It Has Become More Common For ‘Normal’ Children From ‘Average’ Homes To Be Rejected From Their Local Torah Centers and Bais Yaakovs. Have We Honestly Assessed the Risk/Reward of the Current System — For the Children and For the Klal? Does Mesorah Offer Guidance? Of Course It Does.
By Rabbi Moshe Taub | Ami Magazine, September 2023 (abridged)
I. Another September
“When something needs to be said, silence becomes a lie.”
For most families, September carries the pristine scent of new backpacks. But there is a parallel ‘September Universe’ we dare not ignore. In this dystopian reality, new supplies remain un-ordered, and the latest school styles are substituted with fresh tears.
This is due to our many children — children! Hashem yerachem! — rejected from elementary school after elementary school, from their local Bais Yaakovs. Some find placement before the school year begins, but only after severe and irrevocable disenchantment with the klal, her Torah, and its leadership, R”l.
II. The Birth of Bais Yaakov
In the Fall of 1917, with just twenty-five students and a two-room apartment, Sara Schenirer opened the first Bais Yaakov. Fifteen short years later, over forty-thousand girls were enrolled in umbrella Bais Yaakovs in Poland alone.
The painful irony: The Bais Yaakov movement was founded to pull those bnos Yisroel who lacked a full chinuch at home off the ‘streets.’ Alas, those very girls — most desirous of direction — are now often locked out, forced on the streets, as it were. If being rudderless in the 1920’s was dangerous, allowing this in the 21st century is quasi-infanticide.[1]
- Even if one posits that 99% of modern-day rejections are warranted, bitul b’rov does not apply in matters of pikuach nefesh. We will still have to give an accounting for every one of that 1% of neshamos thrown to today’s wolves.
III. The Common Excuses — And What We Are Not Discussing
Before the small-minded stunt this discussion, the following must be stated clearly:
- Yes, each yeshiva must weed out certain students.
- Yes, competition and tuition are real factors.
- Yes, some students are genuinely a better fit elsewhere.
- No, we are not discussing children who refuse to follow a school’s rules.
- No, we are not discussing adults seeking seminary or beis medrash admission.
- Yes, Lakewood and Brooklyn face unique challenges often unrelated to what follows.
We are discussing the average, normally-challenged children of acheinu beis Yisroel — and whether our mesorah ever sanctioned what is being done to them.
IV. A Sea Change
Over the past twenty years there has been a paradigm shift in American chinuch. The era of the American rabbi convincing a newly frum or growing family to send a boy to yeshiva — or a girl to Beis Yaakov — is buried. As are the many future gedolim already lost.
The Netziv, at a seudas hodah for his newest sefer, reminisced about his misspent youth — how a chance overhearing of his parents’ conversation changed his life. His father had comforted his mother: ‘It’s ok. Not everyone is destined to be a talmud chacham. He can still become a simple shoemaker.’
The Netziv concluded with a profound thought experiment:
“Imagine if I hadn’t overheard my parents that fateful night.
“I would have become Naftilka the shoemaker — frum, a good husband, a giver of tzedaka.
“But at my yom din, Hashem would have asked: Netziv! Where are your sheilos v’teshuvos, your commentary to the Sheiltot, your peirushim on the Torah?
“I would have responded: Who is this ‘Netziv’? I was shomer Torah u’mitzvos…”
Will we not be tasked with presenting the Heavenly tribunal the erased gedolim — and sefarim — stolen from our kehillos? [2]
A Personal Story: One of the present-day gedolei lamdanei Eretz Yisroel attended a co-ed elementary school whose majority student body was not shomer Shabbos. He wished to attend Ner Yisroel Toronto for 9th grade, spending the summer learning with my older brothers. The yeshiva had conditions, but his past was not among them. He went on to become an incomparable masmid, marry into Torah royalty, and now has talmidim from all over the world. Can such a story happen today?
V. The Response
Some will challenge: ‘Won’t we also be judged for not protecting our children from bad influences? Are you suggesting every wild child will become a Netziv?’
