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There is a folk story that it comes from “De-Rabanan”.
I believe more likely it is related to the the English word “devine”, meaning it is of Latin/Old French origin (remember that Asheknazim arrived in German-speaking areas where we invented Yiddish after moving through areas that spoke Latin or other Romance languages, which is where Yiddish picked up some words of Latin origin). Note that “Bentsch” (related to English “benediction”) is also a Yiddish word for a religious term derived from a Latin route.
In light of the latest news from Eretz Yisrael: ??? ??? ???? ????
Until recently, you could argue that if someone frum was in one of the frum units, or was being very stubborn, they would have no problem in the army, and it would be permissable to serve just as one sometimes needs to take job in the goyish world for parnassah.
But not that the medinah has embarked on a policy of persecution and coercion aimed at “breaking” the yeshiva world, one can argue it has a full status of “Sha’as ha-Shmad” and we have to resist in all possible ways.
In all fairness, there are still many ways they could back down and perhaps limit the maximum sanction to losing any stipends paid to yeshiva students, but not cancelling civil rights or welfare state benefits, and for political reasons, neither Likud not Bayit Yehudi wants to “burn bridges” to the hareidim. However if they start to throw people in jail for not paying fines, or seizing money raised privately to support learning – the situation will seriously deteriorate, perhaps to the point where some secular bigots can accomplish what all the terrorists have failed to do – and bring down the medinah once and for all.
Likud and Bayit Yehudi might reconsider how much they want to permanently antagonize the Hareidim, and limit the sanctions for not serving in the army to loss of yeshiva stipends (rather than fines, loss of welfare state benefits, restrictions on civil rights, etc.). The fact that Likud always has an option to substitute the Hareidim for Lapid will serve to limit Lapid’s options.
Or- the you know what hits the fan and the next year will be very “interesting” (as in the proverbial curse, ‘may you live in interesting times’)
Dear OblateSpheroid: There are approximately 3000 colleges and universities. For the cost of applying to them all, you could pay full tuition for four years at a public school in your home state.
What do you want to do for a living? Studying for a CLEP or AP is a good way to test a subject to see if you like it? Do you have a high school diploma (if not, you need to do a GED, which is fairly easy)? What was your SAT score? Do you need to live at home? How affluent is your family? Are you interested in AP/CLEP as an alternative to high school, or in addition to high school.
OblateSpheroid: As I said, not all colleges accept CLEP or APs, and not for all exams. In general, the better the school, the fussier they are. At a place such as Johns Hopkins, only some APs are accepted, and only with very high grades. As you work down towards the better public schools, you’ll find most APs and most CLEPs are accepted. On the bottom rung, you’ll find general acceptance. Needless to say, most YWN users probably are more likely to find themselves going to Brooklyn College, a community college, or piecing together secular credits for a BTL – than they are to be seeking admission to an Ivy League type universitiy.
If someone is from a school that doesn’t have a good academic reputation, e.g., a frum yeshiva that doesn’t usually send its graduates to universities, the AP and CLEP exams pose an addition role in proving the student can do college work – meaning it counts for admission rather than credits.
1. Remember they can only be taken in May. All but the best colleges give credit for them, and they are probably the equivalent of the typical freshman survey courses in all but the best colleges. Even when they don’t produce credits, they may allow you to place out of a class. Passing some will convince even the best universities that you are capable of doing college level work.
2. If your goal is to pile up credits, consider the CLEP exams, which cover more subjects and are easier but are almost never accepted at the top colleges. Unlike the AP, they do not includes essays and can be taken at any time during the year.
3. Both CLEP and AP can be taken regardless of whether you took a formal class to prepare, or simply worked your way through a basic textbook and learned on your own. As such, they are well suited to a yeshiva student who wants credits without having to go to college. They also allow one to skip introductory courses, which tend to be dull. Also having AP (or CLEP) credits can convince a school that you are qualified for college even if your transcript says otherwise.
No one says its treff.
The only Jewish food is matza. The rest we copied from the goyim (even gefilte fish). Yidden are too busy with Torah and Mitsvos to invent our own cuisine.
1. There could be a Shomer Shabbos majority in the foreseeable party. Note that the non-religious parties have an increasing number of members who are Shomer Shabbos. The less being Shomer Shabbos correlates with one’s political views, the greater the chance of a Shomer Shabbos majority.
