Lessons that Linger
| December 22, 2010The bags are packed. Tearful goodbyes. She’s off for a year of seminary. One year. A small segment in the larger scheme of time. Yet, for many, this one year becomes the forge and the catalyst that molds the basis for much of their future life. What lessons remain? Which thoughts made the strongest impressions?
The Imprint that Seminary Leave on Our Lives
For most of us, seminary is a cozy little cocoon of existence, sandwiched between twelve years of schooling and the rest of our lives. Over the course of one year (or two, or three), we sit there soaking up the atmosphere of kedushah, learning Rashis and Rambans, and discussing the profundities of life.
And then comes “real life.” Jobs and shidduchim, marriage and children, stressors and challenges. Caught up in the rigors of everyday life, how many of us remember the lessons we learned in seminary, much less how to apply them on a day-to-day basis? How many of us are still reviewing our seminary notes or remember what the Shiurei Daasor the Ramchal had to say on the parshah? Can we still hold our own when it comes to a Shabbos-table discussion about some vital point of halachah or hashkafah? And if we can’t, what does remain with us ten, twenty, thirty, or even forty years post-seminary? What do we gain from our seminary experience after much of the information we learned has been forgotten?
Family First spoke to women decades out of seminary to discover the answer.
Forty Years: The Pioneers
Nechama Burnham, who attended two years of Yavne Teachers’ College in Cleveland,Ohio, in 1968, relates, “Seminary was so much more than a classroom. It was a totalexperience. The Telshe Yeshiva and the kollel couples were right there. They opened my eyes to what it means to live a life of Torah.”
There were twenty-two girls in Yavne when Nechama attended. Since the seminary doesn’t have a dorm, the girls boarded with local families. “The wives of the roshei yeshivah had lived in Europe, and we got the taste of another world, where Torah values were paramount. In addition, seeing and relating to contemporary kollel families was an education in itself.”
Rebbetzin Chaya Ausband, the head of Yavne Seminary, was known as “Morah” to one and all. “Even the young female teachers called her that,” Nechama says. “Morah had very strong dei’os, but she was incredibly accepting. You could be yourself with her. When she gave criticism, we took it so easily because we felt her love for us. To this day, I ask myself, ‘How would Morah react to this? What would she do in this situation?’
“Morah believed you could learn from every person. She saw the full person. She gave us a perspective of the world that was permeated with a knowledge of Hashem’s constant Hashgachah. At the same time, she taught us the concept of adam l’amal yulad — life is about constant striving — constant scaling of new heights.”
Spending two years in Yavne strengthened Nechama in her conviction to marry someone in learning. “The chashivus that a person has for Torah affects his day-by-day decisions,” she says. “Morah taught us to view it not as a sacrifice, but as paying something small in return for something big.”
Having raised a large family in a Torah environment, Nechama can definitely say it was worth the payoff.
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