67: Choosing a Seminary (or Yeshiva) Part 1

[Music] hi I'm Deborah Lasky and welcome to the rabbi Lau ski show thank you very much we have a special studio audience the today and that is from a very lush of a seminary in you wish lime which I'm not going to mention so I don't want to get the girls into trouble because you know people the real on ski show can be controversial but we're welcoming everybody here from around the world and all the ships at sea and whether you're listening on Terror anytime or whatever you listen to watch your podcasts we're happy to have you along and we have a sponsor for this episode and you can see how everything ties together because the sponsor for this episode is also the reason for the episode and also it ties in with the audience and what can I tell you just everything fits together so beautifully on the Reverend Lasky show so I'm reading the dedication it is sponsored by St IRA bussaco senior who is a big fan of your serum and especially your podcast thank you I look forward to it every week me too and sometimes that listen to them again me too I have to tell you that's one of the great things you know somebody used to what I used to have tapes there used to be these like cassette tapes that you could buy with me sure I'm who's that love to buy yours because a regulatory tape all they have is the Torah but yours so entertaining I could listen to it several times that's true anyway I would like to sponsor this podcast as alluring knishmas divorce' raquel bas with erin over Sean we'd also like to ask you to address a particular question my friends and I have however keep my name anonymous ok st you are anonymous in my school the seniors are busy figuring out what seminary they want to apply to and I was wondering if you could address this topic since some of my friends and I are a little stressed we want to know out as a girl choose a seminary based on what considerations I consider myself yeshiva sh in quotes in terms of hash goofus I know you addressed this a little bit in this past weeks episode that's where I was talking about the pink shirts and the black hats and and I got a lot of reaction from a lot of people a lot of interesting reactions but that's maybe a follow-up however I come from a family that does use technology I talk about this too it gets switched to talk about and I am a little worried that Yeshua sure seminaries will be saying that technology is harmful and evil and one should never use it that's probably true I know that in reality at least in my life in particular this is not realistic to explain I'm careful about technology and I'm holding off to get a smartphone until I'm older and married but I don't feel that everything is completely uh sir as some people hold as a practical way for me we're gonna have to talk about there's a lot to talk about but you understand if you say that all technology is uh sir so then you're gonna have to get out the old washboard bring your clothes down to the river claim them because washing machine is part of technology especially now when everything is like controlled yeah I met a fellow who has a pacemaker and when he has to adjust it he holds his phone up to his chest and the doctor is able to you know calibrate it through the technology so you know it gets a little tricky but okay like I say it's a whole nother discussion technology use is just one example coal elf forever versus just for the first few years of marriage is another example I know that I will want a serious guy to marry who values learning and I know I'd like us to start out on Cola for at least the first four years but I'm not sure Khalil forever parentheses or Cologne cannot is for me I wouldn't want to end up in a seminary where if you are not planning to stay in Colo forever a second-class citizen I would really appreciate if you could address this on your podcast and the sooner the better as this is something my friends and I have to decide the next couple of weeks well SD as it happens you rubbed on a sore spot because you know that on the rub you Lansky show sometimes we just say straight to Ventura sometimes we discuss societal issues and sometimes I just ranted rain remember all the way the beginning of the podcast that I just got to emails from people who said they've been watching from the first one when we were trying to decide for the name of the podcast somebody and suggest that Dave's raves or Dave's rants which basically is the same idea evidently they felt that I raved grant you know a rant and rave I don't think I could de Kock but yeah I do I do have certain issues that I think are important and this issue of seminary is something that is so incredibly important now let's start listen we got to get right into this and I'm telling you right now this is gonna take more than one podcast because there's so many issues that need to be addressed and so many things that need to be discussed and if you know me already you know that you can't just accept everything the way it is i he's not with us anymore so I feel like I can say this but I don't know if he wanted this publicized certainly when he was alive but I was by mercy Shapiro once on circus and my son was talking about some of the problems in you shaivism and he said olam how you shiva's zim Amish a son a son is Hebrew word for like disaster to disaster vana local shares you a holla tech cane I don't know if you can fix it I need close shave should surreal if I rake flipnote my gosh I think you have to really rebuild it from the ground up nobody nobody wants to address this somebody asked me recently why is the only thing that we learn in Yeshua's Kumar I said because he Shiva's were