Listening to this shiur on "morality in the public eye" I am interested to know more about what Rav Yaakov Weinberg zt"l had in mind in recommending that Jews support prayer in the public schools so that religion isn't relegated to being viewed as a game, restricted to one's home.

aishadio.com Morality in the Public Eye # WY 605 A

Permitting prayer in public school I believe would put a stumbling block before the blind in that the goyim would impose their prayers to their idolatrous deities upon Jewish students, and goyish zealots might beat up Jewish students who knew enough to resist.

If we were to adopt such a pro-prayer stance would it come with it a responsibility to dissuade goyim from the above?

Having attended public school in a Jewish neighborhood I and some close friends were rather indignant when in a junior high school art class in the 70's we were expected to make goyish holiday theme items, yet nothing was done about it.

Probably I am more sensitive now to such things than optimal for my own peace, in part traumatized by the imposition of such goyisms upon me in my youth.

I suspect that in earlier intolerant times when public school teachers were permitted to punch Jewish students, or fail them for not being in school when tests were scheduled on Yom Kippur, and bullies frequently took revenge against deicide, that things were worse for Jews in public schools.

Without vigilance to protect against the mob mentality of the goyish tendency to return to such things if their prayers were to return to public schools, even in places where there are no Jewish students in those schools, I fear that it would make the world a worse place.

With the utmost respect for Rav Weinberg zt"l does anyone share his view who could comment?

Do proponents of such a view believe that goyish society can be entrusted to make sure they don't impose their prayers upon Jewish students either directly or through peer pressure?

Assuming that goyish prayer is good for goyim, that goyish society would be more moral if they had their religions increased in priority from game to way of life, are there any other ways to achieve this without institutionalized religion particularly where young Jewish students could be impacted?

And if these are the same religions that still practice deceptive practices to convert Jews, and have histories of forced conversions under threat of torturous death, and pogrom vengence for deicide, would boosting their religious morals really raise overall morality?

I will refrain from going into a 3-page tirade on this topic, since you can view my opinions in a long prior post on the topic, or in a shortened version on my profile. Suffice it to say that I completely agree with Rob.

By the way, no one has ever removed prayer from public schools, for students of any religion. Nothing has ever stopped a Jew or goy from silently praying to G-d during school, work, play, or any other activity or in any place. G-d hears silent prayers, and I'm sure understands why many of us are hesitant to want to bring said-aloud prayers back to public schools.

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Do proponents of such a view believe that goyish society can be entrusted to make sure they don't impose their prayers upon Jewish students either directly or through peer pressure?

Rob and Paulette, I see you both live in the US (where upstate, Paulette? My wife is from Schenectady) where there has been ingrained in the Nation's psyche the idea of separation of Church and State and people get very het up at the mention of schools having anything to do with religion.

Here in the UK, however, Church and State are one, as it were. The Queen is the head of the Church of England.

I attended a non-Jewish school; the Jewish kids had their own prayers in another room without any problems. No-one nowadays will impose their religion on another; it would probably breach Human Rights legislation.

We live in a society that is very quickly descending into an immoral quagmire; the more that Hashem can be brought back into our (i.e. everyone's) daily lives, the better.

I'm not sure about compulsory prayer, since like paulette mentioned, in public schools there are small pockets of religious students who often meet at lunch break to pray, or discuss their religion.

What I see as being more important is teaching students how to respect other people. This could be done through regular classes in which students are taught about different religions, about different ways to treat people and to expect to be treated.

What is also lacking in public schools is seperate classes for girls to discuss girl issues and boy classes for boys to discuss issues and maybe learn how to treat girls, since often they bully them and tease them in public schools, or bully other boys and so forth.

B"H

Rob,

Are you saying that if they permit prayer in public schools, they will not allow Jews to pray in their own way?! I find it hard to believe that they would do this.

Perhaps the solution is to have in every public school a "Beis Kenneses," a mosque and a church.

David

As for Christian students trying to convert everyone; this is true. However, in the US the culture has evolved to be so much against such activities that if "compulsory" prayer were introduced to schools, each group could find its own little corner and do its prayers peacefully.

Today, I think the problem is that we have a society at large that is increasingly against any sort of religion. On the school campus the issue is not so much the Christian student anymore, but rather the anti-religion society.

As Paulette mentioned, there is no law against praying, however there is a resistance to organized religious activities, especially using school resources.

While there is fundamentally nothing wrong with encouraging organized religious activities in schools, political and religious sentiment changes through time. So what may be good today may turn out to be a disaster a generation from now. Our history is replete with this kind of scenario. Therefore in principle, while I think there is nothing wrong with it, I'm inclined to be against the organized use of school resources for religious purposes on school campuses because it sets a precedent that could come back to sting us in the future.

Avi

quote:

Are you saying that if they permit prayer in public schools, they will not allow Jews to pray in their own way?!

My father has explained that during his army service in the Korean war that there was a common chapel area to be shared by all.

On Friday evening it was supposed to be available to Jews.

However a protestant officer chose to schedule choir practice there at the same time.

And also ordered soldiers to remove their uniform hats when entering, an order which could not be ignored despite its interference with Jews doing their own thing in their own way.

(I'll try to remember and respond to a lot of the above points. I don't seem to be able to copy them today.)

Again, I wrote about this much more thoroughly in a much earlier post (probably close to a year ago), but we ABSOLUTELY cannot trust all public schools to respect its Jewish students. Even now, when church and state are supposed to be separated, my local public school forced or near-forced certain aspects of Christianity on all students. (Some public schools - especially those in heavily Jewish areas - are much more sensitive to this issue, but even Jewish children who live in non-Jewish areas should be protected from this.)

