Yeshiva shel Maalah

“I arrived late at night in the city of Ashkelon.  The car we were in stopped in front of a house with the sign Yeshivas Ma’ayan Chaim V’Shalom adorning its entrance.  Structurally there was nothing remarkable about the small building, no indication from its exterior that anything special was happening inside.

“I entered together with Rav Meir Weiss, shlita, one of the Roshei Hayeshiva. Despite the dutiful rising to attention to mark our entry, there was no special consideration paid to us by the scores of yeshiva students within who simply continued with their study with eagerness and with ardor, almost as if we were not even there.  Each of them was busy with the Gemara in front of him, and as far as they were concerned that is all that was in the room at the time.

“The Rosh Yeshiva called a pair of chavrusos, study partners who were engrossed in their learning. He asked them to bring a number of volumes of Gemara – different masechtos – Kesubos, Bava Kama, Gittin, Bava Metzia and more. Then the two of us, along with the two boys whom he had chosen, made our way intro a small room off to the side. ‘Where would you like?’ the Rosh Yeshiva asked me.  ‘Where am I supposed to want?’ I retorted - a question with a question - in classic Jewish fashion.

“ ‘Choose any masechte, in any spot that you would like, and just tell me which page you are interested in,’ continued the Rosh Yeshiva pursuing his phenomenal offer. I took up the offer, pointing to the bottom of one of the pages, announcing, ‘Okay, 82a!’
“All at once, their brows creased, and the faces of the two young boys broke into an grimace of concentration. After a pause of about fifteen seconds, one of them said, ‘Bava Metzia 82a… that is where the suggestion is made that R’ Yossi’s words are subject to a dispute of Tanaim.  Now, Bava Kama 82a is where the Gemara teaches that there must be nothing separating between the ritual waters and between the body of the one immersing in it… Kesubos 82a is where the Gemara declares, ‘He shall divorce her with a writ and he shall warn her…’
“And so did this continue for all of the particular tractates that were sitting on the table before us.  We were there for several hours, testing those amazing young men, along with a group of others who had come to join them.  In the content-oriented test of all of the masechtos that these young men had learned over the past few years, hundreds of folios of the Talmud, the results were absolutely incredible. Such encyclopedic knowledge!

“In fact, we conducted the test in various styles. We asked questions first based on the names of the Tanaim who were cited in the text; we probed the discussions of Tosafos based only on the titles of the glosses; we tested their facility with the halachic decisions of the Gemara, by contrasting and comparing them.  We examined their depth of understanding in addition to their superficial command of the content.  We conducted a strenuous and comprehensive exam – and we, the examiners, were genuinely humbled by the results.

“Adolescent students stood before us having mastered the tractates that they had learned from cover to cover. Their proficiency of the material on all levels was all but unprecedented for these times – certainly in our area. We learned that heads of numerous yeshivos – Chassidishe and Litvishe alike – were inviting these young boys to ‘show them off,’ as it were, to their own students, to present them as models of learning, as paradigms to be emulated.  Kinas sofrim – envy of another’s achievements in learning – is a positive and productive sentiment. This is what these yeshiva heads sought to generate – the notion that learning can be done on an entirely different level from the one to which they were accustomed.”

These youthful students can almost be described as ‘living in their own world,’ apart from the behavior which has become the norm in so many places.  These boys spend their Shabbasos and their Yamim Tovim engrossed in study.  For them the enticements of vacation and of casual trips hardly exist.  Even on Purim, when many others are involved in often questionable activities, these boys are sitting through the night steeped in their Talmudic pursuits.  On Lag Ba’omer, the only fire that they attend is the fiery quest for Torah that rages within them. They learn… and they know!

This yeshiva exists as if on a different planet.  It is a yeshiva shel maalah, a cut above, where all the students are without exception tested under the Dirshu program.  Their memory and command of immense amounts of material is tested, and needless to say, they succeed.  They are living manifestation of the maxim that “I have laboured and I have found.”  It is curious also to note that all the testing is carried out after midnight, after the daily regimen of study sessions has concluded.