My Journey in Torah: Life at Mir Yeshiva
Mea Shearim neighborhood
The Walk
Morning prayers finish at about 7:30. I come home, and I have breakfast with my wife, Jenny. Then about 8:30 I leave. My walk takes me up the hill and out of our neighborhood of Katamon, through the upscale neighborhood of Rehavia and past the Prime Minister's house. I take a left on King George Street and walk past the Great Synagogue and through the center of town. All around me I sense Jerusalem bustling to work, feel the summer sun getting hotter and hotter, and see the incredible variety of the faces I encounter. Someone calls out “Shlomo!” and eight guys turn their heads. I make my way up Strauss Street, past the Geula-Bnei Berak taxi stand, turn right and head down the hill.
As I cross Mea Shearim Street, I enter a different place and time. Suddenly everybody speaks Yiddish and the bustle of modern Jerusalem melts away in the summer sun. Not much has changed in this neighborhood: now there's electricity instead of candles and cars instead of carriages. That's about it. Even the all-pervasive cell phone hasn't made a big splash here. The streets are very narrow (about wide enough for a bus to whiz past and come an inch from your face), the stores and homes are packed very tightly with very little urban planning. There are no trees here. It's just as I would imagine an old European shtetl to be – like all immigrants they've recreated the familiar. The stores are different – no Nikes or coffee shops, no fast food or boutiques. Here they sell carp. My favorite is "the House of Carp" where you can pick your own out of their in-store tank and they'll grind it up fresh for you in the back. The chasid who owns the store is full of fish recipes. I told him one Thursday evening that I heard carp isn't so healthy. His response: "If that's the case, Mea Shearim's in trouble.” The bakeries are packed with haymish goodies: rugelach, challah, cheese cakes, cookies and kugels. Independent craftsman and traders can still be found here doing their thing: the furniture guy, the wood maker, the tailor, the baker, the glass blower, the painter. There are no chains, no big stores.
One factor which makes the neighborhood feel so different, so isolated, is that no one talks politics, a very rare silence in Israel.
I make my way down Mea Shearim Street, weaving between the buses and the chasids returning from morning minyan, take a left, pass the 24 hour bakery and down the street which leads to the yeshiva. This particular street is packed with about a dozen woodworkers who make shtenders (a thin metal and wood stand which holds a book at the correct height and angle for reading) by the dozens, bookshelves and everything else. Then like a tractor beam I get sucked up into the world of The Mir.
Morning prayers finish at about 7:30. I come home, and I have breakfast with my wife, Jenny. Then about 8:30 I leave. My walk takes me up the hill and out of our neighborhood of Katamon, through the upscale neighborhood of Rehavia and past the Prime Minister's house. I take a left on King George Street and walk past the Great Synagogue and through the center of town. All around me I sense Jerusalem bustling to work, feel the summer sun getting hotter and hotter, and see the incredible variety of the faces I encounter. Someone calls out “Shlomo!” and eight guys turn their heads. I make my way up Strauss Street, past the Geula-Bnei Berak taxi stand, turn right and head down the hill.
As I cross Mea Shearim Street, I enter a different place and time. Suddenly everybody speaks Yiddish and the bustle of modern Jerusalem melts away in the summer sun. Not much has changed in this neighborhood: now there's electricity instead of candles and cars instead of carriages. That's about it. Even the all-pervasive cell phone hasn't made a big splash here. The streets are very narrow (about wide enough for a bus to whiz past and come an inch from your face), the stores and homes are packed very tightly with very little urban planning. There are no trees here. It's just as I would imagine an old European shtetl to be – like all immigrants they've recreated the familiar. The stores are different – no Nikes or coffee shops, no fast food or boutiques. Here they sell carp. My favorite is "the House of Carp" where you can pick your own out of their in-store tank and they'll grind it up fresh for you in the back. The chasid who owns the store is full of fish recipes. I told him one Thursday evening that I heard carp isn't so healthy. His response: "If that's the case, Mea Shearim's in trouble.” The bakeries are packed with haymish goodies: rugelach, challah, cheese cakes, cookies and kugels. Independent craftsman and traders can still be found here doing their thing: the furniture guy, the wood maker, the tailor, the baker, the glass blower, the painter. There are no chains, no big stores.
