2008 Woodie Awards
Nostalgia Isn't What it Used to Be: Reflections on Yeshiva College and Modern Orthodoxy
Chaim I. Waxman
Issue date: 3/8/05 Section: YUdaica
- Page 1 of 1
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").
After high school, as a result of circumstances which are not here pertinent, I went to Israel to learn at Yeshivat Kerem B'Yavneh, the then new and only yeshivat hesder. It was for me a year of tremendous growth Jewish learning and knowledge, as well as in Zionism and sense of intimate connection to the entire Jewish people (for which, parenthetically, I received no college credit). However, I cannot say that it inspired me to general intellectual curiosity. In some ways, it did just the opposite, because the overall focus was still somewhat parochial. Be that as it may, I "fell in love" with Israel and did not want to leave. My parents, however, felt very differently and insisted that I first return and get a college degree.
I had no idea what I wanted to "when I grow up" but, in my senior year of high school I developed an interest in crime and criminal law. My heroes were Clarence Darrow and Perry Mason, and my high year book lists my future profession as a criminal lawyer. When thinking about which college to attend, I had heard, incorrectly, that CCNY had a pre-law program which required only three years of undergraduate study. I enrolled in the mesivta of the Rabbi Jacob Joseph School (RJJ), on the lower East Side, and at CCNY at night. To make a long story short, I did not gain much from that year at CCNY and, the following year, I enrolled at YC and RIETS. I was placed in the shiur of R. David Lifshitz (who later became my father-in-law) and did well in that part of my Yeshiva experience. As for the YC aspect, I made it through, and that was all I was interested in at the time. Although I did appreciate Prof. Goldberg's sociology courses, I was not really "in" to sociology until my senior year, by which time I was already married. I did not begin to become intellectually curious until my senior year, and that part of my development actually took place in graduate schools, at the New School for Social Research and at Bernard Revel Graduate School. At YC, I was a "yeshiva bochur" who was in an institution which enabled him to learn intensively and get the college education that his parents insisted he get.
Nor was I unique. I recently had occasion to look through my YC Year Book and, though I didn't study it systematically, my sense is that there were quite a few such "yeshiva bochrim" in the class, as well as many who went for professional reasons. The intellectually curious were, even then, a relatively small group, even as I now view them as the elite. In other words, YC was a heterogeneous institution back in the 1960s, and I suspect it is such now as well.
Though I have no empirical evidence for the current constituency of YC, I do have some data about the institution in the late 1980s because I then conducted a survey of students from YC and Stern College for Women (SCW), the primary objective of which was to determine their understanding of the concept of "Torah u-Madda." After meeting with focus groups from both YC and SCW and also discussing the objectives with the deans and program directors at those colleges, it was decided that the most expeditious and productive way of arriving at such a determination would be to question the students on a variety of issues which are likely to be viewed as problematic. The major issues were: secular education; social contact with non-Jews; relations with non-Orthodox Jews; the roles of Jewish women; the Holocaust; Israel; and cheating in school and in business. Accordingly, I designed an instrument with questions pertaining to those areas.
Unquestionably, there were a number of methodological limitations to the survey. Ideally, all of the undergraduates would have completed the questionnaire. However, this was unfeasible for a number of reasons which need not concern us here. Nevertheless, a significant sample, consisting of about a third of both YC and SCW students, was achieved. Also, at YC, the response rate of the MYP students was much greater than their actual percentage of all YC students. Be that as it may, this is not the place for a full report on that study. However, several of the findings are pertinent.
In contrast to the image of the students being removed from the affairs of the country and the world except as they directly pertain to Jews, the majority of the respondents viewed such involvement as an imperative. For example, more than two-thirds agreed with the statement, "Jews have an obligation to become involved in the affairs of the country and the world and, therefore, should be involved in all political issues." That percentage appears to be considerably higher than that typical of the American population as a whole, at least as indicated by the prevalent voting rates in both national and local elections.
A number of the questions explicitly commitment to Torah u-Madda and the responses indicate that such commitment was rather high. For example, more than 80 percent disagreed that "Ideally, a Jew should study Torah only, without any secular study." More than 75 percent disagreed with the statement, "Secular study is permissible only insofar as it is important for one's livelihood." More than 80 percent agreed with the statement, "It is a Jewish value to learn as much as one can, including secular study." Eighty-five percent disagreed with the statement, "Some types of secular study, such as the natural sciences, are important for the observant Jew, but not such fields as literature, history, philosophy, and fine arts." And, 80 percent agreed with the statement, "All spheres of knowledge are intrinsically important for the observant Jew."
