Bored@work said:
“Having just returned from Israel this past year I would say seminary is an essential thing to a Jewish girls life”
This is the kind of statment that truly baffles me. I simply cannot comprehend how any reasonably intelligent person can look at the experience of the last 1 1/2 generations of frum life in America and make a statement like that.
Forgive me if I make any insensitive assumptions about your family but let me ask:
Is your mother over 50? Did she go to seminary in EY? Is she an eishes chayil?
Perhaps the answers are yes, yes, and yes. Fine. But surely the overwhelming majority of frum women you know from the the last generation (those now between 45 and 65) are wonderful jewish wives and mothers, are proud of the American chinuch they received, and somehow managed to become such people without the benefit of a year in EY.
Again, I’m not going to quibble with the question of whether going to sem in EY is a positive experience. I’m sure it is. I simply want to know how so many people can be so (willingly?) blind to the simple reality that our very recent history proves beyond any doubt that it is not “an essential thing to a jewish girl’s life”.
Now of course that is just my Daas BalHabayis. Well, for what its worth, within the last three years, I have personally asked two well-repected New York Rabbonim for the feelings about girls going to EY and both expressed misgivings about whether it was , on the whole, a good thing. But again, just to be clear, let’s assume it IS a good thing, my key point is IT IS NOT ESSENTIAL – IT IS A LUXURY AND SHOULD BE TREATED LIKE OTHER LUXURIES. Which means, first and formeost that I would suggest the following rule of thumb to 12th grade girsl. If at any time in the last 12 months you have heard your parents having a stressful discussion about money, do not ask them to send you to EY. If they offer, fine. But don’t ask.