It is hard to judge the yeshiva world. The truth is it is very confusing. For example the tendency of Lithuanian yeshivas is to carefully protect what they are and what they are doing and to throw off and throw out anyone that does not seem to be a part of the program. I think this is a good thing except when they throw out people that are in fact learning Torah for its own sake.
The general rule is they present themselves are elite geniuses when that is not usually the case.
On the other hand there are places in the Lithuanian yeshiva world that are of the highest quality like Ponovitch in Bnei Brak.
But the advantage of all Lithuanian yeshivas is there tends to be a minimum amount of pseudo Kabalah and lunatics which are so prevalent today in the world of the religious.
One thing about the pseudo Kabalah that is taught nowadays is that it warps people's world view.
Pseudo Kabalah of course claims its lineage from Isaac Luria (the Ari), but in fact it teaches the Kabalah of the Shatz {Shabatai Tzvi} in disguise.
One fellow was telling me today his experience in some yeshivas when he was fourteen years old and was horrified how teaching young kids all kinds of pseudo Kabalah would warp and mess up their minds permanently.
This came up with another fellow who was telling me about the Shuvu Banim Breslov crowd and some of the Shabatai Tzvi kinds of Kabalah that got to be central to their teachings.
The general rule is they present themselves are elite geniuses when that is not usually the case.
On the other hand there are places in the Lithuanian yeshiva world that are of the highest quality like Ponovitch in Bnei Brak.
But the advantage of all Lithuanian yeshivas is there tends to be a minimum amount of pseudo Kabalah and lunatics which are so prevalent today in the world of the religious.
One thing about the pseudo Kabalah that is taught nowadays is that it warps people's world view.
Pseudo Kabalah of course claims its lineage from Isaac Luria (the Ari), but in fact it teaches the Kabalah of the Shatz {Shabatai Tzvi} in disguise.
One fellow was telling me today his experience in some yeshivas when he was fourteen years old and was horrified how teaching young kids all kinds of pseudo Kabalah would warp and mess up their minds permanently.
This came up with another fellow who was telling me about the Shuvu Banim Breslov crowd and some of the Shabatai Tzvi kinds of Kabalah that got to be central to their teachings.
