Machon Shlomo: Deceptive Recruiting and Isolation

"Machon Shlomo was founded in 1982 with a small student body and a small staff, in an apartment building that stood at the entrance to a fledgling Jerusalem neighborhood called Har Nof. At the time, the community consisted of a dozen newly finished buildings perched atop a mountainside, flanked on either side by forest and miles of undeveloped land. The only road to the main city was a dirt path. It was this unassuming location, far from the bustle of the city and the distractions of tourism, that the yeshiva’s founder, ...., hand-picked as the site where motivated students could build themselves to achieve greatness."

Those words are from the Machon Shlomo website. They are an attempt to glamorize what was an unhealthy situation.  Har Nof is a normal community now. Back then it was a construction site. There was no bookstore, pizza shop, or falafel store. In Israel, that means it was not an actual neighborhood. We had few neighbors and had no simchas to attend, no bar mitzvahs, no weddings, no brisim, no vorts, no shalom zachars, no shiva calls. We were nearly entirely cut off from community.

Why would you situate a school for beginners in an isolated spot? How are you going to get an introduction to Jewish life in a place like that? Well, as the head of the school is quoted as saying, the purpose was to isolate the students. He admitted it. His thought was that he was the only one who knew how to handle kiruv and he was going to shield us from all the nonsense. But nobody should think like that, particularly with kiruv, because you never know what is going to inspire a BT. The website now pretends it was to shield students from distractions to their studies, but there wasn't much to study at Machon Shlomo as they had really just two classes and no library. What kind of school has no library?

Isolation empowers the leaders to control information. They picked a remote location in order to isolate the students. For the same reason, they didn't have guest speakers and didn't go on any trips, not even to hear speakers or to meet rabbis. At that time, Rav Shlomo Zalman Auerbach, Rav Ovadia Yosef, Rav Shlomo Wolbe, Rav Elyashiv, Rav Yisroel Gustman and many other greats were living nearby. We never went to see them. It wasn't even suggested to us.

That is not what you expect when you are told the school is located in Jerusalem. That is not what you expect when told that it's a school for beginners. You imagine that they are going to introduce you to Orthodox Jewish communal life and bring intellectual content into the room. 

Turns out it isn't really in Jerusalem. It was a barren development site on the outskirts of Jerusalem. Nobody tells you that at the recruitment camp in Moodus, CT. That's what you call deceptive recruiting. Here's more on that.

Machon Shlomo, Har Nof, 1982

The recruitment camp was sports and catered meals on a 22 acre resort facing a forest. The resort used to be called the Grand View Hotel. Here's a postcard from the hotel:

The place, with new owners, is still used for weddings:

Fine paneled walls

Here's how a memorial article on one of the founders of Machon Shlomo and the Torah Institute at Moodus describe it:

The approach is straightforward: Create a cozy family-oriented community focused intently but calmly on the opportunity for teshuvah…. The potentially life-altering decisions played out in comfort–with a pool, basketball, and barbecues. There were canoeing excursions to the Connecticut River. The cuisine was superb. Service at mealtimes and in the rooms matched what one would expect at a hotel. In fact, the original conception was to create something striving for first class.” (Shemen Zayis Zach, p. 26)

Machon Shlomo was a few apartments with bare walls facing a cemetery. 

Moodus had all kinds of rabbis walking around as their families got free vacations. 

Yeshiva students drawn from Lakewood or Ner Israel in Baltimore or the yeshiva in Philadelphia served as tutors and peers for the summer students. They learned together, roomed together, played ball together… On Shabbos there were usually over a hundred people on hand, which further extended the size of the warm tzibbur. (Shemen Zayis Zach, p. 46-7)

Machon Shlomo had "a small staff." It was dominated by a NY businessman and his young baal teshuvah son-in-law who was 6 years out of a Christian college when the place started. Other than that, there was a Gemara shiur given by a hired hand. The Gemara rebbes were more learned, but they were told not to speak to us. So outside of the the daf, we didn't have any rabbis to speak to. The claim that there was a staff of 10 is false. It was effectively a staff of 2 because any 1 student only interacted with 2 people, each part-time. I don't know where they get 10 from. I suppose they are including tutors who came in for an hour each night, each one working with two students. 

