When One Is Too Little, Yet Two Is No Good:

Why They Returned

"I couldn't stand Israel any longer," explains Eli Scheiman, a student who left Neve Tzion, a yeshiva in Israel, after a year-and-a-half. "I wanted to get an education, and there I could not. I just wanted to be comfortable, drink a Snapple, and learn while getting an education."

At the start of the spring ’98 semester, about sixty new students arrived on the YU campus. Many of these students, like Scheiman, returned from Israel after a year-and-a-half. Thus, they are neither in the shana aleph class (first year) or shana bet (second year) class. What compelled these students to separate themselves from their fellow peers, and leave Israel smack in the middle of the year? Why would a student not wait till the following fall?

Though some motivated students decide that one year is not enough and they need two years, the year-and-a-half class of young scholars is separate from this breed. They are of the Goldilocks philosophy. They believe that one year is too little, two years is too much, but a year-and-a-half is just right.

The students interviewed for this article represent a gamut of reasons for why a student would leave Israel without completing the second year. There is the, "I’ve had enough of Israel" group, "the year- and-a-half was just the right amount of time" group, and the "my parents forced me to come home" group. Although each student has his own reason for coming back at this strange time of year, they all collectively feel the pains of adjusting to a new environment.

In December, Ari Rascus was in Jerusalem, attending Yeshivat Hakotel. Now he is attending YU. But Ari says that he left Israel with no hard feelings. For him the year and a half were just what he was looking for. "I wanted to learn more in Yeshiva, but not for a full intense year" he explained.

Moreover, as for the adjustment to coming to a new school in the middle of the year, Rascus added, "I knew how it worked here, and that if you had friends it's O.K. to come back in the middle."

There are new students, however, such as Charles Wizenfeld. Wizenfeld attended Mevaseret Zion, and would much rather be in the Holy Land than in Washington Heights. "I can’t deal with it here," he cried.

Wizenfeld did not opt to leave Israel for YU: his parents made the decision for him. He explained, "My parents made me come home because they didn’t believe I was doing anything in Israel." Yet, Wizenfeld is defiant: "I’ll show them," he said, "I’ll become a Rabbi!"

The decision of when to come home is often a source of conflict between many children and their parents. Often the child wants to stay in Israel to learn, while his or her parent wants him or her to come home. In Mr. Wizenfeld’s case, he was allowed to stay in Israel only for another semester, not another whole year. Ultimately, it is the student with his or her parents that makes the decision concerning how long to stay in Israel, but the rabbis in Israel do their utmost to try to persuade the students to stay a full second year. These students are the rabbis’ best and brightest, and are just beginning the process of being molded into Torah scholars. Therefore, it is easy to see why the rabbis do not want these students to leave. Rascus and Scheiman both were told of their bleak futures if they were to leave in the middle of the year. "All the Rabbis thought that if I didn’t stay a full year my religious level would go down. So far that’s not the case, at least for the next few weeks," said Rascus.

Scheiman told a much harsher story. "My yeshiva is very ‘anti’ this place," he said. "They told me that if I went here it would be spiritual death. But they don’t know anything about this place."

Now that the new students have begun to settle in, they are beginning to take advantage of what YU and New York have to offer. Rascus commented on his new cosmopolitan way of life, saying, "There are much better facilities here than in yeshiva; for example the swimming pool. Also, the pizza is much better here." Scheiman spoke further about how comforts are greater here in America, than they were in Israel. "I’m comfortable here," he said. "In yeshiva there was no heat, here there is heat."

Even Wizenfeld feels that there are certain benefits that YU is offering him in the dormitories, which he certainly did not experience in Israel. Speaking about his eclectic new bunch of friends he has made on the seventh floor of Rubin, he said, "Here, I feel like I’m the US ambassador on my floor."

It is always difficult to adjust to a new environment. For the students who return from Israel after a year-and-a-half, this is especially true, since they have to deal with the trauma of registering and reacquainting themselves to life in America at the same time. Phillip Witner, now a lower senior at YU, who, similar to Rascus, Scheiman, and Wizenfeld, left Israel to come to YU in the middle of the semester, remembered how difficult it was to come to YU in the middle of the year. He said, "I was so scared when I first came, but due to the guys in my shiur, who kept me on my toes, I have been very successful ever since." Other students in Witner’s predicament, even if they would rather be in Israel, can only hope that they will be as fortunate.