CHAZAQ's Torah Talks #160 Rabbi Elazar Meisels - The High Cost of Higher Education

so people are always very focused on the cost the monetary cost of college but what they forget to focus on is what is the spiritual cost of going to college what a toll it's going to take on you and who you are as a Jew as a Jewish boy as a Jewish girl what is going to be that cost and that is something that we don't think about what values will you pick up who will you meet who will you get to know what are you going to do with those years and those are critical years the years of 18 to 22 are the most critical years in terms of shaping you and shaping your Jewish [Music] identity and welcome to Torah talks kazak's Tuesday night program with special guests we have with us RAB elaz all the way from Lake New Jersey welcome thank you so nice to be of course thank you so much for joining us and we're going to be speaking about the high cost of higher education but before we do that if we get a little bit backg on about the rabbi and the great work you're involved with so I was born in Cleveland Ohio but we lived in New York raised in New York went to all the regular Yas went to joined a kle in Michigan Detroit Michigan the lakeood Kyle in Detroit Michigan there I got to see that the Jewish Community is quite a bit larger than what we're uh used to on the east coast and barem after I left the kle I was very heavily involved Jewish Education in cure of Outreach on college campuses I was the official Rabbi on Michigan State University's campus wow which is about 50 something thousand students yeah and I got about five of them interested but did my best um but traveled to many campuses across Michigan and barem we brought many people to see at least the Beauty and the value the richness of Judaism amazing amazing amazing now I live in Lake oh there few Jews there there's some Jews in Lakewood yeah thank God and they don't need me that badly yes um so we live in Lakewood and during the daytime I am the dean of a school a special school known as sishir Institute of higher education some of you may have heard of it my wife was there your wife is one of our graduates kenu should be many many more and at night I give many Torah classes shim Torah classes on or anytime is where I'm mostly found and amazing RAB will be a mission one mission that sticks out what would that be for RAB elel so my mission for 9 to5 9 to which is my day Mission my day mission is to ensure that every student who wants to earn higher education who wants to earn a degree should be able to do so in a Jewish venue which is very different than probably anybody else that I know yeah to have a mission like this but that is my mission but why is that so important for you RAB every single so there's an old joke I'm sure you know this joke about the fellow a Jewish guy who worked his way up to ranks in the political sphere and ultimately he became president I know it doesn't seem very likely today but ultimately he became president and as he was being sworn in as a president his mother who was there turned to the fellow next to her and said my other son is a doctor because that's a stereotype that among Jews you can be either a doctor or a lawyer but higher education is an absolute given that's by the larger Jewish Community now obviously that's not necessarily the case in what you might call the more traditional the more conservative Jewish Community but in the larger Jewish Community the idea that we value education we highly value it and we encourage it and we promote it is very very much a reality there is only a problem the problem is that when we go to college everybody thinks about the high cost of college you know President Biden he went and he uh gave what do you call it for all of those loans he forgave all of those loans because college is so expensive so people are always very focused on the cost the monetary cost of college but what they for get to focus on is what is the spiritual cost of going to college what is spiritual cost of going to college how much will that cost how much what a toll it's going to take on you and who you are as a Jew as a Jewish boy as a Jewish girl what is going to be that cost and that is something that we don't think about and that's a much far higher cost than is the cost of the monetary cost and there's no loans you can take from the government nobody can give you a loan that will help you with that that cost will be there and it will be permanent so is it really a problem like we see so many Jewish kids on campus like uh is it a problem so today everybody knows post October 7th that oh it's so dangerous and there's tensities and there's a lot of anti-Semitism on campus and everybody's concerned about that and rightly I'm not a very big fan of anti-Semitism generally not one of my favorite things to experience if I had a choice between anti-Semitism ice cream I'm going ice cream but at the same time anti-Semitism on campus is not our problem that's not that's not our problem for most of our history you can go to college and they'll love you they'll think you're great especially if they think you're going to make money one day and donate a building the Frankle building and the goldsteen building they're happy to have you they don't have any problem with that so that in terms of that can Jewish kids go to college yeah they can go to college the problem is what will happen to you as a Jew