Cheder made DS write a letter to pardon a criminal

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notshanarishona

Mon, Dec 05 2016, 10:20 pm

I don't think there is anything wrong with a teacher explaining the concept of writing a letter. As a forced assignment, I don't think it is right, both morally and educationally. It shows how little value it means to have 1000 letters requesting a pardon if all you need is one school principal to put it on the agenda. For this reason, I would assume politicians don't take kids letters seriously.

amother

Orchid

Mon, Dec 05 2016, 11:33 pm

so you want the guy to rot in prison....?

Nice

Watch some documentaries on what prisons look like on the inside

seeker

Tue, Dec 06 2016, 12:07 am

Took me some time to put a finger on what was bothering me here. I'm all for encouraging pidyon shvuyim, political advocacy, and writing.

But to me, letter writing is something personal. The purpose of writing a letter and signing your name to it is an opportunity to express your own message. You have to own what you write.

I'm worried that having a cheder require or assign 12-year-old boys to write a letter with a particular position on a particular topic is the junior version of a community that will also tell them who to vote for and what to think in other ways, on topics that might not be so benign.

I can get telling kids about the situation with a particular angle - I.e. telling them that this man has been imprisoned with a term that is unfair to his crime. And then it makes sense to also explain that sending letters to politicians can help influence their action on cases like this. And you can go ahead and offer to help (provide template, do mailing, etc) anyone who wants to participate by writing letters. I can even feel OK with offering extra credit (for an English/writing/relevant class) to anyone who submits a letter through the teacher. But once you make it "The teacher says everyone take out a paper now and write a letter to ____ saying ____" that already feels like manipulation. Maybe the kids aren't being very manipulated now but they'll likely be doing the same thing in 10 years and it won't be cute.

Maybe I'm reading too much into this or maybe I've been reading too much of other things that make me worry about this. Hopefully I'm getting this all wrong.

lucky14

Tue, Dec 06 2016, 12:29 am

I do NOT agree with this being done without the parents consent beforehand. But I live in an area that's very different I guess so maybe it's normal for that school (though the fact that you're upset about it means that maybe this kind of thing isn't so typical).

MitzadSheini

Tue, Dec 06 2016, 12:52 am

youngishbear wrote:

BTW, AFAIK, the mitzvah of pidyon shvuim does not require the person to be innocent...

Interesting. I didn't know this.

DrMom

Tue, Dec 06 2016, 12:54 am

amother wrote:

so you want the guy to rot in prison....?

Nice

Watch some documentaries on what prisons look like on the inside

You're missing the point.

The point is not whether this guy was fairly sentenced or not. They point is the cheder is manipulating students into taking a specific political action that may not be universally shared by the students themselves.

What if a student disagrees with the idea and thinks this fellow was fairly sentenced? Why should he be forced into writing a letter in his own name, signing it with his personal signature, that states something to which he disagrees? I doubt he can opt out of the assignment without consequences.

That is the problem.

Jeanette

Tue, Dec 06 2016, 3:16 am

amother wrote:

so you want the guy to rot in prison....?

Nice

Watch some documentaries on what prisons look like on the inside

.

This is exactly the kind of community these boys are being raised in. You don't want to write a letter? You want the guy to rot in prison!

Never mind the merits of the case or whether the letters have any effect.

I agree in general about teaching kids to write letters to congressmen or to the editor etc but only when they have a say over the topic and content of the letter.

FranticFrummie

Tue, Dec 06 2016, 6:56 am

These things are so fraught, and good intentions can easily go wrong. This is not the sort of lesson that should be done lightly.

If I were the teacher, I would be having the letter writing done as a lesson about Yom Kippur. I would start out with the concept of regret, reform, and doing teshuvah.

Then I would move it to the political arena, and discuss the governmental issues involved, the societal issues, the victim's point of view, and due process.

Then I would wrap that lesson back around to the concept of teshuvah, and see how it applies to this particular case.

I feel that 12 is too young for a lesson that is this complex. If these letters are supposed to be taken seriously by anyone working on this case, then having this be a high school assignment would be much more meaningful for everyone involved.

I have a good friend who went to jail for white collar crime, and his wife had to go to jail too. They were only in for 18 months, but it broke both of them completely - physically, financially, emotionally, and spiritually. They both did teshuvah, and benefited greatly from the process, but it was at an enormous cost to them. When they came out, they looked 20 years older, frail and weak, and have never completely recovered.

