Behadrei Haredim is reporting on an initiative by the Mir Yeshiva to encourage more of its Israeli students to join the yeshiva's minyan for shacharis. 

Ah, Ponevezh Yeshiva.

Here is a beautiful story of supreme humility. I like these. Like the rosh yeshiva who has no airs about him and runs for the bus instead of having personal drivers because he is so important...

Wars used to be fought manually, soldier to soldier. Front line troops were often referred to as cannon fodder, as the masses of soldiers were thrown at an enemy force, and had to suffer the barrage of arrows and cannon balls of the opposing forces.

The Peleg Yerushalmi people have been holding relatively violent protests for the past few years, protesting yeshiva boys AWOL from the army having been arrested, along with protesting the rules and requirements to obtain a deferral or exemption from the army.

Questions have been raised as to why these protests are heavily attended by the yeshiva boys, but the rabbonim themselves do not attend, despite their statements as to the importance of the protests.

Kikar checked with the rabbonim of the Peleg and came back with the following answers from Rav Deutsch.

Rav Deutsch responded that if the protests would be not just masses of people milling about the streets screaming but would have "a mizrach" and a podium, that would be a different story and perhaps the rabbonim would participate, but just to wander around in a hafgana among everyone else?

Further, should the rabbonim be there and be running away from the skunk smells sprayed at the protesters? Protests are important, I am not flippant about them [but they aren't for the rabbonim].

Rav Bordianski added that it would be a legal problem for the rabbonim to participate, as the protests they hold are illegal. The rabbonim calling to protest would be in legal trouble, and Rav Shmuel Auerbach as well was very careful to say things in certain ways to avoid saying anything illegal that can be pinned on rabbonim.

1. Rav Deutsch is basically saying the boys are cannon fodder. The rabbis should go and mingle among the regular protesters? pas nisht, even though the protesters are their own talmidim and are being mekadesh shem shamayim, in their opinion.

2. If they gave us a podium and a "mizrach" to sit on? So make one,. You are the one arranging the protest, so arrange it with a podium and speeches by rabbonim instead of sending yeshiva boys out to streets without direction and guidance.

3. Legal issues? haha. so it is all a game. they tailor their words carefully so other people can get in trouble for following their instructions but they themselves cant get in trouble. Again, cannon fodder.

Behadrei is reporting on a shiur given by the Rosh yeshiva of Yeshivat Chevron, Rav Mordechai Farbshtein, in Yeshivat Merkaz HaRav. It is noted that the last time the rosh yeshiva of Chevron Yeshiva gave shiur in Merkaz Harav was 50 years ago when Rav Yechezkal Sarna gave shiur and the Roshei Yeshiva of Merkaz HaRav were Rav Tzvi Yehuda Kook and Rav Avraham Shapira.

I appreciate that the article does not describe this as a show of "achdut", or unity. I always dislike that term when used to describe two Jews with different kippot that do an activity together. I also appreciate that the visit was not described as "historic", as is often done in such situations.

While I too applaud the invitation offered to Rav Farbshtein by Merkaz Harav and his acceptance and deliverance of the shiur, I do wonder when we will see reciprocity. Every now and again we find such occurrences of rebbes and rosh yeshivas of Haredi yeshivas or schools being invited to schools and yeshivas in other sectors, and that is wonderful and very open-minded of the hosting schools and yeshivas to expose their students to the Torah and teachings of other streams. I fail to recall such an invitation offered by a Haredi school or yeshiva to any rebbe or rosh yeshiva from other streams thus exposing its students to the teachings and Torah of others. Just like I want to see the Rosh Yeshiva of Chevron as a guest in Merkaz HaRav, I also want to see the Rosh Yeshiva of Merkaz HaRav, or Kerem BYavneh or Shaalavim or others invited to Chevron, or Mir, or Ponevezsh, or others.

Interesting bidding war took place at a yeshiva minyan in Bet Shemesh over Yom Kippur.