When asked why they came to YU, quite a few students reported that they wanted to be able to continue learning their Talmudic and halakhic studies in a certain style while gaining a secular college education. As one YC student expressed it in a focus group session, "I wanted to combine the college education and to be able to continue learning in a yeshiva setting. I had experienced a special kind of learning in an Israeli Yeshiva, and I wanted to continue that kind of learning while getting a broad-based liberal arts education." When asked if that kind of combination was not basically the same as that of those who learn in other yeshivas, such as Chaim Berlin, Mir, Ner Israel, etc., since they too manage to learn in the yeshiva and get a college degree, one YC student responded, "I'm familiar with that. I was at XYZ Yeshiva for two years, where people do that. Precisely because I saw the kind of college education they were getting, I chose not to do that. I found that they were getting a very narrow summary of what college was. They only took courses that were specifically for their career goals, and they never really went to college; they attended classes." Responses such as those do not support the notion of an undergraduate body for whom Torah u-Madda was irrelevant.
There may now be some young roshei yeshiva who define Modern Orthodoxy as a necessary accommodation in order to earn a living but I doubt there are now at Yeshiva any European roshei yeshiva, who imply or assert that their European background renders them more authoritative, and who assert that Modern Orthodoxy is treif, a prohibited hybrid, a form of shatnez. There may now be some there American-born roshei yeshiva who tell their students that they went to college and therefore knew that it is of little value beyond the pragmatic, but there are aren't the European roshei yeshiva at YU telling them that they should be in a "real" yeshiva.
True, the late Charles Liebman and Irving "Yitz" Greenberg are no longer at YC. Significant as they may have been, they were only two individuals, one in political science and the other in history, neither of which discipline drew the majority of YC students even at that time.
Moreover, Dr. Samuel Belkin was a musmakh and a talmudic genius, an Iluy but, with all due love and respect, in his capacity as president of Yeshiva University he rarely manifested that side of himself. Indeed, although President Richard M. Joel does not have rabbinic ordination, he appears to manifest as much of if not more of an overt commitment to Torah u-Madda as did his predecessors.
Has YC changed from what it was in the 1960s? Most certainly. So has American Orthodoxy; indeed, despite the notion of Orthodox unchangeability, so has Orthodox Judaism in general. My children's Orthodoxy is different from mine, as mine was different from that of my parents. American Judaism has changed and so has American culture. More often than not, it is not the changes that are problematic; it is the inability of some individuals to reconcile themselves to change. A truly Modern Orthodox individual should not feel alienated because of change; they should persist in the twin objectives of mastering the world - "vekivshuha" - and perfecting the world - "tikun olam bemalkhut shadai" - which can only be accomplished if one is truly connected with the world.
Nor can we forget that American culture as a whole has changed dramatically from what it was in the 1960s. American society, at least until 9/11/01, became much more individualistic. The overwhelming majority of students on college and university campuses are there, not for "idle curiosity" but as an avenue toward getting a job. Indeed, it would be very surprising if YC did not reflect similar, if not identical, changes.
On the other hand, I cannot refrain from pointing the growth of centers of intensive Jewish life on university campuses around the country where Orthodox students attend. Whereas, in the 1960s, Irving Greenberg appropriately pointed the college campus as an arena in which Jewish students are most vulnerable to the threat of mixed dating and then mixed marriage, some of those same campuses are today arenas where the Orthodox students can intensify their Jewish as well as general knowledge and activity. There are today viable alternatives to YU which were not as available in the 1960s, and one can not generalize about Modern Orthodoxy on the basis of YU.
Finally, the stereotype of the so-called haredim is increasingly inappropriate for the United States. As I and others have discussed elsewhere, there has been a dramatic shift in their stance toward, not only non-haredim but non-Orthodox Jews, in general, and even the larger American society. By the end of the century, the haredim were heavily engaged in religious outreach and in national and international social and political activities. Does all of that mean that American Orthodoxy has not moved "to the right?" No; it most certainly has. However, as a colleague and I hope to demonstrate, much of that is a function of significantly higher levels of Jewish education and knowledge, and such a move has historical precedents. Be that as it may, the move to the right is very mixed and both Modern Orthodoxy and Yeshiva College are alive and kicking.