In effect, it was a yeshiva without talmidei chochamim at least as far as hashkafa and guidance and halacha and questions about the religion were concerned. The Gemara shiur was given without any introduction to the idiom or style of the Gemar or any learning tools such as a vocabulary sheet. Some of us couldn't read Hebrew, but there was no class in Hebrew language. They just opened up to page 2 and started. This is problematic.

Question:

How can we train young boys to make a laining on a piece of gemara, to be able to read a gemara on their own, without the agmas nefesh that a lot of children and parents suffer through? 

Rabbi Avigdor Miller:

To help young boys make a good laining, I would say as follows. When someone begins to learn gemara but he’s not prepared for it, it’s like climbing a high mountain with a heavy pack on your back. You must first lighten the load. 

I would say that the first thing is to let the child learn all of Pirkei Avos. And he should be able to translate every single word. It’s not difficult, but it takes time. And he must be able to translate every word. And once he’s able to daven through Pirkei Avos without any hesitation, then give him an old mishnayis, without nekudos, and let him say Pirkei Avos. And when he learns to daven through Pirkei Avos without nekudos, now he’s ready to start Elu Metzius. Take Rabbi Lomner’s Elu Metzius. It’s a linear translation – a very easy gemara to use. Let him learn Elu Metzius. Even if he doesn’t know the meanings of the ideas – even though he doesn’t catch on to the arguments, nevertheless let him know how to translate Elu Metzius from beginning to end.

Now once he does that, then he’s ready for gemara. Yes, I guarantee you that a boy who follows this system, and he can, after a while, bentch Elu Metzius from beginning to end, he’s ready. He’ll start catching on.

Then, the problem is no longer the style of the gemara – the idiom. He knows all these things already. Now it’s the arguments of the Gemara that he’s faced with. And arguments alone he’ll be able to deal with. But without this preparation that I’m telling you about – if he’ll have to deal with the arguments plus the translation of the words and also the gemara’s style – that’s too much for him. And most boys therefore stumble on that big problem. They never had any preparation. They were never prepared properly. And I guarantee you that following this system will lead to success. 

TAPE # E-198 (November 1999)

Machon Shlomo didn't do any of that. Just open to page 2 and 'break your teeth on it.' Moreover, the environment was insanely competitive, cut-throat even. 

All day long, the students worked on a page of Gemara. They didn't study Mishnah, halacha, history, Hebrew, mitzvos, Chassidus, Musar or philosophy. Just the daf, all day long, even though they were brand new to Torah. It was painful. Essentially, they used Gemara to break the students. Other than that, there was a Chumash class that consisted mostly of the Chumash being read to us. But 90% of the day was the daf, and not in a good way.

The founder said that his goal was to break the students and rebuild them. But that's what cults do, rebuild them in the image of the cult leaders.

It's very dangerous to pound people with musar, i.e. criticism and fear of hell and not teach halacha, because if the goal of life is to eliminate your ego, how do you know when you have done it? Halacha is concrete, measurable. You know if you light a match on Shabbos. But if all you have is this vague Judaism, you'll feel that your own existence is problematic. That's Machon Shlomo. It breaks you down. 

They did this in other ways too. They ridiculed questions. As one student wrote, "However, questions are NOT part of the machon shlomo curriculum. In fact, guys are hand picked for their competitiveness and non-questioning nature. The rabbis know that the guys will hit the ground running and compete with each other to learn." 

Compare. 

