68: Choosing a Seminary (or Yeshiva) Part 2

I am Devin alaskey and welcome to another episode of the rabbi Orlovsky show and once again we have a seminary audience here for our special seminary series that's not easy to say special seminary series by the seashore and it's what as a sponsorship not by a seminary girl as it happens this is sponsored by Ari in honor of my wife Karen upon her birthday Shabbos parshas hi sir what could be more beautiful to give as a gift to that special person in your life than a sponsorship of the raviolo ski show because you know that in this hood this year is going out to thousands and thousands of people who who are hanging on this show and I can't say how many emails I get from couples who watch the show together and somebody sent me a picture of them eleven Malka where there's the laptop with my podcast and they're sitting around the table eating them eleven malkov watching the podcast on mercy Shabbos it's heartwarming anyway I'm finishing the dedication thank you for all the incredible devotion and love for our family and our children thank you for always supporting and encouraging our spiritual and personal growth and well-being amish thats isn't that the theme of the podcast and may Hashem help you and all of Christ will grow closer to him for many more happy and healthy years Ari and Karen I can only echo those sentiments I could not have said it better myself that what else could you ask for a life of meaning Beauty surrounded by children and grandchildren beautiful where your where your focus is on you roughly as he focuses on building a Torah home what a beautiful beautiful thing and we started speaking last week about the issue of going to seminary if if you didn't see last week's podcast stop this go back listen to last week's podcast and then come back just so you of the context because there's a continuation I've never really done this before I've talked about different asthma throat but I'm Amish going through this casada because I think this is so important I I got a letter from base Jakov senior who's trying to decide how do I pick a seminary and and I said the first thing you have to do is ask yourself why do you want to learn in a seminary in Israel I had a nice she had one particular summer that she wanted to go to for whatever reasons whatever her - were she didn't have a back-up seminary no the only summer I just wanted to go to when she didn't get in she said I'm not going and she went to a very well-established seminary someplace in the United States and she said this was an eye-opening experience for me because I had teachers who were Holocaust survivors when I when I went to high school I had for the most part young ladies who were teaching being able to teach in a seminary for from woman is a very challenging thing because one principal said to me I just know I sit down with my staff and say okay who's leaving because they pregnant I know you're gonna be here a couple of months then you take off you know for maternity leave and I gotta find a substitute and I've had that with my own kids they start with uh with a macron effort they start with the teacher and then they leave maternity leave and they get somebody else and some the person they get in is nowhere as good as the first teacher and sometimes they're much better than and we really try to encourage the teacher to take more time with her children that she really needs it because she was somebody once observed you know half the world's population is below average and then applies the teachers do I have a whole rant about teachers but that's not really what we're talking about now but she says because we had a test on hamish in raschi in the partion okay I'll admit I didn't apply myself as well as I should have and and the teacher looks at us and says how could you not know Commission Rashi how would we have gotten through Auschwitz without Commission Rashi and she's like oh I'm gonna bully Auschwitz car thank god you know what it does mean is that with age there's a certain experience that you get and you have to take that into account who's who's teaching in the schools and what is it they're coming to bring now don't get me wrong my father / Sean I'm always used to say that a person who's a talented teacher it doesn't matter how much they know because they could be one chapter ahead of the class but if they really know how to give it over that's tremendous and on the other hand you have somebody who's an expert in a particular field and there are not great teachers they don't get rid of course I want to say more than this just for a moment he's one of the hardest questions when belly Trueba come to me and they say how do I pick a Rebbe because if I'm gonna pick a Rebbe and I'm gonna be sincere I'm gonna follow that person depending on who I choose make a big difference you understand if you choose bass he'll obey Shammai there's an easy example you know that you're gonna be having a completely different experience you know if you're gonna be a husband Isha or you know somebody who's not a cousin tisha you think of brisker is always not a brisket you know it's a whole different thing yeah they're gonna choose breslav that's all different thing than brisk this breast of a guy