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Yeshiva
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Yeshiva or yeshivah (Hebrew: ?????, "sitting (n.)" ; pl. yeshivot or yeshivas), or metivta or mesivta (Aramaic: ??????)) also frequently referred to as a Beth midrash, Talmudical Academy, Rabbinical Academy or Rabbinical School is an institution unique to classical Judaism for Torah study, the study of Talmud, Rabbinic literature and Responsa.
Yeshivot are generally, but not always, associated with Orthodox Judaism.
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Encyclopedia
Yeshiva or yeshivah (Hebrew: ?????, "sitting (n.)" ; pl. yeshivot or yeshivas), or metivta or mesivta (Aramaic: ??????)) also frequently referred to as a Beth midrash, Talmudical Academy, Rabbinical Academy or Rabbinical School is an institution unique to classical Judaism for Torah study, the study of Talmud, Rabbinic literature and Responsa.
Yeshivot are generally, but not always, associated with Orthodox Judaism. Ykom is not
Yeshivot generally cater to boys or men, although now many modern Orthodox yeshivot also educate girls. In Orthodox Judaism, such education takes place in separate classrooms and sometimes with somewhat different curricula. A roughly equivalent women's institution is the midrasha.
The term yeshiva gedola ("senior/great yeshiva") usually refers to post-high school institutions, and yeshiva ketana ("junior/small yeshiva") can refer to institutions catering to boys of elementary as well as of high school age. The term "yeshiva" is also used sometimes as a generic name for any school that teaches Torah, Mishnah and Talmud, to any age group.
A yeshiva with a framework for independent study and providing stipends for male married students is known as a kollel.
Etymology
Jewish tradition holds that students should sit while learning from a master. The word yeshiva, meaning "sitting," therefore came to be applied to the activity of learning in class, and hence to a learning "session."
The transference in meaning of the term from the learning session to the institution itself appears to have occurred by the time of the great Talmudic Academies in Babylonia, Sura and Pumbedita, which were known as shte ha-yeshivot, "the two colleges."
History
See also: Torah study
Pre-1800s
Traditionally, every town rabbi had the right to maintain a number of full-time or part-time pupils in the town's beth midrash (study hall, usually adjacent to the synagogue). Their cost of living was covered by community taxation. After a number of years, these young people would either take up a vacant rabbinical position elsewhere (after obtaining semicha, rabbinical ordination) or join the workforce.
The Mishnah tractate Megillah mentions the law that a town can only be called a "city" if it supports ten men (batlanim) to make up the required quorum for communal prayers. Likewise, every beth din ("rabbinical court") was attended by a number of pupils up to three times the size of the court (Mishnah, tractate Sanhedrin). These might be indications of the historicity of the classical yeshiva.
As indicated by the Talmud, adults generally took off two months a year (Elul and Adar, the months preceding the harvest, called Yarchay Kalla) to pursue work, the rest of the year they studied.
The Lithuanian yeshivas
Organised Torah study was revolutionised by Rabbi Chaim Volozhin, a disciple of the Vilna Gaon (an influential 18th century leader of Judaism). In his view, the traditional arrangement did not cater for those who were looking for more intensive study.
With the support of his teacher, Rabbi Volozhin gathered a large number of interested students and started a yeshiva in the (now Belarusian) town of Volozhin. Although the Volozhin Yeshiva was closed some 60 years later by the Russian government, a number of yeshivot opened in other towns and cities, most notably Ponevezh, Mir, Brisk, and Telz. Many prominent contemporary yeshivot in the United States and Israel are continuations of these institutions and often bear the same name.
Types of yeshivot
There are a few types of yeshivot:
- Yeshiva ketana ("junior yeshiva") - Many yeshivot ketanot in Israel and some in the Diaspora do not have a secular course of studies and all students learn Judaic Torah studies full time.
- Yeshiva High School - Also called Mesivta or Mechina, combines the intensive Jewish religious education with a secular high school education. The dual curriculum was pioneered by the Manhattan Talmudical Academy of Yeshiva University (now known as Marsha Stern Talmudical Academy) in 1916.
