I havta agree for the most part. A good yeshiva I know it's still giving bein hazmanim but starting later (next Monday) and ending earlier than usual and are having sign up sheets and follow up tests for whatever the boys decide to learn over bein hazmanim. One boy choose to chazer a full perek 10x, another to chazer this year's mesechta in its entirety, another to learn all of mishna brura hilchos pesach. And so on. And again, with oral tests when they get back. The boys are taking themselves seriously while learning what they want because they need a break from the daily shiurim.
No bittul Torah. If you are learning then you should be in the BM all day. I saw guys walking around, many of them, on a Tuesday afternoon was shopping bags, smoking cigarettes and vaping. Vaping they are hiding in the Yeshivas to avoid joining any sort of national service. That's wrong on many accounts. Roshei Yeshiva should take an honest look at all the boys and pick the top guys to sit and learn day and night. The 70% that are not the top should do something for their brothers and sisters. The government is irrelevant and stop taking their money.
Also, what happens if they go to the army? Will the haters (not you, I mean the real haters, the ones who happen to run the army) stop hating? They will learn to love and respect the vile, selfish, lazy Charedim? If not, can we responsibly give an inch when they will just ask for more? So even if you have some important tainos, is your implementation really doable? What would you say if you were the leader of the Chareidi world trying to uphold their values? Would you be able to budge?
Unless you are on track to be the next Rav Moshe/Reb Yaakov/Rav Elyashav etc, why are you hiding in a Yeshiva when you don't learn 24/7. Take a lot of that time that you're being m'vatel (walking around Geulah in the middle of the day when you should be in Yeshiva - I saw this with my own eyes) and help other Jews. You can hate the government but you cannot sit idly by while Jews are getting killed. Wouldn't have worked in the Warsaw Ghetto.
If everyone sitting in Yeshiva and avoiding any sort of national service had the potential to be Rav Moshe, then Rav Moshe would not be anything special. You have to know your limitations and if you can't learn 24/7 and become the next Gadol/Posek or Rosh Yeshiva then get out and help your fellow Jews. The government is irrelevant. Also, stop taking money from them if you hate them.
I do see a third option. Take the Roshei Yeshivos at their word that bein hazmanim is necessary. I don't think you are חושד the Roshei Yeshivos of not trying to maximize learning. I'm sure you know they would love it if bain hazmanim was not necessary. And it's not thirty days vacation, since the bochurim learn during bain hazmanim. Take a look at the batei medrash during in any Torah city during bain hazmanim and you will see they are filled with people learning.
But I agree that bain hazmanim doesn't need to be so long, and I already mentioned in a previous comment that Rav Shach wanted to shorten/eliminate summer bain hazmanim, but felt he didn't have the power.
Your yeshiva students are not risking their lives for our security and defense. The soldiers who are so doing need your support, not only through prayer but through joining them in number, so that there can be a greater responsibility for sharing this difficult battle to suppress the evil forces of Hamas. In our long and extensive past history was there ever a time when devoted Jews failed to participate in a battle when they were so called?
I don't think that there ever was a time when yeshiva students refused to participate in a battle to save Jewish lives. Today this unfortunately seems to be what their rabbinical teachers and supervisors are creating. Is this really wise?
From your pic you look like an older, wiser gentleman who knows how to see two sides of a story. But your comment makes you sound like a kid in his early twenties.
1. Imagine we remove the army question from the table. Imagine we were living in peacetime, and we are trying to run a Yeshiva in the best way possible.
A Yeshiva is a place where a young man lives a life of singleminded focus on learning Torah sheba'al peh. Ideally, he will learn the skills necessary to learn a Gemara until psak Halacha on his own, and he will practice the lifestyle of 'ligging in lernen.' The purpose of this is, that Klal Yisroel has a legion of people who are 'lechatchila Yidden', who have Torah in their blood, who have tasted the idea of Torah being the only purpose of life, and will subjugate the rest of their lives, including work if necessary, to the Torah they have imbibed.
This goal is the most worthy goal of all, and overrides the obligation to fight in the Army for Klal Yisroel. Without this legion, Klal Yisroel has no long-lasting merit, and we will be in even greater danger than we are, both physical and spiritual.