Did they deserve it? Technically, yes they did. Was it cruel? That too. It was also bashert, and that's the hardest thing to explain to a child. Where is the line between the justice of the land, and the justice of Hashem? Where do they overlap? I don't have the answers, I don't run the world.

TLDR: It's complicated.

smile12345

Tue, Dec 06 2016, 7:45 am

I'm not commenting on making kids write letters, but I just want to point out that pidyon shivuyim is a mitzva regardless of the crime level (unless the person is a rodef).

Maya

Tue, Dec 06 2016, 7:59 am

smile12345 wrote:

I'm not commenting on making kids write letters, but I just want to point out that pidyon shivuyim is a mitzva regardless of the crime level (unless the person is a rodef).

This guy involved several naive young men in his schemes, most of whom likely had no idea they were doing something illegal, and some of whom served prison time themselves. Does that fall under the category of rodef? If it doesn't, then it should. I see no reason why anyone should advocate on behalf of this man.

Maya

Tue, Dec 06 2016, 8:01 am

amother wrote:

so you want the guy to rot in prison....?

Nice

Watch some documentaries on what prisons look like on the inside

Yes I want him to rot in prison. Maybe he should have watched those documentaries before committing his crimes.

amother

Indigo

Tue, Dec 06 2016, 8:07 am

smile12345 wrote:

I'm not commenting on making kids write letters, but I just want to point out that pidyon shivuyim is a mitzva regardless of the crime level (unless the person is a rodef).

Okay, pidyon shivuyim in the olden days meant saving someone from death or harsh conditions in Siberia or the like.

Is it really relevant today in the way that the Torah intended?

Simple1

Tue, Dec 06 2016, 8:10 am

Maya wrote:

Yes I want him to rot in prison. Maybe he should have watched those documentaries before committing his crimes.

Read FF's post, a few years is enough to break someone and teach them a leason. I think on a frum website, we could support the concepts of pidyon shvuyim, rachamanus, and teshuva.

amother

Indigo

Tue, Dec 06 2016, 8:12 am

amother wrote:

R' M Samet committed a similar crime to Rubashkin. Something with money. Anything bad? He didnt abuse or murder anyone.

Yes, crime is BAD. Do you know who has this attitude that white collar crime isn't "bad"? Communities which end up having criminals like Rubashkin and Samet. Yes it is bad, and minimizing it ends up causing ignorant people who don't take the law seriously and can land up in trouble.

Crime is crime, and people who do crimes should pay for it. If they don't, we have a society of disorder and dysfunction. I can't even begin to fathom how anyone thinks otherwise. If we as a society don't see white collar crime as bad and something very wrong, we play a part in naive people committing these crimes and landing up in jail.

And btw, Rubashkin had underage workers working in dangerous conditions. Yes, that is very very bad.

Maya

Tue, Dec 06 2016, 8:16 am

Simple1 wrote:

Read FF's post, a few years is enough to break someone and teach them a leason. I think on a frum website, we could support the concepts of pidyon shvuyim, rachamanus, and teshuva.

Perhaps. Or we can support concepts like honesty and integrity in business, and not taking advantage of the vulnerable.

smile12345

Tue, Dec 06 2016, 8:27 am

Maya wrote:

Yes I want him to rot in prison. Maybe he should have watched those documentaries before committing his crimes.

Sinas Chinam in all it's glory.

Maya

Tue, Dec 06 2016, 8:29 am

smile12345 wrote:

Sinas Chinam in all it's glory.

Maybe. Call it what you want. It doesn't matter to me.
This is personal for me, I'll admit that.

smile12345

Tue, Dec 06 2016, 8:32 am

Maya wrote:

This is personal for me, I'll admit that.

I get that.
But I still think you have to be careful when you project your own experiences on to others in such a callous way.

Ruchel

Tue, Dec 06 2016, 8:56 am

All those things, including politic, have nothing to do with children and even less at school. Yet again Americans burden their kids.

yksraya

Tue, Dec 06 2016, 9:06 am

Maya wrote:

Perhaps. Or we can support concepts like honesty and integrity in business, and not taking advantage of the vulnerable.

Or both? It's not a contradiction!!!

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