what values will you pick up who will you meet who will you get to know what are you going to do with those years and those are critical years the years of 18 to 22 are the most critical years in terms of shaping you and shaping your Jewish identity so even if somebody doesn't go to Israel doesn't go to Yeshiva somebody doesn't necessarily devote their entire day you want to get a degree and there's nothing wrong with getting a degree it's nothing wrong with being responsible and preparing yourself to be a responsible wage earner for the rest of your life you're going to build a family great but wage earning is just one part of building a family there's value trans Mission you're going to have children you're going to build a Jewish Home and there's nothing as sacred as a Jewish Home you're going to build that Jewish Home and what have you done to lay those foundations in a healthy way you're sitting on a college campus you are surrounded in most cases if you've got a couple of Jewish friends you're lucky but that's not a given you're being taught by who who are you being taught by and what are you being taught and what are you being taught and what are those values and sometimes you don't even appreciate what is coming across what is being given over it's yeah so this is one of the Kaz commissions as well it's a little bit different in the sense that we have every SE Jewish child deser Jewish Education get the kids out of the public schools because what they're teaching over there and the surroundings that are there and enter them place them into yes over 1,700 kids have been already transed the last few years Al from public schools to Yesa and the question after hearing all this is there a need is is it needed to go to higher education if so so that's another question does we get this question a lot does everybody need to earn a degree and the answer is no not everybody needs a degree I know plenty of people who don't have a degree and they're doing very well plenty of people are making lots of money yeah I I I know people who are in real estate who can buy me sell me 10 times over and they wouldn't know what a degree looks like they wouldn't know if it grows better in the Sun or the shade they have no idea what a degree is they wouldn't know what to do with it you put it in your hamburger what do you do with this degree and that's fine but there's plenty of people I mean would you go to a doctor who doesn't have a degree I would hope not right would you go to a lawyer who never went to law school no would you go to an accountant who doesn't have a degree in accounting I would think not so there are definitely professions in which somebody must have a degree proper training proper training which a degree is a way of affirming that that person received training that is universally recognized and acknowledged as this is this certifies that this individual is capable of practicing in this field okay good um I have a saying that I like to I have a way of framing it where I say 10% of the population the upper 10% no matter what they do they will make money they will be successful yeah makes no difference if they're in plumbing makes no difference if they're in electrical makes no difference if they're in topography makes no difference if they're growing ant colonies they will make money they will be successful the bottom 20% I don't want to offend anybody but bottom 20% no matter what you give them it won't help the middle 70% they're capable of being very successful but they might need good tools they might need to have good tools a degree is a tool for many many people a degree is an excellent tool to get farther in life than they would have otherwise so the message with understand correct me if I'm wrong is that higher education is not for all there are those that needed could help them tremendously but there's also a way of getting it and with understand from the rabbi there is the cunis and all the different college campuses filled with go and different value systems that are not up to par or anything close to what our holy Torah is and the suggestion is to go to and find out about the Jewish uh college opics right so what you're really saying is what am I doing in other words we've just identified the problem we all know that for a Jewish student to go onto a secular college campus there is going to be a cost and it may be a cost that is too much to bear so what can I offer you not Financial cost not a financial cost I'm not talking about money there is a fin the financial cost is what it is but we're not even going there let's put that everybody thinks about that so let's talk about the spiritual cost and the spiritual cost is great is very high I know and we've seen it we've heard about it I I I've personally dealt with not tens not hundreds I personally dealt with thousands of students who went to non-jewish campuses and took for themselves a non-jewish spouse as a result b i I mean you and I have both seen at many of these anti-israel protests whose's front and center they like to put the Jews who are front and center how did a Jewish child how did a descendant of Abraham Isaac and Jacob how did a Jewish child get there where they say as a Jew I stand for Palestine how does that happen unless they entered a boiling cauldron where every Val has been twisted and we know that we know that and then what is their future as Jewish parents what what kind of Jewish Home