former rabbi was no longer in town, so by dropping my name, he made me the lightning rod for everything that happened later.

The girl’s parents, obviously, was not very pleased with me. I think that “hatred” would actually not be too strong a term, here. The girl had a sibling in the school where I was teaching, so it became an issue there as well. The gentile principal really did not have much context to understand the issue in general, never having studied Yevamot. Someone did him the service of explaining the basic issue, translating the word ‘pagum’ as ‘tainted’, adding a dimension of eugenics into the mix. Said principal was of the opinion that since the issue concerned two people who did not attend the school, I had no business mixing in anyway.

I got on the phone and made a bunch of calls, looking for some kind of hetter. The couple was pretty much in aveilut. Ultimately, the former rabbi came up with the following solution: he found a Sephardic rabbi (ostensibly someone who follows the Rambam, who permits such a marriage, even though the Shulchan Arukh is more stringent; I did not understand the basis for this Sephardic rabbi’s ruling then, and, after reading the article, am even more baffled, but whatever) to officiate. Couple got married. Happily ever after.

I often ask myself if I would do it differently now. For one, I would have said something much earlier in the courtship. Had the situation already developed, I’m undecided. I do not think that the situation falls under the rubric outlined by Rav Ovadiah, but perhaps that logic can be extended to include other types of fallout, pertaining, say, to those around the couple if not to the couple themselves. That would almost certainly provide me with the grounds to simply keep my mouth shut. Then again, I would probably want to bring it to the attention of the LOR, which is ultimately what got me into trouble the fist time.

Quid contra quo

About a month ago, my son Raphi (age 4.5) earned a prize from his nursery school teacher for behaving very nicely in school and not fighting with any other kids. The prize? A water gun. I have no idea if the irony is lost on the teacher, but we found this hilarious.

Today, I saw that the OU did pretty much the same thing. It is organizing a Campus Learn-a-Thon. One of the prizes is a Nintendo Wii console. I'd venture that computer games are the greatest single cause of bittul Torah around today.

On the other hand, I mentioned the other day that my father provided me with an incentive to learn how to layn the Megillah. The incentive was a TV. I don't really watch much TV anymore, but I still layn the Megillah.

I still think that campuses should adopt an idea that I hatched when I was the JLIC educator at UMD, but never got the chance to implement. The idea was to have a Fleisch-a-thon to raise hunger awareness. The contest would be that one must remain in a fleischige state (according to the full-6-hour opinions) for the longest time possible. That means no dairy products for the duration of the contest, and that you must set an alarm to wake up in the middle of the night and munch on some meat. Sponsorships would be per 6-hour increments. The vegetarians would go nuts with this, but I bet it would be wildly popular.

Students who want me to sponsor them should email me (adderabbi at gmail dot com). Readers who wish to sponsor students - same email.

I've read 25

See my comments at the end.
This list was compiled by the BBC, and they expect the average person to have read about 6 of these.

Instructions:
Copy into a new note Put an X next to the ones you've read. Include the number you have read in the headline and tag your friends!

X1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
X2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
X 4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
X 5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
X6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
X 8 1984 - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
X16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk
X 18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
X 22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
X27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
X33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
X 36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
X 37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
X 39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
X 40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
X 41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
X 42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
X49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
X58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy.
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Inferno - Dante
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola (I read L'Assomoir, so I am counting that.)
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
X87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
X89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
X91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
X92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
X 98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
X 99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

Comments:
a) Way too much Dickens and Austen here. 10 of 100 from just those 2? Ridiculous.
b) There should have been some "something by" - I've read Hunchback, not Les Mis. That should count for something. Also, I've read a lot of Dostoevsky, but only C&P is on the list (even though The Brothers Karamazov is, IMHO, the greatest novel ever written). Lord, I've tried reading Tolstoy several times. Can't get through more than 10 pages. As Emo Phillips said: "There's nothing like curling up in front of a fire with a copy of Tolstoy's War and Peace. Y'know, a thick book like that can feed a fire for hours". Especially prodigious authors, like Shakespeare, should get categories - have you read at least one Shakespearean comedy? Tragedy? History? It the Chocolate Factory really that much more edifying than the Great Glass Elevator?
c) No Mark Twain? A shonda. I can live with no Arthur Miller.
d) Alex Haley should be on the list, if for no other reason than the cultural importance of his books. Either Roots or The Autobiography of Malcolm X should be on the list. The FOuntainhead should be on the list for the same reason.
e) I'm probably defining "the Bible" differently than the compilers of the list.
f) I do not count it if I only saw the movie.
g) I do count it even if I only read it as part of my formal schooling and didn't like it.
h) My wife has read 49 of these titles. That's impressive.

What's Next? Separate Water Fountains?

Add this to the tefillin incident of a few weeks ago, and a highly disturbing picture begins to emerge. This is plain and simple bigotry. This town has some real issues.

Modiin Kid Told to Keep Tefillin Out of Public School

Link to the Ynet article

The depth of ignorance in the Jewish State is sometimes astounding. Regarding this issue, there was actually a debate in an email forum in Modiin, with some people defending the school. I'm sorry to sound so insensitive to those ostensibly well-meaning parents who fear that their children will become prey to religious coercion because a couple of classmates think its cool to wear religious symbols for a few minutes every day, but I really have no patience for this.
Are these parents that insecure? After all, it's a free world out there, and all kinds of people will be out there hawking all kinds of things in life - drugs, sex, and, yes, religion. If they're afraid that their impressionable little teenager will go over to the Dark Side because a buddy likes strapping on leather boxes, I'd hate to consider how neurotic they become when the kids goes out on weekends. Seriously, can we get a grip? Do we really think that kids being kids - and different kids are into different things - is "proselytizing" or "coercion"?
One parent compared this kid bringing his tefillin to religious or traditional kids insisting that class birthday parties not be held on Shabbat. It's a poor comparison. Here, the bephylacteried youth is not expecting or demanding that anyone else live up to his standard. Rather, the school shutting this kid down would be more akin to a parent who made a birthday party on Shabbat and then complained that when a Shabbat observant kid failed to turn up, that he "ruined" the birthday party.
I also find it laughable that a school can ban a kid from offering to share his tefillin with a classmate in the name of being against coercion. I'm usually pretty good about seeing both sides of an issue, but this is cut-and-dried. A kid can bring his tefillin to school and offer to share it with his friends. He can do the same with his sunflower seeds, his stamp collection, of whatever else is legal to possess.
By my libertarian sensibilities, a kid should also be allowed to sport a crucifix or be entitled to bust out the prayer rug 5 times a day if he or she so desires, but I don't want to go there for fear of shattering to many people's narrow conceptions of what people from which sectors ought to believe.
Now, if the kid were wearing a Yankee cap, it would be a whole different ball of wax...
May this year be one of clearheadedness and sanity in the City of the Future.