This past Sunday, photographs began to appear on Twitter of a sports stadium full of

of Haredi men.

Was this a tish in Israel?

A siam of some kind?

I learned that the sports arena was the Wells Fargo Center just outside of Philadelphia,

and that the event was not a celebration of a specific educational achievement, such as the

gatherings in January 2020 that marked the last completion of the Daffiomi cycle. This was something

else. Adiray Hat Torah, the name of this gathering, is a Hebrew phrase that means

Warriors of Torah. It was a massive gathering of some 27,000 held in the home of the Philadelphia

76ers basketball team, and all of those people convened in order to honor a small group of

men. The honorees were not military officers returning home

from success on the battlefield, or office seekers at a campaign rally, or even the most eminent

and learned rabbinic figures. Note, the men who were being honored at this event are the many,

considerably more anonymous, hundreds, of Kolel students, engaged in full-time Torah study as adults.

Think about that. Think about the culture that turns its angle of vision onto its students,

and holds up their devotion to Torah as the human endeavor most worthy of praise.

You see, Beth Medrish Govohja is one of the most interesting Jewish educational institutions

in the world. It's located in Lakewood, New Jersey, the better part of two hours drive from New York

City. Bait Mied Midrash Kovoha is colloquially referred to as Lakewood, and it's the largest

ishiva outside of Israel. Many thousands of students are enrolled there, most,

if not all of them, are married. And so widening the aperture a bit, we can begin to see that

if there are many thousands of Kola students engaged in full-time Torah study there, and if

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