In the yeshiva of Chachmei Yerusahlayim, led by Rabbi Potash, the bidding for one of the aliyot went as high as $30,000 (true? exaggerated? does it cast doubts on the entire story?), with the bid being offered by an alumnus from the yeshiva.

One of the students offered a counter-bid with a different currency - he offered to learn 1400 pages of gemara for the honor of getting that aliya.

Unsure what to do with the two bids being offered in different currencies, the gabbai turned to Rav Potash for a decision. Rav Potash decided the victor was the student offering to learn 1400 pages of gemara, referring to the passuk of "your words of torah are more valuable than gold and silver"...
source: Kikar

1. beautiful story. The rosh yeshiva set a nice example for his students

2. from what I hear, bidding from now on will only take place in pages of gemara and the yeshiva has basically ended its fundraising forever.

3. It is not really new, as many yeahivas and some shuls have been selling aliyas and honors on Simchas Torah for pages learned for a long time already. The chiddush here would be this was on Yom Kippur, not Simchas Torah, and that it was pages learned competing against money.

4. when they come fundraising, will baalebatim say they prefer to give 8 pages of gemara rather than a check for $180 (a rough calculation of the ration from 1400 pages to $30k)?

דינר ליברלי - מעורב גברים ונשים - בהשתתפות ראש ישיבת לייקווד הגאון רבי מלכיאל קוטלר שאף נושא דברים pic.twitter.com/Cp8wEO0zE5

— אברהם גרינצייג (@avigrin10) March 14, 2016

Some people are upset that Rav Malkiel Kotler, the rosh yeshiva of BMG, Lakewood Yeshiva, participated in, and spoke at, a mixed dinner. In the tweet this journalist calls it  a "liberal dinner" and points out that the crowd was mixed gender.

It seems he thinks Rav Kotler can't decide for himself what is appropriate and what is inappropriate. Maybe instead of criticizing Rav Kotler he should say something like - wait, if Rav Kotler would participate in such an event with a mixed audience, maybe it is not quite so bad as we think it is...

In  the meantime, hot off the success of the Haredi media to turn the Reform Kotel deal into such a crisis and force, by way of public pressure, the leadership to harden its stance, after the Haredi leadership was initially fine with letting the deal go through, the media is going now and telling rosh yeshivas what to do and how to act and what is right and what is wrong...

Kikar is reporting on a story  of a yeshiva bochur who just got married, but because he was breaking the yeshiva's rule of what the acceptable minimum age for marriage is, the rosh yeshiva did not allow the other students to attend the wedding.

The yeshiva says boys can get married only from age 22. This boy was 21 and decided to get married anyway. The yeshiva threatened everyone else that whoever participates in the wedding would be tossed from the yeshiva.

It seems the rosh yeshiva doesn't agree with the recent decision of the rabbonim in the USA who have called for boys to get married at 21 as a solution to the shidduch crisis.. not that he has to...

While it seems ridiculous to punish a student who has been in the yeshiva for 3 years in such a manner, not allowing his friends to attend his wedding, it is not the first time such threats have been used to promote yeshiva policy. The same way taxation and public policy is used to engineer social change and promote priorities of the government and society, yeshivas make these sorts of rules as well.

I know of a yeshiva (from a cousin who married a boy from that yeshiva) in which the rosh yeshiva allowed its students to only get married in certain months of the year and only on certain days within those months. Anybody who got married outside of the acceptable date - would be out of the yeshiva and his friends would not be allowed to attend. The rosh yeshiva didnt want weddings to be at any given time disrupting the schedule of the learning in the yeshiva.

This rosh yeshiva, in the story above, is doing the same. He wants boys until a certain age worried about learning and not about dating. I feel bad for the boy, but he knew the rules and decided to break them. Sometimes you get away with it, and sometimes you don't.

On Thursday the Rabbanut changed the criteria regarding who is allowed to conduct weddings in Israel. What seems to be a lightening of the restrictions for some will make it more difficult for others.

