When I finished seminary, there were many decisions to be made, from job opportunities, to schooling options, to working out a new schedule. But most probably, the decision I made that is most crucial to the person I am today, was to join Lechu V’Nelcha.

I attend the Lechu V’Nelcha shiur for post-seminary girls every Monday night. What this has done for me is incredible. I can honestly say that I would not have the simchas hachaim that I have today without the shiur. I would not have the hashkafos that I have today without it. And this is not because I don’t have a strong Bais Yaakov education. I attended Bais Yaakov from kindergarten through high school and I learned in an excellent seminary. But what my friends and I faced upon completion of seminary was and continues to be very difficult.

There’s the work force which presents its challenges, very different challenges to what we have ever encountered. There are the college courses that can truly uproot certain hashkafos and perspectives that were previously quite solid, in subtle and sometimes not so subtle ways. When a girl is in an environment that doesn’t constantly infuse her with awareness of Hashem, day after day, she just slips into that barren routine and slowly, actually it happens quite rapidly, she loses sight of her Torehdig values.

My connection with LVN helps me maintain the yiras Shamayim that I acquired through all my school years. I can not tell you how many times my decisions are based on a phrase from a shiur reverberating in my mind.

The shiurim also help fortify my friends and I to face new challenges, such as the parashah of shidduchim. As much as my seminary teachers prepared us for this stage, I could not grow from these challenges without the constant and consistent reminders of who I am and what my role is in every moment of every stage.

The weekly shiur is so instrumental in making me the bas Yisrael I am today as well as the eishes chayil I will iyH be very soon.