Dr. Chaim I. Waxman, YC' 63, BRGS '65, RIETS '66, is a professor of Sociology and Jewish Studies at Rutgers University.
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").
After high school, as a result of circumstances which are not here pertinent, I went to Israel to learn at Yeshivat Kerem B'Yavneh, the then new and only yeshivat hesder. It was for me a year of tremendous growth Jewish learning and knowledge, as well as in Zionism and sense of intimate connection to the entire Jewish people (for which, parenthetically, I received no college credit). However, I cannot say that it inspired me to general intellectual curiosity. In some ways, it did just the opposite, because the overall focus was still somewhat parochial. Be that as it may, I "fell in love" with Israel and did not want to leave. My parents, however, felt very differently and insisted that I first return and get a college degree.
I had no idea what I wanted to "when I grow up" but, in my senior year of high school I developed an interest in crime and criminal law. My heroes were Clarence Darrow and Perry Mason, and my high year book lists my future profession as a criminal lawyer. When thinking about which college to attend, I had heard, incorrectly, that CCNY had a pre-law program which required only three years of undergraduate study. I enrolled in the mesivta of the Rabbi Jacob Joseph School (RJJ), on the lower East Side, and at CCNY at night. To make a long story short, I did not gain much from that year at CCNY and, the following year, I enrolled at YC and RIETS. I was placed in the shiur of R. David Lifshitz (who later became my father-in-law) and did well in that part of my Yeshiva experience. As for the YC aspect, I made it through, and that was all I was interested in at the time. Although I did appreciate Prof. Goldberg's sociology courses, I was not really "in" to sociology until my senior year, by which time I was already married. I did not begin to become intellectually curious until my senior year, and that part of my development actually took place in graduate schools, at the New School for Social Research and at Bernard Revel Graduate School. At YC, I was a "yeshiva bochur" who was in an institution which enabled him to learn intensively and get the college education that his parents insisted he get.
Nor was I unique. I recently had occasion to look through my YC Year Book and, though I didn't study it systematically, my sense is that there were quite a few such "yeshiva bochrim" in the class, as well as many who went for professional reasons. The intellectually curious were, even then, a relatively small group, even as I now view them as the elite. In other words, YC was a heterogeneous institution back in the 1960s, and I suspect it is such now as well.
Though I have no empirical evidence for the current constituency of YC, I do have some data about the institution in the late 1980s because I then conducted a survey of students from YC and Stern College for Women (SCW), the primary objective of which was to determine their understanding of the concept of "Torah u-Madda." After meeting with focus groups from both YC and SCW and also discussing the objectives with the deans and program directors at those colleges, it was decided that the most expeditious and productive way of arriving at such a determination would be to question the students on a variety of issues which are likely to be viewed as problematic. The major issues were: secular education; social contact with non-Jews; relations with non-Orthodox Jews; the roles of Jewish women; the Holocaust; Israel; and cheating in school and in business. Accordingly, I designed an instrument with questions pertaining to those areas.
Unquestionably, there were a number of methodological limitations to the survey. Ideally, all of the undergraduates would have completed the questionnaire. However, this was unfeasible for a number of reasons which need not concern us here. Nevertheless, a significant sample, consisting of about a third of both YC and SCW students, was achieved. Also, at YC, the response rate of the MYP students was much greater than their actual percentage of all YC students. Be that as it may, this is not the place for a full report on that study. However, several of the findings are pertinent.
In contrast to the image of the students being removed from the affairs of the country and the world except as they directly pertain to Jews, the majority of the respondents viewed such involvement as an imperative. For example, more than two-thirds agreed with the statement, "Jews have an obligation to become involved in the affairs of the country and the world and, therefore, should be involved in all political issues." That percentage appears to be considerably higher than that typical of the American population as a whole, at least as indicated by the prevalent voting rates in both national and local elections.
A number of the questions explicitly commitment to Torah u-Madda and the responses indicate that such commitment was rather high. For example, more than 80 percent disagreed that "Ideally, a Jew should study Torah only, without any secular study." More than 75 percent disagreed with the statement, "Secular study is permissible only insofar as it is important for one's livelihood." More than 80 percent agreed with the statement, "It is a Jewish value to learn as much as one can, including secular study." Eighty-five percent disagreed with the statement, "Some types of secular study, such as the natural sciences, are important for the observant Jew, but not such fields as literature, history, philosophy, and fine arts." And, 80 percent agreed with the statement, "All spheres of knowledge are intrinsically important for the observant Jew."
