We’re Paying for This? A 770 Bochur Demands Better

By a 770 Bochur

I’ve just finished learning seder, and here I am again – standing in line with dozens of other bochurim, waiting for food. The minutes tick by slowly. These are precious moments I could be using to review for my upcoming smicha test or catch up on Chitas. Instead, we all just stand here watching time slip away.

Every bochur in this line has something better they could be doing right now. That’s the real cost of these waits. When you add it up, the average daily wait is 10 minutes – multiply that by three meals a day, and you’ll see how much Torah learning time we’re wasting. This isn’t just my problem. Look around and you’ll see dozens of bochurim, all of whom paid good money for room and board, standing here doing nothing but getting hungrier and more frustrated.

Let’s talk about breakfast – the one meal they actually get right. You can get porridge, eggs, cereal with milk, make your own salad, and grab a coffee. But then look what happens the rest of the day. In 770 they throw out some chocolate chip cookies in the morning that aren’t even enough for everyone. Meanwhile, the 1414 kitchen sits empty when it could easily have coffee and proper mezonos available. Do they expect us to function from 7:30 until after the Rebbe’s minyan at 10:45 on nothing but a cookie – if we’re lucky enough to even get one?

The evening situation is just as bad. Last meal at 7:00 PM sharp, and then nothing. We’re learning seder sichos and typically don’t finish until midnight at the earliest. You try concentrating on learning when your stomach has been empty for five hours.

But nothing – and I mean nothing – compares to Motzei Shabbos during summer zeman. Picture hundreds of bochurim packed onto the steps, waiting for over two hours past when they said they’d open. Two hours! They tell us one time, write another time, and then actually open whenever they feel like it. And during winter zeman? Most of us finish our Shabbos seudos by three, but the kitchen stays locked until seder ends at nine-thirty at night. That’s six and a half hours with nothing to eat.

Here’s what makes this especially frustrating: we’re paying for this service. This isn’t some free handout – this is literally our money. Yet the Hanhalah, who haven’t taught us anything or reached out to us all zeman, suddenly have all this control over something we’re paying for.

The solutions should be obvious to anyone running a yeshiva kitchen. First, these ridiculous lines need to stop – we’re learning in a yeshiva, not waiting for concert tickets. The Motzei Shabbos timing needs to be fixed once and for all; we can’t have hundreds of bochurim waiting around hungry for hours after they said they’d open. Food needs to be available when we actually need it, and we need something substantial to eat during those long gaps in the day. And let’s talk about the food quality itself – lunch and supper are basically the same bland rotation day after day. Would it kill them to add some variety? To cook vegetables that aren’t overcooked? To serve meat that isn’t dry? Breakfast proves they’re capable of providing good food with actual choices – why can’t lunch and supper meet the same standard?

But even more importantly, start treating us with some basic respect. We came here to learn, not to waste hours of our day standing in lines or going hungry. The Hanhalah needs to step up and fix this mess they’ve created. We’re not asking for luxury – we’re asking for the basic service we already paid for.

If they can’t handle providing regular meals on a reliable schedule, then they should bring in people who can. This isn’t about comfort or convenience – it’s about being able to focus on why we’re really here: learning Torah. Every minute spent in these lines is a minute taken away from our learning. Every hour spent hungry is an hour we could have been more focused on our studies.

The bochurim deserve better than this. We demand better than this. And considering we’re paying for it, we have every right to expect better than this.