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What is the purpose and do we need it? In a way to me it seems like a way for girls to cop out of changing and working on themselves as much as they should during high school. Oh Ill just “frum out (or whatever term girls use) in seminary.”
What do you think? Id love to hear from girls/women who went to seminary what purpose it serves and why its necessary and not just a way to chill on daddys expense for a year.
what kind of question is that??? and why should a boy go??? seminary is in no way chilling. If sent to the right school ( which is the parents perogative) then a girl will be very busy with learning and seeing israel and growing and learning about being an adult. I havent met to many girls who decided their year was a waste of time….or a waste of money, because that sounds liek what is important in your post.
I would say that you are in fact not that well informed.
While many girls “frum out” in seminary most don’t. Many may become more frum just as a bochur from HS through BM might.
You could also ask the same question of boys. In fact back in the 30s and 40s this question was asked and most of the boys did not continue in yeshiva past high school. Historically we can see the result of this. Most of these boys did not remain frum. Today of course it’s a given that a boy remain in yeshiva post-high school. The result is that most boys remain frum. Learning Torah as long as you can will strengthen a person’s base of yiddishkeit needed to fight the yetzer hora of the outside world. An additional year at least of kollel adds the foundation of a Torah-true life to the couple.
Girls’ seminary accomplishes the same thing. This girl will be a mother to yiddishe kinder. She is the one who is home with them as they grow up, before they start school. The mother teaches them krias shema and brochos. The mother and wife needs a firm basis of Torah and yiddihkeit. The holy mother of the Bais Yakov system of learning for girls, Sara Schenirer zechusa yogen oleinu, realized that in a modern world a stronger basis for yiddishkeit for girls was required. Historically we can see that this was true. Seminary is the capstone for a girl’s Torah education. And it also becomes the foundation for her Torah life after she marries, respect for Torah and mitzvos. All three of my daughters as well as my wife attended seminary. True they all aspired to become teachers, which they did. But it also gave them the strong foundation in yiddishkeit which I spoke about.
parents need to decide if their child will be “moved” by the boy/girl thing (which is also a problem in baltimore, brooklyn. 5 towns…etc….) there are issues for certain people going to israel, but between the mechanchos and the parents they should know the person well enough to HELP them decide what is best.
I do not think there is an idea of entitelment, just a desire to go.
nothing is necessary. but it MAY (or may not) be beneficial. maybe its not necessary for boys either…?
WellInformedYid, excuse my ignorance, but why 2 round trip tickets? Don’t they come in Ellul and leave in the summer?
WIY- are you reffering to seminary in Israel or just sem in general?
I do think that it is necessary because many times that is the last year that they will receive a full dose of hashkafa for the rest of their lives, unless they make a strong effort to seek it out, and at 17/18 I dont think anyone has all their hashkafos set for life.
I’m not sure however how necessary going to Eretz Yisroel is. Yes, it is very nice to see the kedusha of E’Y, and to see how people live “gashmius free”, but meanwhile at home the parents are tightening their belts so that they can spend the extra 20k. Bottom line is I dont think EVERYONE gains, there are definitely cases where it has done a world of good for girls (and unfortunately the opposite is true) and then there are the majority of cases where the girl just had a year in E’Y where the focus was the teyulim and the fun… for 20k I can say Ma Rabu Maasechu Hashem at the Grand Canyon, it doesnt have to be in E’Y, and it would be a whole lot cheaper.
Boys going to E’Y to learn is a completely diff story, first of all the money issue is non-comparable, it is much cheaper for boys. Also, there is an inyan that you learn Torah much better in E’Y because of the Kedush (please no one say that girls are also learning Torah, I may lose my lunch)
Absolutely think that in MOST cases, Bais Yaakov seminaries are NO DIFFERENT than a 5th year of High School. It’s glorified babysitting- don’t want them to get married yet and don’t want them to go to college yet. I think there is a lot of potential to make it more productive and effective than high school, but unfortunately most people are not so creative, and teach what they have been teaching for the last 20 years and don’t think out of the box. Or teach the same way every other seminary teaches. I always wanted to do real research to see the long-term effects of seminary to get some real research on which seminaries are most effective. To do that, we would have to define very clearly our goals for the seminary way and a measurable way of asessing if they were fulfilled.
