Attitudes about Giving

Dennis Eisenberg was interviewed by Mishpacha magazine.  He trains yeshiva administrators after having been a successful yeshiva executive director for decades. 

He discusses fundraising and compares fundraising in the 1980's to today.  He says, "When I started in 1983, the donor base was comprised of Baby Boomers who gave [tzedaka] out of a sense of duty, of obligation.  For them, tzedaka and maaser are mitzvos like all other mitzvos."

Times have changed and now:

"Donors wanted returns; some mosdos offered prestige, others promised segulos, but it became about 'what's in it for me?' Now, I don't mean that people are completely selfish, but it was clear that donors needed to identify and build a stronger kesher with the cause, and even altruistic, selfless donors wanted the feeling that they'd given to 'their' cause, a sense of pride of ownership."

How interesting.  In the 1980's the maala (advantage) was kabbolas ol, you gave because you were supposed to give.  The chisaron (disadvantage) was that when you do mitzvos solely out of a sense of obligation, there is no feeling there.

These days, the chisaron is a lack of kabbolas ol.  The maala is that people get personally involved and care.

Yet Another Reason

I'm learning more and more reasons that explain the uniqueness of the yeshiva in Volozhin, see here.

The first reason in my last post was the one I heard the most often.  It is only within the last year that I've been hearing additional and unique reasons.

 

Well, here is yet another reason I discovered, this one from Torah Tavlin, volume II, p. 239.  It says:

 

"R' Chaim Volozhiner went to his rebbi, the Vilna Gaon, seeking his consent for a new project.  Full of enthusiasm he excitedly described his plans for opening a yeshiva which would be the first of its kind.  Its goal would be to broaden the previously confined boundaries of Torah study not just to individual scholars but to masses of mevakshim - people who truly yearned to quench their thirst for Torah knowledge."

Masses? The yeshiva in Volozhin, over the decades, was not larger in size than other yeshivos.  Very few boys went on to learn in a yeshiva past cheder.  Most went to work and married.  You had to be determined, and usually very smart, to learn in yeshiva when you were in your mid and late teens and beyond.  No masses attended any yeshivos in Eastern Europe.

 

And the Reason is ...

For years, I heard that the yeshiva in Volozhin was the prototype of a yeshiva, that it is referred to as the "Mother of All Yeshivos," even though yeshivos go back all the way to the yeshiva of Shem and Eiver.  The reason given was that it was set up differently, with the bachurim not having to eat meals with local people, but in the yeshiva.  The yeshiva was not dependent on the locals.  As though that is a reason to dismiss the numerous yeshivos that existed.  To mention a few, there were renowned yeshivos in Lublin in the time of the Maharsha (1555-1631) and the Maharam (1558-1616). The latter headed yeshivos in Lublin, Cracow, and Lvov, and had hundreds of talmidim.  The Maharshal (1510-1573) headed a great yeshiva in Lublin

Then, recently, I heard a shiur in which the speaker said that the reason the Volozhiner yeshiva was unique was because there was a structure and you had to conform to the seder and show up and learn at set times.  It wasn't a free-for all, i.e. learn what you want, when you want.  Oh.

Most recently, I was reading an article by R' Moshe Taub in Ami (#231) in which he says the Volozhiner yeshiva is referred to as the first modern-day yeshiva, even though there were many other yeshivos at that time and hundreds that preceded it (I am glad he wrote that, since I had been left with the impression for years that no yeshivos existed before Volozhin for hundreds of years going back to Sura and Pumbedisa!)

What made it unique? No, not the elimination of essen teg, and not the establishment of a curriculum and times for learning.  He says it is because R' Chaim Volozhiner recognized the need for a yeshiva to remain aloof from local politics.  Until his time, the local rav was also the rosh yeshiva and he was chosen by the balabatim.  Now, the rosh yeshiva was independent.  Oh.

Live and learn.

The Yeshiva Myth

According to the "yeshiva world," the "Yeshiva Movement," as they call it, is attributed to the Gra because his talmid, R' Chaim of Volozhin (1749-1821) started a yeshiva. His yeshiva is considered the " Mother of All Yeshivos," as though yeshivos didn't exist before he started his own. This is untrue of course, as anybody who has read any historical accounts knows, and I'm not talking about the yeshivos in Sura and Pumbedisa in Gemara times or the yeshiva of Shem and Ayver ...

But this is part of the Litvish worldview, that they invented yeshivos and modern day learning, with the proper "derech," and all.

The Maharal (1520-1609) had a yeshiva.

Pinsk had a yeshiva. R' Shimon, a colleague of the renowned Maharshal (1510-1574), headed this yeshiva. After his passing, his son R' Refael succeeded him. When R' Moshe Yaffe became rav of Pinsk, he was also appointed head of the yeshiva."

There were yeshivos in Ostrohe, Brisk, Slutzk, Minsk, Vilna, Cracow, and Prague. [yes, I know some of these are Lithuanian towns. The point is they existed before the Volozhiner yeshiva.]

