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2002

Commencement Address - Albert Einstein College of Medicine (2002)

Torah & Science Torah Umadda Yeshiva University
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Outline

Commencement Address (1999)

What is it, in perspective of ½ century, that we learned from our undergrad experience at Yeshiva University? What connects me – who was graduated in mid-century – to you, who leave YC during last year this terrible and glorious century? I wish to focus on one issue only – that of knowledge. It is knowledge, after all, that a university purports to transmit to its students. And it is knowledge – ידיעת התורה and דעת השם – that the yeshiva classically strives to imbue its disciples. Our question, then, is at once both universal and intimate, personal. To understand this simultaneously abstract and relevant question, let us begin at the beginning: בראשית, the Torah’s conception of the origins of humankind.Torah: 2 trees: עצה"ד טו״ר ועצה"ח. . .Both forbidden to Adam and Eve. . . Let’s take them one at a time.Tree of Knowledge. “The knowledge of good and evil” = off-limits for man. Punishment for transgression=death. Serpent—metaphor for human concupiscence, human propensity for overreaching, or simply: human weakness—tells our firstלא מות תמותון, כ׳ יודע אלקים כ׳ ביום אכלכם ממנו ונפקחו עיניכם והייתם כאלהים :couple ...יודעי טוב ורעMaimonides question in Guide: Was “punishment” the gift of reason? ...My answer: In Eden, before the primal sin, mankind knew clearly the distinction between Good and Evil. Man admired the purely good, and abhorred the wholly evil. It was the serpent—the human יצר הרע—that threw a monkey wrench into this idyllic scene. He sought to convince our first grandparents that if they ate of the forbidden fruit, the knowledge they possessed would grant them unimaginable gifts, namely, knowledge is power. It is this distortion of the telos, the end and purpose of knowledge, that corrupted humankind. The blessing of knowledge was transformed into a curse: the use or misuse of knowledge for the purpose of control, domination, enrichment. All the good that might have come from the accumulation of knowledge has now been compromised by substituting knowledg…
Bereishit Torah Umadda Yeshiva University The University

Speech

Commencement Address (1987)

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…
Torah Study Torah Umadda Yeshiva University

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Why Are We Here? (1977)

Mr. Parker, distinguished guests at the dais, ladies and gentlemen. I am very grateful to you, Mr. Parker, for your introduction. I am reaching the end of that period when I can be introduced as a “new President." I think at the next Einstein affair, I shall probably qualify as an old President. I would like to add my congratulations to those already expressed by the Chairman to new members of the Board and to all members, professional and lay, of the Albert Einstein family. In an age when democracy is misinterpreted as that which sinks to the lowest common denominator, when "equality of opportunity" is misinterpreted as a kind of imposed but fictitious equality of talent, Einstein stands out as a brilliant exception. Its faculty and its student body constitute a genuine meritocracy in which you can get ahead only if you deserve it. Its lay leadership represents to my mind an authentic aristocracy of service, where only if you serve are you deserving of recognition and where you serve because you feel an inner compulsion to put your talent and your substance at the service of your fellowmen. So, to the entire Albert Einstein family here gathered, and to those who aren’t here as well, my warmest felicitations. Permit me a few words about the mission of this school in which we are all involved. In the past twenty-two years we have undergone a change of focus that speaks volumes about the whole nature of our enterprise and also tells us a great deal about sociological changes in the American community. One of the main purposes for founding a medical school under Jewish auspices was because many Jews could not find their way into the medical fraternity — neither as students nor as faculty — without great difficulty. We were guests who were tolerated — and sometimes not tolerated The Jewish community felt that the time had come when we had to have the kind of school where people would be accepted on merit alone — because they are of value to medicine and science and edu…
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