2. What does “land” have to do with things? We will get Eretz Yisrael back when Meshiach comes.
A monarchy can have an elected king. The Resh Galusa was one, so were Polish kings, so is the Pope. You can also have someone filling in for a king (equivalent to the British concepts of a Regent or a Lord Protector).
There are many ways to argue that a frum government needs consent of the governed. A Jewish king could always agree to a constitution with elected representative – and presumably would be bound by his promise (or oath) to respect it.
A Sanhedrin would require all the gedolim to agree (Ashkenazi and Sefardi, Satmar and Lubavitch, Hasidim and Young Israel). When that happens, you’ll know the revolution has arrived.
Mobe613: You really think moshiach will want to be a mere prime minister?
Actually, if a Jewish state were establised in accordance with Torah’s constitutional principles, the head of state would be either a “Melech Yisrael” or perhaps a Regent (Malei makom or perhaps an “Apitropus” similar in theory to the English “Lord protector”). However it isn’t likely the zionists would ever go along with having a Jewish state. Meaning we are stuck with the current regime and need to muddle through (like we always have done in the past) until they go away, which is the nature of all effemeral goyish governments.
The end game involves restoration of the monarchy, a sanhedrin and an kohen gadol. It’s the middle game that’s problematic. In such a state, all military units would resemble hesder units, and hilonim would be in charge of nothing more important than cleaning latrines.
In the interim, and realizing that it is probably impossible for a zionist state to ever make peace with the goyim (a major factor in our gedolim having opposed the zionists), they should switch to a professional army. Based on the percentage of volunteers for combat units, they shouldn’t have a problem. If they want frum recruits, they’ll have to offer them terms and conditions of service that are attractive.
Re: above discussion of bigotry
The Hareidim desire to be left alone. They don’t want to march into the hiloni schools and take the students, or change their curriculum. They are insisting that those who go “off the derekh” be returned. They aren’t objection to the hilonim taking court cases to the hiloni courts. They just want to be left alone in their own communities.
It is the hilonim (and the Dati Leumi) who want to take away the Hareidi children, and force the schools to change the subjects they teach, and make it a crime to use non-government courts, and who have a law stating that hareidim who don’t serve in the army aren’t allowed to hold jobs outside the hareidi community. This is what you would expect from prejudiced bigots.
Most western cultures respect a minority seeking to be left alone, and consider it bigotry for the majority to force their norms on the minority. The secular Jews (and many of the Modern Orthodox/Religious Zionists as well) have let their prejudices get the best of them. Most of the world will see the persecution of the Hareidim (denying social security benefits, denying passports, seizing their money) as religious persecution.
zahavasdad: Teachers are employed. Only Israel considered teachers to be NOT WORKING, and then only in the frum schools. If they were “learning” in a university, they would be considered employed. If an advanced student studying Talmud who lives off of stipends paid to students is in a yeshiva he is unemployed in Israel, but if he is in the university he is employed.
And that doesn’t count the huge number of people who are actually working off the books, but need to avoid the army since the army (except for select units) is hostile to haredim (you will know if the army changed when you hear of promising well connected officers being dismissed for being anti-hareidi, just as in the 1960s the US starting dismissing officers for racism – it hasn’t happened yet).
In a welfare state, being cut off from the welfare state puts you in a very bad way. It means that in a hospital, you pay the rate charged to rich American tourists. Most housing in Israel is in someway subsidized – so it means you can only buy housing in the “tourist” apartments. The major tax benefit yeshiovos receive is to be able to avoid taxes on foreign contributions (which otherwise would be taxable income). And they are still banning hareidim who want to work “on the books” from doing so unless they serve in the army (as opposed to Arabs, who can get jobs).
By avoiding arrests, they avoid an immediate confrontation, unless they (as their press suggests) see these only as first steps, with stricter measures to be applied if they don’t work at lowering the yeshiva population. By establishing a system in which 15% of the people have restricted civil rights, you guarantee instability. Since this is religion based, it will violate most human rights principles.
At the very least, it will end cooperation in other areas between hareidim and dati leumi. The Hareidim will offer to ally with Labor based on common support for the welfare state, and an agreement to end conscription and equal rights. Imagine the situation at a school in America where some students are raising money for hareidim who are being denied basic medical care and housing since they learn Torah and the Dati Leumi are responsible, while their classmates are raising money for settlers who are left homeless by policies to reduce settlements which they will blame on the hareidim who will be supporting such policies.
