The Yeshiva Blog
What's the difference between a Yeshiva Gap Year program and going to learn in Yeshiva?
With a plethora of different ways to spend time learning in Israel, and an array of different yeshivas and yeshiva programs to go to, one of the key questions to consider is whether to go to a gap year (shana aleph/beit) program, or to go and learn in yeshiva?
Rabbi Nissim Tagger, Rosh Yeshiva - What's the difference between going to learn on a yeshiva gap year program, and going to learn in yeshiva?
The difference between a gap year or a post high school program and going to learn in yeshiva really lies in the name of each one.
A gap year is what it is, what it says. It is an in between year in between high school and college, or college and graduate school, or between university and a job, it's an in-between year - where you're getting an experience that you otherwise wouldn't have had, at an opportune time in between segments of your life.
Whereas the yeshiva experience is very different, in my opinion, it is something that is going to give you the skills for whatever part of your life that you're in, to live that part of your life to the greatest and most fulfilled way possible. The yeshiva is a place where you're learning how to access the Torah, to understand the Torah, to integrate the Torah, to live the Torah, and that is something that's going to last with you, whether you're in university, business and your whole life. It is literally the preparation for your entire life as a Jew, as a Torah Jew.
That's the simple understanding of the difference between the two.