2008 Woodie Awards
Avoiding the Numbness of Chaos
From the Co-President of the Israel Club
Avi Narrow-Tilonsky
Issue date: 8/31/05 Section: Opinion
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Scenes of tearing soldiers carrying Jewish people out of their homes, headlines about Jews killing innocent people, and numerous widening rifts arising among segments of the Jewish people should all be at the forefront of our attention these days. Unfortunately, with the start of the new school year, when students are faced with the cumbersome tasks of procuring textbooks and settling into the Yeshiva campus life, it is all too easy to become absorbed in the Orientation baseball games, cruises, and barbeques, and to forget the events around us.
It is important to maintain the contrast between school life and the hard times we face as a people. In fact, our Yeshiva experience would be incomplete if we feel we can avoid the goings-on of the broader Jewish world. A quick look at the Yeshiva website reveals the following slogan in big letters: "Yeshiva University: To Learn, To Lead, To Inspire." As we register online for our classes, obsessively check class schedules, and email various offices, it is important that we consider what exactly this message might mean in the current context and how we can apply it to this coming year.
"To Learn" seems to be a fairly obvious statement. It is, arguably, the very purpose of attending university. However, at this rough time, the message must be to learn from everything that we see around us. We need to develop an attitude of learning which is so inclusive and pervasive that we feel the need to develop personal understandings and messages from world events, such as the recent disengagement from Gaza, terrorist attacks, and tsunamis. Israel is at the zenith of historical change and is not only reshaping its physical geography, but has begun to challenge its ideological underpinnings. There is plenty of room for discussion and personal consideration. We at Yeshiva must learn to think about Jewish issues and not feel content to merely accept what a speaker says.
Our urge to be involved in Israel activism shoud not be satisfied by merely buying Israeli hand creams, attending craft fairs, and marching in the Israel Day Parade. We, as students of the strongest Jewish campus in the United States, have a responsibility to deepen our understanding of Israeli and Jewish issues. Critical questions about the future of the Jewish people beg serious answers. It is our responsibility to address these issues through self-development and by increasing the quality of our campus dialogue.
It is important to maintain the contrast between school life and the hard times we face as a people. In fact, our Yeshiva experience would be incomplete if we feel we can avoid the goings-on of the broader Jewish world. A quick look at the Yeshiva website reveals the following slogan in big letters: "Yeshiva University: To Learn, To Lead, To Inspire." As we register online for our classes, obsessively check class schedules, and email various offices, it is important that we consider what exactly this message might mean in the current context and how we can apply it to this coming year.
"To Learn" seems to be a fairly obvious statement. It is, arguably, the very purpose of attending university. However, at this rough time, the message must be to learn from everything that we see around us. We need to develop an attitude of learning which is so inclusive and pervasive that we feel the need to develop personal understandings and messages from world events, such as the recent disengagement from Gaza, terrorist attacks, and tsunamis. Israel is at the zenith of historical change and is not only reshaping its physical geography, but has begun to challenge its ideological underpinnings. There is plenty of room for discussion and personal consideration. We at Yeshiva must learn to think about Jewish issues and not feel content to merely accept what a speaker says.
Our urge to be involved in Israel activism shoud not be satisfied by merely buying Israeli hand creams, attending craft fairs, and marching in the Israel Day Parade. We, as students of the strongest Jewish campus in the United States, have a responsibility to deepen our understanding of Israeli and Jewish issues. Critical questions about the future of the Jewish people beg serious answers. It is our responsibility to address these issues through self-development and by increasing the quality of our campus dialogue.