Those severely troubled or uniquely harmful children are not the focus of this monograph. They shall not be used to scapegoat what we are discussing: the sin of simply being ‘average,’ or not yet connecting to one’s studies — children who need mechanchim more than other children.
The other day, walking into a local girls’ high school to give a talk, I noticed an anxious group of parents waiting with their young daughters for interviews. Two of the mothers were reciting Tehillim. Zu Torah v’zu schorah?
VI. R.I.P. Communal Schools?
Among the many causes of this new reality is the death of the communal day school. Places like Lakewood and the Five Towns experienced rapid, blessed growth, demanding new schools. This bred subtler distinctions, which bred competition, which bred newer schools, and so on. With each iteration: Who is now the oirev for the city’s children? What are the rules of acceptance? Should any kehilla exist without at least one communal mesorah school?
Large towns now resemble the island of ten Jewish men who never missed a minyan — until the eleventh arrived. After that, they never again had a secure minyan: each person depended on the other. That sense of personal achrayos was lost.
VII. A Bnei Brak Miracle
A now-famous video captures Rav Steinman becoming incredulous at mechanchim seeking his haskama to reject elementary school children. After dismissing their initial arguments, they presented their ‘trump card’: the mother is ‘open-minded,’ re-married.
Rav Steinman replied: ‘So she should not have gotten re-married? Not desire her kids go to the best cheder?’
They then shared that chashuveh, frummer parents had expressed concern about the family not being their ‘type.’
Rav Steinman began to bang on the table: ‘There is always that person… It’s coming from their gayvah.’
The mechanchim interjected: ‘But these are bnei Torah, talmidei chachamim…’
Rav Steinman’s voice grew louder: ‘Yes. Especially from such people! It’s all gayvah… Gayvah! Gayvah! Gayvah!’
He then reminisced about his childhood cheder in Brisk, where children of Communist and Bund Party members sat alongside the rest — and some of the simplest children became leading roshei yeshiva. ‘Did Rav Dovid Soloveitchik turn out ok?’
I spent two years learning under Rav Dovid Soloveitchik. I have little doubt he would be aghast at what some balla batim are doing to our little children.
Summation of Our Mesorah:
- If a school believes its chinuch carries the torch of mesorah, then any parent/child who wants that mesorah — and will follow the rules — should be accepted, if on a trial basis.
- Specific to mid-size cities: if a parent sincerely desires a Torah U’Mesorah day school experience — and will follow the rules — acceptance should be immediate, if on a trial basis.
- This is how it has always been. I am unaware of the daas Torah who demanded a move away from this winning strategy.
Sources:
- “Just as I [Moshe] learned Torah for free, so too you must teach for free.” (Nedarim 37a)
- “Do not read it as engraved (charus) but as freedom for all (chierus).” (Avos 6:2)
- Chazal explain why not every gadol’s son becomes a gadol: to remind the klal that Torah is not a yerusha — it can come from anyone. (Nedarim 81a)
- “Be careful lest you undervalue teaching Torah to the sons of paupers, as from them will Torah spring.” (Nedarim 81a; Rashi: “because these children are humble”)
- The Chasam Sofer addresses the concern of ‘negative influences’ from including less privileged students, responding: we are not discussing any ordinary subject — we are speaking about the Heavenly Torah. Its zechus protects. (Chiddushei Chasam Sofer, Nedarim ad loc.)
- “Anyone who teaches Torah to the son of an am ha’aretz — even if Hashem were to issue a harsh decree, He may nullify it for his sake.” (Bava Metziah 85a)
VIII. The Reality of ‘Rejection Letters’
“Helplessly seeing my young child go through this is more excruciating than my disease.”
— A mother, sick with crippling yenna machela, to my wife the week of this writing. This mother passed before being given comfort in her cause. Her daughter — the most tzniuah Beis Yaakov girl, with perfect grades and middos — was rejected because her mother and father were ill.
