Mammele wrote: (I remember hearing Lipa Shmelczer mention how a professor had to teach him to start his emails with “Dear Professor”, he would just get straight to the point.)
Ans: Thank you for that. Very funny.
Neville: “YU has a track record of peer-pressuring people into being less frum.”
Ans: Thanks for agreeing with me on most. I do not agree with you on this at all. My view is that this not true at all. (We are a “YU Family”). I think you can make an argument that people who are strong religiously, come out the same; those who are weaker committment wise — come out the same. The “Yeshiva” part of YU is pretty frum. There is maybe one, marginally “left wing” Magid Shiur there. The rest, R. Schechter, Willig, Simon, Sobolofsky, etc while philosophically religious zionists (and perhaps adherents to some iteration of Torah u Mada) are in all other respects “right wing.” Now, there are students there — for all sorts of reasons — who are not all the frum. I dont get the impression — for the most part that its even ideological. I am not sure where the allegation of “peer pressure” comes from. I assume that you can associate with a group that is not that religious. I dont think it comes from the institution.
Shopping: “More and more bochurim are getting a proper education, as the rise of the yeshivot techinoyot, a Yeshivah hIGH School that does bagruyot.”
Answer: I am not sure its a statistically significant number. I have no idea. R. Bombach and others a fighting the fight — but i cannot imagine that it is anything that will make a short term difference. DIGRESSION WARNING: As an aside — i dont understand the Israeli Charedi vision. Why is it acceptable to have a society where you cannot have — from your own community — doctors, lawyers, accountant, and engineers? Isnt poverty inevitable in those circumstances? Where will these professionals come from? If the Charedim become 50% of the population — how can they avoid the army en masse? What is the plan/thought on how this will work? Someone in the community must have really thought about this. Right?