Unfortunately, the arguments both in favor and against the proposed integration of the Solomon Schechter high school into the Jewish (or Yeshiva) basketball league have heretofore been represented rather poorly. The bulk of the media coverage regarding the issue has focused on popular buzzwords like "inclusiveness" and "unity" and has steered clear of any detailed examination of the implications of the proposed union. However, thoughtful consideration of the matter dictates that the issues underlying this debate are not as trivial as the media would have us believe and deserve serious reflection.
According to the popular version of the argument, opponents of Schechter's inclusion maintain something like "the league is a Yeshiva League, and allowing Schechter to join it would amount to acceptance of Conservative Judaism as legitimate practice for a Yeshiva high school." In response, those who would allow Schechter to join the league counter that "it's just basketball, and there's no connection between allowing Orthodox students to play ball with Conservative students and legitimizing Conservative Judaism."
Although this version oversimplifies the positions of both parties to the dispute, it nevertheless tends to portray the supporters of integration in a decidedly more favorable light than the opposition. After all, should we really fracture the greater Jewish community - as it seems we have - over a nominal consideration like adherence to a long-standing status quo? Seemingly, no. Indeed, if this were the only determinative factor detracting from an otherwise wholehearted willingness to invite the Schechter school to join the league, the opponents of integration would be hard-pressed to justify their stance.
However, characterization of opponents of integration as archaic adherents to ceremonial formalities is patently shortsighted and unfair. The question of whether yeshiva high schools ought to encourage their students to make contact - even (and perhaps especially) casual contact - with members of a community who reject many of the religious values that the yeshivos are ostensibly trying to promote cannot be summarily dismissed.
Nearly every medical school in the United States requires its graduates to take some form of an oath containing the guiding principle, "first, do no harm." And although we might take it for granted that Yeshiva high schools embrace this ideal as a paramount concern, the question must be asked - could the inclusion of Solomon Schechter in the league result in harm to yeshiva students? Not the alleged 'harm' of promoting a league whose name might be inconsistent with its makeup, but rather the genuine religious harm that commingling of the disparate religious groups could theoretically engender.
One of the nice things about sports is that - to a degree - they comprise a universally understood language. Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, Christian, or Muslim - on the basketball court, each understands and appreciates the skill and strategy necessary to put the ball through the cylinder. As such, the basketball court often serves as a forum through which ball-players from either team, particularly the elite players, form lasting, meaningful friendships; and if we can assume - as one should hope that we can - that upon Shechter's entrance into the league, the Orthodox ball-players would not be indoctrinated with anti-Schechter rhetoric before their contests, it seems fair to allow that a certain degree of friendship will be fostered between the teams when Schechter squares off against the yeshivos. Furthermore, the simple facts are that high school basketball games, which regularly attract scores or even hundreds of students from each school, have become - and more likely, have always been - high school social scenes. In short, the likelihood that Schechter's inclusion in the league will result in a certain amount of fraternization between Yeshiva and Schechter students requires no great leap of imagination.
On the surface, the fact that yeshiva kids might socialize with Conservative students does not seem particularly problematic. Surely our students are sufficiently mature and secure enough in their religious identity to realize that though we are encouraging them to play basketball and hang out with Conservative students, we consider the Conservative lifestyle to be an illegitimate interpretation of Torah Judaism. Aren't they?
Well, I suppose we would like to think so. But is it true? Can it be asserted with any degree of certainty that students in yeshiva high schools are immune to crises of faith or the curiosity to understand various religious approaches in the hope of finding a system that speaks to their religious needs? Are we so confident that our yeshivos are systematically concretizing students' commitment to halachic Judaism to the point that they are invulnerable to the allure of an approach to Judaism far less intrusive than the stricture-laden halacha, with its myriad prohibitions and directives?
The Orthodox community probably cannot satisfactorily answer these questions with any degree of consensus, and perhaps no definitive answers exist. But should concern regarding these very points be so facilely dismissed as baseless or outdated? Is it so unreasonable to wonder about the sagacity of placing yeshiva high schoolers - who are likely still forming their religious personalities - into situations that will almost certainly lead to friendships or personal relationships with members of a community who maintain doctrinal belief antithetical to halachic Judaism?
Admittedly, we have until now focused on the potentially deleterious implications of allowing Schechter to join the league, and we have ignored the potential benefits that the union could inspire - both for Schechter itself and the Orthodox yeshivos. Indeed, the union would almost certainly generate some beneficial elements, not least of which the diminishment of the perception that Orthodox Jewry regards other forms of Judaic practice with an air of gratuitous condescension. However, to pretend that the appropriateness of allowing Schechter into the league should be a foregone conclusion prematurely discounts tangible concerns that we would do well to consider.
Of all of today's Jewish "denominations," Orthodoxy occupies a conspicuously awkward position. Orthodoxy alone, with its binding commandments and its insistence on upholding uniform standards of religious practice, doctrinally precludes the authenticity of all other forms of Judaic practice. According to the prevailing sentiment of American society, such intransigent religious obstinacy constitutes "political incorrectness" of the highest nature. Orthodox Jews certainly do not want to be labeled unreasonable. Or even worse, un-American. But the interest of our students demands that we examine this and all other issues regarding their Jewish education from the standpoint of what will best serve them, not from the perspective of what will make the Orthodox community appear more tolerant. For the parents of an Orthodox child who befriends a Schechter student and decides that Conservative Judaism conforms more to his personal taste than does strait-laced halachic practice, the fact that the media and other branches of Judaism respect Orthodoxy more will probably provide scant consolation.