As a girl who was debating going to seminary in E”Y, and did in the end B”H, I have to say it was the best decision. Yes, its expensive, and yes, it may encourage a sense of entitlement by the fact that its ‘expected’ and ‘accepted’, but ultimately it changes you. Right after high school is the ONLY time in a girl’s life where she has a chance to TRULY work on herself, her hashkafos and develop her own ruchnius. She has very few responsibilities (no husband, kids, house etc.), so why not send her to a place that will enable her to reach the greatest heights? The clarity that one experiences in E”Y is unbelievable, and to have a chance to experience such menuchas hanefesh for an entire year is very special.
WITHOUT A DOUBT, I would not be the person I am today if I hadn’t gone to seminary in E”Y. My personal hashkafos, my dating hashkafos, and ultimately the wonderful husband that I was zoche to marry all stem from the foundation that I received in seminary.
To directly address your question, its not a ‘cop out’ for a girl to say ‘oh, i’ll change in seminary’, because she will! Its much easier to change in an environment of growth, where everyone around you wants to grow, then to stay home and live as you have always lived until then.
In terms of the expense, its very important to know yourself/your daughter when thinking about seminary in E”Y. No doubt there are girls who just ‘chill on daddy’s expense for a year’. All that really depends on the type of girl and the type of seminary she goes to.
So, YES, we do need it!
Informed person, you should have said Israel. Almost everybody I have ever spoken to, and this includes the girls who did go to Israel, feel that it’s a graet experience but no where near worth what is spent. The girls have peer pressure and the pressure of “I won’t do a good shidduch” syndrome. Is a Porsche better than a Buick or Chevy, sure it is. But if you’re earning $120,000 a year, and that’s a fantastic job, and you have 3 girls to send to seminary and marry off, you can’t afford a Porsche. If your automotive needs are driving around Brooklyn and/or getting to work, a Porsche is a complete waste of money. Something really wrong with the system if a yeshivishe boy and girl can’t do a shidduch unless she attended BJJ and he learned in Brisk. Poor girl “only” went to BY Sem and he went to “just” Lakewood. Whew am I glad I’m chasidish.
In the Catholic world, only men are allowed into seminary.
Women can become nuns, though,
Whew am I glad I’m chasidish.
Yes, please tell us about the latitude young chasidim have in choosing how they want to live.
Tell us about the objective standards you don’t impose.
I’m curious, don’t American seminaries come out to around $15,000 (let’s say Yavneh? between travel & the like) – how much do you save by not going to Israel? (Not versus a part time/college program. I mean a full time sem)
WIY: It is not necessary for girls to come home for Pesach (or for parents to visit midyear).
And we need more dorm options for out of towners in the N. American seminaries.
Moq: good point. For the working poor who don’t qualify for a lot of grants an American sem can be quite expensive too. And there are a variety of grants that ONLY apply for E”Y, such as MASA (which has looser income guidelines), local Federations, and others. It will still be pricier but it cuts some of the costs. And the girls can keep it real too.
I’m not convinced that h.s. can give the girls all they need. In their later teens the girls need some good, unplugged discussions that aren’t appropriate in 12th grade, and that not all 12th grade teachers can handle. Also, considering that so many girls are going to be going for higher degrees, why not let them have some higher, more sophisticated and in depth learning?
Now, you NYers are saying absolutely! Let my girls start their programs and consistently take night sem classes. They’ll grow, maybe find some teachers with whom to build a kesher, etc. There are wonderful summer or short term E”Y programs that we can probably swing to give our daughter a meaningful E”Y experience.