- Mechina - For Israeli high-school graduates who wish to study for one year before entering the army.
- Beth Medrash - For high school graduates, and is attended from one year to many years, dependent on the career plans and affiliation of the student.
- Yeshivat Hesder - Yeshiva that has an arrangement with the Israel Defence Forces by which the students enlist together in the same unit and, as much as is possible serve in the same unit in the army. Over a period of about 5 years there will be a period of service starting in the second year of about 16 months. There are different variations. The rest of the time will be spent in compulsory study in the yeshiva.
- Kollel - Yeshiva for married adults. The kollel idea, though having its intellectual roots traced to the Torah, is a relatively modern innovation of 19th century Europe. Often, a kollel will be in the same location as the yeshiva.
- Baal teshuva yeshivot catering to the needs of the newly-Orthodox. The best-known are Ohr Somayach and Aish HaTorah.
Traditionally, religious girls' schools are not called "yeshiva." The Bais Yaakov system was started in 1918 under the guidance of Sarah Schenirer. This system provided girls with a Torah education, using a curriculum that skewed more toward practical halakha and the study of Tanakh, rather than Talmud. Bais Yaakovs are strictly Haredi schools. Non-Haredi girls' schools' curricula often includes the study of Mishna and sometimes Talmud. They are also sometimes called "yeshiva" (e.g., Prospect Park Yeshiva). Post-high schools for women are generally called "seminary" or "midrasha".
Conservative Jewish Yeshivas and Kollels
There are a number of yeshivas and kollels run by the Conservative movement in Judaism. In addition there exist a number of non-denominational yeshivas and kollels. These are not affiliated with the Conservative movement, as formally defined, but rather fit within the more generally defined category of Conservative Judaism. Their are famous yeshivos in New York City which are famous for being really old like the Yeshiva Ketana Of Manhattan which is very famous or otherwise known as Ykom
In all of these institutions both women and men are enrolled as equal students, study within the same classrooms, and follow the same curriculum. Students may study part-time, as in a kollel, or full-time, and they may study lishmah (for the sake of studying itself) or towards earning semichah, rabbinic ordination.
These institutions offers a synthesis of traditional and critical methods, allowing Jewish texts and tradition to encounter social change and modern scholarship. The curriculum focuses on classical Jewish subjects, including Talmud, Tanakh, Midrash, Halacha, and Philosophy. Learning is conducted in the traditional yeshiva method (chevruta and shiur) with an openness to modern scholarship.
Yeshivas and kollels formally associated with the Conservative Jewish movement include:
Non-denomination yeshivas and kollels include:
Prominent yeshivot
Academic year
In most yeshivot, the year is divided into three periods (terms) called zmanim. Elul zman starts from the beginning of the Hebrew month of Elul and extends until the end of Yom Kippur. This is the shortest (approx. six weeks), but most intense semester as it comes before the High Holidays of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.
Winter zman starts after Sukkot and lasts until just before Passover, a duration of five months (six in a Jewish leap year).
Summer semester starts after Passover and lasts until either the middle of the month of Tammuz or Tisha B'Av, a duration of about three months.
Typical schedule
The following is a typical daily schedule for Beit Midrash students:
- 7:00 a.m. - Optional seder (study session)
- 7:30 a.m. - Morning prayers
- 8:30 a.m. - Session on study of Jewish law
- 9:00 a.m. - Breakfast
- 9:30 a.m. - Morning Talmud study (first seder)
- 12:30 p.m. - Shiur (lecture) - advanced students sometimes dispense with this lecture
- 1:30 p.m. - Lunch
- 2:45 p.m. - Mincha - afternoon prayers
- 3:00 p.m. - Mussar seder - Jewish ethics
- 3:30 p.m. - Talmud study (second seder)
- 7:00 p.m. - Dinner
- 8:00 p.m. - Night seder - Review of lecture, or study of choice.