Those who wish to achieve this goal created Yeshivos, with Bain Hazmanim. They obviously felt that the only way to achieve this is with the Sedarim they set up. Without Bain Hazmanim, the bochurim would not manage, and the enterprise would fall apart. That is how they perceived things. You may disagree, but that is neither here nor there.
Now that there is a terrible war going on, did the goal change? Did the methods of achieving that goal change? How would canceling Bain Hazmanim now help anything? Did the reason for Bain Hazmanim become irrelevant?
Your argument sounds like a 'gotcha', without any reasoning behind it.
2. The idea that 'the soldiers' don't have Bain Hazmanim ignores the details. No soldier, besides the core group of career generals and leaders, has been 'turned on' consistently since October 7. Yes, they have left their families for long stretches, and they have not slept in their beds or gone to work in that time. But actual fighting is for a short time, per soldier.
Whereas these bochurim have been learning since the Zman began, every day. The Sedorim take up up to 11 hours per day, and many learn during the free time too. And learning occupies a person's full concentration and strength.
There is no way to compare soldiers to Bnei Torah, with the jobs being completely different. But the idea that the Bnei Yeshiva are taking it easy while the soldiers don't have a vacation ignores the facts on the ground.
3. Your opinion that Yeshivos should cancel Bain Hazmanim is your opinion. Your judgment of those who disagree is a step further, divisive, and unnecessary. People should be able to disagree without judging.
There is much in your comment with which I disagree, but I'll only comment on one piece because it betrays genuine ignorance of what soldiers actually do - and the result can only be a lack of hakarat hatov.
You argue that, "actual fighting is for a short time, per soldier." What do you call fighting - the moment when a soldier pulls on the trigger? Because using my son-in-law as an example (and there are thousands and thousands like him), he spent weeks on end in Gaza, constantly vigilant, constantly working to further Israel's advance, constantly doing עבודת ה' with barely any rest, hardly any food, and almost no time whatsoever to do anything other than what the army required. You may think that this is not serious work, or you may think that this is relaxing compared to learning. If you think that, you simply don't know what you're talking about. He didn't speak to my daughter for weeks at a time because he was on duty - not hanging out, not relaxing, but literally working 24 hours a day - every single day. I have also spent time in yeshivot, most of them with a Chareidi hashkafa. The idea that we worked even a fraction as hard as he did is both absurd and offensive.
I'm sickened that you would minimize the work that our soldiers are doing. If you had any idea of the mesirut nefesh they put into their work, you would immediately retract your comment and ask every last one of them for mechila.
"No soldier, besides the core group of career generals and leaders, has been 'turned on' consistently since October 7. Yes, they have left their families for long stretches, and they have not slept in their beds or gone to work in that time. But actual fighting is for a short time, per soldier.
"Whereas these bochurim have been learning since the Zman began, every day. The Sedorim take up up to 11 hours per day, and many learn during the free time too. And learning occupies a person's full concentration and strength."
Bein hazmanim was created in the European yeshivas due to the particular circumstances there.
In Volozhin, Mir, Slobodka in Eastern Europe no one went home during the zman. Travel was difficukt, slow and dangerous. Therefore when they went home for pesach it made sense to go for the whole month. Yeshivas today work in a completely different environment. The boys go home one shabbos a month during the zman. They have phones and are contact with their parents. Their parents come on Fridays and bring them food. Most importantly, they can get home in at most 2-3 hours. Therefore, the reasons for giving a month off are no longer relevant. Times change the yeshivas should change as well. The problem is that no one can make changes because this is the “mesora” of a yeshiva. We have to slavishly ape what was done in pre war Europe even though it’s not relevant now.
There is no chance that if someone like Rav Chaim Volozhin was creating the first yeshiva that he would adopt the current yeshiva schedule. It’s not fit for the times.
What are you talking about? Talk to anyone involved privately and they will tell you that the current system makes little sense but that they can’t change it.
We have here a discussion disparaging a huge segment of Klal Yisroel. Don't they deserve a little more research than 'talk to anyone involved'?