When asked why they came to YU, quite a few students reported that they wanted to be able to continue learning their Talmudic and halakhic studies in a certain style while gaining a secular college education. As one YC student expressed it in a focus group session, "I wanted to combine the college education and to be able to continue learning in a yeshiva setting. I had experienced a special kind of learning in an Israeli Yeshiva, and I wanted to continue that kind of learning while getting a broad-based liberal arts education." When asked if that kind of combination was not basically the same as that of those who learn in other yeshivas, such as Chaim Berlin, Mir, Ner Israel, etc., since they too manage to learn in the yeshiva and get a college degree, one YC student responded, "I'm familiar with that. I was at XYZ Yeshiva for two years, where people do that. Precisely because I saw the kind of college education they were getting, I chose not to do that. I found that they were getting a very narrow summary of what college was. They only took courses that were specifically for their career goals, and they never really went to college; they attended classes." Responses such as those do not support the notion of an undergraduate body for whom Torah u-Madda was irrelevant.
There may now be some young roshei yeshiva who define Modern Orthodoxy as a necessary accommodation in order to earn a living but I doubt there are now at Yeshiva any European roshei yeshiva, who imply or assert that their European background renders them more authoritative, and who assert that Modern Orthodoxy is treif, a prohibited hybrid, a form of shatnez. There may now be some there American-born roshei yeshiva who tell their students that they went to college and therefore knew that it is of little value beyond the pragmatic, but there are aren't the European roshei yeshiva at YU telling them that they should be in a "real" yeshiva.
True, the late Charles Liebman and Irving "Yitz" Greenberg are no longer at YC. Significant as they may have been, they were only two individuals, one in political science and the other in history, neither of which discipline drew the majority of YC students even at that time.
Moreover, Dr. Samuel Belkin was a musmakh and a talmudic genius, an Iluy but, with all due love and respect, in his capacity as president of Yeshiva University he rarely manifested that side of himself. Indeed, although President Richard M. Joel does not have rabbinic ordination, he appears to manifest as much of if not more of an overt commitment to Torah u-Madda as did his predecessors.
Has YC changed from what it was in the 1960s? Most certainly. So has American Orthodoxy; indeed, despite the notion of Orthodox unchangeability, so has Orthodox Judaism in general. My children's Orthodoxy is different from mine, as mine was different from that of my parents. American Judaism has changed and so has American culture. More often than not, it is not the changes that are problematic; it is the inability of some individuals to reconcile themselves to change. A truly Modern Orthodox individual should not feel alienated because of change; they should persist in the twin objectives of mastering the world - "vekivshuha" - and perfecting the world - "tikun olam bemalkhut shadai" - which can only be accomplished if one is truly connected with the world.
Nor can we forget that American culture as a whole has changed dramatically from what it was in the 1960s. American society, at least until 9/11/01, became much more individualistic. The overwhelming majority of students on college and university campuses are there, not for "idle curiosity" but as an avenue toward getting a job. Indeed, it would be very surprising if YC did not reflect similar, if not identical, changes.
On the other hand, I cannot refrain from pointing the growth of centers of intensive Jewish life on university campuses around the country where Orthodox students attend. Whereas, in the 1960s, Irving Greenberg appropriately pointed the college campus as an arena in which Jewish students are most vulnerable to the threat of mixed dating and then mixed marriage, some of those same campuses are today arenas where the Orthodox students can intensify their Jewish as well as general knowledge and activity. There are today viable alternatives to YU which were not as available in the 1960s, and one can not generalize about Modern Orthodoxy on the basis of YU.
Finally, the stereotype of the so-called haredim is increasingly inappropriate for the United States. As I and others have discussed elsewhere, there has been a dramatic shift in their stance toward, not only non-haredim but non-Orthodox Jews, in general, and even the larger American society. By the end of the century, the haredim were heavily engaged in religious outreach and in national and international social and political activities. Does all of that mean that American Orthodoxy has not moved "to the right?" No; it most certainly has. However, as a colleague and I hope to demonstrate, much of that is a function of significantly higher levels of Jewish education and knowledge, and such a move has historical precedents. Be that as it may, the move to the right is very mixed and both Modern Orthodoxy and Yeshiva College are alive and kicking.
Dr. Chaim I. Waxman, YC' 63, BRGS '65, RIETS '66, is a professor of Sociology and Jewish Studies at Rutgers University.