As with all things in life, Seminary in EY for a year is good for some and less beneficial to others. For the person who is serious about making a “connection” with EY, as well as learning, this can be a tremendous growth experience. For the kid who views the year (or two) away as a “12-month party,” this is clearly not the right attitude to be bringing to the table.
My time in a girls’ seminary was well-spent, my learning and love of learning increased tremendously, and the experience of living with a bunch of girls from all over the world, opened my eyes to how blessed I was to be in EY, which I loved with all my heart. It’s true that it is a financial sacrifice, and it is equally true that NOT all kids benefit from the experience to the extent that their parents would hope. But I have a friend who sent her son to a well-known boys’ yeshivah, with the reputation for taking in difficult boys, a kid who was really off the derech, doing all kinds of things that none of us would like to contemplate. She sent him there really to put some safe distance between them. The first year, he went simply to be able to come and go as he pleased without mommy and daddy on his back. He decided the first year was so liberating that he wanted to go back for a second year. During the first half of his second year something happened – he got turned around, ended up switching to a more intense Yeshivah for another few years, then came back to the US, got his smicha and is now a rebbie himself, working with disenfranchised youth. Does this happen to every
kid who goes to ISrael? No. But it happens sufficiently often that it is worth doing, if at all possible. Sometimes just the experience of being in EY is the good part.
Avira d’Ar’a machkim, after all.