Sitting comfortably in his living room in his home in Efrat, Rabbi Herzl Hefter, dean of Beit Midrash Har’el, outwardly, at least, does not resemble the teachers of my long-ago yeshiva days.

Why create a ritual for setting up the beit midrash in the classroom? Rituals create structure for students. They signal the nature of a particular time period and how students should act during it.

Other findings from the Beit Midrash Research Project People can get better at studying in havruta and teachers can get better at helping their students do this. When thought of as an ambitious and ...