Dear Shalom:
No one can read Stuie Zweiter's narratives and not be pained or worried. The challenges he describes are both very real and in many ways much worse than he describes. He alludes as well to what I think is the more central question -- where do we put this on our list of priorities? Should we not also be preparing kids for their encounters with the Documentary Hypothesis as discussed previously on this list? And what of the incessant conflicts with yom tov and Shabbat observance, or kashrut, or roommates, or philosophical and values differences that our kids all come into contact with on most college campuses? In short, how much are we preparing them for life after high school? And in our desire to teach them about "relevant" issues, what will happen to Torah and gemara and all of the other things we are also supposed to teach?
I sometimes think the real question is how much can we really prepare them for? Are there not limits? And how efficacious is such preparation? High school kids cannot necessarily see the relevance of things we teach until they actually confront some of these issues firsthand in "real life." Once they finally do, I believe they fall back upon the commitment they have even if they do not have the knowledge they need at the moment. The commitment will ultimately lead them to seek out the knowledge and with far more enthusiasm and detail than when they were sitting in a high school classroom.
And so I would respectfully suggest that rather than focus on the "Israel advocacy" aspect of Stuie Zweiter's question, we focus more on what it means to nurture a Zionist commitment to the State of Israel at this point in history for this particular generation of students. That is what should permeate our teaching in all grades and in all areas of school life. If we, as an educational community, could better resolve this question, then Israel advocacy on campus will in some sense take care of itself.
Rabbi Jay Goldmintz, Ed.D.
Headmaster
Ramaz Upper School
