There are two kinds of exposure.  One is to issurim - to hear and see nevalah - and that can have no heter.  The other is to ideas that will give false values and outlooks, but not issurim.  Concerning this, there are different opinions.

Rabbi Henkin personally told me the following:                                                                                                                                               Since it is dangerous to swim, one would think that a father should keep his son away from the ocean.  Yet we find that Rabbi Yehudah says that a father has to teach his son to swim.  Why?  Why not just keep him away from water?  He answered that since he will be on the ocean, you have to teach him to swim so that when he is on the water he will know how to protect himself.  What Rabbi Henkin was taking out of this gemara is that parents must take risks when they know that the danger is something the child will almost certainly face.  Therefore, he held that you have to teach children about evolution, with the answers, because the children are going to hear about it sooner or later.  And if you teach it to them in advance, when they are faced with it later in life, they will be properly prepared and able to deal with it.

This is certainly a logical approach, but one that is filled with pitfalls, because deciding what you talk about and when you talk about it requires tremendous judgment.  Rabbi Henkin's logic might apply to issues like evolution, which is within the realm of machshavah, but not to areas like sex education, which deal with midot and hanhagot and ta'avot.  There the logic does not hold up.

The difference between exposing them personally and exposing them through the media is day and night.  When you present it yourself, you can control it and so it in a way that is effective.  But if you let them get the information from the media, even if they come to ask you about it later, there will still be problems.

First, it may be years until they finally come to ask, in which case all during that time the virus might penetrate deeply.  Second, there is a klal gadol that you should know:                                                                                                                                                                When you are asked a question, even though you give an answer, the problem remains one that was seen as a problem that had to be answered.  For example, if one asks how there can be both yediah and bechirah - how G-d can know the future yet give free choice - once you have been forced to give an answer, the problem has already been recognized as a problem and the answer as an attempt to get out of it.  Therefore, the only way to answer the question of yediah and bechirah effectively is to show that the response is not meant to answer the question, but that the question is built on a foolish mistake - you thought the Ribbono Shel Olam is Superman.  But if you understand that He has a completely different kind of existence and He is not bound by time, how can you ask such a silly question?  You only asked the question because you thought Hashem is limited, like we are.  So it is not that you have a question and an answer.  The question is based on nonsense.

The only time you can give an answer that takes away the question is if you show that the question was not a question to begin with.  Therefore, if you expose the child, you can answer the question before it is asked and prevent it from remaining a permanent problem.

In truth, exposure is a very difficult matter.  And the more difficult question is not whether you should expose you child, but whether you can prevent your child from being exposed to outside influences.  He goes in a car pool, he has classmates, he walks in the street.  How do you prevent it?  How do you limit it?  That’s something that you have to consider.

By: Rav Yaakov Weinberg

"Where oh where is baby Moshe?"  We can't wait to find out in Sefer Shemot how Moshe was finally able to take B’nei Yisrael  out of Mitzrayim.  The girls are very excited to learn a new sefer in the Torah.

The winter is here (believe it or not) and our girls have started our unit on ;ruj.  We made a semantic map of everything we already know and then added some new words and concepts.  The girls are increasing their vocabulary with new words such as dka' re' ,uppF' and ohhpdn.   The highlight of our unit was when we got to go skating in our own classroom.

We are well on our way with vthre.  The girls can blend  v-t with 2 ,usUeb.  We can't wait to learn about the z next week and have our faces made into ohbmhk. Shabbat Shalom!

We have finished the letters of Alef-Bet and we are doing constant review.  We are now working on the ,usUeb and blending them with the letters. The boys were recently tested by Rabbi Taban and he was very pleased!                                                                                                           Ken Yirbu! -Rabbi Ross