According to Bechadrei and Srugim (each from its own perspective), the Rabbanut has been working with the rabbonim of Tzohar to change the rules of what it takes to qualify to be certified for officiating at weddings. The new rules will require a rav to have semicha from the Rabbanut, be tested in the halachos of marriage by a senior rav of the Rabbanut along with by another rav from a list of 10 rabbonim that will be approved, an ishur from 3 city rabbis that the applicant did indeed serve as a rav for a community of at least 30 families, and an ishur from a city rabbi that he assisted on at least 10 weddings and served as rav of a community for at least 2 years.

That is for a rav. A rosh yeshiva or head of an educational institution has different criteria. They would have to meet the following conditions: their institution must be approved by the Ministry of Defense or the Ministry of Education, along with having letters from rabbonim and ishurim of level of seniority.

An admor that wants to qualify as a certified wedding officiator needs to qualify under the following criteria: ishur from 3 city rabbis that he is the admor for a chassidus of at least 50 families, that he learned in a yeshiva for at least 10 years over the age of 18, served as admor for at least 5 years and ishur from a city rav that he assisted on at least 10 weddings.

For community rabbis this makes life easier. For haredi rosh yeshivas and chassidic admorim, who commonly officiate the weddings in the haredi communities, the new criteria makes it harder. Until now they have had almost no limitations on their abilities to qualify, and now they will have to meet all the above requirements.

This has the support of chief rabbis Yona Metzger and Shlomo Amar.

I'd say that it is good to have equal sets of guidelines and criteria. When the system is fairly standardized, the level and quality is known. If these changes were goign to be made, I don't see a problem with it in theory.

The only thing I think should be added t it is that current rabbis and rosh yeshivas who have been conducting weddings should be grandfathered in and not be forced to go through the certification process that will likely be considered demeaning or degrading for many of them.

Why should a senior rosh yeshiva or admor have to go through the process of certification when he has been conducting weddings for 30 years for hundreds of young men over the years? That can be very demeaning - he would have to "assist" a different rabbi on a bunch of weddings, he would have to go around asking for ishurim for different things, it is not respectful.

The criteria should be applied, I think, to new rabbis and rosh yeshivas, while the older ones with experience should be grandfathered in.


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The Mir Yeshiva is a very good yeshiva. That does not even need to be said.

Being such a large yeshiva, though, perhaps the largest in the world, it does have it's problems. The Mir is so large that it cannot contain itself in one building, in one beis medrash, in one dormitory. The students are spread out throughout the neighborhood in rental apartments, in small shuls, in small batei medrash, etc. In such a large place it is easy to get lost, and for anyone who wants to it is easy to fly under the radar. Truth is that this is true in any yeshiva or institution, and small places have other problems.

In the past, pretty much anybody could get in to the Mir. Rav Nosson Tzvi Finkel had the policy of giving everyone a chance, not shutting the doors of Torah to anybody. Something had to be pretty serious for a by to not get accepted to learn in the Mir Yeshiva.

According to this report on Bechadrei, things are changing in the Mir. The new rosh yeshiva, Rav Lazer Yehuda Finkel, is cleaning the place up. New rules will clean the place up, make it less of an "ir miklat" (city of refuge) (that is my analysis, not what Rav Finkel said).

Among the new rules is a change of the acceptance policy. Rav Finkel will now be limiting the acceptance to about 50% of applicants. And, special mashgichim will be appointed to keep an eye on all new yeshiva bochurim joining the yeshiva.

Another new policy is the control over the apartments the boys rent out (for those who cannot get a room in the dormitory). The boys in apartments, just like the boys in the dorm, are not allowed to have various things, such as computers , "non-kosher" cellphones, internet connections, etc. Until now the yeshiva did not really have a way to check up on these boys, as they werent completely under the eye of the yeshiva system.

Now, special "bodkim" - inspectors, are being appointed to keep an eye on the  guys in apartments and look for forbidden paraphernalia. the yeshiva administration came to an agreement with the owners of the local rental apartments by which the yeshiva would be in charge of renting out the apartments to the boys on behalf of the owners. This gave them a certain amount of control.

