In his 13th year as leader of Congregation Beis Knesses of Los Angeles, which he founded, Rabbi Elchanan Shoff is launching a major new project, a yeshiva on Robertson Boulevard.

“We have been overwhelmed by the positive feedback,” he said of The New Yeshiva High School of Los Angeles, due to open this summer.

Shoff, who teaches at Touro College of Los Angeles, explained the idea has been percolating for a quarter-century, “ever since I was a counselor in summer camps when I was a single person. I was 17 then, and now I am 42.”

The Venice native has been working with high school-aged students “all the way through — in various capacities.”

There never was a doubt about his career, or about the specific routes. “The boys in my bunk in camp when they were in the eighth grade, I kind of stuck with many of them,” he said. “I was just a young guy, and when they came to Israel to learn in yeshiva, living there and teaching, they would come to my classes. I became a rebbe of theirs, and for several of them, I officiated at their weddings.”

For Rabbi Shoff, teaching high school was a job he always felt connected to.

Steeped in Talmudic knowledge, the always frank rav did not disappoint when asked why he concentrates on high school and not on older students.

“I still am somewhat in touch with my immature side,” he said. “And so when I look in the mirror, I am absolutely astonished that I don’t look 17. ‘There’s got to be something wrong with this mirror,’ I tell myself.”

He explained the lure to upper grades.

“I always have connected to education,” he said. “The high school age has been strong for me because it’s a nice mix between the emotional connection, which you always must have with students, and there’s also an intellectual aspect as well. You can connect in a very different way with a 16- or 17-year-old than you can with a five- or six-year-old. Even though I value all education — it’s extremely important — I found that was the place I had the strongest ability to understand and to connect.”

Both halves of that response are crucial. “You can talk about ideas,” he said. He cites one of Rashi’s comments to Tractate Kedushin that says between the ages of 16 and 24, those are the years when people are most likely to be able to accept meaningful direction.

Referencing the Talmud, Rabbi Shoff expanded his reasoning. “When students are younger, their brain is not quite developed enough to have that kind of insight,” he said. “They are not that self-critical and willing to make adjustments. And when they are a little bit older, they are set in their ways. They don’t want to hear from anybody.”

The Talmud identifies the ideal learning stages as between 16 and 22 or 18 and 24.

To illustrate his point, the rabbi noted that post-high school, for example, when boys and girls go to Israel, oftentimes people will say ‘Oh, what is this? They should have gotten it by now.’ Post-high school is a really healthy age to be a little independent. But if you would send a bunch of 14-year-olds, they are not ready. Every age has its time.”

Another reason Rabbi Shoff concentrates on high school learners: He believes high school is “a critical, pivotal time in instilling real Jewish values. Skills you can get while your mind still is open to all that learning are very different from what you can develop later when you are an adult and trying to make up those years.”

Rabbi Shoff then turned to The New Yeshiva High School of Los Angeles.

“In many ways it can feel like a pipe dream,” he said. “This is a very expensive endeavor. Not until you have a really full school can you limit your losses. Financially, Jewish schools do not make sense. The money it costs – even within LAUSD where they have this massive amount of volume. In order to educate one child, it is close to what tuitions are in Jewish private schools. But we don’t have any of those benefits.”

Which is the greater challenge – finding enough students, or being able to financially support a project?

“Both are formidable challenges,” the rabbi said. “My skillset is more suited to building a student body –in a direction students and parents can buy into. My skillset is not necessarily the enormous amount of fundraising it would require – the millions you would have to lose to build a staff, to have an infrastructure, and a building when maybe in the first class you get – best-case scenario – 10 or 15 boys. To break even financially, in theory you would need to have full tuition from maybe 80 students.”

While expenses rise as another grade is added and more teachers are needed, Rabbi Shoff said “the basic infrastructure that’s required is challenging. Even the schools that are very successful in their student bodies still require enormous investment financially in terms of fundraising.”

He described Jewish education as an enormous value for the frum community. Rabbi Shoff arrived at the heart of the matter: “In the Orthodox community it is seen as an inviolate right that every single young Jewish person should have an opportunity to get a Torah education. If a family doesn’t have the money for tuitions, we take what they can pay. In the more liberal Jewish communities, a private school education is a luxury.” 

Fast Takes with Rabbi Shoff

Jewish Journal: Your favorite music?

Rabbi Shoff: Contemporary Jewish music, specifically like the Miami Boys Choir.

JJ:  Where do you go for news of the world?

RS: Fridays, outside of the men’s mikvah.

JJ: Your favorite Shabbat moment?

RS: That feeling after you have eaten the cholent on Shabbos day and you can’t move your body.