But think beyond the Hudson. Out of town parents would love such options but will not send their daughters to live in an apt. at that point. WE NEED DORMS!!!
Please people, before commenting, maybe you want to say, this will only apply to NY.
it’s to copy the boys who go learn in isreal yeshivas, anyway i think its really not a good idea the parents have zero clue as to what and where their daughter is or doing that says it all.
Um, Yavne is around 5k plus boarding. Doesnt touch Israel pricing (neither does the experience)
Tuition at BY Seminary in BP is about $6,000 a year. The other Brooklyn seminaries are similar. “poppa bar abba” seems to be a virulently anti chasid which is OK with me. You can go ahead and pay $40,000 a year for your daughter in seminary while I pay $6,000 for the same education plus the additional satisfaction of knowing on a daily basis that she and her friends are acting like fine yidishe maidlech. You can allow your highly Torah true values Israeli seminary educated daughter to go out with bunches of boys all over the city trying to find Mr. Brisker Right while our daughters get engaged to a nice chasidish bucher who will sit and learn in kollel for a year or two. Your daughter will finally let you meet the guy after 7-8 dates while you don’t sleep nights worrying. After 2 dates and my daughter saying yeah he looks good, I’ll ask my rebbe and if IYH he says yes brucha v’hatzluche, we’ll make a l’chaim. And all this by the way comes from my yeshivish friends who say they envy my derech.
Boys (depending on the child) can benefit from the Torah of Eretz Yisroel. There is no reason girls can’t go to a local seminary.
(neither does the experience)
Nope, the Yavne experience is something special. Do you have any idea how much yiraas shomayim the Yavne girls get from just looking at Rebetzin Ausband?
“You can go ahead and pay $40,000 a year for your daughter in seminary while I pay $6,000 for the same education plus the adiitional satisfaction of knowing on a daily basis that she and her friends are acting like fine yidishe maidlech.”
Dont kid yourself into thinking that Chasidim have less problems then non chasidim. Both sides have some negatives and many positives.
If there would be more seminaries in America girls wouldn’t have to go to Israel. There aren’t so many options in the states.
Arc, absolutely right. I don’t kid myself with the problems of American Orthodoxy in general, chasidish, yeshivish, modern, whatever. But BH chasidish girls don’t generally go to Israel and BH those who do go to seminary here are wonderful girls. I think that’s what this discussion was about, going to seminary here or Israel. I don’t see that the BY seminary of BP girls are on a lesser yiddishkeit madreige nor learn less than their Israeli educated counterparts. This is not a case of “you get what you pay for”.
“plus the adiitional satisfaction of knowing on a daily basis that she and her friends are acting like fine yidishe maidlech”
you wrote what I quoted and I responded to that, not about getting what you pay for.
I agree with theprof1 on many points. The following are definitely true:
1) The chinuch in most USA seminaries is at least equal to their counterparts in E”Y.
2) It costs a bloody fortune to send your daughter to seminary in E”Y vs. USA
3) If you are a frequent visitor to E”Y, then you see what I see – girls all over town, and boys too. You do run the risk vs. as theprof1 says: seeing them daily at home and watching who they hang out with
4) The idea of girls begging for Shabbos meals – and you have no idea where they end up – is very dangerous, and probably disgusting (including the part of eating into the kolel yungermans tight budget)
5) Chassidish people do have less problems doing shidduchim then the yeshivish crowd – ask any shadchan
But all that doesn’t mean that a girls can not absorb the E”Y kedusha and being “mistapek bemiut” being there. And if you can afford it and it works out for you, the bentsch Hashem.
Hatzlocha
5) Chassidish people do have less problems doing shidduchim then the yeshivish crowd – ask any shadchan
Factually incorrect and nothing to do with her/him implying only chassidim act like “fine yiddish maidlach”; which I took and take offence to.
arc – nowhere did he say “only”. He said they are fine yiddish maidlach without the Israeli seminary attendance. And what he stated is factually correct.
