Rosh Yeshiva Rabbi Moshe Hillel Hirsch delivered an address this week to students preparing to move up to yeshiva gedola next year, laying out a framework for what he described as the most consequential transition of their lives so far.
The talk was delivered at a dedicated guidance event for students from smaller yeshivas heading into advanced study, attended by Chevron Yeshiva's Rosh Yeshiva Rabbi David Cohen along with other yeshiva heads and educators. Kikar HaShabbat published a full transcript of the address.
Hirsch told the students that the period they are entering forms the spiritual foundation for the rest of their lives, one built through diligence in learning, prayer, good character, and precision in Jewish law. He urged them not to take any moment lightly, stressing the basics of going to sleep on time, waking on time, and never letting Torah study lapse.
He warned the students of what he called a new form of temptation that comes specifically with the shift to yeshiva gedola: for the first time, many will be living away from direct parental oversight and outside the close supervision of a yeshiva mashgiach, and that sense of newfound freedom can itself become an opening for the yetzer hara, the evil inclination. He illustrated the point with a story about a young man who arrived from America as a serious, committed student but was found slipping off to a movie theater once he felt unsupervised. Hirsch said he kept the young man in yeshiva rather than expelling him, and that he went on to become a highly regarded Torah educator.
Hirsch identified a second danger in students assuming that, now more mature, they no longer need guidance from their rosh yeshiva or mashgiach and can decide for themselves what is best. He called that assumption a serious mistake. A third pitfall, he said, is students locking themselves into fixed self-images, whether as someone who isn't naturally diligent, isn't especially righteous, or is simply blunt by nature. He told the students to leave old self-perceptions behind entirely, describing them as new people entering yeshiva gedola with a clean slate, regardless of how they performed previously.
He encouraged the students to aim as high as possible in their learning, invoking the Chofetz Chaim's teaching that self-doubt about one's own potential for greatness is itself a trick of the yetzer hara. He also cited a teaching attributed to Rabbi Aharon describing the fear that comes with accepting the yoke of Torah, while noting that not every difficult topic in learning will immediately feel rewarding, comparing the effort instead to someone struggling to pull a drowning person from the water, an act that is physically hard but deeply meaningful because it saves a life.
At the same time, Hirsch cautioned students to calibrate their efforts to their own individual strengths and capacities rather than imitate classmates, noting that sleep needs and learning styles differ from person to person. Drawing on Rabbi Chaim of Volozhin, he told students that everyone experiences spiritual ups and downs, and that during a low point the right response is to keep learning at whatever capacity is available rather than to stop entirely.
He closed by addressing the pressure currently facing the Torah world, including the draft law controversy, telling the students that the way to respond to what he described as decrees and hostility directed at the Haredi community is through deeper Torah study, careful mitzvah observance, and closeness to God, expressing confidence that this path would ultimately prevail.
