Looking for a High School



While at the convention in New York, I spent a lot of time researching high schools.

We’ll be sending our eldest daughter, Chanaleh, out of town for 9th grade next year, and we need to find a suitable school for her.


You may have gone through this kind of process before.  Maybe not for ninth grade, but perhaps for college.


Thank G-d, Chanaleh is a wonderful girl and I’m sure she’ll do fine wherever she goes.


But where she goes matters too.


If we sent her to public school, I’m sure she’d be a fine doctor or lawyer.


If we sent her to an “ultra orthodox school” I’m sure she’d find a studious man to marry and work really hard to support a large family while he would sit in Kollel (yeshiva for married men) all day, and hopefully learn Torah.

But we want to send her to a Chabad school.


It’s a very special education and worldview that Chabad schools instill in their students.


My mother noticed it when looking for an appropriate preschool for me, some thirty plus years ago.  After touring a few Jewish schools in San Diego, she decided to send me to Chabad, because she noticed how “the children smile nicer”.  


And I’m very glad she sent me there.  It shaped my whole life.  And my life wouldn’t look anything like it does today without that education.


Within Chabad itself, each school, principal and teacher has areas that they focus on, and have unique qualities they instill in their students.  Some focus more on study.  Some focus on good character traits, or outreach, or “chassidishkeit” (which is very hard to describe in an email like this, but it basically means being sincere in following the unique approach of Chassidus).


Some children will thrive better in a big school.  And some will fare better in a small school. How far to send?  How close?  With a dorm? Boarding with a family?  A newer school? An older school?  Where are her classmates from online school going?


So many factors that can make you dizzy just thinking about.  It’s a great exercise to learn the process of “Mind making upping” (from Oh’ the Places You’ll Go, by Dr. Seuss).  My father actually taught me a very good way to break up these kinds of decisions, and I’ll have to tell you about it another time (for a sneak preview, you can see how I helped one of our Hebrew School graduates with this model, in this link).


It will be hard to let her leave, and we’ll miss her, but Natanya and I know it’s part of her spreading her wings and becoming a mature and fully grown woman.


And that is not so easy to chance upon today.


We are very fortunate to be in circles where our 13 year olds get to make these kinds of decisions and really take their lives into their own hands at a young age.


May we all merit to have Yiddishe and Chassidishe nachas (nachas is really hard to translate, but the best I can come up with, is “deep satisfaction”) from all our children.

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