It clearly was not enough, as according to the report, they have now added a clause to the agreement with the owners that will allow the yeshivas inspectors to enter any apartment at any time in order to check that the yeshiva rules are being adhered to. Now the inspectors will not just be limited to the dormitory, but will also inspect the rental apartments.

The old rules might have helped the yeshiva grow to an a amazing size. The new rules prefer quality over quantity.

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As a child I always wanted to record the Cubs and Bears games that were played on Shabbos so I could watch them later. We never did. Probably more because technology then made such a thing with a timer more difficult but also because that was a sacrifice for Shabbos (I had it really hard as a kid, can't you see?)... When I was a bit older and in yeshiva, I always wondered if it would be possible to record a drasha by setting up a walkman, or eventually a voice recorder in a hidden spot near the speaker.. the biggest challenge would have been leaving it on and not running out of battery power or recording time by the time the drasha was to be given. Another sacrifice for Shabbos.

In a yeshiva in Bnei Braq there has been a special shiur given once a week on a weeknight. because of the complexity involved, and to allow the shiur to be accessible to many alumni and avreichim who cannot make it at the scheduled time of the shiur, the shiur would be recorded and then saved to a yeshiva computer from which the boys could then transfer to their audio devices for further reviewing of the shiur.

Two weeks ago the Rosh Yeshiva decided to move the shiur from a weeknight to Friday night. This presented the students with a dilemma. How would they record it for listening later? They solved the problem by placing a recorder on Friday afternoon in an unnoticed spot near the Rosh Yeshiva and setting it to record. When he gave his speech later on Friday night, the shiur was recorded as usual. After shabbos it was then downloaded to the computer and shalom al yisrael.

When it was discovered that the shiur was subversively recorded on Shabbos, the rosh yeshiva got upset. The shiur was erased from the computer (and I imagine he made each boy erase it from whatever device they might have copied it to), and he also changed the shiur back to the weeknight schedule. If it would cause such a grave breach in proper behavior and relation to Shabbos, the shiur could not be given then. (source: Kikar)

It seems like a great idea, but the implementation by people who are generally looking to keep kala k'chamura is a bit of a corruption.. The rosh yeshiva made a good decision to reschedule it again so as to avoid such behavior in the future.

I received permission from the author to post this amazing recollection of one student out of three thousand...
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Just Another Bochur in Mir

As a young Bochur (young man) learning in the (Yeshiva) Mir Yerushalayim, it can be extremely disconcerting to find one’s place in a yeshiva of over 3000 talmidim (students). I had come from a small yeshiva and was not used to the hustle and bustle of a large institution. As I started to get settled into my new Yeshiva I was told that as large as the yeshiva was, The Rosh hayeshiva Ztz’l (Dean), in his tzidkus (greatness), was willing to learn with any bochur who asked to learn with him. To say that I was a bit skeptical would be an understatement. How could it be that Harav Nosson Tzvi Finkel Ztz’l, a man who ran the largest yeshiva in the world at the time and lived with Parkinsons disease, could possibly find time to learn with anyone who simply asked. Nevertheless, I approached the Rosh Hayeshiva one evening, introduced myself and asked him if he had any time to learn with me. To my amazement, the Rosh Hayeshiva thought for a moment, and asked me to come to his house on the following Tuesday evening.

Needless to say as I approached the house I was a bit nervous. I knocked on the door and was greeted by a member of the family. I proudly said that I had an appointment to learn with the Rosh Hayeshiva and asked if he was available. To my chagrin I was told that the Rosh Hayeshiva was at the Chasunah (wedding) of a Talmid and would not be able to meet tonight. I was very disappointed but I understood that the Rosh Hayeshiva was an extremely busy man. I was sure that there was not a night that went by without a myriad of obligations that the Rosh Hayeshiva had to take care of. I was not yet ready to give up though and decided to try again next week.

The following week I once again knocked on the Rosh Hayeshiva’s door only to be told that the Rosh Hayeshiva was home but was too tired to meet with anyone. All of the talmidim knew about the super human strength the Rosh Hayeshiva needed just to get up in the morning and I just couldn’t bring myself to try and talk my way in. I was extremely disappointed, though. I pretty much gave up at that point. I cannot say that I was upset but more than a bit surprised that the Rosh Hayeshiva would agree in the first place to learn with me if he was truly unable.

