News story about students at the Rabbinical College of America in Morristown, NJ ; BB - Rabbinical College

Students preparing for the rabbit. It's hard to imagine that most of these men did not even know the Hebrew alphabet A few years ago before coming to the Rabbinical College of America in Morristown. Maurice for example he comes from a well-to-do Reformed Jewish family in Brooklyn. Morris originally elected to pursue a college education at Drew University which has Presbyterian roots but later he felt that something was missing. Go to college you get out of college you get married maybe you have a happy marriage you have children maybe they give you pleasure and then you die. And what's it all for. Who is questioning looking for something something he says he thinks he has found in a unique program in the New Directions program at the college. A program designed for Jewish men not necessarily to become rabbis but to learn more about their religion and culture. Here Jewish young men with no formal background in Judaism live and study among ultra orthodox Jews. A move in that differs from other Hasidic sects in its outward looking philosophy. From 7:00

a.m. until 11:00 p.m. They study and pray. Well we were there they were learning about the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem. It was three weeks before the anniversary of that event. About 900 years ago. They discussed the Talmud or Jewish law and take courses that explain their views on marriage. The work is intense grueling but students say they learn more in one year at this college than they do in four years at a regular university. There was I knew I was a Jew I knew I was there something different I had a certain heritage but really it was maybe and I was taught never to buy anything in retail. But I didn't really understand the way that was how David felt two years ago today Dov is an Orthodox Jew. But the drastic change in him was not easy for his parents. Well I have to admit that in the beginning both my parents were lesbians of knowing

so little about what. Was Orthodox Judaism is they weren't really sure what I was getting into. They were scared that I might be separating myself from the world too much. But David says they have accepted his choice and he believes he is closer to his parents now than ever before. Your parents may have been right about his fear. The rabbinical school is separate in a sense in a world of its own set in a picturesque 15 acres in Morristown. Most of the students limit their social activities including dating. For recreation they swim and exercise on campus. They can go into town enter New York one weekend a month. But such an atmosphere is necessary to accomplish what the program is designed to do. Develop an understanding of Judaism. Jewish N is high. Forty five hundred dollars a year. Although some partial scholarships are available. The program runs for years. Students can get a degree a bachelor's in religious studies but many students like that are not concerned with the degree they

were binnacle college is an affiliate of the Lubavitcher movement named after a Russian town. The college itself was founded in Newark in 1956. There are classes of 30 students prepared for the rabbit. In this one room schoolhouse the original purpose of the school was to train rabbis. Yet today during the summer there are as many students in the New Directions program as in the traditional rabbinical program and during the regular school year there are twice as many students in the New Directions program as in the traditional rabbinical program. They come from all over the United States and as far away as Russia and Australia. Mordechai Issacharoff was a farmer in Melbourne Australia. He delved in Buddhism and other Eastern religions but eventually found his way to Orthodox Judaism through a rabbi in Australia. I live with a rabbi for about three months a couple of years ago and there I was opened up for the first time to a Jewish viewpoint of the world. A tour of the ports through Jewish eyes I began to see the world. I once I saw that as far as I was concerned being a Jew I must become

a religious Jew and therefore I had to find a place which was best for me to learn and I look at the whole world. Which particular shit would you shiver which is at this particular school the best for me to go to the whole world decided on my star New Jersey and they come for many reasons. Akiva Marshall was a salesman in New Orleans who says his experience at the college will not change his daily life. Before I came to college I was a salesman with my parents in a retail shop in New Orleans Louisiana and more than likely I would go back and continue the same work as a salesman. Rich buy my stay here. But no way altering my ordinary regular habits as they live day to day in the business world in New Orleans. Barack is from Montreal he worked for 15 months as an organizer for Cesar Chavez and the lettuce boycott of the Farm Workers Union. And a little more than four

years ago he came to the rabbinical college. He said he was looking for a leader for someone to emulate. Most of Judaism does not venerate of divine mortal a pope or any such charismatic leader but the Lubavitcher movement has always had leaders to follow its red or head rabbis. Today Rebbie Menachem Mendel Schneerson of New York is the leader of the Lubavitcher movement. He's the seventh Lubavitcher since the founding in the 18th century pictured here is Rabbi Joseph Isaac Schneerson former leader of the Lubavitcher movement who is a little boy asked his father why people only have one nose and one mouth but two eyes. His father answered that everybody has a little bit of good and a little bit of bad in them and that he should use his left eye to find his own faults and his right eye to find the good in everyone else that's become the motto of the Lubavitcher movement a movement that today some half a million followers and is considered the largest of the Hasidic sects has been hired by the college to propagate the movement to other Jews in New Jersey.

But the surgeon general. Before posting here searching for different things Mordecai Isikoff wants to be a religious Jew. Morris may go into business with his father or become a rabbi and Akiva Marshall will go back to being a salesman. But one thing is clear they are not the same young men who came to the school one two three or four years ago. The most visible changes are superficial. The beard the black hat. But as a learned man once said the beard and the black cat. They are only the trappings. They are not what makes a Jew. It is what is on the inside. M can plan ahead.

A. Why do you. Ladies keep in mind she is not the token movement. She has earned this position every step of the way from a very young lady.