As a high school senior, I feel a deep sense of appreciation for our community’s teachers, and so I would like to commend the letter writer identified as “A Concerned Mechanech,” (“A Word of Caution to Our Yeshivot at Graduation Time,” June 18, 2020) on his or her noble work advancing the Jewish people. That being said, I feel that the proposal laid out by Mechanech (this is how I will refer to the author, who withheld his or her name) is unwarranted and unwise. Mechanech suggests that yeshiva high schools should only list senior college attendances which reflect the values of those institutions—either a religious Jewish college, or a secular college with a large Orthodox community. In Mechanech’s view, students who will attend colleges deemed unacceptable due to a lack of Jewish life should not see their acceptances touted by their high schools.

Frankly, I think such a decision would only serve to distance these graduates from the Modern Orthodox community. If the school decides, at some level, to disown its students and their future paths—for this is what will occur under Mechanech’s proposal—these students will feel rejected by the community and will harbor hurt feelings toward Yiddishkeit. A surefire way to make people feel they do not belong is to exclude them, and this is what Mechanech’s proposal, however well-intentioned, does. Our high schools cannot afford to mete out a slap in the face to students who are quite possibly already struggling with Modern Orthodox affiliation and practice. Our motto must be “Semol Mekarevet VeYamin Mekarevet,” “Both the left and right hands draw in [a wayward student],” as Rav Aharon Lichtenstein, zt”l, would often cite in the name of Rav Meir Shlesinger. Accordingly, I feel that our yeshivot should continue to record the names, gap-year programs and college attendances of all graduates, as they so wisely do already.