Let us consider three numbers: 14%, 45%, and an entire generation.
Fourteen percent refers to recently published estimates regarding going off the religious path within parts of the haredi educational world. Forty-five percent reflects the far higher rate of distancing within segments of the national-religious sector, as reported in recent studies and data analyses.
And an entire generation points to children growing up with only a faint or fragmented connection to their heritage.
Imagine a military commander who discovers that 14% of his finest soldiers have quietly left the ranks, that nearly half of a major unit has drifted away, and that the next generation of recruits no longer really understands what they are fighting for. No responsible commander would assume everything is fine. He would immediately understand that beyond external threats, there is a deeper danger: quiet erosion from within.
In a different way, this is what we are facing in the world of Torah and education, chinuch.
Anyone who is honest sees what is happening. Even within committed Torah communities, despite enormous investment in education and the sincere efforts of parents, teachers, and rabbinic leaders, not every child remains on the path. In other parts of the Jewish world the situation is far more severe. Many Jewish children grow up with little meaningful connection to their heritage, often as tinokot shenishbu, captured children so to speak, never given a real opportunity to know what they are missing.
No community can afford complacency.
We invest enormous energy in facing external challenges facing Klal Yisrael-security threats, antisemitism, political pressures, instability on every side. These are real and demand attention. But alongside this, there is another struggle-closer, quieter, and in some ways even more urgent.
The deepest challenge is not what surrounds us from the outside. It is what is happening inside our homes, inside our schools, and sometimes even inside our own hearts.
It is always easier to point to external threats. That requires courage, but it does not always require self-examination. The harder question is very simple, and very uncomfortable: what is happening with our children?
Have we truly done what we could? Have we missed something along the way?
Here, Parshas Matos-Masei speaks with unusual clarity.
At the end of Klal Yisrael’s journey in the wilderness, the tribes of Gad and Reuven approach Moshe Rabbeinu. They see the fertile grazing land on the eastern side of the Jordan and ask to settle there because of their livestock.
They say: “We will build pens for our sheep here and cities for our children."
Moshe Rabbeinu corrects them immediately: “Build cities for your children first, and pens for your sheep afterwards."
Chazal already note the deeper issue here. Gad and Reuven placed their property before their children. Moshe Rabbeinu is not making a stylistic change. He is teaching a hierarchy of priorities that defines everything.
Children come first.
It is a simple sentence, but it changes the way a life is built.
There is place for livelihood, for stability, for systems and institutions. But none of it can come before the soul of a child. If the next generation is not anchored in Torah and yiras Shamayim, everything else we build is standing on unstable ground.
At times, without even noticing, we become absorbed in building the “sheep pens"-structures, appearances, success, comparisons-while the inner world of the child is quietly pushed aside.
And then we wonder later what happened.
Sheep can be managed as a flock. A child cannot be managed at all.
Chinuch is not production. It is not standard output. It is the slow, patient, deeply personal work of helping each child become who he is meant to be. A child who feels seen, who feels he matters, naturally connects to Torah. A child who feels only performance is being measured can, chas v’shalom, begin to feel that he himself is not the point.
And that feeling cuts deep.
This raises questions that cannot be avoided. Those who carry responsibility for chinuch-rabbanim, roshei yeshiva, school leaders, teachers-need to ask themselves honestly.
Are we reaching hearts, or only behavior?
Do children feel the sweetness of Torah, or only its demands?
Are we building connection, or only systems?
And if these questions are not even part of the ongoing conversation, something essential is missing.
But this responsibility does not belong only to the system.
No educational framework, strong as it may be, replaces the home.
Especially in the summer months, when structure weakens, the home becomes the primary place of chinuch. And here the responsibility becomes very direct.
What do our children absorb at home?
What atmosphere surrounds them?
Do they see Torah as alive, or as technical?
Is Shabbat warmth, or management?
Is Torah spoken with love, or only obligation?
And there is another question, more subtle and often more decisive: what happens when no one is “checking"?
Because children notice that immediately.
Much of what is built during the year can, chas v’shalom, be weakened in unstructured time-not through dramatic decisions, but through small shifts in tone, boundaries, and priorities.
Children learn very quickly what is truly non-negotiable-and what is not.
And here is the uncomfortable truth:
No child walks away suddenly. He walks away gradually-and almost always unnoticed.
Parshas Masei adds another dimension.
The Torah records every journey of Klal Yisrael in the wilderness-every encampment, every stage, every step. Some were moments of elevation, others of complaint and difficulty. Yet everything is recorded.
Nothing is wasted. Nothing is erased.
Life itself is a journey. So is chinuch.
Not every stage looks the same. There are moments of clarity and moments of confusion. A child going through difficulty is not necessarily drifting away. He may simply be in a different station along a longer path.
The role of a parent or educator is not only to push forward. It is to remain present. To accompany. Even when things are not simple. Especially then.
During the year, much is carried by structure. In the summer, much returns to the home.
And there something becomes very visible: what kind of home is being built.
Children absorb far more than words. They absorb atmosphere. They absorb tone. They absorb what is lived, not what is declared.
A home where Torah is natural, where emunah is simple, where simchat hachayim in serving Hashem is felt-not performed-leaves an imprint that does not leave.
We are grateful to those who carry responsibility for Klal Yisrael in many forms-security, leadership, communal strength. But the future of Klal Yisrael will not be decided only in public arenas.
It will be decided in quieter places.
Around the Shabbat table. In ordinary conversations between parent and child. In what is said-and what is not said. In how Torah is lived when there is no audience.
That is where the next generation is formed.
And therefore Moshe Rabbeinu’s words continue to echo:
“Build cities for your children first, and only afterwards the pens for your sheep."
If children are truly placed at the center-if their world is truly חשוב-then with siyata dishmaya we will merit generations who continue the mesorah with strength, depth, and joy.
Summer is not a break from chinuch - it is chinuch itself.
Our children are on vacation, but they are not outside our influence. They are watching, absorbing, and learning what truly matters.
Be present. Be attentive. Be real.
Let Torah be lived naturally in the home. Let Yirat Shamayim be felt, not performed. Let Shabbos be warmth, not management.
Because in the end, children do not follow what we declare. They follow what we live.
And with siyata dishmaya, when children are truly placed at the center, we will merit generations that continue the mesorah with strength, depth, and joy.