Maharal:

(Baer HaGolah #6) "One should not reject something which is against one’s views… especially if it is not presented as an attack on religion but is simply an honest expression of the other person’s understanding of faith. Even if it is against one’s religious faith, he should not say, “Be quiet and shut your mouth.” Because if one silences questions there will not be a clarification of that person’s religious understanding. In fact, such a person should be encouraged to speak and fully express how he feels. If sincere questions are silenced that is indicative that the religion is weak and needs to be protected from inquiry. This attitude is the opposite of what some people think. They mistakenly think that silencing questions strengthens religious faith. In fact, however, suppressing of dissent and questions indicates a weak religion. Thus, we find with our ancestors that even if they found something in books against religion they would not simply reject it." 

Machon Shlomo:

"He taught his talmidim that most questions beginning with "Why?" (unless they are in the form "Why does Rashi or Tosafos say this?") are more likely than not to be products of the yetzer designed to deflect from a full Torah commitment. In question and answer sessions, he refused to answer as many questions as he was asked. First the questioner had to acknowledge what was really bothering him and how the information sought was relevant to his life." (article about the founder by Yonasan Rosenblum)

Does that sound like an Ivy League experience?

On top of that, they treated the students like children, assigning seats, rooms, roommates, and study partners. They forbade dating, leading davening, or wearing black hats. They environment was one of subtle and not subtle degradation. 

Personality breakdown is a trait of cults.

So is programming. And there was lots of that. As one former student said,

That was one of the truly cultish things about machon shlomo- the daily reinforcement of the idea that they had the patented "correct" view of judaism and no one, not artscroll, not the chassidim, no one really "got it" but them. 

Students heard often about the superiority of the Machon Shlomo derech. It was the right way. All other ways were wrong. But it wasn't a real derech, just a posture that everyone else was wrong. They really didn't stand for anything but deeming everyone else to be wrong.

There's much more to say, but that's an overview of it, a very unhealthy situation. 

I should say that the other schools for BTs were not like this. They were located in populated areas, had a variety of classes including introductory classes, had guest speakers, took students to see Jewish life, and tried to give a substantive introduction to Judaism. 

Now that's MS from decades ago. Har Nof is a normal neighborhood now, and the guy who gave the Questions no answers class is gone. Moodus is closed. However, the barebones program of MS remains exactly the same. Yet, the school advertises that is "the Ivy League yeshiva." From the website:

But Ivy league schools have 1000s of classes, world class faculty, beautiful campuses, all kinds of internships. MS has none of that. So how is it Ivy League? It isn't of course, so that's more false advertising.

They also claim to have graduates who are at highest echelons of their professions. "our alumni have gone on to occupy positions at the highest levels of their profession, whether it be in law, medicine, finance, education, music, engineering, public service, or rabbinics." That's ridiculous. They don't have anyone like that. Highest level of law is Supreme Court. Highest level of finance is Chairman of the Fed or Chairman of Morgan Stanley. There's nothing even remotely like that connected to Machon Shlomo. If there were, would the kitchen look like this?

All that talk is to woo you, but it's deceptive. 

MS also deceives via its outreach program called Meor. The Meor website hides that it is Orthodox and is full of photos of mixed groups of attractive young men and women all sitting together grinning ear to ear. The message: come here and find someone to date (or sleep with). Examples from Meor media

and now Machon Shlomo:

Where'd the women go?

You won't even find them on dates because MS doesn't allow dating until mid-way into the second year when you are so shut down you can't even get started. And they don't help either.

Meor has its little programs on college campuses and fancy offices which is like having them on the resort of Moodus. Then you come to the same apartment in Israel, only its now 40 years older and in bad shape. 

Machon Shlomo hasn't changed. The deceptive recruiting lives on in new forms. 

I must say, however, that despite the deception and the limitations of the place, there are guys who liked Machon Shlomo. So go figure. Some like the first year guy. Some like the second year guy. The ones who like it tend to be more conventional. "guys are hand picked for their competitiveness and non-questioning nature".

Some don't like either of them, and there are no other choices so then you are out of luck. Bottom line, it's wrong to be deceptive because you really hurt the ones for whom it isn't a match. And there have been many of those over the years. Actually you hurt even the ones who like the place because the deception plays tricks on the mind.