I did not realize it at the time but the next encounter I would have with the Rosh Hayeshiva would change my life forever. The Tuesday after I was turned away from the door of the Rosh Hayeshiva, I was walking out of the Mir after lunch when I was approached by none other than the Rosh Hayeshiva himself. In his incredibly quiet manner he apologized for not being able to meet with me the last two weeks and guaranteed me that if I would stop by tonight, he would make sure he was available. I could not believe that the Rosh Hayeshiva actually remembered me enough to recognize me and approach me.

I showed up that night and once again knocked on the door. This time however I was let right in. The Rosh Hayeshiva was lying on the couch resting from a long day. It was obvious to me that he was absolutely spent. He did not have one ounce of strength left. In utter exhaustion, he got up from his couch and slowly walked with me over to the table. We sat down together and I waited for the Rosh Hayeshiva to speak. Instead he just looked at me waiting for me to speak. “Uh, What does the Rosh Hayeshiva want to learn?” I asked like a school boy in the principal’s office. He smiled at me and said, “You’re the boss, what do you think?” I told him that I wanted to learn mussar (ethics), perhaps something about laziness.

At this point I assumed the Rosh Hayeshiva would shmuez with me about the importance of making every moment count or perhaps tell me over some divrei Torah focusing on the midah (trait) of zrizus (proactiveness) in Mitzvos. Instead, the Rosh Hayeshiva did something that I will never forget for the rest of my life. Without a second thought and as tired and week as he was, he literally jumped out of his chair, hurried to the bookshelf and pulled out a Musser Sefer (holy book). It was as if he had a sudden burst of energy suddenly fill his body. I watched in utter shock as a man who was completely exhausted just moments ago, came back to life right before my eyes. We learned together for another ½ hour. A half hour Me’ayn Olam Habah (in total bliss).

To tell you the truth I don’t even remember what the sefer was and I don’t remember a word of what we learnt. But I will never forget the incredible energy the Rosh Hayeshiva suddenly exhibited. It was a lesson not of words but of action and one that I have put to use many times. Whenever I feel tired after a long day at work and am not in the mood to do something, I remember the incredible actions of the Rosh Hayeshiva. If anyone had an excuse to be lazy it was the Rosh hayeshiva. I realized at that moment that there is only one way to overcome that midah or any bad midah. You can learn about it from today till tomorrow but until you jump out of that seat it’s really not something you can internalize. I stayed in the yeshiva for another two years. Unfortunately I only learned with the Rosh Hayeshiva one more time but the lessons I learned have lasted a life time. The Rosh Hayeshiva Ztz’l will be sorely missed by everyone. Especially by the talmud who was just one of three thousand.

Akiva Pollack

Rav Nosson Tzvi Finkel, the rosh yeshiva of the Mir Yeshiva, passed away yesterday.

I did not know Rav Finkel personally, though I saw him a number of times at various occasions. Not normally one to announce deaths, especially of people I did not have a personal relationship with, even if only briefly, I do want to relate for a moment to Rav Finkel's death.

Many are passing around the now famous picture of Rav Finkel as a high school senior in the Chicago Hebrew Academy, later to become known as Ida Crown Hebrew Academy, a co-ed school. He is a sharp looking and handsome young man, and it is shocking for many to learn he comes from such a "modern" background. The picture has some shock value, but it also serves to increase people's admiration, considering the background he came from and what he eventually became. it is not the typical ArtScroll rosh yeshiva story of a son of rosh yeshiva who became the next rosh yeshiva.

What I want to relate to, and, again, I did not know the rosh yeshiva personally at all, is his Parkinsons affliction. No matter how many times I saw him, I was amazed each time by how he was able to overcome his disease and still be so involved, responsible for everything in the yeshiva, still travel, still fundraise, go to events and give shiurim. A disease which can be so crippling, and in him one could see how he had deteriorated so much and how it affected him so seriously, yet he never let that slow him down.

