My father zichrono livracha had an insight he frequently shared about the seemingly enigmatic question that the Kohein asks the father at a pidyon haben: “Which do you want more your son or the five shekels that you are obligated by the Torah to give me?”
My father saw in this a penetrating query that a Jewish father must ask himself always: What do I value more my financial success or my child’s success as a Jew and in making life decisions which will give way before the other? Sometimes the choice will present itself more starkly as in deciding on a school for a child or whether to hire a tutor; at other times it lies more subtly in the choice to tear oneself away from the office or store or to not attend a simchah and instead learn with or spend time with one’s child.
How to ease the crushing tuition burden so many parents carry is one of the most difficult issues of the day. Another great challenge of our time is learning how to use newly invented technologies in a way that doesn’t harm us spiritually and encroach on our humanity. When the former issue becomes a factor in ignoring or minimizing the latter one it becomes a time to ask ourselves individually and collectively “What do I want more my child or the five coins?”
Today seems to be such a time as the phenomenon of “blended learning” — combining independent learning by students using personal computers and interactive software with traditional classroom teaching — makes inroads in the Orthodox Jewish community. In the current issue of Jewish Action OU president Dr. Simcha Katz takes note of this trend as exemplified by a new New Jersey school Yeshivat Ha’Atid which he writes charges 40 percent less tuition than other schools in the region. Blended learning schools are set to open this coming fall inNew York’sFiveTowns andWestchesterCounty and already exist elsewhere around the country.
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