was sitting on the plane next to a brisket and the person of a guy goes na and brisket goes Shh and the rest of it goes no.not and brisket goes Shh and he goes not on that one and he goes Shh he goes nah enough with me home on their egos shmatte because briskets go very slowly and then that's the idea but it's called a breeze it's couple of different approach completely different approach so they say how do i how do I choose a rabbit I said because I'll give us a yardstick he says if your Rebbe is like a mala then you're like a person but a few rare bees like a person then you're like an animal what does that mean means my Rebbe has to be on a higher level than me and if my Rebbe is just a regular guy rabbi Bob hey Bob how's it going oh great how's it going by you Sylvia oh yeah terrific oh that's nice you know I was gonna come by the house tomorrow have a cup of coffee okay that sounds great looking forward to see you give my love to Cynthia okay bye okay that's you know I said you want a Rebbe it's got to be somebody that you want to tell stories to your children about I don't think about that oh I tell stories to my children about Ravana clipboards I tell stories to my children about rebetiko cherski I tell stories to my children about relationship hero I tell stories to my children about the times that I had to school to get a real client can I ask you a terrible your should these these were these were I knew I was in the presence of somebody who is higher sued human being and if you don't have access to those kind of people then you have to have a Rebbe whose Rebbe is one of those people that I'm that I'm understanding that this is something more so what can I tell you sometimes we we have to definitely try to decide what the staff is of the institution I'm going to who's running it what are the principles that they're running it on what are the standards that they're maintaining what are they trying to accomplish so I wrote a column I used to write kind of comes now Medea I never know and then I would write a column mostly to annoy my wife and I have to tell you I'm married 37 years and a lot of the things that I've done have definitely been to annoy my wife I don't know what traumatic experience she had as she was a child but we were first married at some point when you know Henry was a better go bedtime and I turn off the light she would get so upset it took about 30 years before I couldn't get a reaction from her anymore and I would do at nighttime tonight bedtime would you like why do you do that what do you it doesn't bother anymore now she's a shop slight but you know but I don't know what it was that you know we have certain things inside of us that definitely don't mean so I used to write certain columns so I wrote a column like this about girls education and I said you know we send girls to to high school at the seminary and we pump them through with lumbus a lot of love learning I said you know how many run bonds do you need to bake a kugel how many you know garages you have to learn in order to change a diaper are we really preparing these girls for their life is a firm per anyway I wrote this like partly to ignore my wife and also because I would get these angry letters and then I could get another column responding to the letters so that was also a little technique that I had anyway I got a flood of mail everyone saying memory loss key is right my heart wasn't in it and suddenly I was invested so I got one negative letter from the head of a base Yocum High School who said if parents don't respect the fact that the girls have to come to school and have to learn so then it's not coming to the teachers mind you he wasn't arguing that what we teach they need to learn they're just saying that if the girls don't come and participate then it's a it's a be certain in the comfort of the staff that to me isn't that like it's not really like a really strong argument when you think about it you know you gotta come to school and you have to really study cuz otherwise you know it's gonna hurt our feelings now that's true you don't want to hurt anybody's feelings certainly me everyone knows how careful I am to have concern for everybody never let hurtful word leave my lips but anyway but then I went to speak in a girls high school women teachers started fighting with me and and she said like goes okay you don't want the girls to lose which what do you want him to do what should they do go shopping you know read read novels you know hang out with different what do you want a girl to do if she's not gonna be learning you know so I said look I tell you the truth my heart wasn't really in the column and I basically wrote it you know cuz I thought I would get general outrage and she said why did you think that listen the story cuz there's so much I said she says why do you think that it says people know that and she Duke him if a girl is spot it's a key Suren it's a negative guys want cheerleaders dumb and pretty so I said to her I don't know I'm talking about serious boys and learning and they said right serious boys what girls dumb and pretty and I said they can't be it can't be so I did a little research on my own oh my goodness Eva guys I wanna sit alone and go well let Dogma the issue of