Not long ago, at a shalosh seudos in the cafeteria, Rabbi Hayyim Angel, the Shabbos Rabbi-in-Residence, recalled how, as an undergraduate, he had compiled a list of the fifty most pressing questions that were on his mind. He took the list on a subway ride to Rabbi Abba Bronspiegel one winter break, and spent a morning discussing them with him; he then took the same list back on the subway and asked Rabbi Norman Lamm for his answers.
This new feature in The Commentator tries to accomplish that for the broader student body. We'll ask a question of a number of rebbeim and see what responses we get; whatever they say, you'll see here: uncensored, unedited, and completely quotable.
For this issue, we chose a basic question to try to get the ball rolling: What does Torah U'Madda mean to you? If you're interested in what our Torah leaders have to say in response to such a question, you'll probably find their answers below rather helpful.
The point of this feature is to give the students something that they were lacking before: the ability to see, in black-and-white, what specific rebbeim have to say about specific matters of interest. What we hope to eliminate with this feature is the conjecture that inevitably enters into so many hashkafic discussions amongst the students. Instead of the oft-heard "Well, Rav X would say…," we'll now be able to indicate exactly what Rav X did say.
It is our hope that this feature will serve the students well, but, as with many such projects, it is only as helpful as you make it out to be. The initiative has been taken by the rebbeim, who have agreed to participate in this project. So, this is your chance: if you had the opportunity to ask several rebbeim just one question of relative import, what would that be? Please e-mail them to me at SHLEVE1@aol.com.
Keep it good,
Steven I. Weiss
| Rabbi Herschel Schachter When I was a student in this yeshiva -- I went here to high school and to college and to graduate school, Bernard Revel; I started right after my bar mitzvah and I'm still here. When I went to school, Dr. Belkin was the president, and he understood -- all the students understood -- Torah U'Madda just meant, to use the broken English that Dr. Belkin used to use, "They give a you a yeshiva, mit a cafeteria, mit a college, in the same building." That's all it meant. It didn't mean what it means under the new president; it didn't mean that at all. |
Rabbi Jeremy Wieder It means two things: one, on a broader level, it means the value placed on other bodies of knowledge, other than Torah itself - the value that is placed upon those for purposes not just pragmatic. Meaning not just for parnassah, but because of a belief that "kol poal Hashem l'ma'aneihu," that everything G-d has created is for our fortification; that applies to most branches of knowledge. The second, more specific -- and perhaps more controversial -- part of Torah U'Madda, that in some parts I subscribe to, is the notion of taking what we call "secular methodologies," and applying them in appropriate context to holy texts. So, to take an example which is fairly straightforward: taking the tools of grammar, which has been used for a long time, even in traditional circles, but it is, in a sense, secular methodology, and using that in understanding texts, whether it be Tanach, whether it be Gemara; so that would be, I think, a good example of what would be Torah U'Madda. There is a certain blurring of the boundaries. In the example that I just gave, probably many people, and, at times, I might say the same thing, would consider that "Torah." Using grammar in the study of Tanach, normally we would say that while you're doing grammar, you're not doing Torah, you're doing other things, that you're doing Torah U'Madda. But that, I think, is sort of generally the second level of Torah U'Madda, the cross-fertilization, rather than just the compartmentalization of the two. |
Rabbi Walter Wurzburger Torah U'Madda is a slogan, and I don't know the meaning of slogans. I personally believe it is important for any individual Jew to understand Torah, but at the same time to be open to the world and to know the facts about the world and know the currents of thought in the world, et cetera, et cetera. Because otherwise you cannot understand the meaning of Torah. If you want to apply Torah to the world, you have to understand the world; that's what Torah U'Madda means to me. |