2008 Woodie Awards
Yeshiva College: Fragments of Memories and Reflections
Jerry Hochbaum
Issue date: 4/18/05 Section: YUdaica
At the 50th anniversary of my graduating class from Yeshiva College last May, I shared with my classmates memories of things past within the four cubits of the Yeshiva. My classmates were a remarkable group of "zeidena Yidden," as the Yiddish expression has it - "silken Jews." I cherished our chitchat and the warmth of that encounter.
In my imagination that afternoon, I found myself a freshman again in the beit midrash of the yeshiva, preparing for a shiur with my chavrusa, Izzy Goodman. It was lunch hour, when the beit midrash was almost empty. We were struggling with some question from the Tractate Pesachim, 14A when a gentleman approached us. He questioned us on our difficulty and helped clarify our concerns. Before he left, he queried us again to be sure we understood the matter under discussion.
A rabbinical student rushed over to us when he left. "That was the Rav, R. Joseph Baer Soloveitchik!" he told us. We were awed.
Fifty years later, we are no longer the naïve, innocent-eyed students we were then. We certainly have changed. What of the Yeshiva?
Torah was, in the years I attended Yeshiva College, the central focus of the institution. This, I believe, has remained the case. But we cannot assume this centrality is inevitable, unless the Yeshiva family strive collectively to assure that condition.
Synthesis
When we were students in the early 50's, the dominant educational philosophy articulated by Yeshiva's second president, Dr. Samuel Belkin, was synthesis. In the yeshiva's curriculum, Kodesh and Chol were separate domains. It was each student's responsibility to integrate these two distinct weltanschauungs within his own personality. As I recall, there was neither at the yeshiva nor the college support systems to assist students in this complicated and potentially frustrating enterprise. Coming from a very caring ambiance in the Rabbi Jacob Joseph School where I attended high school, I found it hard sometimes to adjust to what appeared to be a less caring institutional environment.
In my imagination that afternoon, I found myself a freshman again in the beit midrash of the yeshiva, preparing for a shiur with my chavrusa, Izzy Goodman. It was lunch hour, when the beit midrash was almost empty. We were struggling with some question from the Tractate Pesachim, 14A when a gentleman approached us. He questioned us on our difficulty and helped clarify our concerns. Before he left, he queried us again to be sure we understood the matter under discussion.
A rabbinical student rushed over to us when he left. "That was the Rav, R. Joseph Baer Soloveitchik!" he told us. We were awed.
Fifty years later, we are no longer the naïve, innocent-eyed students we were then. We certainly have changed. What of the Yeshiva?
Torah was, in the years I attended Yeshiva College, the central focus of the institution. This, I believe, has remained the case. But we cannot assume this centrality is inevitable, unless the Yeshiva family strive collectively to assure that condition.
Synthesis
When we were students in the early 50's, the dominant educational philosophy articulated by Yeshiva's second president, Dr. Samuel Belkin, was synthesis. In the yeshiva's curriculum, Kodesh and Chol were separate domains. It was each student's responsibility to integrate these two distinct weltanschauungs within his own personality. As I recall, there was neither at the yeshiva nor the college support systems to assist students in this complicated and potentially frustrating enterprise. Coming from a very caring ambiance in the Rabbi Jacob Joseph School where I attended high school, I found it hard sometimes to adjust to what appeared to be a less caring institutional environment.