The B'chol D'rachecha Email Digest: V. 2
A selection of some of the email generated by the last few weeks of posts
Here’s another edition of email thoughts you’ve shared with me about the most recent batch of posts. And some of my own responses.
In my post “Should Insurance Companies Run the World” I noted how our communities are largely unregulated and, consequently, vulnerable to threats that might not be faced by many modern societies. I suggested that we might enjoy greater success and safety by paying more attention to the carefully calculated limits defined by insurance actuaries.
I received feedback from a real, living, breathing actuary who, while flattered, wasn’t convinced that his profession had quite so much to offer. He felt that I’d:
Conflated two points - assessment of risk vs. resultant decision making. Actuaries and underwriters may be well suited for the former, but I am not sure what role you think they ought to play in the latter.
Later, this correspondent added the:
The element of the article that I think is more valuable, is not about "guidance," but rather about the more modest goal of gaining accurate information.
So perhaps I should rephrase my suggestion: our communities might benefit by using some of the same tools and methodologies used by the insurance industry so as to gain a greater understanding of how things could work and what can best be done to make success more likely.
I enjoyed quite a few exchanges over my post “Are Yeshiva Programs Planned?” There was general agreement that the model that currently dominates in the yeshiva world was mostly the result of practical constraints of one sort of another. But building a comprehensive planned curriculum to replace it would be incredibly hard.
It was suggested that there have been a number of successful initiatives aimed at adult bnei Torah. Dirshu is certainly one. The Dolgin method is another. Although, considering how their goal is mastery of כל התורה, I’m not sure the Dolgin method qualifies as a curriculum (which implies short cuts towards an otherwise unattainable goal), so much as an ambitious ideal solution.
And, while the original version of the article didn’t mention this, curricula for adult women must also be at least aspirational.
My “Understanding the Evolution of Kashrus in North American” post prompted a reference to a more recent book on the Kashrus industry called “Food: A Halachic Analsysis” by Rabbi Yehuda Spitz. It looks like I’ll be reading a second book in the near future.
A comment about whether discussing negative historical events is always appropriate was important. Indeed, there will be many times when silence is the better approach.
But, in the context of this particular issue, as long as Jewish book and magazine publishers continue to defend and even vindicate such awful crimes, the chilul HaShem and corruption of good chinuch continue.
Until next time.