As much as you people think I know what I am talking about when it comes to the black hat yeshivish world I haven’t a clue, in fact even though I went to a chofetz Chaim yeshiva it really wasn’t yeshivish and it wasn’t anything like Lakewood. In fact I heard of two things that go on Lakewood which really opened my eyes.
Chavrusa Tumult:
I have never heard of this before but a chavrusa tumult is when people figure out what chavrusa they will have. You see Lakewood and other large yeshivas are really just big gymnasiums where people learn b’chavrusa without any real direction. In fact if you ask anyone who ever married a Lakewood Boy (frummies use the term boy not guy when it comes to shidduchim) or anyone to do with the place they will tell you the running joke that every guy in Lakewood is the “best guy” or boy shall we say.
So at the bgeining of the year I mean z’man, everyone hangs out outside of the beis medrish for two days and hocks with each other to find a chavrusa. I found this idea hilarious, but I guess when you have thousands of people how on earth are you supposed to find your chavrusa.
I am actually debating going to one of these Chavrusa Tumults just to check it out. It seems like a party to me, a bunch of yeshiva guys hocking with each other and using thumb dips to do it. Has anyone experienced this sort of event?
BMG has 4 coffee rooms:
I also learned recently that to save money Beth Medrish Gevoah otherwise known as BMG, recently switched from brand name coffee to generic and apparently they saved almost $200,000 – which in itself is an insane amount to be spent on coffee in the first place.
The four coffee rooms in BMG are where all rumors are said to be started as well, apparently its one huge game of telephone. Some guy will see one of the roshei yeshiva with a big donor and the next thing you know, the whole of Lakewood is talking about this event which never actually happened. The Lakewood coffee rooms are where the kings of hock hang out. Oh and I finally realized why the Yeshiva World News calls their gossip rooms the “coffee room”.
Chavrusa Breakup:
Just like breaking up with your long time girlfriend, chavrusa break up is a big deal in the yeshiva world. Sp big that Arey Kunstler recently wrote a song about which is available for download here. I guess I always write about the bans and craziness of Lakewood that I never bothered to figure out what the real Lakewood was about – greasy yeshiva guys with peyos behind their ears – shtieging day and night over gemara.
Imagine spending all your time with one guy (your chavrusa) and then having to say goodbye, it seems kind of sad, it also seems a little homoerotic dont you think?
Can anyone tell me what other weird or interesting events go on in the real yeshiva world?
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this weeks sign of the apocalypse: lakewood and homoerotic in the same posting.
Hesh, you can have a running serial on this ‘gohng’.
In less yeshivish places the coffee room is called the kitchen.
(Kitchen meaning fridge and sink(s) in the room)
yeah, i’ve done the chavrusa tumult. stressful for many folks. i remember one dude sweating profusely — we were scared he was going to have a heart attack — because he couldn’t find a suitable chavrusa. i guess when learning is *everything* a good chavrusa is really important. or perhaps it has more to do with popularity and social standing as much as anything.
often, guys would ask a friend to go be a shadchun and ask someone on their behalf, to lessen the pressure i guess.
and the coffee room. it’s funny, in the goyish world instant coffee is considered barely drinkable. in yeshiva, on the other hand, taster’s choice is like gourmet, cuz everyone has instant (and if there is brewed stuff it really is barely drinkable).
If its comparable to marriage then…
Do the chavrusos have to go to chavrusa counseling if it doesnt work out?
does there have to be some sort of Shadchan to set them up?
Do they go on some sort of date, like learning together at an appointed time to see if it works out?
Is there any sort of segulah to find your chavrusa?
got any more to add?
Dofan Akuma – you make the tumult sound like an event I have got to check out.
Sometimes people try learning together on a trial basis, so that could be considered a chavrusa/learning date.
Or it’s like “living together” in non-Jewish dating terms…
In the reject yeshivas I went to, finding a good chavrusa meant finding some dude you can plan to do sh*t with and how to get away with it. Doesn’t sound like I would have done too well at the BMG “speed dating” chavrusa thing. One thing for sure, I wouldn’t find it homoerotic or homoanything for that matter.
How the heck does anyone save $200,000 on coffee just by switching brands? At those prices it sounds like the coffee is spiked with 30 year old single malt! Then you wonder why these yeshivas are at a deficit and constantly have teams of shnorers all over the world.
