Dear Editor@Matzav.com,
Since your website is an integral part of so many Torah homes today, I feel it is an appropriate place to raise this issue.
Boruch Hashem, I have many children residing in a thriving Jewish town, most in developments where tens of young, frum couples just like them live side by side in rows of townhouses or even single homes. This may seem idyllic in some ways, and indeed it is. There is a built-in beautiful frum atmosphere. There are great neighbors and friends for the kids.
All these wonderful things notwithstanding, the issue of privacy comes up. Indeed, I have noticed that my older children have fences between their homes and their neighbors’ properties. Small as the yards may be, at least the kids have their own space (when they are not with friends anyway), and one’s backyard does not become a public thoroughfare.
When I noticed that my younger children did not have fenced properties, I assumed they simply had not gotten around to it yet, being that these are newer developments. How surprised I was to learn that the younger couples seem to think that fences are an intrusion on others’ ‘right of passage’ and have been made to look snobby, as if we wish to keep separate from others. In these developments, fences are frowned upon, if not outright ruled out.
Now, as someone who has worked all my adult years while my children benefited from a yeshiva and kollel education, I would never dream of lecturing them in Torah, or expounding on the Jewish values of privacy and tznius. Who am I to tell them about “Ma tovu ohalecha Yaakov?” Who am I to show learned people the tens of meforshim who deal with this posuk and learn from it the overriding value of privacy in Yiddishkeit? Besides, no one today is really qualified to give mussar, so I wouldn’t dream of going through the Sefer Peleh Yoetz for example, where he writes (in Shochein) that the best of neighbors should erect a fence between themselves, with a gate for passage when needed.
I will therefore not dwell on that. What I cannot fathom, however, is how these couples seem unaware of the most basic of understandings among human beings for hundreds of years. Everyone knows that “good fences make good neighbors.” Indeed, in the very town where my children live, there are groups of undesirable, almost criminal, elements who live together. Some of them reside with many families living in overcrowded homes.
And for crying out loud, what about finances? Properties are worth more when they are fenced in. Yes, even townhouses. This is a universally recognized value. Then there is safety – something we should never compromise in, no matter what. Children, especially in these quiet, low-traffic neighborhoods, get used to just running off at will. Is it not our responsibility to ensure basic safety measures, such as fencing in our properties?
I understand that aesthetics might play a part in how we go about this. In more crowded developments, this may be harder to achieve. That’s why I felt it vital to remind couples of just how important a value they may be abandoning. Once we realize the overriding value, we will find ways to achieve it.
Sincerely,
A Concerned Parent
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