To add your name to this letter, please email [email protected]. 

 

May 27, 2022

Ms. Christina Coughlin
89 Washington Ave., EBA Room 1078
SORIS, SE Regulation Comments
Albany, NY 12234
[email protected]

 

Yeshiva Educators Oppose the Proposed Addition of Part 130 to Title 8 NYCRR (Rule ID# EDU-13-22-00025-P) to Strictly Regulate Private Schools

 

Dear Ms. Coughlin and Honorable Members of the Board of Regents:

We are graduates of yeshivos who were inspired by our intensive religious educations to choose careers as Judaic studies teachers on the elementary, secondary, or post-secondary levels. Others among us pursue advanced Jewish educations as graduate students in kollelim, or Talmudic research institutions.

We view this path as a most fortunate one. We see no better way to spend our ephemeral lives. By plumbing the depths of law, logic, and G-dliness we strive to uplift ourselves and those around us. Our days are long, but filled with meaning. Our students are many, and we cherish each one of them. The opportunity to impart our values and heritage to the next generation is more than our calling, it is our raison d’être.

We know without question that our own dedication to the texts and ideas of the Jewish religious tradition was seeded in our yeshiva education, and we believe strongly that our careers are valuable – certainly to the Jewish community, but to the broader world as well.

Many of our classmates became wildly successful. Some became professionals; others excelled in business. They all credit their yeshiva education. Our life-paths may not be attendant with great material wealth; we will not be fabulously “successful.” We define our success differently, however. Is that not our right? We feel wealthy in our academic, intellectual, and spiritual attainments, and we would not trade our way of life for anything in the world.

The value of study for study’s sake, and the importance and joys of teaching, are fully accepted in academia. This is not true merely for those engaged in novel engineering advancements and cancer research. Academics whose research may seem to yield no immediate “practical” benefits are readily and rightly recognized as individuals whose scholarship in their subjects of study enrich society. All the more so when our study is not simply academic, but is our strongly held religious conviction.

Had our yeshiva education been more limited in its intensity of religious studies, we would never have been exposed to this beautiful way of life. Our capacities to become the spiritually inclined people we are today would have been foreclosed. We are grateful to our educations which opened this window for us, and allowed us to make these life choices.

We therefore soundly reject any attempt by government to micromanage and control our private schools. Please respect our choices and commitment to learning, and allow our community to continue with its unique educational infrastructure, one that has built “successful” human beings, on so many levels.

Sincerely yours,

 

 

 

cc: The Honorable Members of the Board of Regents