And I have spoken to 'people involved'. None of them think it makes little sense, as far as Bein Hazmanim is concerned. It is quite possible you spoke to them and they preferred not to disagree with you, as I have seen often with 'professional eitzh gebbers' and leaders, where they say 'yes yes' and ignore what is being told.
Sorry, no. No one thinks that yeshivas should be off all of Nissan. Everyone agrees that there needs to be a break, but the length and timing was born from the vagaries of Eastern European life in the late 1800s early 1900s and has little relevance to conditions in Israel in 2024. The fact that you can’t see this or admit it is sad.
Could you (or someone else) provide the sources for the point that Torah learning for younger men cannot be paused during war because learning “overrides the obligation to fight . . . .”? It seems like a strange proposition because we don’t say (as far as I know) that other positive mitzvos are disregarded in favor of Torah learning (e.g., prayer, tefillin, kiddush, etc.). I have been reading about this issue in Israel for several months and any time someone cites sources (e.g., Tanakh, Mishna, Rishonim, etc.) they seem to cut in the other direction.
“They have left their families for long stretches”. Indeed - some of them have left their families for eternity. Others have returned home missing limbs, and others yet have returned with invisible scars that may never heal.
But 11 hours of Sedorim a day! That type of Mesirus Nefesh must be commended! If only the whole country was on such a Madreiga, we wouldn’t even need the lazy soldiers to fight for a short time!
I agree with your general sentiment but I disagree that things should continue all the same during war time. During war time we need to do more. Perhaps it needs to be an individual decision based on where each boy is holding, and everyone should speak to their rebbi, but at the same time we should be teaching each boy to appreciate the importance of his role and how his bein hazmanim should be, in his eyes, an opportunity to help klal yisroel further in some way
I havta agree for the most part. A good yeshiva I know it's still giving bein hazmanim but starting later (next Monday) and ending earlier than usual and are having sign up sheets and follow up tests for whatever the boys decide to learn over bein hazmanim. One boy choose to chazer a full perek 10x, another to chazer this year's mesechta in its entirety, another to learn all of mishna brura hilchos pesach. And so on. And again, with oral tests when they get back. The boys are taking themselves seriously while learning what they want because they need a break from the daily shiurim.
Great!!
SO STRONG! And so right! Thank you!
No bittul Torah. If you are learning then you should be in the BM all day. I saw guys walking around, many of them, on a Tuesday afternoon was shopping bags, smoking cigarettes and vaping. Vaping they are hiding in the Yeshivas to avoid joining any sort of national service. That's wrong on many accounts. Roshei Yeshiva should take an honest look at all the boys and pick the top guys to sit and learn day and night. The 70% that are not the top should do something for their brothers and sisters. The government is irrelevant and stop taking their money.
You think 70% of guys are vaping?
Also, what happens if they go to the army? Will the haters (not you, I mean the real haters, the ones who happen to run the army) stop hating? They will learn to love and respect the vile, selfish, lazy Charedim? If not, can we responsibly give an inch when they will just ask for more? So even if you have some important tainos, is your implementation really doable? What would you say if you were the leader of the Chareidi world trying to uphold their values? Would you be able to budge?
Unless you are on track to be the next Rav Moshe/Reb Yaakov/Rav Elyashav etc, why are you hiding in a Yeshiva when you don't learn 24/7. Take a lot of that time that you're being m'vatel (walking around Geulah in the middle of the day when you should be in Yeshiva - I saw this with my own eyes) and help other Jews. You can hate the government but you cannot sit idly by while Jews are getting killed. Wouldn't have worked in the Warsaw Ghetto.
If everyone sitting in Yeshiva and avoiding any sort of national service had the potential to be Rav Moshe, then Rav Moshe would not be anything special. You have to know your limitations and if you can't learn 24/7 and become the next Gadol/Posek or Rosh Yeshiva then get out and help your fellow Jews. The government is irrelevant. Also, stop taking money from them if you hate them.
I do see a third option. Take the Roshei Yeshivos at their word that bein hazmanim is necessary. I don't think you are חושד the Roshei Yeshivos of not trying to maximize learning. I'm sure you know they would love it if bain hazmanim was not necessary. And it's not thirty days vacation, since the bochurim learn during bain hazmanim. Take a look at the batei medrash during in any Torah city during bain hazmanim and you will see they are filled with people learning.