can they possibly build and people don't think about this I want to tell you so I'll tell you how we deal with I'll tell you how we address it and we're not alone there's others as well we have a school it's called sarn sarn as you know was a famous famous Jewish educator she was really Pioneer of the BET akov system of religious education for girls that's right now fascinating s did not start out to introduce relig she she came in to introduce religious education because every single girl in Poland was eligible and did receive for the most part an outstanding secular education but if you just give them a secular Education Without a religious component then you lose them so she introduced a religious component after school after school today any Jewish child who wants can receive a Jewish Education the question is can they receive a secular education and not compromise that Jewish Education do you know how much parents spend on their children's Jewish Day School experience annually what is tuition in the Jewish Day School movement well it can range it can be 5,000 it can be 40,000 that's right and if you extrapolate that over the cost aggregate that over the cost of a child's formative years you probably put about $200,000 into their minimum sometimes 3 400,000 into one child and then you send that child onto Bingham University you send him into Queens University you send that child into Brooklyn College or let's talk about Colombia let's talk about some of the other ones the big names all of that can easily go down the drain every penny all that effort all those car PS all that schlepping all that work all that homework can and often times will go down the drain wow we need to produce we need to offer our students our children and our communities we need to offer them opportunities to earn the degree that they want to earn get that degree in other words we're fans of earning a degree but how do you do so in a way in which you don't have to compromise so our school which is one of a number like this and we're not here to talk only about us but our school has an unbelievable alternative possibility we have Arrangements we have Partnerships with a whole host of colleges in our region and outside as well so we are partners with University of Mount St Vincent St peters's University I don't know if you heard of St Peters but St peters's I think they reached the Elite 8 in the NCA March Madness so they were real they were real guys Yeshiva University manhattanville University Jacksonville University cresp Point University we have a partner with all themg that you're able and we offer those degrees but you take those degree programs through us you are registered in the college you will get the financial aid benefits cuz you're a student of the college so if you're eligible for financial aid you will get every one of those benefits what do we do different you are attending school with everybody who was like you you were attending school with your fellow Jews there's no such thing as having classes over a holiday no PES no sukus no rashash no yum Kipper no shabas every single instructor is a member of our community they have all the credentials that they need they are professors in the college the college hires them as their professors and you will get a full degree but the beautiful thing is we also know that we're all on a mission we're all trying to get ahead with life nobody wants to sit in college and earn their bachelor's degree in four years and then it'll take them in other words if you're a secular student you can spend about seven eight years just getting your degrees till you figure out what you're going to do with your life doesn't work for our children do work for our boys and girls they need to move in life we have options where you can earn a bachelor's degree a full fully accredited bachelor's degree in a year a year and a half two years in and out you've saved time you saved money you had a job while you were doing it amazing you have life experience now you're going to say to me RAB okay so you get them this degree but what's it worth what if they want to go to law school what if they want to go to med school can they do that so I'm going to tell you a little secret we have students who have gone on to law school we have one student who just graduated our bachelor's and business degree full scholarship Cor law school that's Ivy leak he's not the first certainly not the last people might not know this I didn't know that sne there's a division we have a division for men for men and we have a division for women we have a female division we have a male Division and we have a full complement cyber security Premed prental psychology business anything you can think of accounting education ABA Social Work un with thousands of students annually every single year you would be amazed how many students just from this neighborhood just from this area I know I know we have hundreds of students coming to us from Queen attending from Queens and these are students who went to public school many of them thought about going to Queens College we're enrolled in Queens we're enrolled in CUNY were're enrolled in Liu and then they realized I don't belong there many of them realize it because they spoke their friends who've already graduated C and moved on to really good graduate programs we ALS also have our own graduate program so that you don't have to move on to a non-jewish