What’s it like to have a seminary experience that goes on not for a year, but for decades? 

Educators speak about their seminary experience

Most seminary students find their time in sem exhilarating. But they’re not the only ones enjoying the experience; their teachers do so as well. “Teaching seminary girls is the absolute best job in the world,” exclaims Shira Ernster,* a teacher in several seminaries for close to twenty years. “It meets all my needs: spiritual, emotional, and financial (albeit for a simple lifestyle). Few women my age get to learn, grow, and be exposed to ruchniyus in the way that I get to do daily.”

“I never had to leave seminary,” echoes Dvora Beckman,* a veteran teacher in a number of different institutions. “I tell people I’m in ‘shanah yud-tes.’ Watching my students make courageous changes in their lives obligates me to move upward in my own life.”

Shulamis Leibenstein, a long-time teacher currently in Meohr Bais Yaakov, calls sem education a “thrilling experience.”

“I consider it an honor and privilege to be able to impact girls at such a pivotal stage. It is enormously gratifying to help my students mold healthy, wholesome futures.”

Rabbi Menachem Nissel, a renowned teacher in several Jerusalem seminaries and author of Rigshei Lev: Women and Tefillah: Perspectives, Laws, and Customs (Targum, 2001), shares a thought from his rebbi, Rav Moshe Shapiro, shlita, on chinuch at the seminary level.

“When I first began teaching, I asked my rebbi: ‘How do I approach teaching girls when they don’t have an obligation to learn Torah?’ My rebbi answered, ‘You’re not in the business of harbatzas Torah; you’re in the business of hatzalas nefashos.’

“Rabbi Noach Orlowek echoes this concept. He told me, ‘When you sit in front of a class, you can’t see thirty Jewish women; you need to see thirty Jewish homes.’ This thought keeps me hyper-motivated even when teaching the same material year after year. I feel I’m building people and homes rather than teaching a particular subject matter.”

Most educators voice breathless views on their personal enjoyment of the job. But is life as a seminary teacher exclusively rosy? What are some of the challenges and issues in teaching girls for a mere nine months — in what some would consider a distinctly artificial setting?

The Sem Year: A Unique Opportunity

“When I teach a seminary class,” says Dvora Beckman, “I feel I’m connecting with girls at a magical time in their lives. My students stand at an interesting crossroads; they are adults, yet still retain the freshness of teenagers.

“As we grow older, we become less intellectually honest with ourselves and more entrenched in our behavioral patterns; our choices and actions usually just reinforce the people we decided to be when we were younger. In contrast, a sem girl has maturity, but she’s refreshingly open to intellectually, emotionally honest discovery.”

Shira Ernster reiterates this point.

“We get the girls right before they make the most crucial decisions in their lives: choosing a husband, choosing a community, and starting a path towards a career and family. The seminary year has a ripple effect on all of these choices.”

She notes that seminaries on opposite ends of the spectrum will offer girls very different experiences.

“In more Bais Yaakov-type seminaries, nothing is really a chiddush [novelty]; they’ve heard it all before. On the first day of class, I could ask one of my students to get up and give a short speech about any topic — from tzniyus to Torah learning — and she’ll say all the right things, essentially parroting the messages stressed throughout high school.

“What these girls gain from seminary, then, is seeing up close entire communities of people who live these oft-heard ideals. Previously abstract concepts generalize from their meticulously organized loose-leafs to real life and real choices.

“For example, my students will realize that they really can live with less — and be happy about it. They can have a husband who will learn for twenty years uninterrupted and make it work. They can live with the cognizance of their purpose in This World as ovdei Hashem on a daily basis. They can tap into the sweetness of Shabbos and Yamim Tovim and make each one an uplifting experience.

“In less Bais Yaakov-type schools, on the other hand, many of the messages and ideals will, indeed, be novel. The girls may never have experienced a comparable depth of learning before, and they will likely be exposed to lifestyles they could never have dreamed of.

“But although the change in the latter group may be more outwardly noticeable, both types of experiences are life-changing.”