the crisis we all know about the of crisis what a difficult situation it is I've spoken about this and in the past I won't speak about it again but one of the problems is that there's an age gap and canai najara the Jewish population keeps growing so if you take the amount of boys and girls in ninth grade its equal and in 10th grade and an 11th grade and a 12th grade but is pyramid or as we say in Hebrew pyramid and so each year there's more so if you only have this many boys who are 23 who are gonna marry this many girls who are 19 then it's gonna you can have a problem and they said that's why by the physician community they don't have this problem because they all married the same age so I brought this about about yeshiva guys at my shop is stable and I brought it up because anytime something's annoying me I like to bring it up at the Shabbos table and talk about it or not only if it's annoying me but if it's something that interests me or that I and I have absolutely no filters you know somebody said to me once ago I feel like you stop and think should I say this or not and regardless of what you conclude you say it anyway and that is true I told the story I one time had the shunt I bet girls and the seminary was teaching at my house and as I was looking like I always do every now and then my wife would say I don't think you should say that very lucky I don't think you mean that okay okay yeah anyway the next day in class I said to say something and one of the girls said if your wife was here she wouldn't let you say that I said you're right she's not so okay so I don't have too many filters you know so I have these new Shiva boys at my table and I said you know maybe it would be a good thing you know if boys married girls their own age and they made they made this whole lifts ah you know and this guy married an older girl from Baltimore and there was some fun that gave you money if he married an older girl who was your age or older and also Baltimore would give you a bonus he goes I made off like like a bandit it was really good I did marry all the Baltimore girls still drew this is just a story so I said so it's an idea now marry girls your own age so they they all said it wouldn't work and I said why cuz cuz a girl your own age won't respect you as much as a girl who's younger than you and I said are you so insecure that you think that you waveform respect you unless she's a little girl and she's gonna look up to you so they all shook their head and said you don't get it you don't get it I don't get it but yeah yeah there's this there's a certain attitude so now let's back it up so girl wants to go to seminary in order to learn on a higher level for what purpose what is it I'm trying to accomplish what do i what do I want to gain from a year in seminary and a person who can't define that then the answer is here's how you pick your seminary go where your friends are going go someplace that has very nice facilities good food comfortable beds go someplace that a good location so that if you want to go and eat out on Shabbos and still sleep in you don't have a problem and also if you want to go out to eat you don't have to schlep too far and go to a place that won't expect too much of you now you solved your problem what are those places I don't know that I want to say this in public on a podcast but if you ask around I think you'll get a get a certain perspective but ask yourself what do I want to accomplish do I want to have a year night show can you have a year in Eretz well if you're on the phone with your mommy every day when I came you couldn't use the phone you had to write letters and sometimes letters were too expensive for us we want to budget we used to send air grams so basically a piece of tissue paper and you would write very small and then you fold it over I had a little adhesive on the side and you'd mail it and it took two weeks to get there and two weeks to get an answer and by the time we got the answer you don't remember what you said in a letter and but when you would get a letter was like so exciting but that was it you didn't make any phone calls I'm gonna talk to you had to grow up I had to grow up and that was one of those beautiful things of coming to its show a commentary show was an experience for you to grow up where does a person have that so I'm gonna give you an example of one of the big problems when when it comes to the whole seminary experience a couple of years ago where Scottish ll was August 8th I know I was speaking in America you know in the middle of August I was speaking about Ella and I said this doesn't make any sense the summer is when you're supposed to be doing all the Avera see do chuhwa for now all right you know it comes out in the middle of the summer just ruins everything you know and camp trying to have a fun time it's color war I blow the chauffeur whoever does jouvert gets an extra 20 points for their team [Laughter] so now girls come to seminary your year in seminary let's talk straight there is no year in seminary it doesn't exist work with me okay you come there itself first they have orientation that takes a while then there's a young Tobin yeah Rosh Hashanah Kippur suckers breaks then you come back yeah then any staff member