Baali Teshuva [newly religious Jews] are at a disadvantage in the frum [Ultra Religous Jewish] world. Everything is the opposite. The frum community acts like hydro-chloric acid to dissolve whatever relationships they have. Their marriages are commonly eroded and dismantled by the frum community. There is certainly no respect for them.
It is a toxic relationship by all accounts I have ever heard of.

Whether you realize it or not, you are in a relationship with the yeshiva you learn in and community you live in.

Here are  things to keep in mind 

Having mutual respect

Trust. Respect is hard to describe. We can tell when we get it and when we don't. Mutual respect means delivering on the things you commit to, showing up,  not talking down to others, and helping people.  Nobody wants to be a part of an environment where mutual respect doesn’t exist.

Imagine being in a relationship where you’re constantly in fear that your significant other is looking to find someone “better” than you. That’s not really much of a relationship is it? You need to be in a relationship based on trust where both you and the yeshiva are going to do your best to make things work. 

 You don’t want to feel like your yeshiva views you as and expendable cog and your yeshiva  wants you to just stick around for a few months and then leave. 

Leave when things are bad

Not every relationship is meant to be but it’s important for us to realize when it’s time to move on. Many of us are in abusive yeshiva relationships and we still stick around. We are talked down to,  we don’t credit for the work we do, we get transferred  without notice,  or we are constantly threatened with disciplinary action. None of these things are healthy. A bad relationship is something that either party can create. An student can take advantage of the yeshiva  or the yeshiva can treat the student as a “cog.” Regardless of who is at fault or why, it’s crucial to end a relationship when things get bad. It’s the best thing for both the yeshiva and the student.

The advice I have here is simple. Keep Torah on your own and don't be dependent on a community. The frum communities that I have seen are in a predatory relationship with baali teshuva. At first everything is made to look hunky dory--all sunshine and love. But that is an illusion they need to instill into the baali teshuva in order to gain their trust.
 But of you in fact have found a community that is in fact supportive then fine. But my feeling is that you need to  have a secular education and learn a honest profession and not be dependent on people's kindness's that can evaporate in a day. The yeshivas are totally dependent on charity. So they have to give the impression they are doing a public service. And maybe some are. At least the NY yeshivas I was in were in fact good places. But those are the exceptions.
What I suggest is the idea of a Beit Midrash, a place where Torah is learned but not paid for. Kind of like what you have in Hillel Centers.


Rav Shach as is known held differently than this. But I think he was thinking more along the lines of yeshivas like Ponovitch or the kind of great Litvak yeshivas where Torah is learned for its own sake. If he would see the situation today, he would agree with me.


What I am trying to say is like my learning partner told me when I brought up the subject of yeshivas. He said it is like what you find in the Talmud "מחזי". That is sometimes the Talmud forbids things because they look like something that is forbidden. So what we have here is great yeshivas in Europe like the Mir or Navardok where Torah was learned for its own sake. And people transferred those places in Israel and NY. But on the side you have people that noticed that they could make good money by starting a yeshiva. and so now you have  vast number of toxic yeshivas compared to the infinitesimally small places that are authentic

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