Yeshiva
A yeshiva is a traditional Jewish educational institution focused on the study of Rabbinic literature, primarily the Talmud and halacha, while Torah and Jewish philosophy are studied in parallel. The studying is usually done through daily shiurim as well as in study pairs called chavrusas. Chavrusa-style learning is one of the unique features of the yeshiva.
In the United States and Israel, different levels of yeshiva education have different names. In the U.S., elementary-school students enroll in a cheder, post-bar mitzvah-age students learn in a mesivta, and undergraduate-level students learn in a beit midrash or yeshiva gedola. In Israel, elementary-school students enroll in a Talmud Torah or cheder, post-bar mitzvah-age students learn in a yeshiva ketana, and high-school-age students learn in a yeshiva gedola. A kollel is a yeshiva for married men, in which it is common to pay a token stipend to its students. Students of Lithuanian and Hasidic yeshivot gedolot usually learn in yeshiva until they get married.
Historically, yeshivas were for men only. Today, all non-Orthodox yeshivas are open to women. Although there are separate schools for Orthodox women and girls, known as midrasha or "seminary", these do not follow the same structure or curriculum as the traditional yeshiva for boys and men.
Etymology
Alternate spellings and names include yeshivah; metivta and mesivta ; beth midrash; Talmudical academy, rabbinical academy and rabbinical school. The word yeshiva is applied to the activity of learning in class, and hence to a learning "session."The transference in meaning of the term from the learning session to the institution itself appears to have occurred by the time of the Talmudic Academies in Babylonia, Sura and Pumbedita, which were known as shte ha-yeshivot.
History
Origins
The Mishnah tractate Megillah contains the law that a town can only be called a city if it supports ten men to make up the required quorum for communal prayers. Similarly, every beth din was attended by a number of pupils up to three times the size of the court. According to the Talmud, adults generally took two months off every year to study, these being Elul and Adar, the months preceding the pilgrimage festivals of Sukkot and Pesach. The rest of the year, they worked.Geonic period
The Geonic period takes its name from Gaon, the title given to the heads of the three yeshivas which existed from the third to the thirteenth century. The Geonim acted as the principals of their individual yeshivot, and as spiritual leaders and high judges for the wider communities tied to them. The yeshiva conducted all official business in the name of its Gaon, and all correspondence to or from the yeshiva was addressed directly to the Gaon.Throughout the Geonic Period there were three yeshivot, each named for the cities in which they were located: Jerusalem, Sura, and Pumbedita; the yeshiva of Jerusalem would later relocate to Cairo, and the yeshivot of Sura and Pumbedita to Baghdad, but retain their original names. Each Jewish community would associate itself with one of the three yeshivot; Jews living around the Mediterranean typically followed the yeshiva in Jerusalem, while those living in the Arabian Peninsula and modern-day Iraq and Iran typically followed one of the two yeshivot in Baghdad. There was no requirement for this, and each community could choose to associate with any of the yeshivot.
The yeshiva served as the highest educational institution for the Rabbis of this period. In addition to this, the yeshiva wielded great power as the principal body for interpreting Jewish law. The community regarded the Gaon of a yeshiva as the highest judge on all matters of Jewish law. Each yeshiva ruled differently on matters of ritual and law; the other yeshivot accepted these divisions, and all three ranked as equally orthodox. The yeshiva also served as an administrative authority, in conjunction with local communities, by appointing members to serve as the head of local congregations. These heads of a congregation served as a link between the congregation and the larger yeshiva it was attached to. These leaders would also submit questions to the yeshiva to obtain final rulings on issues of dogma, ritual, or law. Each congregation was expected to follow only one yeshiva to prevent conflict with different rulings issued by different yeshivot.
The yeshivot were financially supported by a number of means, including fixed voluntary, annual contributions; these contributions being collected and handled by local leaders appointed by the yeshiva. Private gifts and donations from individuals were also common, especially during holidays, consisting of money or goods.
The yeshiva of Jerusalem was finally forced into exile in Cairo in 1127, and eventually dispersed entirely. Likewise, the yeshivot of Sura and Pumbedita were dispersed following the Mongol invasions of the 13th century. After this education in Jewish religious studies became the responsibility of individual synagogues. No organization ever came to replace the three great yeshivot of Jerusalem, Sura and Pumbedita.
To 19th century
After the Geonic Period Jews established more Yeshiva academies in Europe and in Northern Africa, including the Kairuan yeshiva in Tunisia that was established by Chushiel Ben Elchanan in 974.Traditionally, every town rabbi had the right to maintain a number of full or part-time pupils in the town's beth midrash, which was usually adjacent to the synagogue. Their cost of living was covered by community taxation. After a number of years, the students who received semikha would either take up a vacant rabbinical position elsewhere or join the workforce.
