I received the following email, forwarded, from an indignant friend and fellow alumna:
I think it's fascinating for a number of reasons, some of which have to do with politics and personal relationships with the individual in question (which i think its not nice to blog about). however, while I don't think its a big secret, I think I'll leave out his name for now so as to avoid the appearance of imporpriety...

Dear Fellow Members of the Maimonides Community,


Today, we celebrate Lag BaOmer. One of the important aspects of this day is a commemoration of the courageous leadership of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai, who kept Torah learning alive in the face of persecution and personal danger. It is customary to go on outings on Lag BaOmer to commemorate the students of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai going into the forest disguised as hunters when, in reality, they were going to Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai’s secret cave to learn Torah from him. Fortunately, today, we live in a time and place where we can study Torah openly and freely. Nevertheless, freedom has its own challenges, and Jews in America battle assimilation, intermarriage, and demographic realities. Keeping Torah learning alive still depends on the leadership of great Rebbeim.


In that spirit, we are pleased to announce the inauguration of Rabbi [NPQ] as the first Rosh Yeshiva of Maimonides School. Rabbi [NPQ] possesses the rare combination of talents and abilities which makes him a perfect choice for Rosh Yeshiva. His erudition, piety, energy, vision, organizational skills, and overall menchlichkeit have become well known over his many years of devoted service to Maimonides and are deeply appreciated within the entire community. As Rosh Yeshiva, Rabbi [NPQ] has been delegated by the School Committee to ensure that all activities of Maimonides School are consistent with halacha and the established hashkafa of the school.


Rabbi [NPQ] will devote his best efforts to preserving, protecting, and enhancing the religious and spiritual dimensions of the School and inspiring the religious devotion and development of the students. He will be available to entire grades and classes, as well as to individual students, for counseling on religious matters. Rabbi [NPQ] will continue to teach the 11th and 12th grade “Issues” classes and will give a high-level Talmud Shiur to the upper class students. He will also continue his efforts to develop the Rav’s (zt”l) and Rabbi Twersky’s (zt”l) teachings for the classroom setting. In addition, Rabbi [NPQ] will provide classes and lectures to the broader Maimonides community.


The School Committee is gratified that Rabbi [NPQ] has accepted this position and looks forward to working with him. Maimonides School has a unique mesorah and hashkafa from the Rav (zt”l) and Rabbi Twersky (zt”l), and it is our goal to see that the School continues to be infused with this hashkafa. This is the first of what we hope will be many new efforts toward this end.


Enjoy the day. We hope that the rain will stop long enough for all of us to celebrate Lag BaOmer outside in the sun!


The School Committee

I see two basic roads of interpretation, which probably ultimately meet:

1-the school was looking for a formal title for an individual who is still highly involved despite having left his previous official positions. they gave him such a title in the form of a standar honorific/powerful role accpeted in other allegedly similar institutions (yeshivot)

2- the school felt a pressing need for a "rosh yeshiva," or a need for some sort of control and/or a need to have someone called "rosh yeshivah" to stay frum, and this individual fit the bill.

...delegated by the School Committee to ensure that all activities of Maimonides School are consistent with halacha and the established hashkafa of the school.

I am extremely curious what this is about. Are they afraid people are not observant enough, or is the concern really along the "hashkafah" lines? i would guess the latter is a big part, given the focus on the rav and rav twersky, which brings us back to the perennial challenge of "modern orthodoxy" (or whatever alias they choose to adopt) of trying, paradoxically, to freeze the world in the "modernity" of decades past...

On the other hand, one might see this as a sincere attempt to preserve the character not of a "movement" but an institution - just as roshei yeshivah in other places tend to (perhaps?) try and carry on the "mesorah" or such of that place, so too , maimonides honestly sees itself as a yeshivah in which the people currently in power should have been very close to the people previously in power to help continue a vision. not frozen in the past but organically connected to it.
maybe, but i still wonder whether adopting terminology favored by the "right vingers" isn't still a surreptitious nod in the "we're-frum-too!" direction. (perhaps not so much for the frummer-than-thous as for the we're-modern-we-don't-have-to-observe-halakhah crew?)

Anyway, I'll quit rambling about it, but I think its interesting, at least to me ;)

~
a question: what (if any) otehr coed-type/college-prep dayschools have a "rosh yeshivah"?


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PS - i just noticed i actually had read about this before (on the next-to-last page), i just forgot. i still wonder if the position wasn't created with the candidate in mind. and the focus on "hashkafah" in both write-ups is striking.