The Big Room

This chapter describes the rooms where all Mesivtha Tifereth Jerusalem (MTJ) activities took place. It specifically mentions the smaller room, the library, wherein plenty of books on the walls of the beis medresh were stored. Here the Rosh Yeshiva holds his 11:00 a.m. and 2:00 p.m. Talmud classes. The chapter also illustrates the big room, which a bimah, the platform from which the Torah is read on appropriate occasions, stands. They are all male, consistent with standards of modest comportment that dictate general segregation of males and females in public, and with the traditional Orthodox view that women are not obligated in Torah study generally, nor is it seemly for them to study Talmud. It analyses the volumes of the Babylonian Talmud, which are shelved on the rear right side of the beis medresh, right behind the table where the author is most frequently sat with his study partners. Ultimately, the chapter discusses the author's early kollel year during the Rosh Yeshiva's shiur (lesson), with his study partners Asher Stoler, Yisroel Ruven and Hillel. It highlights some of the yeshiva's routines, one of these is the annual procedure in which observant Jews, in preparation for Passover, formally transfer all of their chomets (leavened goods) to a non-Jew, who then inevitably transfers it back after the holiday ends.