2008 Woodie Awards
Truth Seeking as The Mission
Michael J. Broyde
Issue date: 5/16/05 Section: YUdaica
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I came to MTA as a freshman in 1978 at the age of 14, and left RIETS in 1992 at the age of 27, having happily spent nearly all of my adult life until that point as a student at YU. I left YU for a job as a professor at Emory University, where I still work. I reflect on my years at YU all the time, and those have gotten to know me or hear me speak at the Yong Israel in Atlanta know that I speak frequently about my experiences at YU.
Although I was at Yeshiva for some landmark event (I was at R. Norman Lamm's speech at the height of the financial difficulties where closing the doors of Yeshiva was in the air, and I was in the Rav's shiur the last day he gave formal shiur), no single event left me shaped as a person. Rather, when I look back at my experiences at YU, I see that a number of different people at a number of different times reinforced to me a sense of the complex mission of YU. That complex mission was to truth-seek, and not to be content with half-truths or incomplete truths (never mind to be repulsed by falsehood).
No single person sold me on that mission -- but many shared it with me. I still remember speaking to R. Michael Hecht (an unsung hero of Yeshiva, if there ever was one) when I was in eleventh grade about a complex topic that I was troubled by. He turned to me and said "truth seeking is complex, and a lot of hard work. Think about this topic some more and then we can speak again." It was then that I began to understand that frequently the goal of YU was not to point me to a specific result, but rather to force me to develop a set of truth-seeking skills that allow me to discern the difference between truth and falsehood. Dr. Barry Potvin similarly shared with me a sense that scientific research was really a search for truth (and not just a tool to get into medical school). Dr. Moshe Bernstein shared the same vision in the context of Bible study, and that was surely the vision of Talmud study in R. Mordechai Willig's shiur, where I was privileged to sit and learn for a number of years -- exposed to the hard analytical learning of gemara and halakha on a daily basis, with truth being the currency of the realm.
No one of these people alone formed me, but I see now a common goal that united the many different people that taught me -- it was a recognition that the ultimate value of an education is to seek truth.
Even as a student, I sensed that this search for truth was somewhat disquieting to many. Many students simply wanted to go on their merry way not plagued by any doubts, examination of the world around them, or digression from their professional goals, and this created some social tension within the community. Other students had already searched for truth and had found it and spent their time at Yeshiva not searching for truth but proselytizing for the truth that they had found and needed to share. Both of these results, I now realize, are inevitable in a healthy environment that seeks truth.
So too, as I look back -- and read some of the somewhat bitter submissions in the YUdaica section -- I realize that truth seeking sometimes leaves people somewhat disappointed in Yeshiva as an institution -- after all, many note, "why didn't YU do a better job sharing the truth with me, so I did not have to look so hard," or "I am disappointed with YU because I found truth someplace else." Such was not my experience. I found the search for truth to be itself a mission of a great deal of value, and learning how to look for truth made my days at Yeshiva ever so valuable. This is true, I think, even when, perchance, the truth that one finds is not at Yeshiva, as it was there where many of us were given the skill set find this truth.
The Talmud (Shabbat 55a) teaches us that "the seal of our Creator is truth" and Yeshiva trained me to search for that seal in every aspect of my life -- and I am grateful for that lesson.
Rabbi Michael J. Broyde, MTA '82, YC '85, RIETS - Yoreh Yoreh '88, RIETS - Yadin Yadin '92, is a professor of Law at Emory University. He is the rabbi at the Young Israel in Atlanta, and a chaver in the Beth Din of America.
Although I was at Yeshiva for some landmark event (I was at R. Norman Lamm's speech at the height of the financial difficulties where closing the doors of Yeshiva was in the air, and I was in the Rav's shiur the last day he gave formal shiur), no single event left me shaped as a person. Rather, when I look back at my experiences at YU, I see that a number of different people at a number of different times reinforced to me a sense of the complex mission of YU. That complex mission was to truth-seek, and not to be content with half-truths or incomplete truths (never mind to be repulsed by falsehood).
No single person sold me on that mission -- but many shared it with me. I still remember speaking to R. Michael Hecht (an unsung hero of Yeshiva, if there ever was one) when I was in eleventh grade about a complex topic that I was troubled by. He turned to me and said "truth seeking is complex, and a lot of hard work. Think about this topic some more and then we can speak again." It was then that I began to understand that frequently the goal of YU was not to point me to a specific result, but rather to force me to develop a set of truth-seeking skills that allow me to discern the difference between truth and falsehood. Dr. Barry Potvin similarly shared with me a sense that scientific research was really a search for truth (and not just a tool to get into medical school). Dr. Moshe Bernstein shared the same vision in the context of Bible study, and that was surely the vision of Talmud study in R. Mordechai Willig's shiur, where I was privileged to sit and learn for a number of years -- exposed to the hard analytical learning of gemara and halakha on a daily basis, with truth being the currency of the realm.
No one of these people alone formed me, but I see now a common goal that united the many different people that taught me -- it was a recognition that the ultimate value of an education is to seek truth.
Even as a student, I sensed that this search for truth was somewhat disquieting to many. Many students simply wanted to go on their merry way not plagued by any doubts, examination of the world around them, or digression from their professional goals, and this created some social tension within the community. Other students had already searched for truth and had found it and spent their time at Yeshiva not searching for truth but proselytizing for the truth that they had found and needed to share. Both of these results, I now realize, are inevitable in a healthy environment that seeks truth.
So too, as I look back -- and read some of the somewhat bitter submissions in the YUdaica section -- I realize that truth seeking sometimes leaves people somewhat disappointed in Yeshiva as an institution -- after all, many note, "why didn't YU do a better job sharing the truth with me, so I did not have to look so hard," or "I am disappointed with YU because I found truth someplace else." Such was not my experience. I found the search for truth to be itself a mission of a great deal of value, and learning how to look for truth made my days at Yeshiva ever so valuable. This is true, I think, even when, perchance, the truth that one finds is not at Yeshiva, as it was there where many of us were given the skill set find this truth.
The Talmud (Shabbat 55a) teaches us that "the seal of our Creator is truth" and Yeshiva trained me to search for that seal in every aspect of my life -- and I am grateful for that lesson.
Rabbi Michael J. Broyde, MTA '82, YC '85, RIETS - Yoreh Yoreh '88, RIETS - Yadin Yadin '92, is a professor of Law at Emory University. He is the rabbi at the Young Israel in Atlanta, and a chaver in the Beth Din of America.