Lithuanian
Organised Torah study was revolutionised by Chaim Volozhin, an influential 18th-century Lithuanian leader of Judaism and disciple of the Vilna Gaon. In his view, the traditional arrangement did not cater to those looking for more intensive study.With the support of his teacher, Volozhin gathered interested students and started a yeshiva in the town of Valozhyn, located in modern-day Belarus. The Volozhin yeshiva was closed some 60 years later in 1892 following the Russian government's demands for the introduction of certain secular studies. Thereafter, a number of yeshivot opened in other towns and cities, most notably Slabodka, Panevėžys, Mir, Brisk, and Telz. Many prominent contemporary yeshivot in the United States and Israel are continuations of these institutions, and often bear the same name.
In the 19th century, Israel Salanter initiated the Mussar movement in non-Hasidic Lithuanian Jewry, which sought to encourage yeshiva students and the wider community to spend regular times devoted to the study of Jewish ethical works. Concerned by the new social and religious changes of the Haskalah, and other emerging political ideologies that often opposed traditional Judaism, the masters of Mussar saw a need to augment Talmudic study with more personal works. These comprised earlier classic Jewish ethical texts, as well as a new literature for the movement. After early opposition, the Lithuanian yeshiva world saw the need for this new component in their curriculum, and set aside times for individual mussar study and mussar talks. A mashgiach ruchani encouraged the personal development of each student. To some degree, this Lithuanian movement arose in response, and as an alternative, to the separate mystical study of the Hasidic Judaism world. Hasidism began in the previous century within traditional Jewish life in Ukraine, and spread to Hungary, Poland and Russia. As the 19th century brought upheavals and threats to traditional Judaism, the Mussar teachers saw the benefit of the new spiritual focus in Hasidism, and developed their alternative ethical approach to spirituality.
Some variety developed within Lithuanian yeshivas to methods of studying Talmud and mussar, for example whether the emphasis would be placed on beki'ut or iyyun. Pilpul, a type of in-depth analytical and casuistic argumentation popular from the 16th to 18th centuries that was traditionally reserved for investigative Talmudic study, was not always given a place. The new analytical approach of the Brisker method, developed by Chaim Soloveitchik, has become widely popular. Other approaches include those of Mir, Chofetz Chaim, and Telz. In mussar, different schools developed, such as Slabodka and Novhardok, though today, a decline in devoted spiritual self-development from its earlier intensity has to some extent levelled out the differences.
Hasidic
With the success of the yeshiva institution in Lithuanian Jewry, the Hasidic world developed their own yeshivas, in their areas of Eastern Europe. These comprised the traditional Jewish focus on Talmudic literature that is central to Rabbinic Judaism, augmented by study of Hasidic philosophy. Examples of these Hasidic yeshivas are the Chabad Lubavitch yeshiva system of Tomchei Temimim, founded by Sholom Dovber Schneersohn in Russia in 1897, and the Chachmei Lublin Yeshiva established in Poland in 1930 by Meir Shapiro, who is renowned in both Hasidic and Lithuanian Jewish circles for initiating the Daf Yomi daily cycle of Talmud study.In many Hasidic yeshivas, study of Hasidic texts is a secondary activity, similar to the additional mussar curriculum in Lithuanian yeshivas. These paths see Hasidism as a means to the end of inspiring emotional devekut and mystical enthusiasm. In this context, the personal pilgrimage of a Hasid to his Rebbe is a central feature of spiritual life, in order to awaken spiritual fervour. Often, such paths will reserve the Shabbat in the yeshiva for the sweeter teachings of the classic texts of Hasidism.
In contrast, Chabad and Breslov, in their different ways, place daily study of their dynasties' Hasidic texts in central focus; see [|below]. Illustrative of this is Sholom Dovber Schneersohn's wish in establishing the Chabad yeshiva system, that the students should spend a part of the daily curriculum learning Chabad Hasidic texts "with pilpul". The idea to learn Hasidic mystical texts with similar logical profundity, derives from the unique approach in the works of the Rebbes of Chabad, initiated by its founder Schneur Zalman of Liadi, to systematically investigate and articulate the "Torah of the Baal Shem Tov" in intellectual forms. Further illustrative of this is the differentiation in Chabad thought between general Hasidism's emphasis on emotional enthusiasm and the Chabad ideal of intellectually reserved ecstasy. In the Breslov movement, in contrast, the daily study of works from the imaginative, creative radicalism of Nachman of Breslov awakens the necessary soulfulness with which to approach other Jewish study and observance.