I recall sitting in the office of a prominent Jerusalem rabbi as he tried to convince my husband and I (we were newlyweds in our early twenties) that we should stay in Israel and attend yeshiva and seminary programs. Our response was that it was irresponsible, since we both had jobs and school, but this didn't deter him from his hard-sell tactics. Instead, we agreed to allow a prominent New York kiruv rabbi to contact us upon our arrival home. While our curiosity was piqued, we were definitely turned off by the exorbitant amount of pressure put on us to stay and change our plans. To be honest, I remember feeling intimidated by this rabbi, but strengthened by the fact that my husabnd (and best friend) and I were in this together. Had I been alone, I might have been afraid to say no to someone I perceived to be a spiritual leader.
"Machon Shlomo was founded in 1982 with a small student body and a small staff, in an apartment building that stood at the entrance to a fledgling Jerusalem neighborhood called Har Nof. At the time, the community consisted of a dozen newly finished buildings perched atop a mountainside, flanked on either side by forest and miles of undeveloped land. The only road to the main city was a dirt path. It was this unassuming location, far from the bustle of the city and the distractions of tourism, that the yeshiva’s founder, ...., hand-picked as the site where motivated students could build themselves to achieve greatness." Those words are from the Machon Shlomo website. They are an attempt to glamorize what was an unhealthy situation. Har Nof is a normal community now. Back then it was a construction site. There was no bookstore, pizza shop, or falafel store. In Israel, that means it was not an actual neighborhood. We had few neighbors and had no simchas to attend, no bar mitzva...
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