One factor which makes the neighborhood feel so different, so isolated, is that no one talks politics, a very rare silence in Israel.
I make my way down Mea Shearim Street, weaving between the buses and the chasids returning from morning minyan, take a left, pass the 24 hour bakery and down the street which leads to the yeshiva. This particular street is packed with about a dozen woodworkers who make shtenders (a thin metal and wood stand which holds a book at the correct height and angle for reading) by the dozens, bookshelves and everything else. Then like a tractor beam I get sucked up into the world of The Mir.
Mir Yeshiva (Belarus)
The Yeshiva
The Mir is one of the oldest and biggest yeshivas in the world. It started in Russia in the town of Mir. Most of that world was wiped out in the war; the Mir survived by moving the whole yeshiva to Shanghai for the duration of the war. After the war, the yeshiva settled in Jerusalem. You can very much feel the old-world here. The lingua franca of the place is Yiddish; the biggest classes (300-400 guys) are in Yiddish. When the head of the yeshiva speaks, it's in Yiddish.
The yeshiva is packed, absolutely packed. Everything here is a battle. To get in the front door and up the stairs requires a lot of bumping and determination. None of it is mean or deliberate; that's just the way it is -- crowded and lacking personal space. I don't think there is a Yiddish word for personal space. One floor up is the main beis midrash (study hall). It fits about a thousand guys, all sitting side by side on wooden benches with shtenders in front of them, all facing the same direction.
And all learning Talmud at the top of their lungs.
The place literally rocks with Torah. I go one more flight up to the balcony section which rings the main beis midrash. There are another few hundred guys up here, same set-up. The yeshiva is a total maze, lacking any clear plan. It was expanded over the years layer by layer, rendering it totally bonkers. Around one corner is someone's dorm room, around another corner an office. Take another turn and you're in another beis midrash with another couple hundred guys shouting Talmud.
Then there's my personal favorite corner: the otzar (which means "treasure" in Hebrew). I found this place in my first couple of days at the Mir. I was looking for a certain Talmudic commentary and asked someone if the yeshiva had a copy. "Not here, but if you're shlepping it'll be in the otzar". After deciphering his statement and taking what seemed like six left turns, I found the otzar: a quiet, catalogued library in the middle of the madness. The only sound is the buzz of the rest of the building which feels like it's in the far off background. Jenny has likened this yeshiva to a Harry Potter movie, a bunch of wizards in a castle learning the ins and outs of the world and her mysteries with shtenders instead of broomsticks and blessings instead of spells. And books which yell at you and stairs which seem to move and lead nowhere.
I make my way out on to the porch for a post-walk stretch. Some onlookers are captivated and some appalled at such strange behavior. Then at 9:30 my chevrusa (study partner) and I start learning. Everyone learns in pairs, reading to each other out loud, thinking, talking, and yelling. My chevrusa is named Binyamin Mahr. He's 21, originally from Buffalo, N.Y.; his family moved to Israel when he was 10. When we first started learning together I asked him how long he'd been learning Talmud for. He gave me a puzzled look and said, "Whatya mean? Since cheyder." As if amazed there could be any other answer.
At noon we walk over to our "class room". The yeshiva itself is busting at the seams, so all the morning classes are held in run-down shuls around the neighborhood. Ours is on Mea Shearim Street, down a little alley you would never otherwise notice. All the window glass is broken and heaven help you if you have to use the bathroom. Sixty guys huddled around and hanging on Rebbe's every word.
The Mir is one of the oldest and biggest yeshivas in the world. It started in Russia in the town of Mir. Most of that world was wiped out in the war; the Mir survived by moving the whole yeshiva to Shanghai for the duration of the war. After the war, the yeshiva settled in Jerusalem. You can very much feel the old-world here. The lingua franca of the place is Yiddish; the biggest classes (300-400 guys) are in Yiddish. When the head of the yeshiva speaks, it's in Yiddish.