A great Rosh Yeshiva would wait until all the chavrusas were set, and then pick the last bochur left out and say that hewill be his chavrusa – at least for the first few weeks!
if you change from tasters choice then generic you do. supposedly BMG through a few cases a day of instant coffee, and a ridiculous amount of milk.
Frumsatire- there is a recent trend though in BMG to arrange your chavrusas before zman, but its not the usual way of doing it, or so im told
i forgot to mention my favorite chavrusa tumult moment — it’s related to the shadchun aspect. a guy approached me asking whether i would speak to another bochor on his behalf. i said “i don’t know… i think he’s looking for someone who’s going to be learning full-time.”
Dofan Akuma
Lol
Dude, you gotta come! I was dying of boredom at this zmans tumult. You’ll definitely bring it to a new level of entertainment! Heck, i’ll even be you’re chavrusa shadchun. I can sing your praises about how your blog is a primary source of jewish education to many a b.t. and ger.
Who knows you may emerge with the most sought after chavrusos in the yeshiva and engaged to the rosh’s daughter (okay let’ s not push it lol).
So, looking foward to seeing you at this upcoming summer zman’s tumult which I think will begin Sunday, April 26 and continue till about Tuesday or Wednesday.
hesh you gotta come.This totally up your alley!!!!!!!!!!!!! youll love it!!!! you can go on for a month about this!!!!!
I remember that many Israelis would use the coffee room for smoking breaks too. They would extinguish the cigarettes in what was left of their coffee. It was pretty nauseating, seeing those styrofoam cups half-full of coffee with cigarette butts floating in them.
200k sounds like a lot. If you look here http://www.walgreens.com/store/product.jsp?id=prod360963&CATID=100535&skuid=sku360964&V=G&ec=frgl_495119&ci_src=14110944&ci_sku=sku360964# a 7 oz container (which has 105 servings according to here http://www.tasterschoice.com/FAQ.aspx ) is 10 dollars. 200k/10 = 20000*105=2,100,000.
How many people are there in that yeshivah? 2,000 or so? That means every person had 1050 cups a year. Sounds like that number is off by an order of magnitude or two as these are retail prices. I’m sure whole prices could easily increase that to 3,000,000 servings a year.
there’s actually closer to 6000 students currently, but the #’s still don’t really add up being that not everyone drinks coffee and that that’s the amount saved not spent
you should come hesh. see how many people recognize you , I’ll bet you’l be pleasantly surprised
yeah it is kind of homo erotic, especially since they just started making chavruses full out forms with personal ID stickers of their names on them, to keep track of who’s really learning, so after handeling back and forth for a few days, finally you “take the plunge” with someone and ask them: OH WILL YOU PUT YOUR STICKER NEXT TO MINE
IN DEFENSE OF YESHIVISHA PREMIUM COFFEE DRINKERS: there really is not much else to do, give us a break
I gotta tell you Lakewood’s Chavrusah Tumult makes the Stock Market Exchange look tame. I HATED the Tumult when I learned in BMG with a passion, it was a HUGE pain in the ass. I always tried arranging them beforehand, but it never worked out. That’s one thing I don’t miss about BMG. It’s definitely a sight, hundreds of black/white garmented dudes all huddled together. If you can get a bird’s eye view somehow, even better. This ridiculous pre-zman ritual that I loathed so much is not a fond memory of mine.
The Coffee Room isn’t REALLY where rumors start, but when you want to describe talk that has no veracity or politics, it’s called “Coffee Room Raid” (Raid means “speak”).
I remember like years ago BMG wanted to do away with coffee altogether, and there was massive protests about it lol!
Now I am glad I wrote about this – when I first heard about it I was embarrassed that I had no idea what it was – it bugged me to the core – I am a sociologist you know?
I wonder other happenings in large yeshivos I am missing out on?
That explains how they don’t seem to learn very much for the amount of time they put in. It’s because most of the time they are drinking coffee, oy!
With all that coffee drinking, I can imagine how much water their toilets use!
CAn someone tell me from BMG what the real scoop about BMG is? Do the majority hang out in the coffee room? What’s up with the bench warmers?