Would you consider 25% risk good odds?
From the Divrei Chaim:
"A local Jewish newspaper ran an editorial last week criticizing the choice many make to attend secular college. The challenges posed by the environment of a secular college, both ideological and in terms of shmiras mitzvos, present a danger for Jewish youth, especially for those who dorm. According to some studies as many as 25% of those who attend such colleges leave the fold."
25% happens to be the risk of having a baby with Tay Sachs when both parents are carriers. So it seems that odds are good ; after, the couple still has a 75% chance of having an unaffected child. Still the whole purpose of organizations like Dor Yeshorim is to prevent the situation from arising because the heartache of seeing one’s child die – even if there are 3 others who survive – is so devastating to a parent. If a parent conceives of the child going of the derech as a tragedy, 25% odds, or any odds, are not good enough.
Now, I will concede the point that kids can go off the derech even without the befit of a university education. Some go off while enrolled in yeshivas and succeed in hiding things well enough to make it through the system. Sometimes they even seem to meet and marry like-minded pretenders who stray from halacha without openly leaving the fold. Such hypocrisy in society is not at all a good thing. But testing one's child by putting him/her in the way of temptation should be considered very carefully.
See the comments fly fast and furious at
http://divreichaim.blogspot.com/2009/10/engaging-in-secular-pursuits-yatzo.html
"A local Jewish newspaper ran an editorial last week criticizing the choice many make to attend secular college. The challenges posed by the environment of a secular college, both ideological and in terms of shmiras mitzvos, present a danger for Jewish youth, especially for those who dorm. According to some studies as many as 25% of those who attend such colleges leave the fold."
25% happens to be the risk of having a baby with Tay Sachs when both parents are carriers. So it seems that odds are good ; after, the couple still has a 75% chance of having an unaffected child. Still the whole purpose of organizations like Dor Yeshorim is to prevent the situation from arising because the heartache of seeing one’s child die – even if there are 3 others who survive – is so devastating to a parent. If a parent conceives of the child going of the derech as a tragedy, 25% odds, or any odds, are not good enough.
Now, I will concede the point that kids can go off the derech even without the befit of a university education. Some go off while enrolled in yeshivas and succeed in hiding things well enough to make it through the system. Sometimes they even seem to meet and marry like-minded pretenders who stray from halacha without openly leaving the fold. Such hypocrisy in society is not at all a good thing. But testing one's child by putting him/her in the way of temptation should be considered very carefully.
See the comments fly fast and furious at
http://divreichaim.blogspot.com/2009/10/engaging-in-secular-pursuits-yatzo.html
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