My father zichrono livracha had an insight he frequently shared about the seemingly enigmatic question that the Kohein asks the father at a pidyon haben: “Which do you want more your son or the five shekels that you are obligated by the Torah to give me?”

My father saw in this a penetrating query that a Jewish father must ask himself always: What do I value more my financial success or my child’s success as a Jew and in making life decisions which will give way before the other? Sometimes the choice will present itself more starkly as in deciding on a school for a child or whether to hire a tutor; at other times it lies more subtly in the choice to tear oneself away from the office or store or to not attend a simchah and instead learn with or spend time with one’s child.

How to ease the crushing tuition burden so many parents carry is one of the most difficult issues of the day. Another great challenge of our time is learning how to use newly invented technologies in a way that doesn’t harm us spiritually and encroach on our humanity. When the former issue becomes a factor in ignoring or minimizing the latter one it becomes a time to ask ourselves individually and collectively “What do I want more my child or the five coins?”

Today seems to be such a time as the phenomenon of “blended learning” — combining independent learning by students using personal computers and interactive software with traditional classroom teaching — makes inroads in the Orthodox Jewish community. In the current issue of Jewish Action OU president Dr. Simcha Katz takes note of this trend as exemplified by a new New Jersey school Yeshivat Ha’Atid which he writes charges 40 percent less tuition than other schools in the region. Blended learning schools are set to open this coming fall inNew York’sFiveTowns andWestchesterCounty and already exist elsewhere around the country.

Dr. Katz declares this trend to be “one of the most exciting developments in the world of education” about which he is “cautiously optimistic.” He cites the arguments on both sides: proponents of blended learning claim it eliminates the need for both resource rooms and enrichment programs; allows for larger classes; enables students to learn at their own pace; and provides teachers with constant computer-generated assessments of students’ performance.

Yet he writes there is “no hard data proving that [it] impacts academic performance” and thus it is“foolish opponents say to jump headfirst into embracing a new educational approach when there is no evidence the results will be any better.” Many argue too that this approach assumes students will be self-motivated and emphasizes digital skills over fundamentals like math and writing.

He might also have mentioned that it’s very possible that students themselves prefer the old way of doing things. Nicholas Carr author of The Shallows reports on the latest findings on student attitudes at least at the undergraduate level towards paper and electronic textbooks:

Another study of student attitudes toward paper and electronic textbooks has appeared [in the Journal for Advancement of Marketing Education] and like earlier ones … it reveals that our so-called digital natives prefer print.… “Although advocates of digitized information believe that millennial students would embrace the paperless in-person or online classroom this is not proving to be the case” they write as studies to date find “most students reiterating their preference for paper textbooks … [which remain] the superior technology for studying and achieving academic success.”

Print texts according to the students surveyed present fewer distractions encourage deeper study enable better comprehension and retention and provide greater flexibility in accessing texts and in accommodating idiosyncratic study habits.

Finally after observing that in “a blended classroom teachers guide more than they lecture” Dr. Katz gets to a core issue:

Of course the sacred rebbe-talmid relationship can never be replaced by a computer screen. A screen could never convey hashkafah or inculcate middot. And I certainly don’t believe that a software program no matter how sophisticated can teach one to “lain a gemara.”

I’m glad Dr. Katz has placed the prestige of his position squarely behind the understanding that the personal transmission of Torah from rebbi to talmid is a sine qua non of our mesorah our people’s very lifeblood. But I’m not sure how to reconcile that with his conclusion that the “jury is still out” on whether blended learning is “the panacea for which parents and educators have been searching” and that “we can say with certainty … that this is an exciting venture … that holds much promise.”

Dr. Katz speaks of “our responsibility to try various approaches … to enable us to provide quality education at an affordable cost.” But to contribute my “five shekels” to the discussion I would respectfully put it differently: It is our responsibility to provide quality Torah education period. Separately we also need to explore ways to make education affordable. And our responsibility is not to an educational system but to every single Jewish child not one of whom is expendable while we try out approaches that seem to contradict what the Torah itself says about how it is to be taught.

NO CAUSE FOR CELEBRATION Chuck Hagel has been confirmed as US secretary of defense to the delight of Charles Schumer Louis Farrakhan and the “elected legitimate” — sorry make that “recognizable” — government of Iran. That means that the installation of Jack Lew as treasury secretary is next and assured.

Lew is an observant Jew and so based on the celebratory e-mails I received from Jewish groups upon his nomination I’m supposed to be cheered by his elevation to that post. But I’ll pass. Even under the best of circumstances my sense of Jewish identity is too substantive too informed by real Judaism rather than by a dysfunctional mix of insecurity fear and guilt for me to care a whit about yet another Jew achieving American prominence even if it’s not at the expense of his religious faith.

But in Lew’s case his confirmation isn’t meaningless at all; it’s downright worrying. He’ll be stepping into the role of this administration’s chief financial official at a time when our country’s failing fiscal health is declining precipitously. The U-6 number which is the real gauge of unemployment because it includes part-time employees who want and can’t find full-time work and “discouraged workers” who’ve stopped looking hovered between 8 and 9 percent through 2007. It has been between 14.2 and 17.1 percent for the entirety of the Obama years. “The reality is ” real estate and media magnate Mortimer Zuckerman recently wrote “we are experiencing a modern-day Depression. It is harder to find work than it has been in any previous economic recovery period.”

Add to this the fact that asAlabama’s Senator Jeff Sessions has written

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In 2010 when the GOP took control of the House on a wave of public concern over spending and debt ... Democrats savaged House Republicans for passing a budget with needed reforms and savings at the same time refusing to lay out a credible plan of their own.

At the heart of this strategy was Jack Lew. As the president’s budget director he submitted to Congress the most dangerously irresponsible plan we’d ever seen one panned by virtually every major editorial board in the country. Mr. Lew then launched a nationwide PR campaign designed to mislead the public about the budget that included false statements in congressional testimony. Most infamously Mr. Lew claimed his plan “would not add to the debt” and defended this statement as “accurate” when testifying before the Budget Committee. But that plan according to the White House’s own budget tables would have added $13 trillion overall to the debt.…

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In this environment I’m supposed to relish that an identifiably observant Jew will be the White House’s economic cheerleader?