Insights into the seminary experience, by Rabbi Ari Mintz

 

Facilitated by S. Greenspan

 

Ah, seminary…a significant discussion for a twelfth grader. It’s a journey requiring lots of navigating: applications, interviews, and discerning which school aligns with one’s personal aspirations. It’s exciting and filled with anticipation, yet potentially overwhelming—for the girls and their parents! Join us as we explore some of the goals and ideas—and ideals—that are central to this rite of passage in a young lady’s life.

 

Q: Girls sit in school for 12 years learning the fundamentals of Yiddishkeit: halachah, hashkafah, Tanach, and mussar. What’s the point of this extra “13^th grade,” and why can’t whatever they’re learning in seminary be incorporated into their high school curriculum? Why would a girl from a good home need another whole year of academics?

 

A: There are different stages of a person’s life. In the first, a child is a mekabel, primarily on the receiving end in terms of physical, emotional, and spiritual needs, and that’s the normal, healthy way of childhood.

As he or she grows, the role shifts. The transition into adulthood and maturity brings with it a need for independence, taking responsibility, and learning how to do things for oneself. (The final stage, beyond chinuch, is becoming the nosein, with responsibilities toward a spouse, family, community, and so on.) The traditional school system for children through their teenage years is geared toward this nosein/mekabel dynamic of teachers giving over information and students accepting it. The mekabeles is still absorbing as teachers are nosein. She’s on the receiving end of her education.

When a girl reaches seminary age, there’s a crucial shift: No longer is she simply taking notes and giving back answers from the information she was given. The entire learning process changes. The chinuch in seminary is a different type of teaching and learning completely; it’s one of understanding and integrating this information into life. There are no more mefarshim being taught for the sake of skill building—it’s all information that the talmidos will assimilate into their worlds.

She’s being opened up to concepts like tafkid ha’ishah, relationships with parents and peers in different life stages, chashivus haTorah, chashivus ha’adam, kibbud horim, etc., but in a vastly different capacity. It’s an environment of thought, discussion, integration, and application. A seminary girl is transitioning to the stage of taking responsibility, so in addition to learning things that wouldn’t be appropriate to teach to 15- and 16-year-olds, her entire way of learning shifts as it’s geared for this new stage.

Most seminaries open girls up to a new type of learning by way of having access to rabbanim and talmidei chachamim whom high school girls, for the most part—at least in Lakewood—do not. Learning halachah from rabbanim, training ourselves how to ask a she’eilah properly, is crucial for life. The type of knowledge gained in this one year simply can’t be compared to high school level learning, which is geared toward younger teenagers. It’s a broadening of horizons that until that point a teenager is simply not ready for, but now, as they’re at the threshold of adulthood, they are. There’s a focus on role models, with visits to gedolim, kivrei tzaddikim, and other frum communities, all on an elevated ramah which even one year earlier wouldn’t be integrated in the same way, as girls are still in a different type of chinuch mindset.

This is not a platitude; it’s a reality that seminary girls are adults, treated and taught as such, similar to post-seminary women attending shiurim. The morah/talmidah dynamic of the previous 12 years shifts dramatically. Thus, the information itself is disseminated quite differently, as the girls have a different chashivus for learning. It’s not uncommon for seminary girls to dread the end of the school year, begging for a few more classes, another week, another va’ad, etc. as their learning places an emphasis on life, goals, and accountability.

Another aspect is the setup of a communal type of living, whether or not a girl lives in a dorm. Most Bais Yaakov seminaries today (whether local or abroad) have a dorm option, so even if a girl sleeps at home, her base is at school in a very different environment from the past 12 years. Girls aren’t simply coming to school, learning their subjects, and going home. Whether or not she dorms, the positive aspects, benefits, and overall ruach of the group setting in which seminary exists can’t be ignored. Activities, programs, and projects are worked on together in and out of school during daytime and nighttime hours. The expectations of that communal dimension demand and develop new skills, which all add to a girl’s growth.

To recap, the education of a seminary year can’t be compared to the learning up until this point. Learning as an independent thinker, ready to take on the role and responsibility of the adult world, is vastly different than her previous role of mekabeles. Seminary brings a girl up to a different level of learning, broadening horizons in the best possible ways, seeing magnificent parts of Klal Yisrael that she wouldn’t otherwise see. All this is done in a way that a girl can step back and integrate her knowledge into life, building her very future. By the time a girl finished her seminary year, she should, b’ezras Hashem, be approaching life from a much stronger place of connection—to her ruchniyus, her peers, and her role models, to the Torah she has absorbed, and most of all, to herself.

 

Coming of age in seminary

The Gemara in Kiddushin discusses the age of chinuch. We’d think that chinuch would be at age three or six, yet the Gemara also discusses chinuch as being between ages 16 to 22, or even 18 to 24! This shows us precisely what we’ve discussed: that there are various stages and types of chinuch. There’s a crucial window of gil chinuch specifically at seminary age while a person is developing her own path in life, where she gains deeper knowledge and true chinuch for life.

 

From the trenches

It’s the seminary alumnae themselves who differentiate between their one year in seminary and the other 12 years of schooling. These are their words:

“I always said I wanted [something significant to my future home] because that was “the thing to say,” but after a leil iyun on [this topic], it changed. Now I truly want [this] forever; it was really inspirational.”

“In seminary I learned not just to practice my Yiddishkeit in an outside, superficial way but rather to get down to the root of it all and build myself from there.”

“I had strength to turn down a job that was not in a Torah’dig atmosphere because in seminary, years ago, I built a strong backbone, developing the strength to say no.”

 

Rabbi Ari Mintz is the founder and menahel of Bnos Chaim Seminary and Madreigos Miriam Seminary and is the mechaber of Sefer Kol Yehuda on Shas.