not meant to be for every single person it was an area of specialty people went to Heder people learnt how to read people learnt Amish people learnt halacha and hushed offer from the home today we expect the schools to be the home and and and parents will say this straight out that I expect the school to be able to provide my kid with a hush go firm with the direction it but if you're gonna do that you have to completely rethink the structure of the yeshiva what's it what's it trying to accomplish what's your goal and if you don't have you self myself Marshall tequila if you want to accomplish something you have to first define what it is I'm trying to accomplish I told this story I'm sure in the past from his st listens more than once so I guess she heard the story but I was at a Chaba tone I was one of the faculty members and it was just before shell shooters and the organizer says to me wow the Chabot ona is a big success and I said why and he says well we have a lot of students and they're all having a great time so I said is the purpose of the Chabot tone to bring in a lot of students and give them a good time and he paused and he looked at me and said well what it's supposed to be the focus and I said shallow shoulda said the wrong time to ask that question when you're first planning the Chabot tone that's what you're supposed to do go back to the start and decide what is the purpose what am I trying to accomplish because if you don't know where you're going the odds of you arriving there are very slight and that's why I said this many times most people live the life that happens instead of the life they want people end up someplace is this what I really wanted no I'm gonna think about it I ended up somewhere I ended up doing something I ended up but I don't know what I really because most people don't sit down and really plan out at the end who do I want to be at the end of my life or the way I put it was most people do what most people do because that's what most people do yeah and it's a fact we know this sometimes I'll have girls who believe in the Kurdish bar who they believe in Tyra they believe in sneeze but they dressed in a way that's not appropriate and I asked them why and they say because everybody dresses that way so so it's such an important issue for a person to be able to to look at something and say okay what's the ideal so why do girls go to seminary and air its shell because girls go to seminary nerds so why do girls go to seminary merits Jo now let me be mug to this you understand what I'm talking about I learned tonight show the first time 1975 there were not many options if you were of a more modern background so there was mahone gold that was for girls it was much more Zionistic it was more modern orthodox it was that was the approach BMT was the boys school that the that both of them were run by the Jewish Agency they were you know that was that was for a particular clientele there was a small percentage of American bokram who would go to race the miracle Torah Voinovich but that was a very small percentage of people there were few achievers that were designed for guys learning in Israel it treat a lot of Americans went there eventually a group broke off to make Michigan a Torah and that was called split tree and that was one approach you should become time has been around for many years America's a toy I've been around but those are the options for girls there was BJJ and there was Nicola and I think that was it when I was around that that was that was your options and I girl wanted to come Tyrell those were essentially the choices at your head because it was not mokuba to come and learn in Eretz gel why would someone come and learn in there it's gel there was only one reason because Eric Strauss spoke to you you wanted to be an art show and it was very hard if you ate but that's there was I think one falafel place that you could go to they didn't have a wide wide variety I can't say that the food was high-caliber certainly the hygiene wasn't you know but that was about it those are the options if you a DRA but note Soho there was a place called Ritchie's pizza in town this was the hangout King George you know only people who were living on the edge would go over there you know and that was basically it so there was not going out to eat there was no diet soda there was there was tempo Cola which was so bad that the only reason Israelis made it was to show you that we just don't care that's why that's how bad that book all it was there was Coke Pepsi was boycotting us because of the Arab boycott and so there was only coca-cola and it came in big giant heavy glass bottles that you carry back from the McCulloh and you have to return them and with deposit bottles these things were heavy and you could buy gas cartridges for your Seltzer maker and if you wanted to you could buy petal which is concentrated flavor that you would put into the cup and add to be able to make your own sort of cheap soda petal means raspberry because the first type that came out was raspberry and so it didn't matter you could have orange petal you could have cherry petal it was all the same it was called petals raspberry that's how modern Hebrew works yeah I think I mentioned this once most people don't know this in Hebrew if you want to say a back axel it's called the Bek Exel if you want to say a front axel I know you're thinking front axel of course not it's back EXO kid me a front back axel yeah so and this nobody believed me they went they actually checked it out an attache case it's called teak James Bond because they never saw it at that JK's only in the movie James Bond I saw you Karen I'd say JK so it