From a mother with a child in Seminary!
by Sandy Eller
Over the past few days, our airports have been filled with Bais Yaakov girls whose years-long seminary dreams were about to come true as they scanned their boarding passes and headed to Eretz Yisroel. Their jam-packed suitcases weren’t anywhere near as full as their hearts, which were overflowing with enthusiastic visions of the experience of a lifetime.
But there are other girls, too – broken-hearted Bais Yaakov graduates who are sitting teary-eyed in their rooms, knowing that they are being left behind. They are solid girls who never got that coveted acceptance letter from a seminary that aligned with their hashkafos, no matter how much their schools, their family rabanim, and concerned community members advocated on their behalf. While their friends floated blissfully through school and camp as they counted down the days to their seminary’s group flight, these girls sank lower and lower into the depths of despair, the pain of their rejection leaving them crushed and humiliated.
Let me tell you about those girls, because I know quite a few of them and have no doubt that there are others as well. I have spent hours on the phone with parents and rabanim trying to find placements for those girls, who have been served a triple dose of rejection after submitting their seminary applications, their choices approved by their twelfth grade mechanchos. These are girls whose dreams and faith in our educational system have been shattered, and I promise you, if you sat down and spoke to any of them, like I have, you would feel the same way too.
For the record, these aren’t the angry ramblings of a disgruntled parent – my daughter went to seminary, but the fact that my child has a place doesn’t absolve me of my responsibility to advocate for those who don’t. Right now, we have a window of opportunity, before seminary season starts again, to re-evaluate the entire process, before it destroys yet another group of girls. Let’s open up a conversation and see what we can do to make sure that next year, there are no girls being hurt and abused by the system.
Maybe we should be presenting a united front, making it clear to seminaries that we won’t be sending them our daughters until every girl is accepted.
Maybe the time has come to put an end to the notion that parents are expected to cover the astronomical cost of a year in seminary, an experience whose $30,000+ price tag is choking the average person and becoming unaffordable even for those who are doing well financially.
Maybe we should start steering our girls to other post-high school choices, quality domestic options that can offer girls a phenomenal and rewarding experience at a fraction of the cost of a year in Israel.
Maybe we need more seminaries so that the supply of slots can keep up with the demand, since we know that the number of girls graduating high school increases each year. And who knows, maybe if there is some real competition in the market, existing seminaries might be forced to rethink the exorbitant prices that they’re currently charging.
Maybe we should leave the Israel seminary experience for those who need it most – girls who are struggling in their Yiddishkeit, and create a new normal for the remainder of our high school graduates.
Maybe we need our daughters to step up to the plate and stand up for their fellow high schoolers, refusing to commit to a seminary until every girl is accepted to a school that is appropriate for her.
I don’t know what the answers are – I just know that the current seminary model isn’t working anymore and is becoming a black mark on our community.
We need to put our heads together and come up with a better alternative, because our girls are priceless treasures. I know that for most people, it’s easier to just look away than to try to change a system that has been in place for decades.
But imagine for a minute that it was your daughter watching all her friends flying off to Eretz Yisroel, while she stayed home, alone and rejected.
Would you still stay silent? Or once the problem touches your life, would you become part of the solution? The time has come for us to teach our daughters an important lesson that seems to have fallen by the wayside – kol Yisroel areivim zeh lazeh – by making sure that none of their friends or sisters will ever be left behind.
20 comments:
I have no sympathy. None.
Because if you walked up to any of these teary-eyed maidels and said 'Well, there's a strong Dati Leumi seminary that has openings and..." she and her disappointed parents would shout "You want us to send her to be with shiksas?"
These seminary's exist for one purpose and one purpose only - to provide a parnasah for a bunch of failed peter pan adults that have no skills to hold down real jobs and prey off of "rich" American suckers.
I posted this on another site, repeating here..
As someone who grew up in late 60s and early 70s, went to a well known yeshiva that had roughly 100 graduates every year, seninaries and yeshivas in israel were unheard of. Instead we went to college because our parents, mostly survivors, wanted us to support our families. Most met their mates in colleges, singles events and weekends in the mountains. Enter the 80s when the market boomed. All of a sudden bmg went from a place for the elite and future leaders to a haven for every lazy bum who wanted to marry rich. Daughters were brainwashed that they must marry a kolel boy and if so they will merit gan eden. What a crock.
The insistence that every boy needs to be in kollel and every girl killing herself to support this lazy bum is what caused the shidduch crisis and in turn, the divorce crisis. Its unbelievable how many people in their 20s and early 30s are divorced.