People who overcome their challenges, their limitations, and succeed, and excel, despite those challenges and limitations, and they don't let themselves be taken down, those are the people I admire the most.
Rav Finkel was one of those men.
Yehi Zichro Baruch.

It looks like Rav Ovadiah's dream is coming true. Israel's community of Jews is adopting one set of minhagim.

I always wondered about when minhagim begin and when they end. A person can be living in a city, and continue to not act in accordance with local minhagim, because his family minhagim from previous generations takes precedence. Why do the minhagim from Poland, Germany, Russia, Morocco,or wherever, from 100, 200, 500 years ago, take precedence over local community minhagim. At what point does a local minhag override an old family minhag?

A result of this is that we have communities with multiple minhagim - everyone does his own thing. Rav Ovadiah has spoken out many times about the overriding minhag in Eretz Yisrael should be the sefardic minhagim as per Rav Yosef Karo. While he has said that people with minhagim should/could continue with their own minhagim, if someone is taking a new minhag, it should be in accordance with minhag eretz yisrael according to Rav Karo.

So we are coming close to that day, where the community in Israel will be living according to one set of minhagim. Unfortunately, for Rav Ovadiah, is that it seems that the sefardic rabbonim are en masse moving to the ashkenazi minhagim, rather than the other way around. If they themselves were doign so, that would be one thing, but they are also pushing their students to follow suit.

the past week we have seen a sefardi rosh yeshiva pressure a student to perform his wedding according to the ashkenazi custom, and then we saw another who acted similarly regarding kashrus (though he compromised o another sefardi hechsher).

Now another incident has happened in this vein. At least this time the rosh yeshiva preempted the wedding, by dealing with it in advance. Kikar has the story of a sefardi rosh yeshiva who went to a boy who would be getting married very shortly, and handed him a frock and told him that if he will not wear the frock at the wedding, the rosh yeshiva will refuse to come.

Furthermore, he then established a set of customs for his yeshiva, customs that every boy getting married must adhere to. The new rules are:

1. the chosson must wear a frock
2. they must go to the yichud room right after the chuppa
3. he can only marry a woman who will wear a sheitel (rather than cover the hair with a tichel)
4. they must hire the photographer through the yeshiva office, and no video is allowed.

The Ohr Yisrael yeshiva in Petach Tikva is well known in the haredi community. It is a top yeshiva, famous for its very strict disciplinarian style. They have developed over the years a name and reputation, and they produce what the haredi world considers the dream of the crop of yeshiva boys and kollel yungerman.

Ohr Yisrael believes in limiting the external influences and potential influences on the boys, so as to minimize any possible distractions and anything that might have a negative influence on the boys. The rosh yeshiva wants these boys learning, and only learning. Nothing else. In Ohr Yisrael, cellular phones are not allowed - not even kosher phones.

The revolutions in the Arab world began when a merchant in Tunisia lit himself on fire after repeatedly opening a pushcart to sell goods and being shut down by the authorities multiple times.

The revolution in Ohr Yisrael began when the rosh yeshiva threw out a boy, two weeks before his wedding, for having a cellphone that he thought would help him have an easier time preparing for the upcoming wedding. Looking back, he probably should have asked permission. After he was tossed, the rest of the yeshiva was upset. As they began to register their protest, the yeshiva took a heavy handed position and tossed 3 of the older guys from the yeshiva. The revolt was quelled. For a bit.

The revolt was reawakened when the rosh yeshiva decided recently to tell the boys they could not use their mp3 players until they turned them in to the office. The office would arrange for all these players to have their functions disabled from any possible outside influence (radio access).

The boys refused to turn over their players, saying that doing so would invalidate the warranty on the devices.

Without going into the whole chain of events, which you can get on Bechadrei, the rosh yeshiva threatened to throw anybody out who is in possession of a player that has not had its external functions disabled. The yeshiva was at large risk of losing a large percentage of its students, when the rosh yeshiva called the elder group of 60 boys in and told them he could not look at them because they are corrupt and if they dont turn in their players by the end of the day they would all be tossed.

