Volume 67, Issue 4

From the Editor's Desk
by Zack Streit

The mind is an enigmatic creature.  It seems to sneak up on us capriciously.  Take the late-night conversation I had one day last week, following a grueling series of midterms.  Though sleep was beckoning, my mind seemed to have a plan all its own.  I soon found myself drifting to a friend’s dorm room well past midnight.  The conversation there was indeed eye opening.  Here’s a brief snippet.

“Zack,” my friend muttered exhaustedly, “I am not doing what I should be doing lately.”

“What do you mean?” I asked curiously.

“I just have no time for learning Torah anymore,” he said dejectedly.  “Though some of my academic studies provide a contextual framework, which allows me to appreciate studying Torah more, my schedule just doesn’t permit learning anymore.  I am not living up to YU’s mission,” he brooded, in reference to the catch-adage Torah U’Madda.

Though we burned a generous share of midnight oil that evening, I never responded to his point about “failing the mission.”  What I should’ve riposted was: “What mission is that?  You actually believe that Yeshiva has a mission?” 

If my friend does believe Yeshiva has a mission, then I am sorry to say he’s dead wrong.  That, however, does not mean that Yeshiva shouldn’t have a mission.  It simply means that they don’t have one now and that they haven’t had one for some years.  Let me explain what I mean. 

All buzz-mottos aside here, when Yeshiva was first created it functioned as a haven for Orthodox Jews ravening for a pedagogic milieu that would allow them to pursue secular educations without fettering their firm belief in Torah and Yiddishkeit.  In short, Jews wanted the intellectual freedom to pursue both Torah and Madda uninhibited, while most of academia wasn’t so keen on the former.  There were also those detractors that didn’t believe the two could co-exist.  Enter Yeshiva University, which provided asylum and proved, over the years, that one university could successfully fuse Torah and Madda together.  

But, Jews no longer need sanctuary from academics hostile to their modus vivendi.  It is already a foregone conclusion that Orthodox Jews can survive and even thrive in secular institutions.  Times have changed, but Yeshiva University hasn’t.  And, now we’re paying for it. 

Last issue, the Commentator reported on a new phenomenon proliferating at Yeshiva: bare-heads on campus.  Though no number crunching has yet to surface, the number of students sauntering around the Wilf Campus kippah-less is undeniably on the rise, much to the dismay of many faculty members and administrators.  While religious issues are admittedly at play here, I believe that this new fangled trend reflects something much more fundamental: a simple lack of raison d'être. 

As much as I hate to say it, I believe that those students promenading around campus bareheaded are by and large less academically motivated than some of their peers, though often times they have formidable competition from kippah-donners for the esteemed “bottom of the cerebral barrel.”  Most of them have little interest in self-edification or in improving the University; nevertheless, year after year, this student genus is admitted to Yeshiva and allowed to linger here.  And, in typical Yeshiva modus operandi, we annually sweep the issue under the rug, feigning that it doesn’t exist.  Well it does. 

The fact that this cadre of blasé students – and I’m not only talking about the kippah-less, but anyone here that refuses to engage in serious studying, regardless of their intellectual capacity  – are allowed to set foot in this university typifies Yeshiva’s poor admissions criteria.   When is the last time we really asked ourselves what type of student we invite?  Or what type of student we actually entertain?  I’m not casting blame on the Director of Admissions, Moishe Kranzler for this vexing reality; the problem does not originate from his hard-working fourth floor office in Furst Hall.  The problem does, however, emanate from the floor and office directly above Kranzler’s: the Presidential Suite.  

And that’s not all.  The fact that such academically apathetic students are allowed to thrive here is in large part do to the lax standards and lack of mission sustained in both our Torah and secular programs.  Take IBC, JSS, and to some extent even SBMP.  Here are three programs that should have a single goal in mind: to provide a curriculum as rigorous the most difficult MYP shiur that confronts pertinent issues in the Orthodox community at large, while concurrently imbuing students with an unsurpassed love of Torah intellectually and emotionally.  Ambitious?  Absolutely.  Missing?  Vitally.

And, while we’re at it, MYP is not faring much better.  The fact that cheating was publicly denounced in the Beis Medrash for the first time only a few short weeks ago in an impeccable speech delivered by Rabbi Wieder is shameful.  Luminaries the likes of Roshei HaYeshiva Rav Schachter and Rav Kahn were very quick to advise their talmidim against interacting with Lubavitchers shortly after David Berger’s polemic against Chabad was published last year.  Yet, how could these paradigms of Torah greatness remain publicly mum on the no-brainer of cheating for so long?  Dare I ask what type of future leaders they are sculpting if this inaction accurately reflects their priorities?

The problems don’t stop there though.  Sy Syms is currently incubating some students that are incapable of formulating even a single coherent thought and simply want to cruise through school.  While I have a tremendous amount of respect for Dean Snow – and believe that our university is in dire need of more mentors of his caliber – all I can advise him to do in the present condition is shore up Syms’ curriculum, and rein in these destructive elements.

This, by no means, leaves Yeshiva College problem-free.  While they do generally mold more academically motivated students, they have a number of “cruisers,” and they could definitely do with more professors that comprehend – though not necessarily conform to – the ethos of the student body (hint: think about hiring more Orthodox faculty members).

The attitude of select students here compounded with the various schools’ lack of direction underscores one thing: a sweeping lack of understanding as to what Yeshiva is and what it needs to be.  Sadly, the blame for all of this rests squarely on one man’s shoulders, in one office, on the fifth floor of Furst: Rabbi Lamm.  When I touched on some of these issues in an interview with our President, he gave the patent Yeshiva response, shrugging off the issues with a curt “I cannot preempt the prerogatives of my successor.”  Apparently, Rabbi Lamm has felt that way for some years now. 

But here’s how I feel:  Rabbi Lamm, don’t resign yourself to being a politic, man of the book, whom the students, faculty and administrators view as a lame-duck president.  That’s disgraceful.  Come down of your lofty perch and settle the score for what Yeshiva is.  There is no one with better credentials to do so than you.  Establish Yeshiva as a place that caters to a wide range of Torah loving Jews that are not only bound by their love of Torah but also by their hearty intellectual appetites, regardless of their intellectual capacity.  If you don’t, then no one will.¨

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