There is no shame in working or marrying a working boy. Dont let the shadchanim tell you otherwise. Your daughters will be much happier. Ksiva vachasima tova to all!
The tzebisenna crabapple calling BMG yungerleit lazy bums is obviously a cheapskate who didn’t want to pitch in for any support when his shayfella wanted to marry a kollel bound chosson. The farher to get into BMG is very rigorous. Only a tiny handful of lazy bums get in without passing it (if their father has enough $ or protekzia)
3:53
You talking about the BMG of Lakewood? "farher to get into BMG is very rigorous?"
Ha ha
I got in, and I can testify that most of those, doing the "farher" are bono fide amaratzim!
The Flatulence Ausvarf must have been farhered in 1980s BMG when it was easy & hence there were bums like him who got in. When they saw how his kind were bringing the place down they cracked down
I want the Oilim to know that nothing changed, the only thing that actually did change is the amazing amount of amaratzim this Yeshiva has produced!
100% of the girls these parasites marry can run rings around their dumb heads with knowledge of the entire Chamisha Chumsha Torah, Tanach and pertinent Halachas!
Ruba de'Ruba of those learning in BMG know only three or four Yeshivishe meschtos and that is after 15 years of straight learning; most ballabatim today have a knowledge of the entire Shas, learning the Daf! There balabatim that have completed the entire Mishna Berura and have been tested!
BMG has not produced a single Gadol in over 40 years!
As DIn always says , they all need to be drafted!
A za Ligner & Koifer with an axe to grind (vos er iz brimming mit methane gas)! BMG is shtelt avek that there are large chaburos, some of them larger than many entire yeshivos, that learn every masechta in Shas that the oylam rotates through. If the lamdonim are not in BMG, they are certainly not in ‘Goosh’ or anywhere else. Is he insane with that chutzpah, obvious lie that BMG hasn’t produced anyone in 40 years??!! Hahahaha!!!!
Drive around the corner to make up a more believable sheker to slander Lakewood. There are bochurim at the time even who were in BMG later than the 1980s who passed the Pin Test - on Tosfos - in gantz Shas! The only test that “Lakefart” passes is the pinworm test, a pinworm alein vus er iz …
3:04
Listen tzaddik, I learned in BMG and I live just blocks from there. the "rotates" is in your head, it's not a "mezee'as" there are more amaratzim or like Rav Shach z"l used to say "Loimdeshe AmaRatzim", in BMG than in any place on earth, and they learn all day.
Not to go into detail, some of the R"Y are what we call today "Yoideh Sefer" they are not Talmedei Chachmim by any stretch of the imagination, not one would be able to produce for example, a "Kahati" put together by a MIzrachi Businessman!
You walk into many Batei Midrahim in LakeFArt, and the ones giving the shiurim are not Kollel Guys they are "baleibatim" in fact 90% of all Daf Yomi baalei Shiur are "baleibatim" .
The 'freezer" they instituted should be forever because I don't think any girl who graduated Bais Yaakov should marry these "Lomdeshe AmaRatzim" with their twisted thumbs from their dumb sevoraois which are long and go nowhere fast.
But I do have to hand it to them as those in BMG are off the streets and B'H do no crime, so I feel safe walking nearby.
Oh ye? Where are they? How come no one knows who they are?
The foul mouth claims he learned in BMG but he sounds like one of the heimishe Schweizer gold smugglers who had to quickly abscond from EY before they got arrested. They were never accepted to yeshiva so for shidduchim purposes they fraudulently rented apts & told everyone they were in BMG (while running black market & grey market gesheften). If he was part of the actual BMG oylam he would know, for starters, that Avromi Miller passed the pin test at age 18. He must be a real black soul that he publicly pushes this silly moitzee shem ra hours before Yom Hadin. Rav Schach's tayna is primarily on yeshivos like Long Beach that only learn a few blatt. Even in main BMG beis medrash they do R' Chaim Volozhiner's cycle to learn 10 masechtos. There are 3 sedorim a day so there is plenty of time to cover ground in each masechta. Get off the blog you poser!
To the jackass who called me farbissen. The jokes on you. I dont have daughters, but if i did, you can be sure she would not have dated a bmg boy. Bmg is the biggest bastion of bullshit ever to hit the jewish world. Every single boy is the "best" boy in lakewood. Gimme a break. How many of the over 7000 boys there are serious learners? Go ahead. If you say 10% youre still exaggerating.
"Avromi Miller passed the pin test at age 18"
Wow Miller passed the pin test at age 18! Wow
So from over 150,000 BMG talmidim over a span of 20 years you found ONE guy who has a photogenic memory.