Sure, they could offer Jewish-only areas for certain prayer times, but this would only serve to further isolate those Jewish children in non-Jewish areas who are already trying to blend in and be accepted by the others. Instead of meeting during public school time, they could do what I did when I was in public school: attend Hebrew school afterward. (A lot of people send their children to once-a-week Hebrew school. Mine was Mondays through Thursdays, and was so well done that very few of us complained about the extra "school" time.)

Children and adolescents who are moral and religious will be moral and religious whether or not there is prayer in schools. Those who are not will not be swayed by prayer in schools. (If it doesn't start at home, it is not likely to begin at school.)

Some Christian children ARE encouraged by their parents to try to convert their Jewish friends. Allowing more religion in schools will only encourage this further.

Yes, there should be more separation of boys and girls in certain classes in public school. Even non-religious people should feel sensitive to the need for this, but political correctness ("There is no difference between boys and girls" has swung the pendulum completely the other way. My teenage daughter was mortified at attending sex education classes with boys and being REQUIRED to participate in physical contact sports with boys in gym. (Actually, she refused and got bad grades.) It's more than even separation, though: The books they were assigned to read in English class were full of immoral happenings. But I'm getting off subject. (At any rate, you can see some of the reasons I'm home-schooling my younger children. [The other reasons are academic.])

I live within commuting distance of Schenectady. There are several places of interest my family and I often visit there, and I was a member of a choir there for several years. How did somebody from Schenectady end up in the UK?

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Originally posted by Paulette:
Again, I wrote about this much more thoroughly in a much earlier post (probably close to a year ago), but we ABSOLUTELY cannot trust all public schools to respect its Jewish students.

Possibly not, but that is probably why (in the UK at least) so many more parents (even those who are not really interested in the Jewish religion) are sending their children to Jewish schools.

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Sure, they could offer Jewish-only areas for certain prayer times, but this would only serve to further isolate those Jewish children in non-Jewish areas who are already trying to blend in and be accepted by the others.

I think many would say that this a good thing. Jews should be separate; we mustn't become "k'chol hagoyim" [like all the other nations].

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Some Christian children ARE encouraged by their parents to try to convert their Jewish friends. Allowing more religion in schools will only encourage this further.

That is not something I have come across, but it doesn't surprise me to hear you say that it goes on in the US.

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I live within commuting distance of Schenectady. There are several places of interest my family and I often visit there, and I was a member of a choir there for several years. How did somebody from Schenectady end up in the UK?

We met in Jerusalem when I was in Yeshiva and my wife in Sem.

I don't think we need to be afraid of allowing prayer and religion in public schools, but afraid of not having them, since it was prayer and religion that created Israel, America ect...and it is those who are religious and pray who in many ways contribute to proping them up.

At least now we have Rabbis in the Defence forces, in Australia they also have a Rabbi Badge. I'll find a link for it.

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Originally posted by rob:

quote:

Are you saying that if they permit prayer in public schools, they will not allow Jews to pray in their own way?!

My father has explained that during his army service in the Korean war that there was a common chapel area to be shared by all.

On Friday evening it was supposed to be available to Jews.

However a protestant officer chose to schedule choir practice there at the same time.

And also ordered soldiers to remove their uniform hats when entering, an order which could not be ignored despite its interference with Jews doing their own thing in their own way.

Heres the link, just scroll down to the bottom of page and find the jewish badge

http://www.defence.gov.au/army/traditions/corps.htm

quote:

Originally posted by rob:

My father has explained that during his army service in the Korean war that there was a common chapel area to be shared by all.

On Friday evening it was supposed to be available to Jews.

However a protestant officer chose to schedule choir practice there at the same time.

And also ordered soldiers to remove their uniform hats when entering, an order which could not be ignored despite its interference with Jews doing their own thing in their own way.

Rob,

Much has changed since the U.S.-Korean War.

David

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Much has changed since the U.S.-Korean War.

Agreed! This is why I am hesitant to empower goyim to go back to their old ways of making us dimi's.

David,
I'm not conviced the change has been an improvement, though. The issues are different but I'm not sure the Jew is any better off.
Avi

In another shiur with a related theme, "Happiness", Rav Weinberg zt"l described that there is only 1 true religion --- that to say all religions have respect means to say that no religion has any importance.

Particularly in light of this thread, he seems to be saying that gentile religions have no truth in them... why then would he be espousing a belief that it is good for goyim to have their prayers in public schools?

Furthermore, he said that no other religion is compatible with truth. On this and above I would question whether he is excluding Noachide beliefs either as part of the Truth of Judaism, or a gentile belief system comptable with Judaism, or if it skipped his mind as outside of the scope of the shiur.

And it seems noteworthy that he is comfortable calling Judaism a religion -- often there is discussion that it is different / more than a religion, and also not an ethnicity or a nationality.

I endured anti-Semitic actions because I refused to be in homeroom during "school prayer" because the only prayer that was said was one by the Xn Athelets-in-Action (an evangelic group)... The moment of silence for personal prayer does not allow for true prayer either (unless ur an xn)... In the secular pulic schools there should first be an acknowledgement that spirituality is a valid world-view, however if you do this then you must allow any and all "spirituality" to either be recognized, studied and/or practiced. My son (11) had to do a report on X-mas, and when he revealed its pagan origins he got a "B", yet when he attempted to correct information about Hanukah the teacher refused to allow him to finish the point, stating that "the idea was clear enough without going into religious details"... Prayer in school is not the issue, how about actually teaching kids how and why to think, from there prayer becomes a natural response.