So a Palestinian who supports Hamas, and whose sibling is a terrorist, can get an Israeli passport and welfare state benefits, but a Jew who wants to learn Torah can’t. And Hareidim who take jobs “on the books” will be immediately arrested for draft evasion. And since welfare state benefits include housing and health care, anyone learning Torah will be cut off from access to all but the most expensive alternatives. Does loss of tax benefits for yeshivos means that they will have to pay income tax on money received from abroad (i.e. if Americans send $100K to support students learning, the government takes $30K)? If these sanctions don’t work, what comes next? The whole article, in context, makes it clears this is the governmetn deliberately oppressing the hareidim in the hope of forcing them to give up being hareidi. And absent a change to the Basic Laws, the Supreme Court will order conscription of women – which is even more of a problem halachically. It is oppression, pure and simple.
If Hareidim are treated worse than Arabs (and bluntly, the zionists do mistreat Arabs, especially those that oppose them politically), then why not support a Palestinian state? [edited] The most optimistic scenario is the haredim will be able to ally with the Israeli left and force an end to conscription. The worst is that the ability to peacefully sit and learn Torah in Eretz Yisrael will require replacing Medinat Yisrael.
If the article is correct, and goes into effect, it means the end of the yishuv as we know it.
[edited] inappropriate terminology
The ideal situation is for the wife to be a homemaker and the husband to learn all day. For those of us without independently wealthy parents, it becomes necessary to work for a living.
Frum women have always worked outside the family. While some jobs are prohibited to women (most of which we can’t discusses on YWN), the real issue is how much a woman wants to work outside the home, can she arrange childcare (very easy if her sister or sister-in-law is available to babysit), etc. Beyond that, everything depends on what she wants to do. As with anyone else, making a lot on money usually results in long hours, risk taking and hard work. Whether it is worthy it is an individual choice. Running a small business out of the house is easier than being a vice-president of a Wall Street investment bank, but it brings in a lot smaller income.
By “work” do you mean doing something during the day that gets you paid. In the United States, or in the Israeli universities, once you receive money in excess of tuition or waived room and board fees, you are considered an employee. In Israel, if such persons are employed by the teachers, they are not considered employed. While in English there is a clear distinction between student and teacher, in traditional Hebrew, a “Ben Yeshiva” could mean either. Bnei Yeshiva who receive enough money to support a family are employed, even if the green eyeshade guys don’t count them. In addition a great many yeshiva “students” have jobs off the books since if they worked on the books, they would be drafted into an army that is incredibly hostile to bnei Torah.
If the government wanted most of the bnei yeshiva to be part of the economy, they could exempt them from the army (perhaps tied to being fathers, a grounds for exemption in many countries with conscription).
The Israelis have been experimenting with a variety of formulas – largely as a result of the desire of the secular parties to minimize the influence of the religious.
Israel has a parliamentary system meaning that the government is run by the party or coalition controlling the parliament. It doesn’t have to be the largest party, and after the previous election it was the party with the second highest totals that was able to form a majority government. An advantage of a parliamentary system is that the legislature and the executive always work together, without gridlock (as opposed to he USA, with an executive chosen separately from the legislature). The Israeli experimented with a system by which the prime minister was chosen is a separate ballot, and they ended up with a prime minister from one party and a kenesset dominated by the opposition – which doesn’t work in a parliamentary system. Some Israelis have preferred a “strong president” system such as the USA, but that could lead to a new set of problems.
In addition Israel uses proportional representation, which is reasonable given Jewish history (we always try to be inclusive, rather than preferring to have a ruling group and ignoring the rest). Thus no party gets a majority. However for the period 1948-1977 the socialist parties usually had majority, and from 1977-2013 the nationalist parties usually had a majority. Since the hareidim are being kicked out of the “nationalist” camp, it isn’t clear will be in the future.
1. Who would notice given the rather dull dress code we seem have imposed on ourselves?
What does a designer white shirt with plain suit look like?
2. Borsolino is a popular designer and everyone seems to like it.
3. Many frum people shop at “Second hand” shops, so a second hand name brand designer might be cheaper than something brand new from Walmart’s (where non-New Yorkers are allowed to buy inexpensive new stuff at reasonable prices).
I believe the hospital believed she was in a hospice situation in which death was imminent regardless of what was done, and that she was there to die. Based on the British press, it appears to be part of a larger controversy in which the health care providers (who are working for the government in most cases, rather than for the patients or the independent insurance companies that are responsible to the patients) are very willing to decide the a patient is moribund without consulting, or in disregard of the opinions of, the patient and the patient’s family.