graduate program many of them actually tried it out I got to tell you the most beautiful story that I met one of our students it's a bukharian fellow traditional as he described himself and I think he was being generous he said I was in Queen's College I was planning I was going to law school good student solid I had many assignments that were due over the weekend over Shabbat over holidays and he said I'm kind of traditional but I wasn't so traditional so you do what you got to do he said and then it came to yumore and I went to my professor and I said you can't give an exam on yum kipor that's the holiest day in our calendar you can't do it in 2020 a professor said too bad you don't take it you fail wow 2020 we're not talking about 19010 yeah 2020 a professor and he went to complain to the dean and the dean said whatever the professor says I back he said to me Rabbi that was when I knew I don't belong in this place I dropped out of college gave up my dream and I just took a job and then he said A friend told me that sne has a program for men I graduated now and I'm on my way to law school and he said not only that now I keep Shabbat wow now I know what I need to do as a Jew can I know wow I feel like this message is not made public I really wholeheartedly feel that way yeah and uh this is an important message and I think that this message has to go out to the world it's got to be shouted from the rooftops there is a spiritual cost of attending a non-jewish college we see it constantly every day and now post October 7th honestly I am so grateful I could run to those protesters hug him and kiss him because they are waking Jews up to the fact that that's not our place that's not what their goal is but they are waking us up and Rabbi yif every single day our advisers I I kid you not get emails get phone calls hi I'm in Brooklyn College I'm transferring hi I'm in Liu hi I'm in Columbia I'm transferring we had a guy yesterday who said he gave up his acceptance at a very prestigious law school I won't say the name for his privacy he gave up his acceptance at a prestigious law school to join hour MBA program he said I am done I will not be sitting in that environment ever again said I did it for 4 years I am done I don't belong there and this was not a kid who was raised in a Yeshiva environment and he said I don't belong there oh alil was a powerful message the high cost of higher education it's the high cost of higher education it's not not Financial but spiritual and we have a custom I mean ha but let me let me just say one thing before we go to that custom because I think this is important for people to realize we get this question all the time if I do a program like yours and by the way we're not the only ones I'm not here to I mention it more than once yeah I'm not here to pump my program but Co serish near will help you and if we can we'll tell you where to go yeah we'll help you we are here to help I got a call it was a couple weeks ago one of my admissions people called me up and it was an Arab Shabbat it was a Friday afternoon don't call me on Friday afternoon if it's not a crisis and she said Rabbi I'm calling you and it's not a crisis I said so why you calling she said cuz I know this is going to make your entire weekend you're going to be so and I said shoot tell me what's going on what do you got she said I just got four students Jewish students from Kingsboro College transferring into serir I just processed those applications I know that nothing will make you happier I said short of calling me on chabas itself call me anytime call me day call me night call me collect with news like that that means we just saved not four students we saved four future Jewish families that are going to number in the hundreds children and grandchildren children and grandchilden you can't only think if you save the entire world and you can't think about yourself today you're 19 years old you're single you're not married but five years from now 10 years from now you're going to have kids and those children will be directly impacted by whatever decision you made in terms of where are you going to get your degree just to give people the the inspiration about the kids and grandkids the rabbi told me pre-recording a powerful story about I remember who it was about the grandchildren great-grandchildren in the room who was it it was my uncle your uncle so I have two stories that just took place one of them is the story of my uncle who passed away one year ago he was in his late 90s he was a refugee came over from Germany after Christan 1939 he was an orphan didn't really have a education and he then went to public school somehow instead of going to college somebody directed him guided him in the direction of yiva he went to tels yiva in Cleveland he spent many years there he became an educator became an assistant principal in the Hebrew Academy of Cleveland he wrote 50 workbooks on Jewish subjects to help students famous workbooks he passed away in his late 9s a year ago about a month ago I walked into an event that they held it was a first year at site right the date of his the anniversary of his death and some of his children got together not all cuz there's many in Israel some of his children and some of his grandchildren it was a room with hundreds of people all of whom are every sing it's one person somebody got him out of college and got him to go to a Yeshiva hundreds of people who