The Two Paths of Traditional Jewish Learning in America

At a 1968 conference of the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, a largely secular institution, Aharon Lichtenstein—widely regarded as one of the greatest Orthodox rabbis of the late 20th century—gave a lecture titled “A Century of Jewish Higher Learning in America.” This lecture, recently rendered into English by Shaul Seidler-Feller, discussed the attempts to transplant European-style yeshivas to the U.S., and the various approaches taken by these institutions. The most important distinction among them, Lichtenstein argued, lay in their respective attitudes toward the non-Jewish culture. (A recording of the lecture, in Yiddish, can be found at the link below.)

[H]ow can one best prepare the yeshiva student—after he has, so to speak, already been molded—to influence the broader world, which is, to use a turn of phrase, “beyond the river” [1Kings 14:15], on the other side of the study-hall walls? To what extent does a young scholar or a Torah institution feel a responsibility to accomplish this task? And how can the yeshiva most effectively train its students to do so? . . .

Some believe that one need not do so, that it is actually wasted effort. Others feel that one should, but what can you do? There is no common language between the Torah and secular worlds, so any attempt to bridge them is doomed. And still others—in particular, this is the attitude of [Yeshiva University] and of Chicago’s Hebrew Theological College—believe the opposite: that the responsibility is great, and that in order to fulfill this responsibility one must be careful to see to it that a student well understands the modern, secular world.

Certainly, one need not plunge and delve deeply into that world . . . but one must have some handle on the secular world in order to begin to understand it. This is, perhaps, the main division that exists today within the yeshiva world. There is much, I believe, that we can learn from the scholarly world without abandoning our focus. I hope there is also much that the scholarly world can learn from us.

Read more at YIVO Institute

More about: Aharon Lichtenstein, American Judaism, Religion & Holidays, Yeshiva, Yeshiva University

What a Strategic Victory in Gaza Can and Can’t Achieve

On Tuesday, the Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant met in Washington with Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. Gallant says that he told the former that only “a decisive victory will bring this war to an end.” Shay Shabtai tries to outline what exactly this would entail, arguing that the IDF can and must attain a “strategic” victory, as opposed to merely a tactical or operational one. Yet even after a such a victory Israelis can’t expect to start beating their rifles into plowshares:

Strategic victory is the removal of the enemy’s ability to pose a military threat in the operational arena for many years to come. . . . This means the Israeli military will continue to fight guerrilla and terrorist operatives in the Strip alongside extensive activity by a local civilian government with an effective police force and international and regional economic and civil backing. This should lead in the coming years to the stabilization of the Gaza Strip without Hamas control over it.

In such a scenario, it will be possible to ensure relative quiet for a decade or more. However, it will not be possible to ensure quiet beyond that, since the absence of a fundamental change in the situation on the ground is likely to lead to a long-term erosion of security quiet and the re-creation of challenges to Israel. This is what happened in the West Bank after a decade of relative quiet, and in relatively stable Iraq after the withdrawal of the United States at the end of 2011.

Read more at BESA Center

More about: Gaza War 2023, Hamas, IDF