Volume 67, Issue 3

YU’s Small Community: Integrating “Yeshiva Guys”

By Gavri Butler

I’m from a relatively small Jewish community, and that colors the way I approach certain aspects of Jewish life in New York generally and Yeshiva University specifically. For example, in my hometown, if a person sees somebody on the street wearing a kippah and does not recognize him, he or she stops and introduces him or herself. Therefore, there tends to be less of the religious intolerance that permeates the metro-New York communities. Minute differences are downplayed, and while many flavors of observance are represented, community members are forced to stick together, because otherwise the community would fall apart. I have found New York to be starkly different. Due to the sheer size of the population, each person can find a synagogue, a school, and even a community that can cater to his or her specific religious philosophy. Even Yeshiva University, long recognized as the flagship of “Modern Orthodoxy,” is no longer “modern” enough to satisfy much of its own constituency.

Members of a small community learn to value every individual. One facet of that value is that they don’t discount someone who differs from them in religious practice. The smaller the community, the less factional it is. In smaller communities it is a matter of pride that the “umbrella” organizations actually incorporate all segments of the Jewish community.  Therefore, it’s possible- even natural- for me, coming from a small community, to perceive commonality with other Jews whose religious inclinations are at variance with mine. I’m not completely sure why New Yorkers have to be different.

While it’s not my purpose to discuss the sociological distinctions between large and small communities, there is a demographic byproduct at Yeshiva University that I find very troubling. The problem is that students tend to regard Yeshiva University as a large community.  However, with only 1300 students, our society is actually rather small. We can't afford to disregard, ignore, or worse yet, mistreat anyone from any segment of the population, because that detracts from our society’s potential for cohesion.

That’s why I was so troubled by an experience I had earlier in the semester. I’m the RA on the sixth floor of Rubin Hall, and approximately half of my floor consists of freshmen in JSS and IBC. On the third night of orientation, before any classes had started, one of the freshmen on my floor confronted me with the question of: “Why are Yeshiva guys such jerks?” Needless to say I was surprised by this question (coming so early in the term), and I asked him what had produced that reaction. He told me of an incident during registration in which a “Yeshiva Guy”- he didn’t know anything about the guy, just that he wore a white shirt and had his tzitzis out- had been rude and condescending when my friend asked him for information about JSS classes.

Sadly, this was the first of many stories that I heard from the guys on my floor about their interactions with the yeshiva crowd. I even had my own. I was heading up the stairs in Furst Hall on my way to shiur. Suddenly, a “Yeshiva Guy” pushed me out of his way… maybe he was also late for shiur. The shocking thing was that when I arrived on the third floor and turned toward my shiur room, the “Yeshiva Guy,” who was in the hallway waiting for his rebbe, stopped me and apologized, because he “didn’t know you were going to Rav Rosensweig’s shiur”! I tried to ask him what that had to do with anything, but his rebbe showed up just then, and my assailant went into the classroom. What I assume he meant was that I was also a “Yeshiva Guy,” even though I don’t dress like him. The implication of that assumption is that had I not been a “Yeshiva Guy” it would have been ok- and I guess muttar – to push me out of the way.

Many yeshivas in Israel, and even Rabbeim in our yeshiva, teach that avoiding people with undesirable behavior is the best way to avoid that behavior’s influence. While that may be a legitimate approach, it should be qualified by two assertions. First, avoiding “undesirable” characteristics is not the same as avoiding people. By avoiding those whose behavior is contrary to what we believe to be our educational or religious goals, we undermine the possibility that our own behavior can have an influence on them. Anecdotally at least, it would seem that much of the publicly “inappropriate” (meaning non-yeshivish) behavior on this campus originates with those whose dress and demeanor typically mark them as IBC and JSS students. But many of the guys in IBC and JSS- often from a different culture- never had the opportunity to study in a yeshiva in Israel. For some this is their first exposure to formal Jewish education. They should be shown the benefits of the yeshiva experience. Would smiling and saying good morning to, for example, the group of people smoking in front of Furst while you’re on your way to shiur be so detrimental to your growth as a ben Torah? It might even help theirs.

There is also a much greater problem, that of chillul Hashem, desecrating the name of G-d. When the Talmud (Yoma 86a) discusses the concept of chillul Hashem, the prime example given is: “One who learns, studies, and serves Torah scholars but does not conduct business honestly and doesn't speak pleasantly with other people - what do people say about him? ‘Woe unto this person who studied Torah, woe unto his father who taught him Torah, woe unto his rabbi who taught him Torah. This person who studied Torah - look how corrupt his behavior is, and how disgusting his behavior is…’”

Many “Yeshiva Guys” often neglect the imperatives of representing the Torah lifestyle, and sometimes those who notice them they really do think, “How does a ben Torah act…” It only took an elitist and condescending tone for my friend to associate “Yeshiva” and “jerk.” We all have the obligation to demonstrate that he was confronted by the exception, not the rule. Our failure to do that might prevent him from taking a first step into the Beis Medrash that could ultimately affect his religious observance.

 Notwithstanding the City’s overbearing influence, YU should be a small town. Too small to risk alienating any segment of its population. Its not about outreach, its about decency. So, be nice. Say “Good Morning.”  Sit with one of  “those guys” at the Caf. Make a kiddush Hashem. “They” are us. Over the years, they have enriched our community immeasurably. We need each other.

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