became known as teak james bond James Bond bag and people actually say these things but you know so everything was petal and that was it you could also buy like um orange drink or grapefruit drink that also came in reusable bottles that was it napkins for the to the life of me I can't figure out why napkins were made out of wax paper well I used to come here I don't know why cuz you just keep wiping your hands do anything cuz it's wax paper is this what Israeli said well that way you can use it again I said yeah but that's not really the napkin yeah to be a little indelicate people used to bring toilet paper from America because only when they had here was like this blue rough paper with little pieces of wood still in it you know and there was there was it was tough yeah so you lived very simply the only reason to come tear out was because you really wanted to be in aerocell and it was an immersive environment you couldn't couldn't make phone calls a phone call was faced $5 a minute you know if you wanted to make a phone call you went down to the main post office on Yafo and you'd pay them you know a certain amount of money because the phones back then used to use tokens that were called a Simoni and you know everyone try to call it Marik you just keep dropping in us ammonium it's takes it forever so you have to go and pay at the post office I'm not to be able to use it I got three phone calls during my year in Israel I got a phone call from my parents on my birthday they sang happy birthday to me it was a very beautiful moment I called them when I got hepatitis and they called me when I got better to say come home you know so you only can test focus you really wanted to be a nerd so now I'll tell you to me I came to show the first time January 1969 I was a kid a year and a half after the six-day war and it spoke to me in a way I can't tell you I came back for camp to stay high-mid for two years and that was just tremendous when I came to learn in 1975 bein a star when I had free time I used to go down to the old city they were excavating it I remember when they discovered the Cardo Cardo maximus you know now it's a big road you can see it I remember when they first found when they dug up and I found the pillars I saw as they were rebuilding the archers I mean it was you should just walk through the streets of you shall I'm it spoke to me I felt more at home in New Rochelle I am than I ever did growing up in Long Island it was in fact I have people who asked me today whether or not they should move to Heights Joe and I point out it's very hard it's a very hard for a lot of reasons yeah yeh you leave your family behind and some people think that's a plus but you'd be surprised you know when you want to make a you know a birthday party no just just something small you think the family's gonna come together you'd already family you know of any connections I grew up in America my grandfather came from venn Grove outside of Warsaw and he was a greener never learned English whole life my father had to make it on his own built his own business moved out to the suburbs built up a family I was born an entitled American I spoke English I know my way around I was a citizen I had I moved here it's shell I became my grandfather and since everything here works with protects iya protects E is a very nice word and English it means corruption because if you're related to somebody then suddenly you get special treatment that's called corruption that's against the law in America so you don't really it protects you and yeah you're the you know a smarty once complained to me they said you know in the high schools here they have quotas they only take a certain amount of smart him I said don't complain to me I'm an American well they don't have any quotas for us like you just tell us no and and nobody nobody will speak up for us I'm very you know you had a tremendous disadvantage you don't know really know the language you don't know the culture it's very difficult and I and I tell them kids come here and they get into trouble and you know and they you know they if your kid is successful why do you want to bring the day's job ruin their life and I go through a lot of the problems and then they say to me but you live here I said I have to going to one of my favorite references which is of course superheroes so you know Batman has a villain called mr. freeze mr. freeze can only exist in a sub-zero temperature he wears a special suit yeah and in when he's in his you know his house so the whole thing has to be like a gigantic freezer ask mr. freeze if he likes being there it doesn't make a difference he has to be the otherwise he's gonna die I have to live in air so I can't breathe in clothes leritz I just can't when I come back here I saw all right take a breath you know I mean I'm people - haven't I'm able to live again that's me some people would speaks - and some people doesn't I told this story someone came to visit us and they said you live in there it's true I rent the apartment small and I say yes the apartments are small I lived in Far Rockaway and a two family house I had a basement I had a deck I had a backyard you know absolutely yeah apartments are small and it's so hot here yes we are in the Middle East it's essentially a desert yes it is very hard and it's so dusty why is it so dusty I said well you know the land was deserted for 2,000 years and the girl who comes in twice a week and she hasn't gotten everything so you know it's still a little dusty and then she said then why do you live here that's the question it's hard to live in it so why do you live here so you live here only because there's somebody that speaks to you