(c) Apr 18 2001 RashiYomi Inc. MY COLLECTED & INDEXED MAIL JEWISH POSTINGS-Ver #1
Individual Postings 1st appeared(& were copied in html form) on the Email List Mail Jewish

From: Russell Hendel <rhendel@saber.towson.edu>
Date: Tue, 8 Feb 2000 22:02:52 -0500 (EST)
Subject: Clarification of my posting on College

I seem to have received several (uncalled for) heated responses to my
posting on College which upon closer examination agree with me. For
example:

Jerry Parnes V31n36 cites several 'chilling' stories about Yeshiva
students who turned out poorly and then concludes

>Let each of us know
>their own limitations and not assume that everyone else is like our
>weakest link. It is limiting, and ultimately self-defeating.

But that was EXACTLY my mother's point...some of her children 'could'
survive in an out of town college while others could not. Furthermore as
a parent she did not trust her children to make their own decision.  The
issues that Jerry brought up about Drugs in Yeshiva while they may be
interesting had NOTHING to do with the topic of discussion which was the
survival possibilities of people in outside-Jewish environments (like
Colleges OR concentration camps or whatever).

Similarly the comments that if 'out of town' means say NY and a
religious community and 'in town' means some city without a Jewish
community then indeed one should go out of town---these comments are
consistent with the guidelines I mentioned from the Rav, Rabbi Haramati
and my mother.

As for my use of the word 'chilling' I deeply resent the notion that it
was a scare tactic--my point was that what was at stake was not just
whether the person would stop going to minyan or be shomer shabbas--the
issue was whether a 4 year exposure could cause intermarriage (that was
the point of the Ravs story...and yes the Rav did emphasize that this
was a college without a Jewish community so that generalizatins to
colleges with Jewish communites would not be warranted.)

I hope this clarifies what I said

Russell Hendel; Phd ASA; Math Towson Univ
Moderator Rashi Is SImple; http://www.shamash.org/rashi/