- 9:25 p.m. - Mussar seder - Jewish Ethics
- 9:45 p.m. - Maariv - Evening prayers
- 10:00 p.m. - Optional evening seder
This schedule is generally maintained Sunday through Thursday. On Thursday nights there may be an extra long night seder, known as mishmar sometimes lasting beyond 1:00 am, and in some yeshivot even until the following sunrise. On Fridays there is usually at least one seder in the morning, with unstructured learning schedules for the afternoon. Saturdays have a special Shabbat schedule which includes some sedarim but usually no shiur.
Method of study
Studying is usually done together with a study-partner called a chavrusa (Aramaic: "friend"), or in a Shiur (lecture). The chavrusa is one of the unique features of the yeshiva. The partners actively and intensly study the nuances of Talmudic text.
Talmud study
In the typical yeshiva, the main emphasis is on Talmud study and analysis. Generally, two parallel Talmud streams are covered during a zman (trimester). The first is study in-depth (be-iyun) with an emphasis on analytical skills and close reference to the classical commentators; the latter seeks to cover ground more speedily, to build general knowledge (bekiyut) of the Talmud; see The Talmud in modern-day Judaism.
Works generally studied to clarify the Talmudic text are the commentary by Rashi and the analyses of the Tosafists. Various other meforshim (commentators) are used as well.
Jewish law
Generally, a period is devoted to the study of practical halakha (Jewish law). The text most commonly studied in Ashkenazic Yeshivot is the Mishnah Berurah written by Rabbi Yisrael Meir Kagan. The Mishnah Berurah is a compilation of halakhic opinions rendered after the time of the writing of the Shulkhan Arukh. In Sephardic Yeshivot the Shulkhan Arukh itself would likely be studied.
Ethics
The preeminent ethical text studied in yeshivot is the Mesillat Yesharim ("Path [of the] Just") by Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto. Other works studied include:
Hasidic yeshivot study Hasidic philosophy (Chassidus). Chabad yeshivot, for example, study the Tanya, the Likutei Torah, and the voluminous works of the Rebbes of Chabad for an hour and a half each morning, before prayers, and an hour and a half in the evening. (See Tomchei Temimim.) Many Yeshivot in Israel belonging to the Religious Zionism study the writings of Rav Kook.
Torah and Bible study
Intensive study of the Torah (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy with the commentary of Rashi (Rabbi Shlomo Yitzhaqi 1040 - 1105) is stressed and taught in all elementary grades, often with Yiddish translations and more notes in Haredi yeshivas.
The teaching of Tanakh, Hebrew Bible, is usually only done on the high school level, and then only for short periods of time. Many Orthodox yeshivas have no extensive or formal teaching of the Bible outside of the Torah.
Students are required to read the Weekly Torah portion by themselves (known as the obligation of Shnayim Mikra. The in depth teaching of Nevi'im and Ketuvim is not encouraged other than the five Megilloth and Tehillim but students may do so on their own.
In recent years, a gew Modern Orthodox yeshivot, particularly in Israel, occasionally offer a course in one or more of the books of Nevi'im and Ketuvim.
The reasons that most yeshivot do not offer or encourage a course of study in Bible are not clear and controversial. The yeshivot contend that they are Talmudical colleges and thus concentrate on the Talmud, but they do also teach Jewish law, customs and ethics.
Haredi Yeshivish (slang)
"Yeshivish" is a word derived from "yeshiva" usually refers to Haredi non-Hasidic Jews that may also mean "misnagdim". Such Jews may be identified by their dress, outlook, and other aspects.
Used in another context, yeshivish can sometimes refers to the culture which has grown out of the American Orthodox Jewish yeshiva system. Used as an adjective, there are several connotations: (i.e.) certain cultural and other quasi-halachic norms of the "Olam Hayeshivot" (yeshiva world) — e.g., wearing a black hat, jacket, and white shirt for davening.
See also
External links
Orthodox institutions
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Conservative institutions
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