knows if that would have been yeah you have to you always have to think think not only about yourself but you need to think about your children you need to think about there's a beautiful story do you know you must know this story but I'm going to say it anyhow about one of the very well-known rabbis he was a rabbi in Yeshiva Tas in flush this goes back to the 40s and it was a very very snor there was a blizzard he he couldn't make his way to Yeshiva forget about driving you couldn't even walk and he was elderly and he pushed himself and his wife said why are you going there's not going to be any boys here he said well maybe the a couple she said for a couple you're going to go he said yeah I'm going for a couple he went he gave the class I mean it took him an hour just to walk a few blocks and he got in there and there was two or three kids sitting there and he spoke and he gave a class with every ounce of energy and somebody said Rabbi what are you screaming there's three kids here he says there's no three boys each one of these is going to be the father of an entire mishak an entire family that's going to come from I'm not talking to him I'm talking to his grandkids I'm not talking to three I'm talking to 300 which just wait a few years and they're going to be 300 wow so you have to think about yourself and say I'm not me I'm a hundred I just need to get married have a couple of kids raise them like Jews I'm a 100 can I afford the cost of what a secular college is going to do to me wow very very true I'm a fairly busy guy I live to 2 hours away and I came here today all the way cuz this message every person needs to hear it that's right 100% three person has got to hear this idea 100% Rabbi elar Miser I'm getting the chills just hearing these stories and it's 100% true I thought you can say the story about the guy that went on a snowy day to go teach in the classroom there's only three four students in the principal said why you're coming all the way so hard he's like it's easier these three I have 11 at home that's great but all kidding aside very very powerful words true 100% true uh everyone listening sh is with family friends and neighbors let them know about the importance of a Jewish Education in a Jewish setting and we had the custom I was saying before can I interrupt one more time this is I feel terrible but not a PR at all Rabbi sadly one of the things I do best is interrupting but today I think it's a very we give you permission today isn't that something disruptive isn't that like a big deal in the social media world when you're a disruptor in the world I'm going to be a disruptor sorry but I want to say something cuz I think it's relevant to hear I don't know if you've heard about this there's a new program here going on in Queens starting in the fall called Toano no so there's a beautiful program that's being run by a fellow Ari Herz and he is taking he made sort of a program quaza yes I know Ari I don't know about this program so Ari is making a program he told me it's called Toano and it's for boys who want to go to college and instead of going to Queen's college and instead of going to some of these local non-jewish colleges he is pushing them to come to places like sne to go to some of our competitors maybe to Tura to some of the others and tur is based in Queens tur and queens as well no R Dr Lander is from quein he's from quein so that's that's another option anybody who is thinking about college should be thinking about turo snea and such types of programs that's the new Seminary they're out there and in the morning the morning hours you can sit and learn he has a whole program with shim and learning and everything like that and that's a beautiful option so that get your degree yeah get your degree but don't forget I'm a Jewish boy there's a seminary that does this what's the name of the Seminary that does this for the girls there's number that's right so now we need one for the boys and AR is pulling that it's amazing I I love the fact that there's things happening in CLA and there's always things happening and we have to do more so I was saying the custom is a final message oh great you never mentioned this but uh very very true and very very 100% uh the message is very clear and and uh we have to act on it you know there is I I and I which is information which we all get there's inspiration where which I'm definitely and I'm sure everyone's watching and or listening is getting as well but the third part A lot of people the third eye doesn't happen unfortunately which is implementation so you have the information inspiration let's Implement let's make sure that we do the right choices and go to the right places so I'll give it over back to you RAB so I love that point and I'm going to stay right there okay I want to share with you a story love stories a story that happened when I was studying in the Great Lake witha BMG 30 some years ago right BMG and it was the night of the yard site the anniversary of the death of raron Cotler the founder the founder and I was sitting in the base medish listening to a talk by one of his students and it was beautiful and it was so inspirational and he spoke for about an hour and I I I didn't want him to finish I just want him to say it because I knew there's so much Beauty and so much depth so much inspiration and I need to take it but I know the minute he stops it's over it's over how I going to hold on