The Jewish Jew and Western Culture: Fallible Predictions for the Turn of the Century

The Jewish Jew and Western Culture: Fallible Predictions for the Turn of the Century - Speech (1992)

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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

The Jewish Jew and Western Culture: Fallible Predictions for the Turn of the Century (1994)

Rather than addressing directly and exclusively the theme of Jewish identities in the new Europe, I shall concentrate instead on what I surmise is the future course of those Jews who are intensely committed to Torah and the Jewish tradition, and at the same time do not wish to segregate from other Jews, do not want to ignore worldly culture, and who do believe—as a matter of principle and not merely convenience—that critical engagement with the environing culture and a profound feeling of fraternity with fellow Jews regardless of their own differing convictions is what, to borrow the prophetic style, ‘the Lord doth require of us’. My intention is that because such a group undoubtedly exists, in greater or lesser measure, in Europe, my words will be germane to the situation in the new Europe as well, and that my American experience will not prove irrelevant to the subject of this volume.I speak as one of this self-same group: as a religious, Orthodox Jew, who believes that without Torah there is no future for am yisrael, but who wants all Jews, no matter what their religious or ideological orientations, to survive and thrive; whose firm commitment to his own vision of Judaism and Jewishness sometimes makes him impatient but never intolerant of competing views; and whose outlook is best summed up in the words torah umadda, the integration or confluence of religious commitment and worldly learning. Hence my title: ‘The Jewish Jew and Western Culture’.The Polarization of the Jewish Community: The polarization of the Jewish community is by now a truism. On the one side, a high mobility rate and the displacements of war have produced a situation whereby, as one scholar estimated a number of years ago, perhaps one in a thousand of us speaks the same language and lives in the same place as did his or her grandparents. Sergio DellaPergola’s figures and graphs presented elsewhere in this volume confirm that impression. In the diaspora, assimilation and intermarriage are deci…

Torah Umadda

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