I became frum without the aid of the kiruv apparatus. I just figured it out. But I soon met people that encouraged my attendance in yeshiva, not just encouraged but presented it as the only next step. Looking back, I can say with confidence that they were wrong. Moving to to a frum neighborhood and attending classes might have been a necessary next step, but not quitting my life and cloistering myself in a yeshiva.
Anyway, I agreed to go. I wanted to go to a place in Monsey, NY but once again encountered pressure to attend a specific yeshiva in Israel. This is one of most horrible traits of Jews, to pressure, nudge, nag, and generally ignore people's instincts and inclinations. I had no interest in going to Israel. I was going through enough changes and figured I better do this closer to home.
But they persisted. My feelings didn't count. This is the best yeshiva they said. And Israel is so special. You have to study in Israel. Looking back, I can say with confidence that they were wrong. As Rav Hirsch tells us, first comes Sinai, then Eretz Yisroel. First you become a Torah Jew, then you go on to be one in the Holy Land. But Zionism has overtaken even the yeshiva world unfortunately as these were rabbis that considered themselves yeshivish and probably even anti-Zionist. But some more soul searching was needed there. They valued land on its own as much as Torah. They had the Israel bug.
Anyway, I agreed to go. The yeshiva was something of a nut house. They had a very limited program that was focused on Gemara study, six pages of it to be exact. They didn't teach halacha, Mishnah, Nach, philosophy, grammar, history. They didn't teach anything about emmunah or bitachon or basics of Judaism. They didn't teach us about tefillah, Shabbos, or the holidays. They didn't have Gemara bekius. There was no aggadatah. They didn't teach anything about the background or language of the Gemara. We just charged into it. For me it was like charging into a wall. I asked the rabbis there if I could study Mishnah, halacha, Nach and everything else they were not teaching. They told me that all of that was unnecessary. Looking back, I can say with confidence that they were wrong. It was all quite necessary. This was becoming a pattern, encountering rabbis who were just so wrong.
Another trait of this yeshiva was its elitism. Instead of gently introducing us to the frum world and all its factions, they hit us every day with talks about how bad the frum world was, how bad all of the other yeshivas were, particularly the BT ones. The students used to jokingly call the other yeshivas "the enemies" because that's how they were presented to us.
The other enemy was ourselves. We were arrogant and ignorant. We couldn't trust ourselves. That was the daily message.
Looking back, I can say with confidence that they were wrong in using this approach. It's sick. Why would a person put up with it? Well, a BT is like a baby. He learns that there's this external authority that he must listen to, one written in a language he can't understand in part because the yeshiva refuses to teach it. The authority says to do things that are not logical - put boxes on your head, wave fruit in the air. It becomes hard to judge right from wrong after a while. So the BT is kind of stuck trusting the people around him. They wield an awesome power.
This yeshiva, though situated in Israel, discouraged Aliyah. Also, they kicked you out after two years, another little ideological ideosyncracy of theirs. So here's what happens, you have been taught not to trust anyone but them, you have been taught to distrust yourself. And then they ship you off to America but there you are on your own without even yourself. This was in the days before the Internet when communication with Israel was difficult and usually conducted on super thin blue mailing paper. I recall arriving back in New York not in a state of newly found grace and faith but of sheer terror.
Pretty crazy huh? You must study in Israel but you can't live there. Why one without the other?
I think the answer is that we are dealing with some very selfish people. They want to live in Israel and they want to run a school. They also want to have unique shittos that show the world how smart they are. Their shittah is that you the BT can't live there. No matter that the whole package leaves a brand new BT who has left his entire life support system behind living in a kind of abyss. If you are going to take over a person's life then you have to stick with him. You can't nullify his brain and kick him out the door. It takes a pretty hard hearted person to actually carryout such an approach but unfortunately that's what we have today in many, many cases. It's an era of selfishness and arrogance and stupidity. People just don't think anything through. They mimick here, mimick there, make something up. The result is a bunch of conflicting cliches that they call a shittah.
The BT walks into all of this. Whenever I met a new BT my heart goes out to him. You'd think I'd be happy for him. If people just left him alone, let him start keeping the mitzvos which is a huge battle unto itself, and gradually grow to love Hashem and Torah life - then I'd be happy for him. But that's not what happens for the most part. BTs walk into a cyclone of wet-noodle ideologies and polictical wars. I know I did.
I survived. I took names too.
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