By the way, in other yeshivas too, usually they also aren’t tested.

Presumably the Rabbi studied physics in order to know it — did the exams help his honor, or did they perhaps do harm?
To the extent that exams helped, what is the difference between an exam in Talmud (harmful) and an exam in physics (helpful)?

If in physics people would study without exams, then there would certainly be room to consider teaching without exams. But usually that doesn’t happen. With Torah study, the claim is that it does happen, and that there is also greater importance to studying in order to know. One should not bring proof from one to the other. Of course, these can also just be different approaches of different people, and in any case it’s not such a great difficulty.

Before World War II they still upheld the tradition of exams that had been handed down to us from generation to generation:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1zQm1NZyfiMklGoO-6lR3tx49nNlFGJnT/view?usp=drivesdk

Who is making the claim that "it does happen"?
I don’t understand at all what contradiction there is between study that ends with an exam and study for the sake of knowing, and likewise what this matter of the "importance" of study means.

Benjamin, personal testimony: as part of my degree I’m taking a course in psychopathology, at the end of which I’m supposed to be tested on the material. The studying is only in order to pass the exam. By contrast, when I study the same material out of personal desire, the results are a thousand times better — both quantitatively and qualitatively.

Good evening, Shai. I think that the very distinction between study with an exam and study without an exam, while attributing special qualities connected to the way Torah is studied — as though it is inherently different from the way any other field of knowledge is studied — is an excellent expression of psychopathology. That is, the vast majority of the population understands the connection between exams and proven success in study, and a minority does not understand it; statistically, that is a clear expression of abnormality. There is a serious failure here in how the claims are being presented. My claim is that whether the learning is interesting or not, the exam will have a positive effect; it will certainly serve as evidence of mastery of the material studied. That is perfectly simple. And if proof is needed, the proof is from the Soviet Union of blessed memory, where they were also tested on uninteresting material and succeeded.

P.S.: between us, every Haredi boy who is forced into hospitalization in “Torah-study institutions” from age 3 until age 120, from kindergarten to cheder through yeshiva and kollel — is he learning out of “personal desire”? Come on…
At least let them prove to everyone that there’s something in return for the stipend.

Benjamin, this has no necessary connection to Torah. Studying with exams obviously has advantages (feedback, structure, incentive). But when those advantages are not relevant, or when other ways are found to achieve them, there are enormous advantages to study without exams. It is study that can focus on the right balance of understanding and memory, is not time-limited, allows for in-depth work on specific subjects and skipping others (according to the learner’s goals), and of course — it doesn’t get attached to that unpleasant feeling of “they forced me.”

I was once a member of a discussion group about a certain author. Over the years, rumors came up that his books were about to enter the school curriculum. People were horrified: it was obvious to them that once the books moved from the recreational-reading shelf to the study shelf, their fate would be sealed.

With God’s help, 13 Iyar 5780

Regarding exams for yeshiva students, there was a difference between the yeshivas of Lithuania and the yeshivas of Hungary. In Hungary, the yeshiva was an organized institution of the community, and at its head generally stood the city rabbi. The yeshiva’s aim was that all the young men should receive a basic Torah education in the yeshiva; most of them would be trained to become Torah-observant laymen, and the select few would become rabbis and great Torah scholars, a layer of Torah leadership for the communities.

The Hungarian yeshiva was an orderly educational institution, with an organized curriculum: there was an in-depth class in which fundamental Talmudic topics were studied deeply; a regular class in which they learned Talmud in order with Rashi, Tosafot, and additional commentators; classes in Orach Chayim and Yoreh De’ah that gave students knowledge of practical Jewish law; and a weekly class on the Torah portion, along with classes in the Hebrew Bible and/or ethics books. On this whole system of classes there were weekly and periodic exams.

Already from the days of the Austrian-Hungarian empire, the Jews of Hungary were obligated to attend several grades of state elementary school, and the yeshivas of Hungary did not lag behind in their organization, orderly curriculum, and exams, just as students had become accustomed to in government school.

By contrast, the Lithuanian yeshivas grew out of the study halls, the kloyzn of Poland-Lithuania and Galicia, where in the study halls sat boys, young men, laymen, and older scholars, diligently engaged in study without “officer, constable, or ruler,” each person building his own individual study program. No one gave the learners a stipend; many exiled themselves to a place of Torah and slept in the women’s section and “ate days” in the homes of laymen who hosted them. Whoever loved Torah labored over it day and night, and whoever had no desire for it found his place as a merchant or craftsman.

The first organized yeshiva established in Lithuania was the Volozhin Yeshiva, intended for an elite of prodigies, to which one or two from each city were admitted — a concentration of outstanding geniuses, for whom there was no need to maintain a “curriculum of classes” and exams. There was the daily Talmud class delivered by the world-class Torah giants who headed the yeshiva, such as the Netziv and Rabbi Chaim of Brisk, and around the lectures of the heads of the yeshiva. One who went on to serve as a community rabbi would study the halakhic decisors on his own and would approach one of the great rabbis to examine him and ordain him for halakhic decision-making.

The yeshivas that arose later in Lithuania also operated according to this tradition. The center was the analytical lecture of the heads of the yeshiva; that was the center of study, and around it developed “groups” that encouraged the students to develop novel insights in Talmudic analysis. The students came to the yeshiva voluntarily and studied Torah under very difficult conditions, with the aspiration to grow into scholars and great Torah figures, and they devoted themselves to its study with diligence and dedication. (In the Mussar yeshivas, diligence in the study of ethics was also added; alongside the “classes” and “groups” in Talmudic analysis, there were the “talks” and “sessions” in ethical analysis.)

For various historical reasons, in the yeshivas in the Land of Israel the Lithuanian model became more widespread, and the Hungarian model less so.

Regards, S"Z.

The title should of course be:

“Training Scholars or Laymen and Rabbis? — Exams Between Lithuania and Hungary”

In my opinion, the “people coerced into Torah-study institutions” need exams. That’s the Hungarian model, where everyone is there, and without the exams the books have already moved to the study shelf from the reading shelf. Of course there are many fine people for whom that’s not the case, but for them too the exam would hardly do any harm.

Either way, the matter of exams depends on the character of each learner. There are those for whom the need to be examined causes them to focus their learning and make it goal-oriented, and there are those for whom exams may create pressure.

A middle path that has been spreading in recent years is that of external motivational exams such as Mifal HaShas and Dirshu, which encourage goal-oriented learning focused on output, without forcing it on those who are not interested.

Regards, S"Z.

In my humble opinion, it seems that the reason there are no exams is so that the weaker students won’t see that they get 50 on every test and start asking themselves what they’re doing in yeshiva, and then go graze in foreign pastures, God forbid. But when there are no exams, everyone can tell himself that the page he managed to cover this month is the most important thing, etc. (even though in other fields it’s hard for a person to spend all day on something without feeling that he is contributing to the field).