“Nope, the Yavne experience is something special. Do you have any idea how much yiraas shomayim the Yavne girls get from just looking at Rebetzin Ausband?”
Did you go? I did.
Its hard to relate. The Seminary has many fatal flaws which is why enrollment is around 15 girls this year.
I’m not necessarily a huge fan of going to E’Y but certain things are just ridiculous.
THEPROF WROTE “while I pay $6,000 for the same education plus the adiitional satisfaction”
That quote says only ben Torah.
ok.
about ‘chilling’ in hs just cuz u’ll ‘frum out’ during sem: i actaully flipped out during hs. then i went to sem. and in sem, i solidified my views and goals, and who exactly i am. i started shidduchim while i was in seminary, and i’m still in shidduchim now. what i told shadchanim and prospective mothers-in-law (i try to meet the mother first or at least have the boy meet my rebbetzin) while i was in seminary is TOTALLY different than what i’ve been telling them since seminary, b/c in sem i still didn’t know myself well enough.
about the ‘bloody fortune’: it depends. if ur a good student u can get either a sponsor or a scholarship. i got both i think. it also depends which seminary u go to. now there are a couple of new half year seminaries (my bas bayis mommy is the principal of one of them) that are half the price, and half the time, and all the experience and learning.
more later be”H. gotta go fry onions, garlic, red pepper, and make potato soup. going away for y”t, don’t want my ingredients to spoil when i’m gone.
Thank you Ben Torah. I reviewed my posts. No where do I say that only chasidish girls act like fine yiddishe maidlech. My chasidish daughter attending BY Seminary has 5 very close friends, 4 are yeshivish, including a rosh yeshiva’s daughter. You can’t find nicer girls than these yeshivish maidlech. This was my exact statement which implies nothing else than explicitly saying that BP BY girls are fine.
“You can go ahead and pay $40,000 a year for your daughter in seminary while I pay $6,000 for the same education plus the additional satisfaction of knowing on a daily basis that she and her friends are acting like fine yidishe maidlech.”
I took your post to mean only chasisdish you meant only people that stay in US. different point still wrong.
You didnt write only just “plus the additional satisfaction” which is another way to say only.
If I’m wrong, you can clarify and I apologize.
I went to seminary, and frankly it wasn’t good for me, and I didn’t go to EY either. However I do see why for many girls it can be very positive. Many girls come out of the BY system without a real sense of direction in life and this gives them an extra year to develop in a kadosh environment.
On the other hand, there is a big gap where a seminary for girls in America should be and hopefully someone will step up to fill it. We need a seminary that is academically rigorous so that girls who want to learn will actually learn. We also need a seminary that is practical and has baking, sewing, home ec classes to help girls who want to be prepared better for marriage. There is room for at least two more seminaries in Brooklyn alone.Many girls do not go to sem in the US because none of the choices work for them.
List of Seminaries I Know About:
Machon sem in Brooklyn is good for girls who are going to college and want to do sem at the same time.
BY intensive is good for girls who do not plan on going to college and want the best Israel experience America can offer.
BY half day is good for girls who want to have a job and learn, some classes are better than others.
There’s a seminary in Monsey a friend of mine attended – not very academic, but very good for an all around type of girl
There’s one in Lakewood that’s supposed to be good but very yeshivish.
Belz sem in BP is very chassidish. I don’t know anyone who went there but heard it is not very academic.
Yavneh – I know a girl who went and was happy with it. However there are problems, I’m not sure what they are.
All the seminaries suffer from a certain hashkafic inflexibility. They seem to feel that they are supposed to force every girl into the same derech of serving Hashem, whatever theirs is – becoming a teacher, mother, etc. They do not take advantage of America’s rabbonim and do not teach achdus with other types of yidden, except maybe in theory.
We can do better.