 

There were renowned yeshivos in Lublin in the time of the Maharsha (1555-1631) and the Maharam (1558-1616). The latter headed yeshivos in Lublin, Cracow, and Lvov, and had hundreds of talmidim.

The Maharshal (1510-1573) headed a great yeshiva in Lublin.

 

Likewise, later on, around the time of W.W. II, there were dozens of yeshivos in Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and Romania that had nothing to do with the Lithuanian yeshivos.

 

I found it very interesting that outside the yeshiva in Pressburg, the yeshiva of Pupa was the most organized and biggest yeshiva in all of Europe.

When the Nazis closed the yeshivos in Czechoslovakia, there was an overflow of boys on a waiting list for this yeshiva. In 1942 the yeshiva was already severely overcrowded; about 350 students were occupying rooms intended for 250. These were students 18 and older. (taken from an account of someone who learned there in 1942)

I grew up hearing about the Mir, Slobodka, Kelm, Baranovitch, and Radin but Pupa? Don't recall that it was even mentioned ...

I don't see how the structure and curriculum of the yeshiva of Volozhin, were unique. How did it differ from any of the yeshivos mentioned above? Why does it deserve the title "Mother of All Yeshivos?"

Lilmod U'l'lamed

In an article by R' Mordechai Kamenetzky about R' Aharon Kotler, he states that it was R' Aharon's trailblazing commitment to the ideal of instilling Torah lishma that completely changed the face of Jewish life in America.   

He defines this as learning Torah without any aspirations to be a rabbi or even a teacher, but only for the sake of learning.  This is despite the fact that in Europe, the talmidim of the Lithuanian yeshivos invariably went on to take rabbinic positions.  There was one famous contemporary of R' Aharon who never took a position and that was the Chazon Ish, but who else did the same? The rest became rabbonim, magidei shiur or roshei yeshiva.   R' Aharon invented something new which hadn't been the goal of the roshei yeshiva back in Europe.

In fact, in bulletins published by Beth Medrash Govoha in the 1970's it states, "The perpetuation of Jewish peoplehood depends on the development and growth of authentic Torah scholars ... In the absence of Torah scholars, Jewry lacks the great teachers who are the links in the great chain of tradition spanning the ages.  It lacks the educators to instruct the coming generations  ..."

So apparently, according to the Lakewood yeshiva manifesto, the goal is to produce Torah teachers! In fact, aren't there hundreds (thousands?) of men in Lakewood who would be thrilled to get a shteller?  Does that mean they have dropped the "lishma" goal in which someone continues to sit and learn for himself without teaching others? And is that what learning Torah lishma actually means?

Elite Yeshivos

In A Tzaddik in our Time about R' Aryeh Levin z'l (I highly recommend it), on p. 33, R' Aryeh says that in the 3 years he learned in Slutzk, he acquired a sound knowledge of seder Nashim with Tosfos (except for Yevamos). The mesechtos Gittin, Kiddushin, and Kesubos, he learned by heart with Tosfos, and then he started seder Nezikin. At that point he left the yeshiva in 1901. He was born in 1885, so that means he was 16 years old!

Lest you think he was a genius, and what relevance does it have to average students, there were numerous yeshivos in which hundreds (thousands?) of bachurim learned on this level.

Where are our hundreds or merely dozens of similar achievers today? Our yeshivos are not geared towards them as yeshivos used to be. Today, yeshivos are focused on the average student and have average goals and we are suffering greatly for this.

Does this sound elitist? Well, yeshivos were always geared to the cream of the crop! To get into Yeshivas Chachmei Lublin (see picture for this post) you had to know at least 200 daf Gemara by heart with Rashi and Tosfos. That's why R' Pinchas Hirschprung z'l could do the "pin test" (stick a pin through pages of the Gemara and he could tell you which words on each page that the pin went through) And there were many applicants! And many knew more than 200 daf!

Granted, today all boys must stay in yeshiva merely to remain frum (unlike yesteryear, when boys without learning talent apprenticed and married young), but yes, I believe we still need yeshivos that cultivate and support top achievers. Leaving potentially great learners to languish in "equal-opportunity" classrooms is reverse discrimination, in that it discriminates against those with talent! And these top achievers don't have to be geniuses; someone with learning ambition will go very far.  An excellent rebbi can galvanize an entire class into setting and keeping learning goals.  Too often, special achievement goals are relegated to extra-curricular contests. 

Rabbi Reuven Bengis was an incredible masmid. One day he invited people to a siyum he was making on completing Shas. The men were shocked since they had already attended a siyum ha'Shas he had made barely a month earlier.

When he was asked how he could be making another siyum ha'Shas so soon, Rabbi Bengis explained that normally it took him a full year of intense study to learn all of Shas, and the siyum he had made a month earlier had been for this cycle of learning.

This second siyum ha'Shas was for a cycle of learning he had begun many years earlier, in which he studied Shas during those unexpected idle moments of waiting for a train, for a bus, at a simcha, etc. Over the years, with a few minutes of learning here and a few minutes there, he had finally completed Shas in addition to his annual review.