who's any worthwhile is going to America recruit for next year ready now it's now it's Konica vacation then it's midwinter vacation and then we come back yeah okay so now it's poram and its pays off you know that whole time is already transitioning and then a lot of girls go home for paisa and then they come back there's a few weeks left and you finish up and your finals you know and you have the banquet don't know and and add up how much they actually works out to seven months but it doesn't sound so good to say you were seven months in Israel we called you a year in Israel there's no year in Israel it's the best seven months yeah so so I'm coming to eat show and what is that I'm trying to accomplish well do I want a place we're going to pump me through with a tremendous amount of Torah on a very high level as an intellectual exercise okay maybe do I want to be an art show so I have a cell phone I'm on the phone all the time to America you know if they have email emailing all the time to America that's constant its constant when do i where do I break away another chance to grow up so getting my original point so so my wife said the young Tubman come so early it says in her seminary that she had gone to when the young token come out early they first start the seminary after um talking makes tremendous sense so you have a girl she's come through so she's on the plane yeah I get her luggage but on uh on a bus she suddenly put into a dormitory with a bunch of other girls sometimes we're dealing with girls we never had to share a room in their life and then with a bunch of other girls there's not enough room to put your stuff never because girls are crazy right so we just put all your stuff so they keep suitcases do their beds and they have things over here and they have moved these around is a trend that and always one of your roommates is a slob you know she has stuff all over the place so you said well you love you stuff also because mine is in a pile and it's neat its organized she's just a mess you know I'm not gonna talk about those people who really like they make their bed every morning when Hospital corners you know I mean yes sir but you know I had a girl in seminary and she who we know and she used to say listen I'll come by the house you know I'll do my laundry and once a week and help around the house you know so we're like sure you know got the washing machine and dry anyway you know she'd come down and she'd help and as the year went on it was once every two weeks you don't you take something acting like that's a bit you know girls start off like I've deserve it or you know I think it dressed every day there you know and then the winter comes you know and it gets really cold you know and they're like starting to wear these like you know hats pulled down you know sometimes like gloves you know they have they're like the gloves with the fingers cut off so they can write you know and you know an extra sweater isn't well they're missing is like baby carriage filled with garbage to push down the street I stopped wearing it again makeup they just let themselves go you know just and it's always bad because then you know family comes to visit from America and they're like and the worst thing is they're stuck inside cuz you know there's lock down is lock down every night but you have to do homework too like 3 o'clock in the morning since then you're locked down so the only way to get through is with industrial sized boxes of cookies and so the girls go into hibernation during the winter and suddenly springtime comes and they realize in a month I have to get onto a plane and I am only entitled to one seat per time you see hordes of seminary girls walking around the neighborhood trying to undo months of damage but you know so so they come tear it show and right away you know they go through orientation and right away it's Rosh Hashanah oh my goodness what a terrible thing to do to I don't know if it's hundreds I don't know if it's thousands but it's an enormous amount of seminary girls who all desperately making phone calls a bad family here okay but they're not ready family hi do you take have girls for four Shoshanna yeah we're we're six we can't split up oh um okay well we're do you davon in an apartment uh-huh and the Ezra's notion is upstairs and they leave the door open oh okay not exactly like I grew up because I remember going to show with my family and we will go to the Ezra's not Shimon we knew the tuner name and we'd sing along and now I don't know what they're saying why they're doing it and you know and oh you only done for seeking knows a little bit about five okay yeah yeah that'll be fun yeah and hello is it Devon last between eight and nine hours yeah okay that's the yeah no that's that's fine that's fine um okay you can only have this for one meal and those oh you have sleeping bags in the liver okay yeah no that's fine that's two days like that should be no problem but of course it's one of these israeli mossad with us like two spots inside of the sukkah for the husband and the son and all the girls are like in the covered part of the circle which doesn't really feel like a Sukkah even with the paper chains he's just they're never the same feeling and everyone remembers my