The external prompt of yeshivah is positive, but the key point remains the same: whether the bochur develops his own drive for growth, independent of his environment
How many parents, given the choice, would gladly resurrect the prewar yeshivah schedule in which there was no official summer bein hazmanim, and instead, individual bochurim took time off in a woodland dacha while the yeshivah continued as before?
Far be it from me, of course, to suggest such heresy. I’m a mere mouthpiece for parents scared witless by their sons’ vacation antics. I’m also passing on the opinion of rescue personnel who would have preferred that yeshivah vacations not evolve from snoozes in a deckchair to hikes in Death Valley.
Curmudgeonly as this introduction sounds, though, this is actually a pro-bein hazmanim column. Whatever the merits of the summer break in particular, the institution deserves far more credit than it gets from either parents or mashgichim.
That’s because it’s not just a pressure valve, a chance for some downtime from intense yeshivah schedules. In a way, bein hazmanim is actually a bochur’s first taste of real life — one that’s hard to come by the rest of the year.
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