Whatever one feels about the suggestions in this monograph, about one thing we can all be certain:
Newly-minted bnos mitzvah — twelve-year-old girls! — should never receive a letter of ‘rejection’ from their community. Explaining that such a letter is not from a ‘communal’ school will do nothing to soften a child’s visceral reaction. The dye would have been cast. It would be too late.
And if such letters must be sent — our local rabbanim must work with schools to find placement before they go out. Every January, every yeshiva should work with local mechanchim, askanim, and rabbanim to do just that. Many Bais Yaakovs already do this for seminary placements — by mid-year in 12th grade, staff work tirelessly to secure every girl a spot. They do all this work to avoid shame. A noble goal. Now apply it here.[3]
IX. Not Just the Child
Such rejection gets worse. The parents also feel ostracized by their community, their leaders, even their friends. Profound guilt sets in.
“My parents haven’t talked to me since we became frum. All that sacrifice, for what?! To be told I’m not a real bas Sarah Imeinu? So my daughter winds up on the very streets I ran away from?”
Some parents changed shuls because of this. Some moved cities. This in turn leaves the children — already humiliated — feeling responsible for their parents’ shame. What child should carry such a burden?
As my wife wisely observed: We have groups for every issue affecting our youth, baruch Hashem. But for the child who is neither brilliant nor severely troubled — there is no one advocating for them, no club in which they belong. Who can then blame them if they begin to align themselves with someone, anyone? Only a cynic would call this proof of their necessary rejection, as opposed to the more likely reality that it is its result.
Chazal teach that the only way to verify a questionable letter in a Sefer Torah is through an ‘average child’ (Mishnah Berurah, siman 143:25). Perhaps Chazal are alluding to a deeper secret: it is often the average child who goes on to carry the weight of Torah’s future.[4]
X. Advocacy
“It was behind closed doors. It was quiet — under the table.”
— Mrs. Jenine Shwekey and Mrs. Chaya Bender, founders of The Special Children’s Center, describing a not-too-distant past when the needs of certain children were secreted from public view.
The day will come, iy”H, when our grandchildren will be shocked that this issue was ever hidden away. Before discussing the ‘heter’ to opt out of being called a communal Bais Yaakov, every mechanech must first read the following diary entry, shared here with the girl’s permission:
…By the time 8th grade rolled around, I had to start applying to high school. January 11 was the night I got my acceptance letters. I expected it to be the best day of my life.
6:01 PM. First email: ‘Wait listed.’
Second email: ‘Wait listed.’
Third email: ‘Wait listed.’
School X — the most important one: I wasn’t accepted.
I ran to my room and didn’t eat my dinner.
The next day was worse. I walked into school with shame. All the other students in my class who applied to X got in.
‘Why doesn’t anyone want me? Am I that unlikeable? No one even wants to give me a chance?’
When I seek to help a family in this parsha, I first investigate: I speak with teachers, review report cards. I have worked with many such girls — B students, even A students. All were baalos middos. So why the ‘No’?
A rav shared this exchange with a principal regarding a ‘C’ student:
“We don’t think she is academically up to par, even though she is a wonderfully sincere and frum young lady.”
“Don’t you urge your 12th grade girls not to attend college?” asked the rav.
“Yes, but what does that have to do with our discussion?”
“And don’t you encourage them to marry a yungerman, become a ballabusta, not to worry about large homes and parnassa — to have bitachon in a life of Torah?”
“Yes. Of course.”
“Beautiful! But you will now reject a thirteen-year-old because of… academics?!”
Another story I personally witnessed: A mother — a Beis Yaakov alumnus — living in a frum shelter for abused women contacted me. Her twelve-year-old daughter’s grades were stupendous and her middos exemplary. She was popular, a star student. Her local Beis Yaakov still refused her.
I offered to pay for her therapy and tuition. I begged the president — a real estate developer — who was concerned that, perhaps in the future, like a ben sorrer, she might display emotional needs the school was not equipped to handle.
