One recent merger will affect the lives of tens of thousands
of people. And it will almost certainly shape the face of
Eretz Yisroel and ensure the future of Russian Jewry in the
years to come.
This merger was between Shuvu and the Russian Division of
Yeshivas Ohr Somayach in Yerushalayim, culminating close to
six months of intensive talks and negotiations between
officials of the two organizations on how to incorporate the
yeshiva for Russian-speakers into the Shuvu school system.
Recently the plan became official and, according to the
terms of the signed two-year deal, Shuvu undertakes the
lion's share of the costs involved in running the yeshiva
for Russians while Ohr Somayach will supply the manpower and
the know-how.
WHY A YESHIVA FOR RUSSIAN-SPEAKERS?
Rabbi Chaim Michoel Gutterman, Shuvu's Director in Israel,
explains why it is so crucial for Shuvu to have a
yeshiva:
"We are growing along with our oldest students," he says.
"We first opened the network ten years ago for students in
the first grade. When those youngsters grew and reached high
school age, we opened high schools for them. Now many are on
the verge of graduating high school, and the time has come
to open a Shuvu yeshiva for them."
Rabbi Gutterman explains that although Shuvu cannot afford
to overtly encourage its students to attend yeshiva instead
of university and thereby risk alienating their parents, it
is crucial to convey to the students that yeshiva is a
viable option for them.
"By putting the yeshiva at the top of our educational
pyramid," Rabbi Gutterman explains, "we are essentially
telling our students that this is what they should be
striving to achieve."
Shuvu's education directors have learned from long
experience that regular Israeli yeshivas don't always answer
the needs of Russian immigrants. Because of the very
different cultural background that Russian immigrants bring
with them from their country of origin, they need an
educational system that is attuned to their unique needs in
order to really succeed.
Rabbi Yitzchok Vider, who has served as head of Ohr
Somayach's Russian division for the past seven years, agrees
wholeheartedly with this assessment.
Soon after he accepted his position as head of Ohr
Somayach's Russian division, Rabbi Vider realized that for
the sake of his Russian students, he would have to adapt the
yeshiva's well-honed system that had worked so well in
helping English-speaking baalei teshuva navigate the
difficult path of accepting Torah and mitzvos.
"With Americans," says Rabbi Vider, "you have to be very
careful not to be too overbearing, otherwise the boy is
likely to pack up and get right back on the plane. But with
the Russians the opposite is true: discipline is something
they look up to and expect. It gives them a sense that we're
doing something important here. So I instituted some very
tough rules, such as making attendance at shiurim and
davening compulsory. Some of my colleagues from the
American division were shocked, but in the end the results
spoke for themselves."
Despite Rabbi Vider's penchant for strict discipline, his
expectations are extremely realistic. He certainly does not
expect the young men in his charge to make a change
overnight. He doesn't tell his students that they must wear
a jacket or hat. And he doesn't tell them that they must
forgo an outside career and learn full time.
Yet more often than not, he finds that after marriage many
of the bochurim shed their corduroys and plaid shirts
and don white shirts. A few weeks later, the young man will
suddenly show up to the beis medrash wearing a black
hat. As for the working versus learning full-time question,
the overwhelming majority of the married boys opt for the
kollel track for as long as they can stretch it.
SPEAKING A COMMON LANGUAGE
Yitzchok Savranevsky is one such bochur. He grew up
in the Ukraine and came to Eretz Yisroel in 1992, where for
seven years he had absolutely no contact with
Yiddishkeit. Last year he heard about Ohr Somayach
and decided to give it a try. Even though he didn't know on
which side to hold a gemora, he was immediately
impressed by the strict logic of the Talmud and the high
quality of the shiurim.
"In order to learn well," says Yitzchok, "I need to feel
comfortable and feel free to ask questions in a non-
threatening, supportive atmosphere. It's a real siyata
deShmaya that the teachers understand so well where
we're coming from. At this yeshiva there's a common language
between us."
Yitzchok sees a great potential for the joint project
between Shuvu and Ohr Somayach. An educational system like
Shuvu, he says, can do a lot to introduce Russians to the
real world of Torah and take the sting out of anti-religious
rhetoric.
