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December 1962

Over-Confidence (1962)

Parenting Combating Assimilation
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Any carefully prepared program for the religious education of our children must take into cognizance the realities of the adult world into which they are growing. Only by first analyzing the basic religious weaknesses of their elders can we possibly prevent these weaknesses from being imposed on the youngsters, from having the sins of the fathers visited upon the children. On the one hand, we have the painful phenomenon of Jews who are ritually observant but who are ethically, and perhaps morally, deficient. And on the other hand, we have the equally painful phenomenon of the Jew who is intellectually or sentimentally committed to the ethics of Judaism, but is ritually unobservant. This is the breed of “good heart” Jew, whose self-righteousness and ignorance are legend by now. Actually, both these opposite types are symptoms of the same disease: the splitting of the body of Judaism, the justification of a dichotomy between the ritual (mitzvos she-bein adam la-Makom) and social–ethical (bein adam la-chaveiro), between Religion and Character. The nub of the problem is the false assumption that one can practice one-half of Judaism and still be entitled to the honorific title of “good Jew.” The problem of a religious training geared to the present realities is, therefore, one of teaching the values and practices of the rituals and the social ethics of Judaism as one and indivisible, of showing their interpenetration and interdependence. There must be a unified approach. In order to prevent this fragmentation of the Jewish body, and present both aspects of Torah to the child as indivisible and inseparable parts of one integral whole having equal validity, we must make the child conscious, at all times, of the very basis of all mitzvos: the presence of God Himself. This should be the compelling reason for loyal observance of either the mitzvah to daven or the mitzvah to respect parents. Without this God–consciousness, the entire matter of observance cannot have lasting v…
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Over-Confidence - in Mebasser (1964)

Every action, the physicists tell us, has a reaction. This rule holds true for man and society as well as nature. Thus, there was a time when parents sheltered their children much more than was necessary or advisable. The reaction in our times is – to expose them prematurely to the rigors and risks of adult life. And we rationalize our deeds with pious expressions, such as: “I have confidence in my children.” Of course, over-sheltering growing children is both unnecessary and harmful. But ought we not also refrain from over-confidence, which results in pushing children unprepared into the maelstrom of adult life in our complex society? Are we not wronging them with our misplaced and excessive faith in them? What brings on this thought is the recent news concerning a speech by the dean of one of the nation’s foremost women’s colleges concerning the moral character of the student body. Whatever the propriety or exactitude of the dean’s speech, this much is certain – the lack of morality that prevails on the nation’s campuses is shocking to anyone of sensitivity. Let us be frank about the temptations open to a young high school graduate suddenly thrust into a new environment away from home. Unless parents have investigated the kind of general standards that prevail on the campus, sending a youngster to an out-of-town college can become a criminal act of over-confidence. Unless Jewish parents have made sure that there exists in that school a group of conscientious religious Jewish students and proper facilities for observance, and hence the proper society for the young Jew or Jewess, they may be guilty of undoing years of Jewish upbringing and education. There are those who justify this policy by pleading the necessity for exposing young people to “real life.” Forgetting the question of what “real life” really means, it should be remembered that there is nothing magical or mystical about the age of eighteen, when most young people enter college. Maturity does not erup…
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