September 12, 2006

Torah, meet Madda

From the YU Commentator:


In an effort to reverse trends of disconnect between secular and rabbinic faculty, Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary (RIETS) Rosh Kollel Hershel Schachter and Yeshiva College (YC) Dean David Srolovitz met to discuss issues surrounding YC and its curriculum. The two influential Wilf Campus personalities joined members of The Commentator on Thursday, August 31 in the dean's office for an hour-long conversation.

Lots of interesting tidbits here, such as R. Schachter's comments about treating Yu like a trade school, a possible pre-semicha track offered as a college major and R. Schachter's comments on those who rush through YU:


They are just fooling themselves in to thinking that they are accomplishing something. They are not.

My opinion, for what it is worth, is that YU is in a unique position to offer an integrated curriculum that could, possibly, produce a new kind of orthodox Jew; post-modern orthodox, if you will. I could see this as working in that direction, or, quite possibly, not. The Rav was created by a new combination of circumstances: the talmudic scholar who also went to university. If we're going to find the next Rav (not just those who can teach in the same manner as he taught, but those who can take our current condition, which has changed, and provide for it a context within the Jewish tradition), this is where he would be found.

Posted by Greg at September 12, 2006 3:40 PM in , , | TrackBack
Comments

I can't believe you started a sentence with "in a unique position to" and couldn't find a way to fir the word "disconfirm" in there. Everything with you is a goddamn travesty.

Amateur.

Posted by: bill selliger at September 12, 2006 2:40 PM

I think that expecting institutions to produce anything beyond modestly above-average mediocrity is hopelessly optimistic. The Rav did not emerge from a "Unique Rabbinical Model" sausage factory, he was taught individually by some rather impressive melamdim, allowing for the appropriately individualized development of an unusual mind.

YU may be a lot of good things, but it is not likely to successfully mass-produce truly unique leaders any more than its ideological complement/competitor in Lakewood.

Consider your premise disconfirmed.

Posted by: Moishe Potemkin at September 13, 2006 12:04 PM

Yeah, I realized after I wrote it that it was horse puckey. But it would still be nice to see some further integration of curriculums that may provide some of the working class a more wholistic perspective of the world.

Posted by: Greg at September 13, 2006 5:02 PM