The yeshiva is packed, absolutely packed. Everything here is a battle. To get in the front door and up the stairs requires a lot of bumping and determination. None of it is mean or deliberate; that's just the way it is -- crowded and lacking personal space. I don't think there is a Yiddish word for personal space. One floor up is the main beis midrash (study hall). It fits about a thousand guys, all sitting side by side on wooden benches with shtenders in front of them, all facing the same direction.
And all learning Talmud at the top of their lungs.
The place literally rocks with Torah. I go one more flight up to the balcony section which rings the main beis midrash. There are another few hundred guys up here, same set-up. The yeshiva is a total maze, lacking any clear plan. It was expanded over the years layer by layer, rendering it totally bonkers. Around one corner is someone's dorm room, around another corner an office. Take another turn and you're in another beis midrash with another couple hundred guys shouting Talmud.
Then there's my personal favorite corner: the otzar (which means "treasure" in Hebrew). I found this place in my first couple of days at the Mir. I was looking for a certain Talmudic commentary and asked someone if the yeshiva had a copy. "Not here, but if you're shlepping it'll be in the otzar". After deciphering his statement and taking what seemed like six left turns, I found the otzar: a quiet, catalogued library in the middle of the madness. The only sound is the buzz of the rest of the building which feels like it's in the far off background. Jenny has likened this yeshiva to a Harry Potter movie, a bunch of wizards in a castle learning the ins and outs of the world and her mysteries with shtenders instead of broomsticks and blessings instead of spells. And books which yell at you and stairs which seem to move and lead nowhere.
I make my way out on to the porch for a post-walk stretch. Some onlookers are captivated and some appalled at such strange behavior. Then at 9:30 my chevrusa (study partner) and I start learning. Everyone learns in pairs, reading to each other out loud, thinking, talking, and yelling. My chevrusa is named Binyamin Mahr. He's 21, originally from Buffalo, N.Y.; his family moved to Israel when he was 10. When we first started learning together I asked him how long he'd been learning Talmud for. He gave me a puzzled look and said, "Whatya mean? Since cheyder." As if amazed there could be any other answer.
At noon we walk over to our "class room". The yeshiva itself is busting at the seams, so all the morning classes are held in run-down shuls around the neighborhood. Ours is on Mea Shearim Street, down a little alley you would never otherwise notice. All the window glass is broken and heaven help you if you have to use the bathroom. Sixty guys huddled around and hanging on Rebbe's every word.
Rabbi Eliezer Yehudah Finkel (1877-1965)
The Rebbe
There's a culture in yeshiva of deep respect for the rabbi. People talk to their rav (not only about their rav but to their rav) in the 3rd person: "what did Rebbe mean when he said...". The guys are there a few minutes early, staking out their seats. Then Rebbe walks in, briskly and to the point, everyone stands up, and he hangs his hat on a nail in the wall and begins his Talmudic discourse.
Rebbe is a small, slightly built man, about 5'9" and 135 lbs. in his late 30's. He sports a short, wispy, reddish beard and horn-rimmed glasses. He sits at the front of the room and speaks quickly and directly, free-flowing between 4 languages (English, Yiddish, Hebrew and Aramaic), all in equal proportions. He doesn't look at notes and rarely looks at the text. Without a pause he begins to lay out his ideas about the different ways of understanding the piece of Talmud we're working on. The whole time he's speaking his hands are up by his face, constantly moving, jabbing the air in front of him, quick, punchy jabs, and touching the rim of his glasses. As his discourse picks up pace, so do his hands - jabbing and then touching the glasses, jabbing and touching, jabbing and touching. His discourse is a religious experience, with dizzying heights of religious ecstasy. Rebbe takes your mind on an hour long flight of religious awakening, through the passages of seemingly irresolvable contradictions, up to the heights of resolution and clarity. Someone calls out a question (there's no hand-raising), and he takes it right in stride. Outside on Mea Shearim Street the business day is in full swing and the Jerusalem sun is burning. Trucks and buses crowd the street, the horns and yelling screeching into our little shul. Sometimes Rebbe pause for a minute and I think the noise outside has penetrated his focus and that he's contemplating asking someone to close the window. And then he continues at full-force, rolling straight through the commotion and dragging us all along with him.