and those were the only people who came to learn in there it's shown whether they were going to yeshiva or to a seminary it's because you wanted to be an art show so my kids all know it and I have been approached over the years to start my own seminary I guess people figure I have eight daughters you know I have a built-in clientele I was gonna court or laugh ski but anyway so mine was ever there I said I'd be happy to make a seminary but nobody will come so what do you mean I said because I want to recreate the airshow experience that we had so I would move it outside of usual I am on a campus with facilities and there'd be no cell phones not kosher not traif not anything because if you're on the phone - mommy three times a day ironic the same week that the GU Dolan came out against non kosher cell phones Psychology Today had on their cover how cellphones are destroying college students in America the same week and they weren't doing about coach and not coach this is cell phones and they said it doesn't used to be a kid running off to university he was able to grow up now they can't they're on the phone with that mommy three times a day they can't grow up people can't plan an amazing thing I'm old okay if we haven't established that yet I'm not mature but I am old yeah so sometimes they ask people how do you get there they said don't you have ways I said no I don't I don't have a phone with ways good so don't you have a GPS is not have a GPS cuz well how you gonna get there I said well I have a paper and a pencil and if you give me directions I can write them down and follow them cuz in my generation that's what we did we didn't have a satellite directing us you had to know go down this traffic light and make a love to go down here right yeah and now it makes you so dependent I'm talking about these were psychologists writing about college students in America not from a religious point of view I said so I would put up a cell phone blocker I would have pay phones if you want to call and you know have your parents call you et cetera but rubbish our Furman who does not have a basic lack of seminary he told me ten years ago I would like to us her cell phone's not kosher not cooked I'd like the answer cell phones he says it used to be I gave a class at the end of the class the girls were arguing about what I said they were talking about it as it were walk into the next class and now I give a class at the end of class every girl pulls out their phone and talks to somebody so so I said so how can I give you an era to experience when your usual I am girls goateed not all girls not all the time but many girls and a lot of times even if it's just for a slice of pizza even if it's just you know for Raisa falafel or whatever it is you know I told when I was here you couldn't go out I'm not place to go you're stuck eating your food that made you an adult the oil content by three months in yeshiva you could have stuck a wick in your hair and recreated the Hanukkah miracle you had a burn fake days but you know so I how can I recreate their Israel experience now this is always the question can we can we turn back the clock can we make things go back to the way they were right you can't you can't so the reason most people come to Israel to learn either in yeshiva or seminary is because it is considered de rigueur today everyone goes everyone goes to Israel no balloons inseminate the amount of seminaries in its shell for a girl to choose from is mind boggling I think it'll be easier to find a off than it will to be able to figure out which seminary to go to now how does a person choose a seminary that is so easy I have guys from many different achievers in there it's shell who come to my house and I've had over the years girls from many different seminaries who come to my house and when I ask them that question how did you choose as your Shiva or Seminary the number one answer is that's where my friends will go because that's how we make decisions we make decisions based on what our friends are gonna do and so if my friends are going here then I'll go too so I've spoken with girls who are in different seminaries and I said be Magda for me explain to me the difference between this one and that one and this one of that one after where it's hard it's very hard to define the difference between this seminary that's Emery I'm not using any names right now but so usually you can you can you can put the seminaries into certain categories right so there are those will be supervision then there will be there was a super-efficient intellectual and then those are abusers and intellectual then you're gonna have those that are regularly Shiva Sh you know and intellectual and then Rayleigh she's not intellectual then you have the ones that are Bala bata SH and then Paula bothers you too much oh now you have the ones that over this you know they're just they're just wild really wild ACOs I don't even want to go into that because it's so frightening but and then you have the ones that are on the edge skirting the the edge of the base yak of world and then you have the ones that are you know basically not part of the base yak of world and if so many so you try to classify them and then you say what still between this one and that one and this one in that one it when I was the loyal director of NCS why heads of seminaries and heads of achievers who had come to see if I had any NCS white kids who might be my team and and I would ask them what what's the difference between you or you Shiva and this yeshiva and that is she ran it I try to compare him and you could see was kind of hard for them to really be Maggie dear how is this one different than that