What is really going on here?

Sunday morning in a kindergarten class in Beit Shemesh

Sunday morning in a kindergarten class in Beit Shemesh

It’s a regular morning in gan. Thirty little girls daven, eat breakfast, and bentch. Then, just before ten o’clock, their teacher, Raizy, calls for their attention; “Today, we have a special program, she tells the girls. It’s going to be really exciting! A special guest is coming into our class today and she’ll be here in just a few minutes!”

Thirty little girls wait in anticipation until finally, at the appointed hour, the door to their classroom opens to admit their guest. Noa walks in, full of smiles, and looks around the room, noting the brightly-colored posters, the pictures of tzaddikim, the Shabbos tish in the corner. Looking closely, one might discern the cynical, mocking gaze in her eyes, but nobody is looking that closely.

Raizy breathes a silent sigh of relief as she notes that Noa is basically dressed in a tzniusdig fashion, albeit to minimal standards that are far below those of the families of the girls in her class. It could have been worse, she thinks to herself. And if it had been worse? She prefers not to consider that possibility.

Noa is holding a cardboard box, and now thirty pairs of eyes are fixed on it intently as their guest opens it to reveal... a bunny rabbit! A real, live rabbit! How exciting! Most of the girls are eager to gather round and take a closer look; those who shrink back are encouraged to overcome their fears.

This is a new program planned by the Education Ministry, designed to help children to overcome their fears of animals. Sounds good, no? Raizy also thought so, until she heard that the Ministry didn’t trust her to run the program. Rather, they were demanding that only a qualified teacher introduce her class to the animal world, which meant that someone of the Ministry’s own choosing would appear in her classroom, every single week for a whole semester, and run the program herself.

The school was promised that the Ministry’s representative would be dressed suitably for a Chassidishe girls’ school, and Raizy hoped and davened. Would Noa somehow blend into their classroom, or would she ruin the carefully cultivated, sheltered, and heimishe atmosphere that the teachers labored so hard to create? Only time would tell...

The weeks passed, and each time Noa came equipped with a different animal in a cardboard box. The children were loving the program and Raizy had become more-or-less accustomed to Noa’s regular visits. One week, however, no cardboard box accompanied Noa when she knocked at the classroom door and walked in. Instead, she was holding one end of a leash, and at the other end pranced a lively, frisky dog.

A few girls screamed; some shrank back in horror; others clustered around the teacher in fright. Raizy herself had to hide her feelings of fear and disgust as she hurried to calm her girls.

Noa smirked. “This is a most important part of the program”, she told Raizy. “We got the children used to rabbits, chickens, and even a frog, a dog is just another kind of animal.”

But despite Noa’s reassuring words, the dog wasn’t playing along. Instead of sitting calmly in a corner, ready to be petted, it started sniffing around the room and then running around wildly in circles. It was all Raizy could do to keep the girls from fleeing the classroom; instead, she managed to sit them down in a corner and then tried to reason with Noa.

“Please, you can see that the girls are not ready for this kind of... exposure. They are frightened, and I don’t think that they’re going to get over it in just one short hour. I really hope it won’t be a traumatic experience for them. Perhaps you could cut this week’s session short?” She begged.

Noa’s eyes narrowed, “I am an official representative of the Ministry of Education, you won’t tell me what to do!” She exclaimed. “This week’s session will continue as planned.” She grabbed the dog and put her back on a leash, before turning to the thirty white faces.

“Girls, we have to understand the feelings of the poor little doggie”, she began to lecture...

Finally the session ended, and Noa departed with the dog in tow. Raizy did her best to distract the girls from the events of the previous hour, all the while dreading what the girls would tell their parents when they got home that afternoon.

As soon as the girls had left, Raizy headed to the Menahel’s office. Nervous, yet feeling a sense of responsibility to her girls and their parents, she outlined the events of the morning, expecting to be reassured that matters would be taken into hand.

The Menahel listened, a grave expression on his face. I have to think about this, he said finally. Please do not discuss this with anyone until I decide on a plan of action.

Next morning, a notice was passed around all the classrooms of the kindergarten, summoning the teachers and their assistants to a meeting later that morning. At half-past-eleven, the eight women filed into the room and took their seats.

“I am sure you are all aware of what happened yesterday in Miss Shwartz’s classroom”, the Menahel began. “I am here to tell you that if I hear that anyone, and that means any one of you repeats the events to any of the parents of the girls, that person will find herself that very day without a job to return to.”

Stunned, the teachers returned to their classes, but at the end of that morning, Raizy tendered her resignation. She could not continue to work in such an atmosphere and betray her responsibility to her young charges.

This is a true story, with only the names of Noa and Raizy having been changed. It is known to have happened in one school in Beit Shemesh. Who knows where else other Noas are infiltrating our children’s classrooms and contaminating their pure chinuch?

the Sentry

Trouble without the Torah

"Why was the Torah given to Israel? Because they are impetuous.... The laws of these are like fire, for had not the Law been given to Israel no nation or tongue could withstand them." Talmud, Beitzah, 25b

Do we really know that Coronavirus is serious?

From Oct 1, 2019 to Feb 1, 2020, 12,000 - 30,000 people died from the flu in the US. The flu is a respiratory disease. The CDC estimates that 31 million Americans had the flu and 210,000 to 370,000 flu sufferers were hospitalized because of the virus. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that the flu kills 290,000 to 650,000 people per year around the world. The mortality rate of the flu is around .1%, meaning 1 in 1000 people who get it die.

As German pulmonologist Dr. Wolfgang Wodarg explains, there are around 100 types of viruses that virologists track and they are changing every year. Virologists test for the ones they have tests for. Normally, 7-15% of viruses are coronavirus, which is also an acute respiratory disease. Coronavirus is not a new disease. People die from it every year.

So in China in the city of Wuhan, which is a huge city with millions of people, they have resperatory illness sufferers. Doctors ran a few tests on a small group of less than 50 people and found a new variant of coronavirus. All the test shows is that it's a different variant. Normally, you have to be very careful with these kinds of findings, look at them very thoroughly to see what you have, see how severe it is, how damaging, how many recover from it. But Chinese virologists 

The test for this virus is new and its reliability not confirmed. Also, when people die, you have to try to figure out if they died from the virus. Many were in intensive care for other things and died while having the virus but that doesn't mean they died from the virus. All of this takes time to sort out. But in this case, there has been a rush to action and all the proper research has not been done. 

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Eating is a mashal

We spend so much time eating. One hour after a meal we already are thinking about the next meal. Why is the world made this way? We need Hashem for everything. The earth has to spin at this exact speed or we fall down. The sun has to be exactly as far away from the earth as it is or we burn or we freeze. Our ears have to work just right so we keep our balance. Our neighbors have to be civilized. But we take all that for granted. Eating was made obvious so that we learn the lesson that all is from Hashem and apply it to everything else. There are many brochos surrounding eating but there could have been on everything, like breathing. Eating is representative. When we obey Hashem's will that's like making a bracha on everything else.