How the Mighty Have Fallen

The Yeshiva Comes Full Circle

I find it fascinating how the Yeshiva concept has come around full circle.

The Yeshiva concept was instituted by R' Chaim Volizhener. The historical backdrop and reasons for starting the Yeshiva are well documented. The state of the "Ben Torah" was at a low they did not have a means of making a living, they had to beg for bread. They wore tattered clothing and slept in the Shteibel. At the same time the University concept as we know it was taking off. If you were accepted into a reputable University you were automatically part of the upercrust of society. R' Chaim felt that there is no reason for a Ben Torah not to have the same reputation for that would be "Meromem Keren Hatorah". Therefore R' Chaim decided that he will build a University for Torah, he would do all the fund raising, the Ben Torah will be a schnorrer no more. Each Ben Torah would eat by a family that felt that it would be a zchus for them to host a Ben Torah and would not look down on him. R' Chaim would dress them so that when they walked on the street they would be better dressed than your average Baal Habus and ultimately Torah would start being seen for what it was- a great mench maker.

This was the raison d’être for the Yeshiva, nothing more and nothin less. How ironic is it that we have come full circle. The shlumpy yeshiva bochur schnorrer. White Shirt ha ha, lets break that down for a minute, we are not chasidish we have nothing invested in white shirts per se, it started because white shirts was the way that a respectable person dressed when they started doing it. Funny how the shlumpy white shirt became the official uniform of the Yeshiva which is supposed to be the institution that represents Torah and Bnei Torah

At the time that R' Chaim

Loh Shinoo es Malbooshum?

At our Seder table on Pesach night my wife asks me " Chazal tell us that the Jews were on such a high level that they kept the jewish dress and the jewish language but on the other hand still sunk to the lowest level possible existing in the human condition which Chazal call the forty nine gates of Tumah. How can those two conditions exist in the same person at the same time?"

The answer is obvious just look around you.

The truth of the matter is that without doing much research regarding this issue, it seems pretty obvious that generally throughout history jews dressed pretty much in dress that was common to the indiginous populations outside of what would be considered Avodah Zara or Ervah.

The Gemarah in Avodah Zara 58b states "Rabbi Yochanan the son of Orzah and Rabbi Yosi the son of Nahorahai were sitting together and drinking wine, that man (the waiter) came by and asked to pour them another cup, after they raised their cups they realized that (the waiter) was a gentile. At this point we must stop and ask ourselves "how is it that those Amoraim saw a jew with a streimel and bekacha and thought that he was a gentile?