Home Home / חומר להרצאות ושיעורים (1993)

Note

October 17, 1993

חומר להרצאות ושיעורים (1993)

Torah Umadda Modern Orthodoxy & the Charedim
View The Text

This content is currently available in its original PDF format. As we expand the library, we plan to add a text version as well.

RELATED CONTENT

Outline

Lecture on Torah Umadda (2002)

פותחין לכבוד יאכסניא – ... המורים והתלמידים. TOD: מדע only/תורה only/TuM – Y.U. and pattern all D.S. ST: 12-14 yrs ago, 2 divers emerg fr Medittrnean near Acco, 2 sacks snails, open dye changes yellow → green → blue → blue → deep purple: תכלת! They=2 br-I-1 (dentst/physcst – Sterman/Greenspan – YU grads) – EX: TUM! TOR = ות"ת כנגד כולם...והגית בו יומם ולילה AND: מורשה קהילת יעקב NOT only priestly clss... So; B proud Y J-only rel. Source TuM: בראשית-שמו; also: (רב בקר) שמואל (ירחינאה)
Torah Umadda

Outline

Torah Umadda Speech (1992)

1. apolgy f treatg thme here/book. *TuM so self-evdt... Many/most yshvot except far Hasidic: nght collg; All – HS; halkhc diff'ce? *True, attackd mny reasns. But note, e.g.: *R. Hayym Brisker: totl rjctn M – evn lang/nwspprs... any ready forbd Eng tdy? *same tm: nt true w no precdnts! Evn in hal'c commy *Exs: הרמ"א התעניין גם בלמודי פילוסופיה, קבלה היסטוריה ואסטרונומיה. בספרו "תורת העולה" מצטט הוא בתמידות חכמים רבים במקצועות אלו, אע"פ שבנוגע לתורת חכמי האומות שאב את ידיעותיו מכלי שני. הוא מתיחס
Torah Umadda

Article

Torah U-Madda: A Critique of Rabbi Dr. Norman Lamm's Book and Its Approach to Torah Study and the Pursuit of Secular Knowledge (1992)

It is over 200 years since Moses Mendelssohn brought to the fore of German Jewry the issue of Judaism’s stance towards the surrounding culture, and of the proper relationship between Torah learning and secular studies. And when Napoleon’s armies spread the French Enlightenment 30 years later, the confrontation between Torah and secular ideals reached Eastern Europe as well.But the nature of the struggle between Jewish life and modernity has changed over the years. The intellectual challenge to Torah today is, if anything, less than it was sixty years ago. It is doubtful that any current Rosh Yeshiva would feel the need to prove that Torah is deeper than Kant, as one well-known mashgiach did in post-World War I Lithuania. Nor is there any modern-day parallel to the intellectual attraction that socialism j and Zionism once exercised on yeshiva students.Though hedonism and materialism seem more powerful lures today than great ideas, modern, post-technological society poses its own unique set of challenges. The isolation in which Jewish communities once flourished is but a historical memory. It is inconceivable today to imagine large numbers of Jews unable to speak the language of their host country, as was true in Eastern Europe a centuiy ago. The openness of American democracy, the pervasive nature of the modern media, and the fact that most of us are consumers of advanced technology, make it harder than ever to erect barriers to the out- side world. With the world a far smaller, more integrated place than ever, knowledge of the surrounding society often seems more necessary than in previous generations.Budding yeshiva students, kollel fellows, and Torah-directed laymen must all deal with a secular world, its resources of information and its value system. Through the years, Gedolet Yisroel have prescribed different ap- proaches to this challenge. Rabbi Elchonon Wasserman, הי”ד, for example, addresses the question in a letter, published in Koveitz Maamarim, wherein he…
Modern Orthodoxy & the Charedim