I responded: ‘Can there be a better role model for your students than this girl? And you claim concern for her mental health — then seal her fate to yet another rejection?’
I was the only one who called her elementary school teachers and her frum therapist. Those who viewed me as an interloper had not done so.
XI. ‘Communal’ Opt Out
In my judgment, no person or group may unilaterally declare a school no longer ‘communal’ without first presenting both sides to daas Torah.
When Rav Chaim Volozhiner created his innovation of a yeshiva untethered from the local community: (A) It was not a school for girls — our mesorah never encouraged local girls to travel away from home for school. (B) Nor was it meant for elementary schools. (C) Most crucially, Rav Chaim waited for the Gra’s haskama; when the Gra initially refused, Rav Chaim delayed the yeshiva’s founding.
Chazal also teach (Nedarim 81a) that the reason not every gadol’s son becomes a gadol is so that connected families do not ‘lord over their kehilla’ — Mar Zutra explains they would ‘call ordinary people donkeys.’ Rashi notes it is natural for those with strong family backgrounds to look down on commoners. We cite this not as a polemic but as a reminder that this tendency is old — and Chazal addressed it.
I will close this section with a comment a rebbe shared with me: his 8th grade daughter stopped him from quitting his parsha shiur — Please wait until I take my entrance exam before quitting. Whether her fear was warranted is irrelevant. That this is the message we have sent her. That is the chinuch.
XII. Reasons vs. Solutions
Yagati b’anchasi, aschcha b’chol Layla mitasi, b’dimusi arsi amseh //I am spent from sighing; nightly, I soak my bed with tears.
— Daily Tachanun
The most common reasons given for rejecting an otherwise worthy 12-to-13-year-old girl:
- Space
- Not a frum enough home environment
- Lacking resources to deal with an emotional issue at home
- Competitive concerns with other schools
- Grades
- Middos/Tznius/Hashkafa
Space:
I cannot fathom how this is used as an excuse. Should a school not find an algebra teacher in time, not one staff member would say, ‘I guess we’ll start without algebra.’ Issues of Torah chinuch are far more critical than algebra — and we don’t accept ‘no solution’ for secular subjects.
Chazal teach (Sanhedrin 20) that when six people each push the tallis toward the other, all six can be covered at once. Rav Lopian explains: it’s only when each grabs for himself that it fails. Rav Moshe Feinstein similarly taught in Darash Moshe: do what is right regarding yeshivos, and the money and space will work out.
Indeed — is this not what we teach our girls? ‘Marry someone who is learning; have children b’bitachon, without excessive worry about space and money.’ I fail to reconcile that teaching with our actions here.
Many large shuls sit empty all week, close to schools. We are talking about twenty to thirty rejected girls per school, divided over grades. If ‘space’ is truly the concern, where are the parlor meetings screaming, ‘Next year we may have a space issue — your child may be affected! Join us tonight’? Chazal (Bava Basra 21a) remind us that klal Yisroel invented the classroom, and the communal obligation for every city to educate its children. We need not be taught this by secular journals.
Home Environment:
If a girl has proven her ability to follow the rules through a difficult home life, is she not the one who can benefit most from a Bais Yaakov? Is she not also a positive influence on girls from good homes who feel challenged? Worse — when we tell young girls this concern, we create a self-fulfilling prophecy, and teach them to resent their parents in the process.
My mother-in-law, Mrs. Linda Levin, attended a very modern Orthodox high school. Her single mother did not cover her hair; there was a TV in every room. On her graduation day she called Rebbetzin Vichna Kaplan — founder of the American Beis Yaakov movement — nervously explaining her background. She was immediately accepted based on her earnest desire to learn. She went on to become a mechaneches to thousands.
Rav Nota Greenblatt, when asked about this issue, was stunned by the one-directional concern: ‘They are afraid the bad girls will influence the good ones? When — how — where — will the good girls have a chance to influence the bad ones? If you keep the mevakshos away from them, it can never happen!’
