First of all, you may not need to go to a yeshiva at all. If you have a good job, you might just want to keep it and then study at night. You don't need to go to yeshiva to be a decent Jew. There are plus and minuses to the BT yeshiva experience. For some, it gives them a big boost. For others, it's destabilizing or even a turn off. The environment is most cases is pretty intense and that may or may not be to your liking. You can learn plenty after work and on weekends.
As for the yeshivas, here are some questions for you:
1) Are you brand new to Torah observance? If so, consider a place where they give you a proper introduction to mitzvos, the cycles of the calendar, Hebrew, tefillah, faith. Aish HaTorah and Ohr Somayach offer this. In general, Chabad has reams of material geared for beginners. Dvar Yerushalayim says it has a beginner's program. I know they teach Hebrew there. Yeshiva University has one too - the James Striar school.
2) Are you more comfortable in big environments or small? Aish and Ohr Somayach are bigger. They are not University of Minnesota big. They are not even Cooper Union big. A few hundred students. But some people like very intimate environments, so Marbeh Torah, Ne'imos Moshe, Darche Noam, Dvar Yerushalayim, and Machon Yaakov are smaller sized places. Yeshivah University has a few thousand students, but the religious course part of it is its own animal. With Yeshiva University you get to be on a university campus of sorts, for men only.
3) Do you want to be in Eretz Yisroel or Chutzeh l'aretz. Please, please do not think it is necessary or even necessarily better to study in Israel. You are going through enough changes and doing it there can be too much. You'll be without your normal support network; although these days with the Internet you won't be totally cut off like you would have been 30 years ago. Some people are inspired by Eretz Yisroel. Some can't deal with Israelis, who can be very abrasive. If you are super sensitive, it might not be a good idea to leave America or Europe or S. America, wherever you are. In America, you get more of an American Judaism, which is less extreme. You might like extremes. If so, EY could be a better choice.
4) Do you have Chassidic leanings? Ne'imos Moshe in Beit Shemesh, Israel is a Chassidic place for BTs. It's a warmer environment. It's Chassidic, largely Boston Chassidus. Chabad of course is Chassidic and there you have numerous choices of place - Crown Heights, Morristown, NJ, Kfar Chabad, and possibly Jerusalem too.
5) Are you Modern or Charedi or in-between. Some places have very set philosophies, some are broader minded. Dvar Yerushalayim is broader minded - the founder and Rosh Yeshiva is a Yekke from Frankfurt and England and he helped translate a book by Rav Samson Raphael Hirsch. Aish HaTorah and Yeshiva University are more flexible and broader minded. And that can be good or bad. Ohr Somayach is broader minded within a Charedi framework. So they might help you to find your derech within the yeshiva world for example, but I don't know how they'd be if you were heading to Modern Orthodoxy. Darche Noam/Shapell's claims to respect all derachim and helps students to find their own derech.
There could be more schools out there. If you know of any post them in the comments. If you have any questions, post them in the comments.
No comments:
Post a Comment