sucker back home and my mother used to make the special so they used to just started after you stay home stay with your parents and eyes which are never nice second and then common start your year what do you have to do this to people for so that people say well you know gives them an opportunity an opportunity you know you're first starting out if you have arrangements and the girls have places to go or if you're going to provide but come on kind of a rush Hashanah can a seminary provide when essentially it's a hundred girls a bunch of girl teachers what I got to exactly you know so in case you could bring like a small minion of men and stick them in the corner it's not quite the same thing it's it's a it's a real problem it's a real problem so we've solved ever used to be a big problem with Pesach we solved that problem because everybody goes home and no one's ever seen Pesach on yuusha line and there it's shell and it's probably one of the most moving experiences that a person can have in their life because not to take away from the Pacer Isle and Shop Rite which is almost always impressive and I would argue that they have more products there than they have in all very strong more variety Melville kinds of types one of our scarf is you know here whatever you're buying there's at least two people who tell you it's transitory and nobody trusts anybody interests anything and it's such a mess you know but but you wouldn't come on paper comes around even if you're in a secular neighborhood they have to paper paper over all the Hama tiles and all its stuff you even even the the restaurants that are not catering to religious people there's no bread then only could I put up a box of matzah yeah the cash of the place whether it's to our standards or not is irrelevant but it's just you know you feel pace out in the air it's something that's so dramatic and so all the girls go back home why because they want to be with their family for the Seder I'm not saying that's wrong so instead you drag them in fresh Hashanah Yom Kippur and so cos that's that's what you want them to see and if we had accommodations let's face it most most of these shows of bursting has they are do you think we suddenly a room for a thousand seminary girls I'm exaggerating it's gotta be thousands thousands or seminary girls where we puttin them and it's not really thought out I think so do you want to be an arat show and if not there's some wonderful seminary option in America or Canada or England I think that's about it yeah I don't know if there is an Australia or not I don't know if there is in South Africa it could be yep but you know there are plenty of options what's the reason to come there it's show the reason to come to seminarian its shows because you want to be in our show you want to have a year and air itself or seven months what are the cases but you want to get that air to express them you don't want that air it's her experience if you want why is it so dusty here why is it so hot no then you're right why should I do that what am i doing it for so that at the end I can turn around and say I wrote three reports you know and i and i researched hesed using four hazael and three we shown him and for Moses for him and I wrote a report Why What are you ever going to do it what is that I would do with these reports found my wife's old notes from seminary notebooks full oh okay so if you gotta become a teacher and you're gonna use this as a basis for research and you want a really high understand but if you're a normal person what am I gonna do it all these reports why am i doing all these reports I'll tell you something I may have mentioned this in an earlier podcast but it was a letter to the editor in a ha Medea and it made such an impression on me since this girl went to seminary and before the young Narayan we had so many shiron we did padilla talked and we did the sea hose muster and we you know we learned all these insights and i'm my diving shannon kipper was the most dramatic thing - now I'm back in America and I'm working it's a secretary and I'm going to school and I'm looking here for a I don't have time to go to shoe her I said how am I gonna dad she says I go to shul and I see these three old ladies and I start laughing and they start crying and tears literally dripping down onto the pages of their old master and I said to myself they probably never learned the puffit you took they probably never load the replenishable limits but there's something real about their voters Hashem that I don't have and and and I found that so profound you know and and it's something that speaks to me because what's the goal what are you trying to accomplish I'm coming for you so if you like the guys I spoke to about why do you get married and they say to me because everyone gets married they gave different answers in the end one guy said my mother's making me fine I understand that's a goodness as good an answer as any everyone gets married cuz everyone gets married I understand that's that's a good answer yeah everybody wants to have a good marriage but when you ask people what a good marriage is very hard to define everybody wants to live a meaningful life but you ask them what that means very hard every wants to be a good