An amazing piece of history: Rav Aaron Levine shared his bechina for Telshe Cleveland in the late 1950’s. The rosh yeshiva asked, ‘Was Noach a tzadik or a rasha?’ Not having much Jewish education, he replied, ‘I don’t know.’ The rosh yeshiva smiled: ‘That is exactly right — Rashi brings both opinions.’ The point: when we do what is right al pi daas Torah for the particular tekufa, the institution remains unharmed. The very survival and flourishing of Torah is a ness. Why do people seek to secure it al pi teva by bypassing daas Torah?
Grades and Tznius:
To be clear: only girls who agree — m’kaan u’l’habah — to abide by a school’s rules should be accepted, sometimes on a trial basis. Full stop. But to judge and dismiss a girl’s future based on her twelve-year-old mistakes? She is a child. That such strict judgment occurs around Elul is beyond ironic. We are mechanchim — so teach her. She is hungry for it. Inspire her.
Competition:
Each city should have a vaad hachinuch comprised of local rabbanim and/or roshei yeshiva. Come January, the private list of unplaced students is given to this group, who then place them. If every yeshiva accepts this framework, no reputation is harmed. We learn of the guards at the beis medrash door, or of Hillel on the snow-covered roof — and are shocked such a system ever existed. Is it so different today?
Rav Elya Svei explained that this was Rabbi Akiva’s students’ error — not that they disrespected each other, but that they forgot to respect each other for who they had the potential to become. Let us teach them, not judge them. Inspire them, not dismiss them.
XIII. Conclusion
- If our local elementary schools and Bais Yaakovs are not the oreivin for these girls — who is? That is not rhetorical.
- Can anyone claim hefker on local children, positing the one local Bais Yaakov is no longer ‘communal’? That is also not rhetorical.
- No institution should resolve this burden alone. Our mechanchim are the holiest of holy — my children are evidence of that.
I will conclude with what I share each Tisha B’av before our shul recites the kinnah for churban Europe:
“In addition to the six million — and beyond the holy Torah that was lost — who knows the cures for cancer that went up in smoke in the crematoria. The death of Jewish potential buried on those dark grounds.”
It forces me to focus not only on my many mistakes, but on the never-to-be-seen-again fruits I have allowed to be sullied along the way.
It is what I think about every time a mother I’ve never met calls during a busy day. ‘This child may be the next gadol. Or may produce one. I must act as a member of Hatzalah.’
And so should you.
May HKBH save us all from michshol.
Notes
[1] See the Chofetz Chaim’s description of the Bais Yaakov movement’s founding and purpose in Likkutei Halachos, Sota, p. 21 (Zacks ed.), note 3.
[2] The sefarim teach (see Rav Chaim Kanievsky, Derech Sicha) that our yom din tribunal will include gedolim from our time and location who understood our challenges. Lulei demistafina, I wonder if Hashem will also summon the ‘would-be’ gedolim we have snuffed out.
[3] Years ago, at an Agudah Convention round-table, Rav Yaakov Weinberg of Ner Yisroel expressed frustration at camps for having ‘Color War’ (pitting children against each other). That was a daas yachid. Imagine what he would say to rejection letters sent to a newly-minted bas mitzvah.
[4] A related chinuch yesod from Rav Moshe Feinstein (new Artscroll Reb Moshe, pp. 121-122): Our mesorah begins gemara with Bava Metzia — not Brachos — precisely so that children are not forced to choose between their rebbe’s teaching and their parents’ practice. Short of a serious halacha or hashkafa issue, a child must never have divided loyalty between his rebbe and his parents.
Bonafides: While an unworthy messenger, my chinuch experience extends beyond the rabbinate, having had the zechus to teach in schools of every stripe — from co-ed schools to top-tier yeshivos; classic out-of-town Jewish Community Day Schools to Chabad chederim; Yeshivas Novominsk and Yeshivas R’ Chaim Berlin; Shevach Bais Yaakov and Central Yeshiva University High School for Girls. Executive Chinuch Roles: Menahel at Telshe Yeshiva and YTT in Queens.
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