See what R' Hirsch says about the upcoming bain hazmanim here: https://hm-news.co.il/460720/
But I agree that bain hazmanim doesn't need to be so long, and I already mentioned in a previous comment that Rav Shach wanted to shorten/eliminate summer bain hazmanim, but felt he didn't have the power.
Your yeshiva students are not risking their lives for our security and defense. The soldiers who are so doing need your support, not only through prayer but through joining them in number, so that there can be a greater responsibility for sharing this difficult battle to suppress the evil forces of Hamas. In our long and extensive past history was there ever a time when devoted Jews failed to participate in a battle when they were so called?
I don't think that there ever was a time when yeshiva students refused to participate in a battle to save Jewish lives. Today this unfortunately seems to be what their rabbinical teachers and supervisors are creating. Is this really wise?
If the yeshivot are protecting klal yisrael they are not doing a very good job of it. The yeshiva exemption is a hilul hashem.
From your pic you look like an older, wiser gentleman who knows how to see two sides of a story. But your comment makes you sound like a kid in his early twenties.
There is a lot to unpack here, again.
1. Imagine we remove the army question from the table. Imagine we were living in peacetime, and we are trying to run a Yeshiva in the best way possible.
A Yeshiva is a place where a young man lives a life of singleminded focus on learning Torah sheba'al peh. Ideally, he will learn the skills necessary to learn a Gemara until psak Halacha on his own, and he will practice the lifestyle of 'ligging in lernen.' The purpose of this is, that Klal Yisroel has a legion of people who are 'lechatchila Yidden', who have Torah in their blood, who have tasted the idea of Torah being the only purpose of life, and will subjugate the rest of their lives, including work if necessary, to the Torah they have imbibed.
This goal is the most worthy goal of all, and overrides the obligation to fight in the Army for Klal Yisroel. Without this legion, Klal Yisroel has no long-lasting merit, and we will be in even greater danger than we are, both physical and spiritual.
Those who wish to achieve this goal created Yeshivos, with Bain Hazmanim. They obviously felt that the only way to achieve this is with the Sedarim they set up. Without Bain Hazmanim, the bochurim would not manage, and the enterprise would fall apart. That is how they perceived things. You may disagree, but that is neither here nor there.
Now that there is a terrible war going on, did the goal change? Did the methods of achieving that goal change? How would canceling Bain Hazmanim now help anything? Did the reason for Bain Hazmanim become irrelevant?
Your argument sounds like a 'gotcha', without any reasoning behind it.
2. The idea that 'the soldiers' don't have Bain Hazmanim ignores the details. No soldier, besides the core group of career generals and leaders, has been 'turned on' consistently since October 7. Yes, they have left their families for long stretches, and they have not slept in their beds or gone to work in that time. But actual fighting is for a short time, per soldier.
Whereas these bochurim have been learning since the Zman began, every day. The Sedorim take up up to 11 hours per day, and many learn during the free time too. And learning occupies a person's full concentration and strength.
There is no way to compare soldiers to Bnei Torah, with the jobs being completely different. But the idea that the Bnei Yeshiva are taking it easy while the soldiers don't have a vacation ignores the facts on the ground.
3. Your opinion that Yeshivos should cancel Bain Hazmanim is your opinion. Your judgment of those who disagree is a step further, divisive, and unnecessary. People should be able to disagree without judging.
There is much in your comment with which I disagree, but I'll only comment on one piece because it betrays genuine ignorance of what soldiers actually do - and the result can only be a lack of hakarat hatov.
You argue that, "actual fighting is for a short time, per soldier." What do you call fighting - the moment when a soldier pulls on the trigger? Because using my son-in-law as an example (and there are thousands and thousands like him), he spent weeks on end in Gaza, constantly vigilant, constantly working to further Israel's advance, constantly doing עבודת ה' with barely any rest, hardly any food, and almost no time whatsoever to do anything other than what the army required. You may think that this is not serious work, or you may think that this is relaxing compared to learning. If you think that, you simply don't know what you're talking about. He didn't speak to my daughter for weeks at a time because he was on duty - not hanging out, not relaxing, but literally working 24 hours a day - every single day. I have also spent time in yeshivot, most of them with a Chareidi hashkafa. The idea that we worked even a fraction as hard as he did is both absurd and offensive.