person everyone wants to have good kids the Devils in the details how do you how do you figure out what these things are so there's certain girls who say to me listen the boys want to know that you went to seminary or oh that's why I'm going to seminary some girls say to me I tell you the truth I just want to get away from my family for you they're so oppressive so why am I gonna tell because that's what the seminaries were you know if they were in Madagascar I go to Madagascar you know I really get it happens to be in Israel you know and what what am i what why do you always have two questions why am i go to seminary and why am i going to seminary nerds Joe you have to define that for yourself I used to have girls who certain seminaries that were shut a bet and I was in a seminary where they had assigned a bed program and they encouraged the girls to come across on a bed when I say encourage the girls I mean there were certain people who taught there who said if you don't come back for shauna bed I don't know if you're gonna be firm for the rest of your life they'd say if you don't go back Shanta bet you haven't accomplished anything the whole first year was there's nothing my girls will come to speak to me and I'd say listen it really depends there are some girls who would definitely gain from shuttle bet there are certain people who need to come back from the bed and there are certain people who should not come back from a bed with shrimp on a - cuz they accomplished whatever they needed to accomplish and they did it in one year and they're done why come back for another year and the answer is because one's being encouraged to come back for a second year not necessarily for their own best interest if you want to be perfectly frank because if I have a son of Barrett that my kha'zix shouldn't olive so it's good for me yeah I gain from having people coming back for another year there are other considerations not always what's in the best interest of the person but I remember this guy who had a high school it was a co-ed high school and guy got from many wanted to move out and he convinced his parents to make him stay and the young man was very upset and he said to the to the principal why won't you let me go it goes if I lose all the good kids I won't have a high school there's a more than one community that I know where eventually everything closed down he says why because you know we were like a cure of community and food MacIsaac people and they got stronger they said well I don't want to live here in the middle of no place they'd moved to a more established from community until after a while our community became that viable so I understand so we're gonna talk about more of the reasons for it but a person has to ask themselves like I say before I choose the seminary two questions why do I want to well and why do I want to go to seminary now it could be that a person says I don't want to go there it's true I want to go to a seminary and happens to be the best ones are in art show if not the best one certainly ones that suit my needs and it could be people say I don't really want to go to seminary but I really want to be in Eretz jail so this is the only way to do I'm not gonna work in a kibbutz but I but those are the two questions you have to answer why why do I should I go to semuc why shouldn't I just right away get a job no comedian who said I joined the Army when I graduated high school because the dropouts had all the jobs no so okay so maybe I should go right out on a school get myself a job start Shido come right away you know grab all the good guys while everyone else is in Israel partying man maybe maybe why so those are the questions you have to ask and we have to try to suggest some solutions but why do I want to go to a seminary at all and why seminary nights show those are the two questions we're gonna talk more about this I got a lot to say I'm just warming up and so that's it for this week if you want to find out more about the show please go to my website Rabbi Orlowski dot-com well I never even answered estie's questions about technology but if you're watching this I guess you've already answered that question you can make comments and you can see my upcoming schedule you can contact me directly and if you want to sponsor a podcast I have to tell you there's a waiting list it's can I know her there's a lot of people who are finding about this show and understand that to sponsor it as a tremendous course whether you're like re who is sponsoring it in honor of his wife Karen's birthday or whether you're someone who just wants to be much SPEA Tyrel in the world and to be marbet iran and to be able to give physic to people and how many people write me and they say you know i'm having so many problems in my life and like you know I tried watching real is sure they don't help me but you're a show it just gives me gives me so much physic to get through the day yeah and that's what we only do it once a week seeing I have to listen to it like a few times like my guest he said last week but but if you want a sponsor an episode go to reality that calm slash podcast click on the sponsor an episode button that's it for this week I'm Reverend Lasky and this is the raviolo ski show [Music]