The threat did not work, except on a small number of boys. Then, in a dramatic turn of events, the rosh yeshiva announced one evening the other day, before maariv, "I am not Qaddafi, I am not Mubarak, and I am not stuck to my chair. You have learned from "the cousins" to make revolutions. If you want me to go, just say so and I will leave."

The revolt is a surprise, because it is that attitude and power of the rosh yeshiva that attracts the "top" guys to that yeshiva. They learn there for a few years and they come out with reputations as top guys (whatever that means), they get top shidduchim (whatever that means), and eventually if they ever leave kollel they get top teaching positions.

Whether or not I agree with the style, that is the style of the yeshiva, and the boys go there knowing that - not just knowing that, but because of that. For them to revolt against such a level of discipline is a shock. Perhaps it just became too overbearing.

A ramification of the Emannuel school situation, which seems to thankfully be finally resolved, is that an increasing number of people in the Haredi community are beginning to call for changing the system to not take any money from the State of Israel. The Satmar platform, in part at least, is becoming commonly suggested and is being considered for adoption.

I said this would happen - that attacking the Haredi community now in such force would not be beating them down but would cause them to become more extreme in their positions. It might start with not taking money for schools so w can run them how we want, but it will end up in all sorts of other areas where it will be less pleasant.

The latest of such calls are coming from Litvishe Rosh Yeshiva Rav Michel Yehuda Lefkowitz. Rav Lefkowitz said that the time has come for the yeshivas to stop taking money from the government, so as to give the yeshivas complete independence. Rav Lefkowitz quoted a number of gedolim from previous generations who believed in this position of not taking money from governments so as not to later be required to submit to external interference in the methods of the yeshiva. Since the yeshivas continued existence is a phenomenon that is beyond nature, there is no reason to put our reliance in the government.

If the yeshivas will not be getting money from the government, will this force changes in the system? Will they be more discerning in who comes to learn in the yeshiva, as their resources are being spent on the students, they might only be willing to take this on for the more serious students? Or will it stay the same but just more reliant on fundraising? Will yeshivas decentralize, as the large yeshivas would have to massively fundraise, but more small yeshivas might make it easier for each to raise smaller amounts of money? Or perhaps the system will centralize more as people will be less inclined to open yeshivas and the large yeshivas will be where people donate their money rather than to small yeshivas..

Time will tell, and maybe this is just threats anyway and nobody is really planning on giving up the government funding.. What rosh yeshiva that goes out a few times a year for weeks and months running from door to door will willingly give up what has become a stable part of his budget, knowing that that will force him to go out collecting even more than what he already is?

While Rabbi Findler is busy smashing computers in his baal teshuva yeshiva, teaching his students a level way to the extreme of society, his students are busy uploading the video to Youtube, pretty much rendering his hands-on lesson moot...

so think the Rosh Yeshivas at least....

Mishpacha newspaper reported this past week that some of the major Rosh Yeshivas, including RYs from the Mir, Ponevez, Kaminetz, and some of the other major yeshivas in Israel have called upon the Yeshivas and Rosh Yeshivas to not allow nearly 30% of the week to go to waste.

They announced that, "Friday and Shabbos are days in which the halls of Torah are noticeably weakened. Even though this issue has been raised many times, Torah always needs strengthening, regarding making use of this time that spans nealry a third of the week. Therefore, every ben torah should know that his diligence in Torah during these days (i.e. Fridays and Saturdays) is necessary for the continuity of one's learning. It is brought down in the seforim that mitzvos done on Shabbos - their reward is many times greater and it sustains the world at a time when there is an overall weakening of Torah study. And more so in the summer when the days are long, every person should be diligent to strengthen himself. In this merit, they will merit the reward of "taking the reward for others"".

When I was in yeshiva, during the summer zmanim when the days were longer, we had a learning seder for much of Friday - the whole morning and part of the early afternoon - and then again on Shabbos afternoon.

Do Yeshivas no longer have sedorim on Friday and Shabbos?