Ideology on Parade: Torah u-Madda at the Richard Joel Investiture

Yeshiva University's guiding principle has always been the slogan "Torah u-Madda" (lit. "Torah and General Studies"). It might be considered somewhat ironic, then, that one of the principle challenges that Yeshiva has continually faced throughout its history is the clarification and definition of that slogan, and its translation into a coherent ideology and course of action. (For further reference, just see the last edition of YUdaica to see how many different words Bernard Revel and Jacob J. Schacter devoted to the matter.) At one point Yeshiva even felt compelled to distribute a reader to all of its incoming undergraduates containing articles written by several past and present Yeshiva personalities on the subject to give the new students a sense of the complexity of the issue. The reader, incidentally, is no longer distributed and has become something of a collector's item, although the matter is no less clear to those who debate it.

As Yeshiva moved forward into a new era by investing Richard M. Joel as its fourth President, the campus was abuzz with discussion and excitement. While nobody was quite sure what to expect, there was the sense of sweeping change and a new formulation of mission and purpose. The investiture, from that perspective, more than lived up to its advance billing; no fewer than three coherent models of Torah u-Madda were on display.

Even before the first speaker ascended the podium, a profound statement was made during the processional. The first marchers to enter Lamport auditorium, preceding the board members and visiting dignitaries, were the Roshei Yeshiva, the rabbinic leaders of Yeshiva's affiliated rabbinical school (RIETS). As a group they wore their traditional black hats and dark suits, in stark contrast to the academic robes, hoods, and caps assumed by the rest of the processional. They seemed to be solidly asserting that whatever new path the administration charts, they would still be setting the tone, and doing so on their own terms - marching first as leaders of the university and yet simultaneously remaining aloof and separate.

The first spoken model was set forth by Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who, in his brief statement, described the challenge of Torah u-Madda as the "combination of Torah and secular studies within one institution." The context of this formulation indicated, at least to me, that he was primarily referring to the logistical challenges of juggling a dual curriculum, from both the students' and administrators' perspectives. Whether that was his actual intent or not, the most basic definition of Torah u-Madda is indeed simply the attempted mastery of two broad fields of knowledge without making any statement about any relationship between the two. If nothing else, this model serves as the baseline for anything more complex. One cannot, after all, talk about the relationship between two fields of study before he knows something about each of them on their own terms, independent of the other.

On the other hand, for many at Yeshiva, that is as far as Torah u-Madda goes. One of the preeminent rabbinical leaders on the RIETS faculty both in terms of scholarship and influence, once defined the concept to the Commentator as "a yeshiva, mit [sic] a cafeteria, mit [sic] a college, in the same building." Clearly, he and his students do not necessarily see any ideological link between their Torah studies and their academic pursuits.

Dr. Karen Bacon, Dean of YU's undergraduate Stern College for women, provided the second model. Torah u-Madda is, for her, the "universal values and knowledge of the world seen through the prism of Torah." She went on to charge the new administration to work towards promoting more interdisciplinary study among the various schools that make up Yeshiva, again emphasizing that these intellectual pursuits would be done from the perspective of Torah Judaism. My impression was that she sees Torah u-Madda as the unique perspective that living and thinking in an Orthodox Jewish cultural and intellectual framework grants a student or scholar. Interdisciplinary study between a medical school and a psychology school or a law school can happen in any university, but sensitivity to, emphasis on, and particular approaches towards certain issues can only happen at Yeshiva because of its singular cultural location. As such, Yeshiva is continually poised to make inimitable and valuable contributions to the worlds of scholarship and human knowledge.

The newly invested President Joel set forth a third model in his own dramatic and impassioned keynote address. Within the greater context of charging Yeshiva with the mission of "embracing the challenge of Torah u-Madda", and more specifically on interdisciplinary projects, he said:

What an intellectual and teaching resource we have if we collaborate, if we envision centers for Ethics and Leadership, within our walls, and in the community. Imagine focusing the educational resources of the university on the increasingly fine Yeshiva University High Schools. What a laboratory they can be. The YU Museum is an educational resource waiting to be tapped. The whole can be greater than the sum of its parts.

Instead of academics and knowledge, Joel spoke of ethics, leadership, and education. While he has consciously declined to articulate a vision of Torah u-Madda to this point, this passage might serve as a model of his thinking. His own vision does not seem to revolve around the knowledge itself, a la Dr. Bacon, but rather has to do with the personality of the student. While Yeshiva can produce scholars, doctors, and psychologists that possess the same information and can reach the same scientific conclusions as those in other institutions, it can also produce leaders with a certain moral and ethical direction and mission and that is what sets it apart.

A year later, we are beginning to see that vision in action. One of President Joel's first initiatives was the graduate fellowship program, where select graduates are being placed in various Yeshiva administrative offices. In Joel's words as quoted in the Commentator, "My intention is to inspire these young people not only to pursue their professional dreams, but to remain committed to the university and to the Jewish community by utilizing the very real, demanding skills they will gain in this program." In other speeches, he constantly emphasizes Yeshiva's place in the greater Jewish community. Always, YU is not just an ivory tower where students pursue their own intellectual and professional aspirations. Rather, YU provides intellectual and institutional leadership for the broader Jewish community and produces the personalities that will become the community's leaders, both lay and spiritual.

What was curious to me then, though, was that when both Bacon and Joel referred to interdisciplinary study, they both failed to make any direct reference to RIETS, the rabbinical school. That omission is not due to the impossibility of using the Beit Midrash as a direct resource for interdisciplinary or intellectual projects. On the contrary, the topics that students rigorously and passionately debate within its walls overlap with a limitless number of other fields of study.

For example, this past year the Yeshiva studied the talmudic Tractate Sanhedrin, dealing with issues of political philosophy, criminology, judicial procedure and theory, legal theory, and more. It would not have been hard for at least the undergraduate college to highlight relevant issues in those fields as a way of tying together Yeshiva's morning and afternoon programs. Events could easily have been coordinated throughout the year between RIETS and the Cardozo law school and the Bernard Revel Graduate School of Jewish Studies, allowing the languages, assumptions, and theories of the American and halakhic legal scholars to dialog with each other and the Roman and Persian law codes that form both the foundation of modern legal theory theory as well as the historical backdrop to the inspired work of the Sages of the Talmud. Every element brought into discussion would help shed light - and be itself illuminated - by the others. Such initiatives would bind the yeshiva, in the words of Chancellor Norman Lamm, "the soul of the University," to the other schools, or "the body." Besides producing Torah u-Madda in the Bacon model, it would also allow students to see global, real-life implications of the positions they discuss in the Beit Midrash, producing Torah u-Madda in the Joel sense. This year, the Yeshiva is learning Tractate Shabbat. There is no obvious effort to unite that with any of the serious discussions of sacred time that could take place in a history, anthropology, archeology, or philosophy context.

Instead, President Joel seems to prefer to leave the Beit Midrash in the background where it contributes indirectly by promoting the environment that produces either the intellectual perspective or the moral/ethical direction that produces Torah u-Madda in the rest of the university. In such an arrangement, the Beit Midrash contributes to the development of Torah u-Madda in the university at large while remaining free of it itself, appropriately symbolized by the Roshei Yeshiva marching in the processional wearing their own garb, eschewing that of the academy.

Avraham Bronstein, YC' 03, will be completing semikha at RIETS and an MA at BRGS this year. He is currently teaching Jewish History at MSTA and maintains a popular and influential blog (www.thebronsteins.com).