"Shuvu is like a portal into the religious world for
Russians," he says. "It enables the ice to be broken, and
lets Russian-speakers get to know the real face of religious
society. It's a real kiddush Hashem."
Despite Yitzchok's infectious enthusiasm, he says he is also
aware of the challenges that lie ahead. "There will be many
students interested in attending the yeshiva," Yitzchok
says, "but I'm not so sure what their parents are going to
say."
Shuvu officials agree that the success of the program
depends to a large extent on the way the parents will react
to their children's decision to spend their "university
years" in a yeshiva.
"Convincing Russian parents to send their children to a
Shuvu elementary school and high school is one thing," says
Abe Biderman, Shuvu's director in America. "But giving their
children permission to forgo university and attend yeshiva
is another thing altogether."
Rabbi Vider is also aware of the problem, but he is not
discouraged. He says that even if only ten percent of the
5,000 boys currently enrolled in Shuvu schools (the network
has a total of 10,000 students) decide to attend yeshiva
after they graduate from high school, that's 500 new yeshiva
bochurim a year. And as the number of students
enrolled at Shuvu schools increases, as it has done every
year for the past ten years, so will the number of boys
attending the yeshiva.
"We're talking about a yeshiva that is going to have a
tremendous impact on Israeli society," says Rabbi Vider.
"I'm less concerned over how the parents are going to react
than over how we are going to handle the huge number of new
students every year. I mean, where are we going to put them
all?" he asks, motioning with his hand towards the already
jammed beis medrash.
GIVING THE VERY BEST
Talks to establish the joint project between Shuvu and Ohr
Somayach began last Pesach. A few days after Tisha B'Av,
HaRav Avrohom Pam, Shuvu's founder and guiding force, gave
his consent, and immediately Shuvu's American board of
directors got to work.
Although the yeshiva will place an additional financial
burden on Shuvu, Rabbi Gutterman is pleased that Rav Pam
approved the project.
"Rav Pam always tells us that we cannot say `no' to any
child in Eretz Yisroel who wants a Torah education," Rabbi
Gutterman says. "If this is true of elementary school-age
children, then it certainly applies to young adults."
Rabbi Gutterman is convinced that the yeshiva will answer a
need for Shuvu students who want to develop their Torah
studies further, but who would not excel in an mainstream
institution. Without this opportunity to pursue their
studies within the Shuvu educational framework, he says,
most of these students would never get the opportunity to
experience the unforgettable sensation of learning in a
yeshiva environment.
Officials of both organizations expect that the joint
project will be a success because Shuvu and the Ohr Somayach
yeshiva for Russians have many educational principles in
common. One of these is that while both Shuvu and Ohr
Somayach stress high standards of learning, they also both
believe that if the learning is to truly enter the hearts of
their students, there has to be another necessary ingredient
-- simcha.
Now it's easy to create simcha in a first-grade
classroom, where children are taught how to light the
Menorah and sing Chanukah songs. But try creating it
in a room filled with somber Russian youths who have often
encountered a long odyssey of hardships in Mother Russia and
in the unfamiliar setting of Eretz Yisroel.
"Simcha is crucial to good learning," says Rabbi
Vider. That's why he tries so hard to inject a little simcha
into the lives of his talmidim. He takes the boys on
outings in the countryside, ostensibly to visit kivrei
tzaddikim, but in reality to air them out and simply
make them feel good. Rabbi Vider says that learning under a
shady tree on a desolate hill with a panoramic view of Lake
Kinneret can have a more lasting effect on his charges than
the most fiery mussar shmuess.
"That's why we make sure to provide the bochurim with
comfortable living conditions," Rav Vider says. "We never
compromise on food and other basic necessities. We try to
give our boys the very best so that they feel good about
themselves and about Torah learning."
It's this feeling of caring - of having a true home in the
yeshiva world - that has kept young Russian men like
Yitzchok in learning. He says that he knows that he is
getting something very unique at the yeshiva, something that
his friends learning in regular Israeli yeshivos are
missing. And he sincerely hopes he will be able to continue
to learn for the rest of his life.
Now that the new joint project between Shuvu and Ohr
Somayach is up and running, at least some of the hundreds of
thousands of Russian Jews in Israel will have a way to come
back home and find their place in Yiddishkeit.
