2008 Woodie Awards
Nostalgia Isn't What it Used to Be: Reflections on Yeshiva College and Modern Orthodoxy
Chaim I. Waxman
Issue date: 2/15/05 Section: Science & Technology
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There have been a number of articles in the YUdaica section of previous issues of The Commentator reflecting on Yeshiva College (YC) during the 1960s and, either explicitly or implicitly, bemoaning the contemporary absence of general intellectual excitement and specific Torah u-Madda approach. The writers are colleagues and good friends whom I respect and with whom I am frequently, though certainly not always, in agreement. I, too, am aware of the dramatic changes in American Orthodoxy during the second half of the twentieth century and, I, too, yearn for the intellectual excitement of the 1960s. Nevertheless, as I contemplated their specific reflections on YC at the time, I was reminded of the many notable quips of the late Prof. Nathan Goldberg, who challenged and inspired me to think sociologically. "Gentlemen," he would remind the class, "the good old days weren't so good."
I have no doubt that the authors of the aforementioned articles actually experienced the intellectual excitement to which they referred. However, their experiences were not necessarily reflective of YC in general. They may have just as well have been atypical. I know for a fact that not every YC student during the 1960s experienced what they did.
I begin with my own experience. My previous educational background did not lead me to begin to appreciate or even seek the intellectual opportunities available at YC. My first two years of high school were at Telshe Yeshiva, in Cleveland, where I internalized the notion that secular studies were treif, taboo, almost on a par with the three cardinal prohibitions of committing idolatry, murder, and adultery. My second two years of high school were spent at Mesivta Chaim Berlin, in Brooklyn, where there was a more pragmatic approach to college - it was acceptable for the purposes of learning a profession, but certainly not for what the sociologist, Thorstein Veblen, called "idle curiosity," by which he meant intellectual curiosity and which he viewed as the true "mission" of the university. (The notion might be called, lehavdil, "curiosity lishma").
I have no doubt that the authors of the aforementioned articles actually experienced the intellectual excitement to which they referred. However, their experiences were not necessarily reflective of YC in general. They may have just as well have been atypical. I know for a fact that not every YC student during the 1960s experienced what they did.
I begin with my own experience. My previous educational background did not lead me to begin to appreciate or even seek the intellectual opportunities available at YC. My first two years of high school were at Telshe Yeshiva, in Cleveland, where I internalized the notion that secular studies were treif, taboo, almost on a par with the three cardinal prohibitions of committing idolatry, murder, and adultery. My second two years of high school were spent at Mesivta Chaim Berlin, in Brooklyn, where there was a more pragmatic approach to college - it was acceptable for the purposes of learning a profession, but certainly not for what the sociologist, Thorstein Veblen, called "idle curiosity," by which he meant intellectual curiosity and which he viewed as the true "mission" of the university. (The notion might be called, lehavdil, "curiosity lishma").