RebdonieL “Freedom is not free. It comes at a cost and with considerable mesirat nefesh. “
And for countless generations ( okay, about 150 generations if you want to count), the Bnei Yeshiva, and the Baal ha-Battim, having been paying that price. Giving up their livlihoods, and often more (soon in Eretz Yisrael it will be a crime for 18-21 boys to learn Torah, though in all fairness Israeli prisons are nicer than the Nazi or Soviet ones). for the sake of learning Torah. We might not be glamorous as filling the sky with bombers and marching into battle in fancy uniforms with drums beating and flags flying – but someone we manage to survive, and our enemies seem to end up in the “dustbin” (as one of them called it) of history.
Yossibroch who said “…however my only knowledge of Satmar is from Wikipedia, the book/film ‘The Chosen’ …”
Wikipedia is inherently unreliable since it reflect whomever wrote the article, though it often has useful bibliographies. It is especially unreliable on controversial topics in which partisans strive to manipulate the article (they have had a great deal of trouble with Palestinians and Zionists in this respect).
The author of “The Chosen” is a Conservative Rabbi trying to justify his going off the derekh. Consider it as good a source for understanding orthodox Jews as Der Sturmer was for understanding the holocaust (except that Potok never got into a fight with people who hang troublemakers – but he’s just as guilty as people such as Streicher)
First decide what you would like to do, since no matter how I the pay you will probably fail if you pick a job that make’s you miserable.
Then figure out how to make enough money in your chosen field in order to survive.
Do not believe the propaganda that Satmar hasidim (in all their flavors) are sub-human perverse misanthropes incapable of dealing with the real world.
In Hebrew, they often refrer to “Kadur ha-Ha’aretz” to distinguish it from the word “aretz” which can also refer to Eretz Yisrael, or land in general. Until a few hundred years ago, there really wasn’t much need to develop vocabulary in any language to distinguish planets, but the relatively recent invention of telescopes changed that. English, which has the richest vocabularly of any language has a similar problem, as “Earth” can also mean “dirt” as well as the planet we live on.
One could look for deep meanings in all this, but in reality, it’s a matter than words generally don’t get invented for things that people never have to deal with.
A yarmulke is worn for indoor use when one would normally be bareheaded (for a goy). They are not very good as outdoor hats since they blow away. An outdoor hat is usually needed. Some people put the outdoor over the yarmulke, others put the yarmulke in the pocket while wearing an outdoor hat.
Baseball caps are a popular style of outdoor non-dress hats. One would not wear a baseball hat at a formal event. Other non-dress hats currently popular include a wide variety of caps. Among all Americans, baseball caps are quite popular.
I have never seen anyone wearing a baseball hat to shul on Shabbos.
According the press he might not have been licenses, might have been arrested for DUI in the past, and has a record for criminal offenses. He definitely needs a lawyer, and being experienced in such needs, wisely sought one out before surrendering.
If you mean yeshivos with leading academic standards, that would depend on one’s haskafa.
Generous compensation and a decent work-life are usually incompatible.
If you work a decent work-life (plenty of time off to learn with the kids, no hassles getting to minyan, of course plenty of time for vacation, etc.), try being an underpaid employee of the frum community or at worse, working for civil service or a non-profit.
If on the other hand, you want to be the one who pays full tuition, whom they honor at the maleve malka, and who generously provides the bail outs for the vital community organizations who seem to base their business plan on the federal goverment (but minus the printing press- a role you will pay), then go for the generous compensation.
If fitness is the goal, I’ld suggest strength training (weight lifting, calisthenics) and aerobics (such as biking or hiking or running). Sports are fun, and perhaps fun is mutar (I played baseball back in the era when the bats were made of wood and major leaguers took off-season jobs to make ends meet, and I’ld still root for the Dodgers if they ever came back to Brooklyn) – but from a fitness perspective sports all have serious question marks.
and by the way, there are several frum “major league” chess players (professional grandmasters)
yytz: Avraham Ibn Ezra, in a poem, reflecting an earlier version (e.g. the Queen was a Vizier and was much more limited, the “mad queen” of the 16th century was way in the future)
Bottom line:
IF you really want to be a lawyer, go to law school. First, research the range of jobs lawyers do. Don’t assume you’ll end up in “big law” – most lawyers don’t. Go to law school only if you like the idea of being a lawyer, independent of the hope it will give you parnassah.
Don’t think it will guarantee you becoming rich. Based affordability on the lower paying jobs (civil service, legal aid, small firms, going solo, working for a non-profit) especially when budgetting for student loans.