Again not one BMG Alumnus is known for any scholarly work, those that did write seforim on specific topics, those "seforim" are thrown out with the chametz erev Pesach. There isn't any institution, religious or secular, that has produced so many students who come out knowing practically nothing.
Amazing that in a world that every single Sefer can now be at someone's fingertips, BMG hasn't produced a single Torah Leader, and even st least one of the a R"Y of Lakewood itself never learned in Lakewood as a bochur!
It's a tragic failure the entire BMG system and what's tragic is that they know it but they are so knee deep in their own vomit that they do not have a solution!
Amongst the hundreds of shuls in LakeFart only a handful of Lakewood Avreichim give any shiurim and their shiurim are poorly attended as they are boring and lack any deep thoughts.
Yes before these days of rachamim, we the balabatim have to call out this massive atrocity they call BMG
The foul mouth liar is evading that he proved he couldn’t have learned in BMG. If he did he would’ve known about Miller & that he isn’t the only Pin Test metzuyan. It’s so ludicrous when he mouths off about BMG not producing gedolei Torah that it’s laughing gas material. Besides all the output from the Machon with all the heoros on Kadmonim, there is much privately accomplished too. The liar am Haaretz wouldn’t know any of these seforim if he fell flat on them. Not that there aren’t also many geonim from the yeshiva who never published anything (yet) which is not make it or break it criteria. R’ Yeruchim’s seforim are breathtaking and he didn’t start publishing until less than 15 years ago. So what’s really driving this imbecile? He’s too cheap to support an eidim? Or his daughters aren’t good enough for BMG metzuyonim?
LoshonFart'zie
I stand by every word I wrote, and in fact, your comment supports every word. So out of 150,000 talmidim you found ONE SINGLE guy, Miller, who passed the Pin test, looooooooo Yetzia you found two other guys, it would be an embarrassing find. "Output from the Machon" is a collection of lekutois that any yodia sefer would be able to do after learning two years in any kollel! Today with AI it could be done in seconds. The entire "Mechon Output" is actually useless for Klall Yisrael in general. I'm wondering why the fatcats keep supporting and throwing good money after bad when they could donate to private kollim that produce all around talmedei chachamim!
Oh! R' Yeruchim starting publishing 15 years ago, so again, you are admitting that basically the entire BMG is a failure, since they finally got ONE solitary guy to publish something and lo and behold, he turns out to be none other than the Rosh Yeshiva himself, a sad commentary on what could have been a great institution but turned to be a "freezer" for those who refuse to work.
But you are correct about "my daughters not being good enough for BMG metzunim". Two of my dear daughters married Lawyers and both give Daf Yoimie's, one in Toms River and one in Monsey. One learned in Torah Vodaas and the other one is from Ner Yisrael.
The sulfuric stinker reminds me of another fool who was hyperproud of his Ner Yisroel eidim. He & his eidim kept blowing off arrogant, even angry steam, that BMG is “just 900 guys who don’t understand the shiur”. The yeshiva was actually much bigger at the time and less than 100 didn’t understand the shiur. Some of them were SYs who were imported for political reasons despite being on an 11th grade level in lernen. I wouldn’t wish this on anyone but the kids produced by the earlier Ner Yisroel prize (not exactly known for lomdus or bekius by the way) are messed up. One of them was m’abed atzmah R”l. The Yated has a weekly column showcasing amazing new seforim, often from BMG affiliated mechabrim. And many more did not get reviewed by the columnist. But the stinker bedavka wants to be the self-induced blind man to lead a blind following. Those who are not farbittert & delusional would take any day over his Juris Dokter Rabbiners the non-published BMG geonim who today are roshei yeshiva all over the place. I’m not getting into a pishing match with the creep so I will only start with Yankel Furman. No matter how many more are named, and there are many, many, the creep will come up with contrarian arguments
The big mouth with the methane gas attacks is more pathetic than etlicher 9th graders in Chofetz Chaim Queens who sit around fantasizing out loud that the beis medrash bochurim by them are "on a higher madreigeh" than Lakewood. We get it that methane gas man couldn't live with himself if he realized the truth why he's not zoiche to be magiah ad BMG. But gosh darn, even those kids in Queens are more respectful & mature about it.
Arse Fart
We who actually live in Lakefart know that BMG is a building that produces nothing but "Freezers"
99.9% of all Mageidei Shiur in all of the shuls are baalabatim and practically none of them are LakeFart Alumnus, a testament to the utter failure of BMG.
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