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May 20, 1979

A Perspective for the 80s (1979)

Torah Umadda Yeshiva University
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It is with a mixture of personal pleasure and the poignant pain of nostalgia that I preside over this commencement which is the last official ceremony of our Centennial year – which has now lasted more than two years.... Last September, at the beginning of this academic year, I spoke at our formal Centennial Convocation and pleaded for greater awareness of moral values in education. Secretary William Bennett, who was present at that event, had been talking the subject up and down the nation, and Governor Mario Cuomo had just recently spoken in the same vein. Finding myself in such distinguished company from both sides of the political divide, I expected little passion in reaction to my comments, even when they were condensed in an op-ed page article for The New York Times.I was sorely mistaken. There was passion aplenty in both my supporters (who obviously were in the right...) and my detractors. My opponents, all from the academic community, were all high-minded, sophisticated, and articulate — but not always consistent. Thus, a typical response was that I was merely mouthing truisms to which no one could take exception, and hence I was really saying nothing, AND that my thesis was a disguised attempt at introducing denominational indoctrination into our universities. That the two propositions contradict each otherwas not apparent to my critics.More to the point, other critics, equally oblivious to the need for elementary consistency, asked why my values should be preferred to others, and continued to assert a basically relativistic ethos according to which all values have equal validity in the "marketplace of ideas," a theory which if pursued to its logical conclusion leads to moral nihilism. They then proceeded to assure me and their own readers that the academy certainly does act upon certain accepted moral principles, such as no murder, mayhem, robbery, or cheating. How nice.There is, however, a fundamental error committed by both sides in this national debate…
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In many ways, this Samson Raphael Hirsch Conference at Yeshiva University is a historic occurence which is long overdue. It is a puzzle to me that Hirsch and his thought were never accorded a full course of study at Yeshiva when, to such a large extent, Yeshiva University is a proud fulfillment of his teachings. This event, therefore, is an act of mutual legitimation. The fact that Mrs. Hannah Schwalbe is a great granddaughter of the legendary Samson Raphael Hirsch, and that it is in her and her husband's honor that the professorship has been established by their family, is a happy omen for the future. If, in the realm of ideas, Frankfort and Washington Heights are really that close, can Broadway forever remain the "great divide" between Bennett Avenue and Amsterdam Avenue? Hirsch was one of the giants of German Jewry. As a leader and educator he was eminently successful. He was personally responsible for the flourishing Denkglaubigkeit — or "enlightened Orthodoxy" — that survives him to this day. Thoroughly Jewish, and also a completely modern Western man, he aspired to bring about a harmony between the two traditions and outlooks. He tried to formulate a Jewish Humanism, demonstrating that the Humanism so popular in the Europe of his day had Jewish roots. Hence, his superman, the Yisroelmentsch. And hence, too, his great educational program of synthesis under the slogan of Torah im Derekh Eretz. A word about nomenclature. I confess that I have never been very happy with either of the terms used to describe the Weltanschauung that both Hirsch and Yeshiva share. The term Derekh Eretz never seemed to me to be adequate because it is too broad — it admits of a large variety of interpretations, from business to conjugal relations, and therefore does not adequately describe the world of culture to which Hirsch meant it to refer. I am equally dissatisfied with the term Mad da, because it is too narrow — in modern Hebrew especially it refers to science, and the culture to…
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