Even a BTL (meaning a yeshiva background and no real college) won’t prevent becoming a lawyer. You can pick up what you need on your own.
The better law schools (the 20 or so “national schools” including NYU and Columbia in New York) are usually the most expensive and offer the best career opportunities, but going to the rest can be more affordable (especially the public ones).
If you like law and don’t want to bet the farm on going to law school, feel free to become a paralegal.
What’s wrong with Chess? One of the Rishonim even wrote a book on the subject.
Mobe613 – saying you are entering law school with the hope of getting a job at the top 10 firms (actually, the list is a bit longer, the goal is “big law”) is like saying you want to go to yeshiva, but only if you’ll end up as a Rosh Yeshiva. Even in the top law schools (there are about 20 that have national reputations), most don’t end up in big firms, and many of those end up leaving the big firms (remember that the big firms hire many more associates than they have possible vacanies as partners – the majority work as associates and move one other work).
Anyone going to law school with the idea he (or she) will end up as a partner in a major firm, especially someone who is Shomer Mitsvos, is seriously deluded. There are plenty of options to get a middle class lifestyle out of law, and presumably someone going to law school does so since they find law interesting as a subject – but going to law school since you expect a prize from entering big law is naive, dumb, and likely to end very badly.
Daniel Rosen: If you want to run a business, you have your answer. Unless you want to work for a big corporation, for which an MBA might help, you don’t to spend money on graduate school, or even college. There are no academic requirements to run a business. All you need is something to sell and customers.
If you prefer some other line of work, pick the line of work based on what you want to do. Ask yourself about hours of work, risk, whether you could move to Israel if that ever becomes a facot, what are working conditions like, does it interest you. If you are already married with your own household, law school will cost about $250K (remember to include living costs) – that might be tolerable if you really want to be a lawyer, but think of what sort of return you could get if you borrowed that much money to invest in the business – and what you’ll do if you can’t pay back the loans.
It makes a great deal of sense that for a yeshiva student, a BTL and LSAT scores would be a poor correlation with anything. Yeshivas (small “Y”) while resembline medieval universities, bare no resemblance to a modern university (yeshivas tend to be collaborative rather than competitive, an emphasis on mastery rather than just getting by with the minimum effort, with much more flexibility and have a greater role of independent work than colleges). It might be worth studying whether most yeshiva students who go to university are either resounding successes or dismal failure (with little in the middle), and what does correlate with making the successful transition.
I suspect one might find a meaningful correlation by looking for transcript evidence of writing ability (since even a brilliant yeshiva student who does well on the LSAT is handicapped since he is trilingual in Yiddish, Hebrew and Brooklynese/Yeshivish but not standard WASPese English even though only the latter is the lingua franca in the legal world) and having a realistic background in the social sciences and American history. However that’s an hypothesis.
Zahavsdad: The British were anxious to leave in 1948. Remember the Empire went out of business in 1947, so it wasn’t important to control Suez anymore. The alternative to Israeli independence was an American trusteeship (all mandates were being converted into trusteeships). The Americans were quite interested in encouraging Jewish immigration to Palestine, since frankly, a great many Americans (including if not especially the upper class secular Jews who dominated the American Jewish community 70 years ago) didn’t want them coming to America. Most zionists were socialists, and the last thing they wanted was to have capitalist America taking over. Whereas in 1922 (when De Haan was shot) the Hareidim were talking about an Islamic state with a Jewish autonomous community, in 1948 they were talking about an American takeover (meaning the American armed forces would be in charge). Based on what has happened to other American trust territories, it means that Palestine today would probably have a legal status similar to Puerto Rico.
Someone with a BTL (Bachelor of Talmudic Law, the yeshiva “degree”), or for that matter a conventional B.A. in Jewish studies, or for that matter any degree in the humanities (other than history) or sciences — will be at a disadvantage when they get to law school.
While it is NOT required for admission, it is very helpful to have a basic knowledge of history (particularly American and to a lesser extent British) and social sciences are very useful, writing and communication skills are critical. If a student is good enough to get into Harvard or Columbia, or even to Brooklyn Law School or SUNY-Buffalo or University of Baltimore, or even good enough to pass the first year and read law – the student probably has the ability to sit down and read up on the subjects they are weak and work on the skills they need.
Even if someone with a weird background is looked down upon on the first day, very quickly what will matter is whether they can hold their own with the rest of the class and the profession.