Paschabchachma, which of them have good supervised dorms?
tzippi -BY intensive, the monsey one, and I think the lakewood one. Yavneh doesn’t have a dorm, you live in people’s houses, I’m not sure of the exact arrangement. There are also Chabad seminaries whose names I don’t know, both for people from frum backgrounds and not, obviously they are not in the same category as the ones YWN readers are interested in but they all have supervised dorms.
I realized I skipped:
Maalot Baltimore: Supposed to be great all around, good teachers, not as against college as the ones in Brooklyn generally are, a little more open minded.
Ateres Naava in Brooklyn by R’ Wallerstien is half – day, I have the impression that many different types of girls go there, generally girls who want to grow. Not strictly for girls coming from 12th grade. I think it’s also not as against college, but have to check with someone who’s attended.
WIY such girls who don’t work on themselves in high school also don’t work on themselves in sem. and sem becomes like a year at camp with lots of learning. It’s an amazing experience if the girl knows herself, knows her goals for the year and the purpose of the year. (and stays focused on those goals throughout the year) For some it can be a life changing experience. For others it can be a huge fortification and strengthening of all that they were taught at home and in school. It’s also very beneficial for the girls to be on their own. They get to figure out who they really want to be, without family and sometimes friends. Financially it can also teach them how to handle money, that they have to be responsible for themselves in many different areas. It’s a huge transition year between high school teenagers and responsible working girls/eventually married women.
BTW it’s very important to have a SUPERVISED dorms. i’ve heard too many stories of “supervised ” dorms that were really not well supervised.
paschabachachma –
“All the seminaries suffer from a certain hashkafic inflexibility. They seem to feel that they are supposed to force every girl into the same derech of serving Hashem, whatever theirs is – becoming a teacher, mother, etc.”
If you found that to be the problem then Yavne would have been the perfect choice. At no point did they preach, or even give over their Hashkafic view points it was strictly learning 24/7.
Sacrilege: Interesting that you say that. I’m sorry and maybe I’m a little cynical based on my experiences but I really have a very hard time believing that. I know the emphasis in Yavne is academics but that doesn’t mean that they don’t try to make you a “Yavne girl” the way that other seminaries try to churn out a specific “type”. Sometimes girls who are compatible with a hashkafah don’t realize when their school is pushing it; I have friends who will claim that their seminary is extremely open-minded because the girls look at copies of pages of gemara. Do you have any examples where teachers were accepting of various hashkafos?
Paschabechachma –
I didntclaim that they were open minded nor did I say that they were close minded. They were “a-hashkafic” meaning, you would have to try really hard to dig out the hashkafic view points from the lesson, being that 98% of the classes were text based, to find any hashkafa.
I am out of seminary for a couple of years now, but I cant remember one class where a teacher actually expressed their view on a Hashkafic issue….
Yavne isnt about Hashkafa it is about text, they believe it is the last time you will actually be able to truly open a chumash, navi, tehillim etc and really LEARN it with every meforash. If thats for you, enjoy.
It wasnt for me, and in a lot of ways it was a wasted year.
The community is great, and the family I stayed by is a lesson in Shalom Bayis, and that was what I gained the most out of.
i wasnt here in a while. but my opinion about this topic is that first of all there are many girls out there who go to sem but but they are all fakers. they go just for the name and not for any other intentions. if u are going to seminary then do it with a goal in mind. its not a game ure playing its ure future and whatever u decide to do with it will affect u forever. so i advise that if u are going for the name then just dont go its not worth it for u or for the money .
secont the whole hock about israel is crazy. i think that its 2 way. yes some girls willgo and should go because they will gain alot. others though u neeed to realize that u need to be strong enough for the experience. to be able to keep strong the whole time is not easy. and no its absolutely not for everyone and the trend is ridiculous. feel free to agrue but i remain firm hatzloche with all that u do.
Sacrilege- thank you for sharing that. That was very interesting for me to see. Are all the teachers from the same background, or do they have real variety? (Because otherwise even without direct hashkafah lessons, they are definitely presenting it a certain way.)
