I OFTEN wonder about the Hebrew for congratulations Mazel Tov because it means good luck. Luck is something that happens or it doesnt. Its random. How can I wish someone luck? The wish implies a certain volition on my part, and luck is beyond volition.
Indeed so.
Our son was lucky to be in a great class, with which he just graduated high school, specifically, the Oscar Z. Fasman Yeshiva High School of the Hebrew Theological College in Skokie, Illinois.
As they say, luck favoreth the prepared mind, and the yeshiva was well prepared for this class, which was great in two senses.
First, academically. A rosh yeshiva (dean) in Israel says that he visited 27 schools this year while recruiting, and found the senior level in the Skokie 12th grade to be the most advanced in the country.
In Torah study, these kids have goaded each other, motivated each other, pushed their teachers, and certainly were pushed throughout their four years; for instance, by our sons rebbe this year, Rabbi Meir Segal. He has tremendous focus, a truly remarkable concentration on Talmud study, utterly impervious to the usual admixtures and distractions of our culture, with the ability to engage and elevate his students.
Then, too, this class won more than its share of full-ride and other major college scholarships.
Second, socially. Here are 34 graduates, absent any cliques, mutually supportive, each happy for the achievements of the others. A cohesive group with a healthy competitiveness, each student genuinely exuberant when the other succeeds or wins. Now, a class like that is luck. And thats a blessing.
This class restarted the school newspaper and refounded the yeshiva year book, designing it, organizing it, writing it and paying for it, all on their own.
Graduation, as to be expected, was bittersweet. It was beautiful to see all the kids, and to sit down for a leisurely meal with all the parents (and other relatives and friends) beforehand.
One parent, Mrs. Shira Itzhak from Virginia, had the wonderful idea of a special reception sponsored by the out-of-town parents for the in-town parents. These Skokie families have hosted, fed and served as surrogate parents for our sons countless times. Without making a big deal out of it, they simply stepped in with a wonderful down-to-earth touch and commitment as a parent body.
The Itzhaks son Noam was bochur of the year and delivered a major address at the graduation in completely fluent Hebrew.
Four Denverites graduated from Skokie this year.
Benji Mehler, a great raconteur who enlivens spirits, served as the gabbai of the high school minyan.
Mason Wedgle, a person of sterling character, took the yeshivas sports teams to major recognition.
Netanel Warrens steady, unbending focus saw him practically living in the bet medrash (study hall).
Chaim, our son, a matmid in Torah, became an initiator and a leader, a person people look up to.
All four boys actually, all of the senior class but two will move beyond these rich years to continue their Torah studies in yeshivas in Israel next year.
During their years at Skokie, the class had the privilege of periodic visits and addresses from the likes of Rabbi Yaakov Perlow (the Novominsker Rebbe), Rabbi Herschel Schacter, Israels Ashkenazi and Sephardi chief rabbis, and many other rabbinic eminences, not to mention their own rosh yeshiva, Rabbi Avraham Friedman.
Perhaps more important, these boys had the examples of tremendous role models daily. Each of these role models has spent more than three decades teaching yeshiva high school students, including our sons teachers Rabbis Zvi Kaminetsky, Tzvi Haskell, Shmuel Weiss and Meir Segal.
Others on staff reached out to the students, whether they were in their class or not. At Skokie, each student has a main rebbe, but actually the whole staff has a relationship with the whole student body. Expert teachers whom our son did not have in class but nonetheless benefited from included Rabbis Cardash, Polstein, Rand, Schechter, Shuman and Weinberg.
All this stoked the class natural intellectual curiosity, spiritual striving and thirst for excellence.
Links throughout the world of yeshivas are endless. When our older son was in the Telshe Yeshiva 20 years ago, he had my tefilin checked by a halachic master in Chicago, Rabbi Chaim Twerski. Lo and behold, our younger son comes to the Skokie yeshiva 18 years later and benefits from the presence of this same Rabbi Twerski, a senior scholar in the Skokie yeshiva.
Then there was the practical joke we did not pull off. When our older son came to Telshe he found a note on the bulletin board advertising for Torah readers (lainers). He spent the Shabbos in the home of the rabbi of a synagogue in Northbrook, Illinois, only to find the host, who was a total stranger, telling our son all kinds of details about our family! Our son was baffled. It turned out that the rabbi and his wife, Rabbi Herschel and Shirley Berger, were former neighbors of ours in Jerusalem, and remembered our son from when he was a child.
Well, 18 years later, our younger son Chaim arrives in Skokie and finds this same advertisement on the bulletin board. He called us and asked whether he should respond. We said: Yes, just figure out a way not to reveal your name and then go and tell the Bergers all kinds of details about their family. That didnt happen, but Chaim spent many a Shabbos over the four years enjoying the hospitality of the Bergers as he chanted the Torah there.
Like any good school, Skokie has its originals with a way of reaching kids in the vulnerable years of adolescence. Skokie also has steady hands like unruffled principals, Dr. David Schusteff and Rabbi Moshe Wender, whose conscientiousness and insight resolve many issues; Rabbi Mordechai Ginsparg, who adds spice and diversity to the kids lives through a full activities program; Daniel Cohen, Zvi Lowenstein, Josh Miller and Avi Zisook, dorm counselors, and Rabbi Daniel Freund, dorm supervisor,who just might have the toughest jobs of all. All thrive under the guidance of Chancellor Rabbi Dr. Jerold Isenberg. To all and to Hashem we are grateful.
It is worthwhile to send a son to a yeshiva virtually any son, to virtually any yeshiva. Though its graduates will scatter to the four winds and take up professions within and without the world of Torah study, one aspect of a yeshiva education is lifelong: the friendships, the special bonds created in the cauldron of Torah study. Yeshiva is the oldest, closest, most positive Jewish fraternity in the world.
Copyright © 2011 by the Intermountain Jewish News
