Q&A: The Initiation Ceremony
The Initiation Ceremony
Question
Honorable Rabbi, greetings. I am a student in a yeshiva high school, in 12th grade, where it is customary every year to hold an “initiation” ceremony for the new students. What this means is that they wake them up in the middle of the night and put them through stations that make them feel the strong arm of the seniors, how great and awesome they are, and how small and miserable the younger students are. I think this is a terrible event (from a halakhic standpoint and in general—and also, what it has to do with a yeshiva is unclear), and so in previous years (aside from the first year…) I did not attend the event. This year the discussion came up again because our class is the one running it. I understood from the outset that I would not succeed in canceling the event, so I asked the Rabbi how it would be proper to act: should I not come at all, or perhaps should I come and try to make the experience nicer for the younger students?
Answer
I remember the initiations at Midrasha. I’ll tell you in general that in my opinion there is nothing fundamentally wrong with this, because it is part of the atmosphere. In the end, it is an experience that almost everyone remembers fondly. Naturally, among those conducting the initiation there are people whom power goes to their heads and who behave with excessive wildness, and they need to be stopped (that is what we did אצלנו). Therefore, in my opinion it is דווקא important that you be there and pay attention that people do not cross the line.