It is hard to create a place of Torah. I have gained a certain amount of respect for people that were able to make authentic yeshivas after seeing how the whole concept of a yeshiva is so easily derailed and most of them are cults. I can see also why Rav Chaim Solveitchik was against the Musar Movement after seeing how easily Musar itself can be sidetracked into all kinds of lunacies.
I certainly can't create a place of Torah where I am. But I think if there are people that can get together to make something real like this it is good idea to do so.
What is a place of Torah? Mainly it looks like Brisk. That is you are learning the Babylonian Talmud in the morning from around 10 A.M. until 1:30 P.M. in depth. Then from 4 P.M. until 8 P.M. fast.
There was a considerable debate whether to introduce Musar [Jewish Ethics] into this. Reb Chaim said not to. But others did so. Today most Lithuanian yeshivas have introduced a very small amount of Musar into the program. But one way of the other, the day is spent on the Talmud.
Something so simple should be relatively simple to make. Why it is hard? It is that people prefer to make money of the back of the Torah. Their major effort is to look as if they are learning Torah and use that image to scam and defraud secular Jews into giving money. The amount of scammers makes doing the real thing very difficult.
In order to be able to tell the difference between the frauds and the real thing you almost have to be a Torah scholar yourself.
What you mainly need to start with is someone who has learned how to learn by spending the proper amount of time in Ponovitch, Brisk, or the three great NY yeshivas Mir, Chaim Berlin, Torah Vedaath. That is the foundation stone. And it is in this first step that most yeshivas fail. The rosh yeshiva is usually a charismatic Am Haartz [ignorant fraud] who simply know how to act the part of the real thing.
I certainly can't create a place of Torah where I am. But I think if there are people that can get together to make something real like this it is good idea to do so.
What is a place of Torah? Mainly it looks like Brisk. That is you are learning the Babylonian Talmud in the morning from around 10 A.M. until 1:30 P.M. in depth. Then from 4 P.M. until 8 P.M. fast.
There was a considerable debate whether to introduce Musar [Jewish Ethics] into this. Reb Chaim said not to. But others did so. Today most Lithuanian yeshivas have introduced a very small amount of Musar into the program. But one way of the other, the day is spent on the Talmud.
Something so simple should be relatively simple to make. Why it is hard? It is that people prefer to make money of the back of the Torah. Their major effort is to look as if they are learning Torah and use that image to scam and defraud secular Jews into giving money. The amount of scammers makes doing the real thing very difficult.
In order to be able to tell the difference between the frauds and the real thing you almost have to be a Torah scholar yourself.
What you mainly need to start with is someone who has learned how to learn by spending the proper amount of time in Ponovitch, Brisk, or the three great NY yeshivas Mir, Chaim Berlin, Torah Vedaath. That is the foundation stone. And it is in this first step that most yeshivas fail. The rosh yeshiva is usually a charismatic Am Haartz [ignorant fraud] who simply know how to act the part of the real thing.
