2008 Woodie Awards
FROM THE EDITOR'S DESK: Examining the Life Worth Living
Zev Nagel
Issue date: 4/18/05 Section: Editorials/Op-Ed
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Without a doubt, college has complicated life more than it has simplified it. Of course this is not a negative; in contrast to the high school that left me only with a "Cliff's Notes," black and white version of the world, I will soon leave the hallowed walls of Yeshiva University armed with a weltanschauung that sees in brilliant Technicolor. But while understanding the complexities of our civilization will no doubt allow me to uphold the Socratic mantra forbidding an unexamined life, will it really help me get a job out of college?
I often think about the fact that my grandfather never even went to college. In fact he didn't even graduate high school; shortly after his teen years began, Hitler marched into his small town in Czechoslovakia and took it all away. With his entire family obliterated, my grandfather did not have the luxury of enrolling in a university and pursuing an education. He had to learn everything on the job, in the spur of the moment. And yet he still managed to do pretty well for himself, raising and providing for a wonderful family, and building the personal character and integrity becoming of a thinking Jew.
Certainly a great deal has changed since the days of Eastern Europe. Technology, for one, has ironically expanded our options while shrinking us into that global village. The modern challenges of the early twentieth century seem not to be the same as those which confronted us today one hundred year ago. But the pursuit of knowledge, the appraisal of life via an intellectual and soulful lens, surely has not either. Even if life was "simpler" fifty years ago, our ancestors were certainly asking some of the same questions, pondering the same great conundrums that we grapple with today - good and evil; piety in the face of modern intuition; assessing truth in spite of human diversity.
On one hand, the lack of finite resolution makes dealing with these questions all the more frustrating; on the other hand, it signifies for us the eternal continuity of the human condition, as if life's challenges are a rite of passage, entitling us to a personal journey once we surmount the contests of our collective consciousness. Everyone deals with self-identification and intellectual confrontation - we just all solve them differently - each generation onto their own.
I often think about the fact that my grandfather never even went to college. In fact he didn't even graduate high school; shortly after his teen years began, Hitler marched into his small town in Czechoslovakia and took it all away. With his entire family obliterated, my grandfather did not have the luxury of enrolling in a university and pursuing an education. He had to learn everything on the job, in the spur of the moment. And yet he still managed to do pretty well for himself, raising and providing for a wonderful family, and building the personal character and integrity becoming of a thinking Jew.
Certainly a great deal has changed since the days of Eastern Europe. Technology, for one, has ironically expanded our options while shrinking us into that global village. The modern challenges of the early twentieth century seem not to be the same as those which confronted us today one hundred year ago. But the pursuit of knowledge, the appraisal of life via an intellectual and soulful lens, surely has not either. Even if life was "simpler" fifty years ago, our ancestors were certainly asking some of the same questions, pondering the same great conundrums that we grapple with today - good and evil; piety in the face of modern intuition; assessing truth in spite of human diversity.
On one hand, the lack of finite resolution makes dealing with these questions all the more frustrating; on the other hand, it signifies for us the eternal continuity of the human condition, as if life's challenges are a rite of passage, entitling us to a personal journey once we surmount the contests of our collective consciousness. Everyone deals with self-identification and intellectual confrontation - we just all solve them differently - each generation onto their own.