The guy who sits next to me is named Eliyahu. He's 30 years old and has been studying Talmud his whole life. Eliyahu is a thin, tall and handsome Israeli. He has an angular inviting face with a short trimmed beard. He's a soft spoken and kind man. One afternoon he took five minutes out of study (very rare in yeshiva) and told me his story. He was born in Syria, where his family had lived since the destruction of the second Temple. In 1979, when he was five and his younger sibling about three, his family escaped on foot. They left everything behind and walked north, past the area where Abraham was born, over the mountains and into Turkey. They made their way to Istanbul where the Jewish Agency put them on a plane to Israel. His dad, now retired, worked as a government minister; they live in Jerusalem. A beis midrash filled with hundreds of guys learning Talmud, each with his own story, his own path about how he ended up here in the Mir yeshiva, a 20 minute walk from the Western Wall.
About 6:30 I leave, reversing my steps from the old world back through downtown and back to the tree lined streets of elegant Rehavia and then to our neighborhood of Katamon. Back to a world of color, personal space and modernity. A walk of about forty-five minutes and eight hundred years.
There's a culture in yeshiva of deep respect for the rabbi. People talk to their rav (not only about their rav but to their rav) in the 3rd person: "what did Rebbe mean when he said...". The guys are there a few minutes early, staking out their seats. Then Rebbe walks in, briskly and to the point, everyone stands up, and he hangs his hat on a nail in the wall and begins his Talmudic discourse.
Rebbe is a small, slightly built man, about 5'9" and 135 lbs. in his late 30's. He sports a short, wispy, reddish beard and horn-rimmed glasses. He sits at the front of the room and speaks quickly and directly, free-flowing between 4 languages (English, Yiddish, Hebrew and Aramaic), all in equal proportions. He doesn't look at notes and rarely looks at the text. Without a pause he begins to lay out his ideas about the different ways of understanding the piece of Talmud we're working on. The whole time he's speaking his hands are up by his face, constantly moving, jabbing the air in front of him, quick, punchy jabs, and touching the rim of his glasses. As his discourse picks up pace, so do his hands - jabbing and then touching the glasses, jabbing and touching, jabbing and touching. His discourse is a religious experience, with dizzying heights of religious ecstasy. Rebbe takes your mind on an hour long flight of religious awakening, through the passages of seemingly irresolvable contradictions, up to the heights of resolution and clarity. Someone calls out a question (there's no hand-raising), and he takes it right in stride. Outside on Mea Shearim Street the business day is in full swing and the Jerusalem sun is burning. Trucks and buses crowd the street, the horns and yelling screeching into our little shul. Sometimes Rebbe pause for a minute and I think the noise outside has penetrated his focus and that he's contemplating asking someone to close the window. And then he continues at full-force, rolling straight through the commotion and dragging us all along with him.
The guy who sits next to me is named Eliyahu. He's 30 years old and has been studying Talmud his whole life. Eliyahu is a thin, tall and handsome Israeli. He has an angular inviting face with a short trimmed beard. He's a soft spoken and kind man. One afternoon he took five minutes out of study (very rare in yeshiva) and told me his story. He was born in Syria, where his family had lived since the destruction of the second Temple. In 1979, when he was five and his younger sibling about three, his family escaped on foot. They left everything behind and walked north, past the area where Abraham was born, over the mountains and into Turkey. They made their way to Istanbul where the Jewish Agency put them on a plane to Israel. His dad, now retired, worked as a government minister; they live in Jerusalem. A beis midrash filled with hundreds of guys learning Talmud, each with his own story, his own path about how he ended up here in the Mir yeshiva, a 20 minute walk from the Western Wall.
About 6:30 I leave, reversing my steps from the old world back through downtown and back to the tree lined streets of elegant Rehavia and then to our neighborhood of Katamon. Back to a world of color, personal space and modernity. A walk of about forty-five minutes and eight hundred years.