Placing Torah and Mitsvos ahead of army service is a tremendous Kiddush ha-Shem. THe world will see our faith in Ha-Shem, his Torah, and insistence of following his orders.
This would be true even if the Israeli army was glatt kosher (in fact, except for segregated units, it is very hostile to anyone following traditional halacha interpretations), and even if the zionist cause wasn’t clearly hypocritical (if they claim based on the claims in Taanach, how do they justify rejecting the Torah imposed as part of the deal giving Jews Eretz Yisrael – if they reject Torah, then where do they get any basis to go to war in order to drive the Arabs out of Eretz Yisrael).
We joined the army of Ha-SHem at Sinai (as volunteers, not conscripts). We have our commanding officer. We have our orders. And if Netanyahu, Lapid and Bennett think they can compromise our mission, they will be mistaken. Olam HaZeh is a war of attirition, and we’ve outlasted the Roman, and the Greeks, and the Crusaders, and the Nazis – and we’ll outlast Likud and Yesh Atid.
A salary of $150K means high success. It means you are in the top 10% of all Americans.
If you want to work in the frum community, economic opportunties are lower (but you avoid the hassles of working for the goyim).
If you don’t have a career you aspire to, and only aspire to have a high salary, you should stay in yeshiva until you are mature enough to go to the outside world.
Re; Lawyers lying
Let us imagine that you were accused of a crime, or being sued. If you were very clever, and knew all the legal rules, you could actively defend yourself. You might know that a oral contract under certain conditions is not binding. You might know that someone relaying gossip heard from someone else is not admissable evidence. You might know a hostile witness who is being threated or bribed can have their testimony disregarded. You might know that you aren’t guilty because the crime requires an intent do something illegal, and your faults were accidental.
However the average person doesn’t know the rules, and they will get steamrolled. They will be sued over things that aren’t the proper basis to be sued over. They will be accused of crimes they are innocent of. They will lose due to witnesses whose testimony is unreliable and is biased.
In a traditional Beis Din, the judge will take notice that the law is being ignored and justice is being perverted. In most circumstances, an American judge will only do something if the party speaks up. The American judge is more of a referee between the two sides. Since most Americans don’t know much about the legal system, they won’t know to speak up, and will forfeit their rights. That’s what the lawyer is for. It’s quite honorable.
A lawyer who lies to the court will risk losing his license.
Talmud: IT’s a function of state law, not school policy. New York allows it. It is possible but rare and you need to have a practising lawyer willing to supervise. A serious drawback is that even if you manage to pass the bar exam, it will be much harder to get permission to ever work in a different state.
popa_bar_abba: If you don’t get an offer from a major firm (or a job with a government agency), you start at the bottom. Typically you end up working in some lawyer’s office for a pittance (or less) and over time you build up a practice on your own. Traditionally, new lawyers struggled for a while. If you are good, you can make it. Many do. There are plenty of books from the bar association on how to start a solo practice without starving.
If you want to own a major retail change, you don’t plan to start out as the majority shareholder of Walmart’s. You start small, and build the business. Law is the same.
The problem is with fools who think that a JD and $250K in debt entitles you to a parnassah.
If someone is trying to use a BTL to get into law school, and needs to assume they will look at the transcript even if they normally don’t, it would be good to have some credits for writing courses, basic American history, and basic social sciences. These can always be picked up from an accredited online university (such as University of Maryland’s University College or Western Governors University). A bit of experience working in a law office might help. Grades from a yeshiva don’t count for anything.
I’ld really suggest aiming lower and going for a less than elite school that offers liberal academic scholarships and lower tuition (particularly one’s home state university). The non-elite schools rarely lead to a “Big law” job, but most frum kids really aren’t on track for that “bullseye” to begin with, and the non-elite schools are just as good for the “build up your practice” in the less rarified world of neighborhood law – and you don’t want all those debts.
Getting a job is not just a function of grades and class rank. For frum Jews, there are many obstacle (even if you can disguise that you are frum) since we are from a radically different culture. If you have a BTL, meaning your secular education is weak, it is even harder. If your goal is to be a lawyer, that suggests very strongly having an idea on how and where you want to practice (its much better to go to law school near where you want to practice, unless you have your heart set on “big law”, which is rarely realistic) and plan accordingly (and try to avoid running up big debts).
P.S. Georgetown is easily in the top 20, meaning if you get good grades, and have the right academic and social background (something no frum Jew has), employment should be easy especially in the Washington area.