I had a teacher who was from Yavne Cleveland once, and while she was very text based she was definitely presenting only her hashkafah as the right one.
I’m sure many girls learn more from living with a family than anything in seminary.
WIY: Done. I hope the moderators like the way I did it though.
First of all, I dont think many people here know what they are talking about becasue some of these opinions are just completely not true.
About the money issue- Its not 20k because you dont have to go home for pesach (I didnt and neither did about 35 other girls in my seminary) and you can get plenty of scholarships (I did even though my father makes over 200,000) and most girls contribute some of their own money for seminary(I did and so did my roommate who paid for everything that the scholarships didnt cover).
But if you will argue and say you know people who did spend 20k let me tell you that had my parents spent 50k it still wouldve been worth it. Of course this isnt true for everyone, but each parent should know their own daughter and while some girls belong in EY others really dont and just get worse.
I definitely dont think that it should be a given that everyone goes. But let me tell you about my experience.
Firstly, the learning was on a totally different level than high school. I can say without a doubt that what I learned in four years of high school doesnt even come close to what I learned in a month of seminary.
There is also the advantage that you are away from family and friends who know you well and can start life anew and grow without them bothering you and without wondering what will they think if I start doing this and this to improve myself.
WIY- You started another post about how this generation is lacking emunah. I can honestly say that while I never heard a class on emunah and bitachon in high school, in seminary we had a subject devoted to Chovos Halevavos where everyones hashkafos drastically changed for the better. I would not be the person I am today, married to the ben torah that I’m married to today and be able to face the challenges that I have, had I not gained such a strong foundation of emunah and bitachon in seminary.
No question about it- Seminary in EY is necessary for those who will benefit.
sof davar hakol nishma wrote-
“WIY such girls who don’t work on themselves in high school also don’t work on themselves in sem.”
That is a completely false blanket statement. And I am living proof that that its not true. Girls in high school dont have the oportunity to grow. You are there because you have to get thru it not because you want to grow. You dont feel an atmosphere of everyone around you growing, there is too much peer pressure and high school girls are for the most part, too immature and too busy with their plays to think about growing.
You got a scholarship even though daddy makes 200k? Youch. Daddy must have six kids in kollel and another six with tuition. Either that or sems have money they don’t know to do with. In which case, they can send it to me.
Takeh? Yavneh is only 6k – figure another 5k for dorms – takeh, that is a savings. EY is usually 14k-18k and add 2k for flights. So you can save been 5k-10k. Ok, that is money. Is E”Y worth it? For the right girl, the right sem, I suppose it’s priceless. Hmmm…but 10k can go a long way towards a degree/kollel/chasuna. Hmmmm….
But a year in Eretz Yisrael can be worth a great deal. On the other hand, you can also spend it hanging out with the equally productive ‘yeshiva boys’ in ben yehudah, which you can’t do in – oh, Atlanta.
“Tuition at BY Seminary in BP is about $6,000 a year. The other Brooklyn seminaries are similar. “poppa bar abba” seems to be a virulently anti chasid which is OK with me. You can go ahead and pay $40,000 a year for your daughter in seminary while I pay $6,000 for the same education plus the additional satisfaction of knowing on a daily basis that she and her friends are acting like fine yidishe maidlech. You can allow your highly Torah true values Israeli seminary educated daughter to go out with bunches of boys all over the city trying to find Mr. Brisker Right while our daughters get engaged to a nice chasidish bucher who will sit and learn in kollel for a year or two. Your daughter will finally let you meet the guy after 7-8 dates while you don’t sleep nights worrying. After 2 dates and my daughter saying yeah he looks good, I’ll ask my rebbe and if IYH he says yes brucha v’hatzluche, we’ll make a l’chaim. And all this by the way comes from my yeshivish friends who say they envy my derech. “
This is my all time favorite post at YWN!
Gevaltdike! Hail Chassidim and the Rebbeuh! Brucha V’hatzlucha!
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