to this I noticed something interesting there was a vent hanging down from the ceiling an air conditioning vent and since it was hot in the room the air conditioning was blowing the entire time and there was a little string somebody must have hung up a decoration or something like that when they ripped it down there was a string hanging from the vent as long as the air conditioner was going instead of the string hanging down the string was up like this and then the minute the air conditioner told no down the string went and I said that string is me if I walk out of here after this talk is done I'll be right back to where I started unless I tie a knot in the string unless I say I will not get up out of this seat until I make a commitment to do something tangible something something real so that I walk out of here and I'm not that same guy who walked in and that has been a my own philosophy in life how we got to get places but it's what every person has to do really you cannot just hear inspiration it's the most beautiful thing to listen to aak and to listen to a sh T anytime you listen listen to sh but you've got to do something with that information you must Implement you must walk away and say what do I need to do now if you're listening to this and you don't have kids who are of college age but you have kids who are school age and they're in public school pick up the phone and call hak and say get my kids out save is right now is the time before and if you have children who are in college say that and if not ask yourself how am I ensuring that my life is suffused with Jewish values and not secular values because that will make the difference whether you're going to walk into a room I must tell you the following story okay it's a beautiful story about my grandmother my grandmother had 11 children wow when she had her seventh child she was in the hospital my aunt was visiting her at the time I heard the story from my aunt who was present at the time my grandmother had a friend who was from a more modern background lovely lady she walked into the room she sees my grandmother laying there in the bed having her seventh kid and this friend had two and she says Edith what are you doing to yourself Edith you were so beautiful you were so pretty you were so what are you doing with all these kids and my grandmother said to her I would take a dozen if I could have them said Edith I don't get you fast forward many many many years later my grandmother is an old woman now and she calls up my aunt the one who was in the room at that time and she says could you drive me I want to go visit my friend in the nursing home now the tables are turned her friend is now laying in a bed in the nursing home it's this friend who came to visit her she comes and she says how are you she says I'm terrible I'm awful she says why he says I'm I'm all alone nobody looks at me I have two kids I have my boy and my girl my boy lives out in California he never sees me he comes in once a year just to make sure that I'm he's still in you know still in the will I have two grandkids they they call me only if they need something which what can I give them already nobody looks at me she says I wish I had the Dozen that you have wow my grandmother was her 10th yard site about 3 weeks ago and the family got together just the ladies and only the ones who live in like what you know that over 600 people fill that wow can I it's so inspiring you need to think about what is my future and what can my future look like not just about yourself not just about yourself maybe and and and take those measurable actions believe me it would have been a lot easier to have two kids but we don't have to do what's easier we have to take the steps implementation means sometimes saying I'm going to take the harder path which in the long run is going to be the the shorter one and it's going to be the more fulfilling one the more enriching one what what inspiration what an amazing and Powerful Torah talk we had today the high cause of higher education once again I encourage everyone to share family friends neighbors send it all out there this message needs to be heard to the entire world can I leave a phone number please please if somebody is interested in finding out more about what we can do for you to earn a degree 718 633 8557 that was extension 37 one more time 718 633 8557 extension 37 no commitment we have people who are there who will talk to you find out how we can help you if we can help you and if we can't we'll tell you amazing take the offer it's free any time commitment free and we want to thank the rabbi for coming in inspiring all of us we want to thank our friends we mention them Tor anytime for hosting this plat platform for this podcast along with all the other platforms shout out to our friends at Daily giving a dollar a day goes a very far away we appreciate their sponsorship and support special thank you to natar behind the camera and the entire kazak team and staff and and and board members and supporters we're forever grateful some great things are happening we want to do a lot more and kazak Tor talks reminder 8:30 p.m. Eastern Standard Time Tuesday nights uh kazak org cq. glive along with all the other platforms that we mentioned make sure to be part of our updates all the updates that we have via emails and different social media platforms uh send an email to info.org info chq.org Redemption thank for [Music]