United States or Saudi Arabia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
As a consequence, yeshibot, or colleges, for the study of Jewish literature, were founded in almost every community. Their fame reached distant lands. It became a popular saying that "from Kiev shall go forth the Law, and the word of God from Starodub." Horodno, the vulgar pronunciation of Grodno, was construed to mean Har Adonaï, "the Mount of the Lord."
To his surprise the reason given was that the rabbi enjoyed his scientific debates so much that he would not willingly part with the young author. Stories were told how the deans of the yeshibot were frequently found to have mastered the very books they confiscated because of the teachings they inculcated.
"It is the finger of God," the pious ones said, and studied the Talmud with increased devotion. The numerous Talmud editions indicate the demand for the work, and the multiplicity of yeshibot explains the cause of the demand. We have seen how the yeshibot destroyed by Chmielnicki were re-established soon after the massacres ceased.
The life of sacrifices and privations led by the Jewish students who go abroad in search of an education, inspires Gordon with one of the most beautiful passages in his poem. In the true sense of the word, these young men are loyal to Jewish traditions. They are the genuine successors of those who formerly braved hunger and cold upon the benches of the Yeshibot.
Like the poimaniki, the poor and the orphaned were compelled, or induced, to fill the class-rooms shunned by the rich and respectable, and though the Government not only condemned the ancient Hebrew institutions, but declared the twenty thousand teachers who imparted instruction in them to be outlaws and criminals, the melammedim pursued their vocation as ever, and the hadarim, Talmud Torahs, yeshibot, and batte midrashim swarmed with students of the prohibited learning.
In the second half of the eighteenth century, thanks to the peace with which Lithuania was blessed after its subjection by Russia, Rabbinical studies reached their zenith. The high schools, the Yeshibot, became the centres of attraction for the best of the young men. The number of writers and scholars increased considerably, and the Hebrew printing presses were kept in full blast.
Like the Temple in ancient times, the Yeshibot offered a sure refuge. Whenever these sanctuaries were imperilled, national sentiment was aroused, and the threatened encroachments upon the last national treasure were resisted with bitter determination, for the idealism of the people of the ghetto, their hope and their faith, were enshrined there.
The professional schools and the Rabbinical seminaries established by the government robbed the Hedarim and the Yeshibot of thousands of students. The Russian language, hitherto neglected, began to dispute the first place with the jargon and even the Hebrew.
Busily 'gan for the souls to pray On them that gave him wherewith to scolay. For a faithful and vivid description of the yeshibot we cannot do better than transcribe the account given in the pages of the little pamphlet Yeven Mezulah in which Nathan Hannover, mentioned above, has left us a reliable history of the Cossack uprisings and the Kulturgeschichte of his own time.
In Germany, since the time of Mendelssohn, the study of the Talmud had been on the wane. The great yeshibot formerly existing in Metz, Frankfort, Hamburg, Prague, Fiirth, Halberstadt, etc., disappeared, and the reforms introduced in the synagogue and the numerous converts to Christianity impressed the outside world with the idea that Judaism among German Jews was writhing in the agony of death.
Word Of The Day