why was that one different than this I'll never forget it's not around anymore but there was a unicorn there Yaakov Irish early live who is a master Mahina and he opened that position and he was recruiting and I said why are you Shiva different than this one or that one and he said me because I have something unique to offer okay does any girl choose a seminary based on who was the man nah he'll or man I helot of the seminary I would say oh I really want to learn by Rebbetzin so-and-so no she does that base yahoo found better than most people you know she has the really severe short sheitel and she has the sweater over her shoulders she knows just how to make that sour look now I'm exaggerating of course I'm exaggerating I have eight girls they all went through the Israeli system but my wife used to say I understand why in a high school you have to have everybody frowning cuz you never know what these girls are gonna do you never know I one of my daughters had skinny wrists and a uniform shirt was hanging a little bit open and so the people who were checking the girls as they walked in they said you have to move the button so when she comes in the next day they're waiting for her they look and they go oh you moved the button she said yeah you told me to and they were disappointed they're gonna happen my wife said to pay one person to smile smile because you're the designated smiler you know you know you don't want to create an atmosphere that's oppressive right a friend of mine was a man I hello and the famous girls high school in America I don't want to mention the name of the place he had very difficult time with the staff and eventually the staff complained so much to the board the day I rid of him but he told me that at one point one of the the teachers meetings the teacher said you know what your problem is you want the girls to be happy 50 u k-- that's it you figured it out I want the girls to be happy I want girls to wake up in the morning and come to school happy be happy to be there a friend of mine I won't mention who popular speaker in the circuit but he said to me once I feel like the people who speak in basic of high schools in Eretz rel and I'm always speaking about the shock of high schools in Iran that in America cuz I'm not familiar with he says I think they're basically Dementors from Harry Potter and they want to suck all the happiness girls an exaggeration yes yes but but why doesn't a person wake up in the morning I'm excited I'm excited so so I have to decide now step one self my cell my shrub the pillow why am I going to seminary am I go to seminary because everybody goes to seminary because that's basically where everybody does everything I've told the story in the past I was talking to a group of guys about marriage and I started with a trick question like I always do why do you get married and took awhile I was in I slugged up all of their answers they showed how they were all not true and the final answer was because everybody gets married you get married because everybody gets married and people go to seminary because everyone goes to seminary but why am I going to seminary what's my goal what am I trying to accomplish where do I want to see myself at the end of the year and make no mistake about it there are many seminaries that make it clear we don't want any of these people who are gonna try to make the girls change that's not what this is about they come from nice from families we're going to teach them a lot of information then they're gonna go home I don't know anybody getting into the girls kitchens and understanding them and working with her thumb we're about I knew a rabbi who was in a very very harsh of a rabbi who was in a very harsh mother seminary at the end of the year they asked him to leave because he was you know I had the girls over the house was talking for them about issues and things that's not what we here for teach a class and you leave it meant the white box that's how he told me he says even he taught in Haydar he says he looked at the ceiling the whole time he couldn't identify one girl didn't know their names didn't know anything about them you know he came in he told his class and he left and and he simply says well I should look at the girls so then so okay so I understand now that you can only have women obviously running and teaching in all of the seminaries and and do people say oh I really want to study from Rebbetzin so-and-so irreverence in this every sin that Jan I or why why am I going to seminary is it to pick up a lot of information I'm just warming up I have a lot to say on this subject I don't this is coming across I have a lot to say this is this is an important issue to me my my brother his 25th wedding anniversary says says in Asia sky oh yeah Asia's kayo is more precious than pearls he says how do you make a pearl he says a piece of sand gets inside of the oyster and it irritates the oyster and the oyster releases this substance to be able to cover up the grain of sand that's he get a pearl so I got to speak afterwards and I said basically his wife has been irritating him for 25 years and until he buys a pearl slip but this is a topic that I have a lot to speak about and we're going to in the weeks ahead and so that's it for this week not for this topic for this week and if you want to find out more about the podcast go to reverie Alaska calm you could add comments you could find out about my upcoming events you could contact me directly and if you want a sponsor an episode it's Rob you lousy that calm slash podcast click on the sponsor an episode button and that's it for this week I'm Deborah Lansky and this is the revlon ski show [Music]