I'm sickened that you would minimize the work that our soldiers are doing. If you had any idea of the mesirut nefesh they put into their work, you would immediately retract your comment and ask every last one of them for mechila.
You are misrepresenting my comment, and then getting yourself worked up over your own misrepresentation.
Nobody said it was relaxing, and nobody said it was not serious.
"No soldier, besides the core group of career generals and leaders, has been 'turned on' consistently since October 7. Yes, they have left their families for long stretches, and they have not slept in their beds or gone to work in that time. But actual fighting is for a short time, per soldier.
"Whereas these bochurim have been learning since the Zman began, every day. The Sedorim take up up to 11 hours per day, and many learn during the free time too. And learning occupies a person's full concentration and strength."
I don't think I misrepresented anything.
Right. No relaxing, no not serious.
Thank you for your admission.
But my main point was the first one, which is more relevant and encompasses more.
Bein hazmanim was created in the European yeshivas due to the particular circumstances there.
In Volozhin, Mir, Slobodka in Eastern Europe no one went home during the zman. Travel was difficukt, slow and dangerous. Therefore when they went home for pesach it made sense to go for the whole month. Yeshivas today work in a completely different environment. The boys go home one shabbos a month during the zman. They have phones and are contact with their parents. Their parents come on Fridays and bring them food. Most importantly, they can get home in at most 2-3 hours. Therefore, the reasons for giving a month off are no longer relevant. Times change the yeshivas should change as well. The problem is that no one can make changes because this is the “mesora” of a yeshiva. We have to slavishly ape what was done in pre war Europe even though it’s not relevant now.
There is no chance that if someone like Rav Chaim Volozhin was creating the first yeshiva that he would adopt the current yeshiva schedule. It’s not fit for the times.
Funny that those with the most skin in the game disagree with you.
Your 'no chance' holds little water when you are not someone who has to live with the results.
What are you talking about? Talk to anyone involved privately and they will tell you that the current system makes little sense but that they can’t change it.
We have here a discussion disparaging a huge segment of Klal Yisroel. Don't they deserve a little more research than 'talk to anyone involved'?
And I have spoken to 'people involved'. None of them think it makes little sense, as far as Bein Hazmanim is concerned. It is quite possible you spoke to them and they preferred not to disagree with you, as I have seen often with 'professional eitzh gebbers' and leaders, where they say 'yes yes' and ignore what is being told.
Sorry, no. No one thinks that yeshivas should be off all of Nissan. Everyone agrees that there needs to be a break, but the length and timing was born from the vagaries of Eastern European life in the late 1800s early 1900s and has little relevance to conditions in Israel in 2024. The fact that you can’t see this or admit it is sad.
Could you (or someone else) provide the sources for the point that Torah learning for younger men cannot be paused during war because learning “overrides the obligation to fight . . . .”? It seems like a strange proposition because we don’t say (as far as I know) that other positive mitzvos are disregarded in favor of Torah learning (e.g., prayer, tefillin, kiddush, etc.). I have been reading about this issue in Israel for several months and any time someone cites sources (e.g., Tanakh, Mishna, Rishonim, etc.) they seem to cut in the other direction.
“They have left their families for long stretches”. Indeed - some of them have left their families for eternity. Others have returned home missing limbs, and others yet have returned with invisible scars that may never heal.
But 11 hours of Sedorim a day! That type of Mesirus Nefesh must be commended! If only the whole country was on such a Madreiga, we wouldn’t even need the lazy soldiers to fight for a short time!
Who said anything about commended? Who mentioned Mesirus nefesh?
The issue was the need for Bein Hazmanim. The soldiers not having Bein Hazmanim has no bearing on the talmidei hayeshivos, כנ"ל.
I agree with your general sentiment but I disagree that things should continue all the same during war time. During war time we need to do more. Perhaps it needs to be an individual decision based on where each boy is holding, and everyone should speak to their rebbi, but at the same time we should be teaching each boy to appreciate the importance of his role and how his bein hazmanim should be, in his eyes, an opportunity to help klal yisroel further in some way