I can tell it is mesivta farher season, even though I don’t have any of my own children starting mesivta this coming year. How do I know? I know so from the frantic phone calls I am receiving. This friend, who knows that I have a peripheral relationship with this rosh hamosad, wants me to put in a good word, and that relative is set on his bochur going to a mosad where I have another relationship with someone involved in the decision-making process.
The anxiety is everywhere. And nebach, the children, mere eighth graders, feel like they are approaching the Yom Hadin. Not just the Yom Hadin for the coming year, but the Yom Hadin on the possible trajectory of their lives.
The parents don’t know what to do with themselves.
The yeshivos that are still not firmly established are perhaps more anxious than anyone, doing anything, literally anything, to find favor in the eyes of menahelim of chadorim who might direct a good bochur to them.
Last year, I wrote about the chinuch damage wrought on the eighth graders themselves as a result of this anxious frenzy. This year, I want to focus on another aspect of this issue that became clearer to me after an interaction with a friend.
A Tale of One Bochur
I have a good friend who belongs to a certain Chassidus. A card-carrying member of the Chassidus, he sends his bochurim to their yeshivos. Now, this friend had a son—let’s call him Yankel—who was not doing so well. When he was younger, he wasn’t successful in cheder. He was much happier playing during recess (and during class) than sitting in class. He was immature and loved getting into each new fad.
In truth, I was worried about his future. When it came time for mesivta, Yankel joined the yeshiva associated with his Chassidus. (They had to accept him because they have to accept the child of any card-carrying member.) During his first year of yeshiva, I didn’t see any change. Yes, he got older, he grew taller, he had a hat and suit and perhaps the first wisp of a beard, but he was still not motivated, to say the least.
When Yankel was in the middle of tenth grade, I was shmoozing with my friend, and when I asked him how things were going, he excitedly answered, “I can’t tell you how happy I am. My Yankel, who until now was not interested in learning and was not motivated, recently had a tremendous turnaround. Over the past few months, he changed. He started getting much more of a cheishek in learning, he sits in the bais medrash learning with his chavrusa for virtually the entire seder, and his test marks show that he knows the Gemara cold.”
“What happened?” I asked, thrilled and pleasantly surprised. “What caused such a remarkable transformation?”
“Honestly,” he answered, “it seems that Yankel just matured a bit later than many others. He finally matured and decided that fun and games, while enjoyable, won’t do anything for him both in this world and in the next world, so he decided to begin taking life seriously.”
Today, Yankel is a metzuyan, a bochur full of Torah, full of yiras Shomayim, and, his father tells me, the phone does not stop ringing with shadchanim proposing possible shidduchim, even though he is not listening yet.
What Would Have Happened?
With all the talk of farhers, this wonderful bochur came to mind, and I wondered: What would have happened to him had he not belonged to a Chassidus that had to accept all their people? He would have attended what is called a “bais minus” yeshiva, meaning a yeshiva for very weak boys. Often, but certainly not always, many boys in those yeshivos are not only weak academically, but also struggle spiritually.
He would have probably languished in a very academically poor yeshiva. Very likely, he would have been placed with many boys who suffered from other challenges in addition to the academic challenges. He might have then been “educated” by them about things that would have better remained unknown. Ultimately, by the time he would have matured enough to decide that he wanted to take his life into his own hands and begin learning and serving Hashem properly, he would not have been able to do so, because he would have already been “sentenced for life” in the world of “losers” all by the time he was in 8th grade.
The Advantages of a Multi-Level Yeshiva
Sadly, this is the deleterious byproduct of the cut-throat mesivta acceptance process that exists today.
In all truth, I myself did not begin to learn earnestly until late in 10th grade. I know that if I would have had to apply to mesivta today, I, too, would never make the cut, and I would have never had the opportunities to learn by the distinguished rabbeim and roshei yeshivos who had such a transformative impact on me. Why not? Because I would have been relegated to the “basement.”
Why was I saved from that gezeirah? Firstly, because the elitist system that we have in place, the system that says, “If you are not a metzuyan by 8th grade, you are not what we are looking for,” was not as prevalent then. Secondly, I lived in an out-of-town community, and the yeshiva, as a community yeshiva, accepted most bochurim.
The fact that my friend’s son, Yankel, learned in a yeshiva that catered to bochurim from all levels—top level, mid-tier, and less gifted—was not at all a drawback. It was a maalah. Not only for Yankel, but for the metzuyanim as well.
So much of their latent abilities were brought out by having to sometimes learn with a bochur who was on a bit of a lower level. Think of the middos tovos that are cultivated by sharing one’s Torah with others, not always feeling pressured to be better than the other metuzyanim in your yeshiva that contains only metzuyanim.
I know that I gained from being in a yeshiva with bochurim on various levels, and I am sure that others would as well.
Instead, we have this rat race, where we are cultivating anxious bochurim and anxious parents. We have a hardhearted acceptance process that we, the people, have enabled by accepting it and playing into it.
What is the solution?
Leadership.