[Avodah] The Renewal Role of Sarah Schenirer

[Prof. Levine via Avodah]

 From http://tinyurl.com/njwrn2g

There was a major difference, however, between the Bais Yaacov of 
Williamsburg and the Bais Yaacov of Poland in pre-war Europe. The 
Bais Yaacov movement in Poland emphasized the universal Torah 
teachings of Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, while the Bais Yaacov of 
Williamsburg did not give Rabbi Hirsch's teachings the same emphasis. 
Why were Rabbi Hirsch's teachings regarding the Torah's universal 
vision no longer the main focus? Most of the teachers and students at 
the American Bais Yaakov were Holocaust survivors who felt a need to 
turn inward after experiencing the hatred of the Gentiles around them 
and the horrors of the Holocaust. They knew that most of the 
"humanistic" intellectuals and artists of Germany actively supported 
the brutal persecution of the Jewish people. They also knew that most 
of the "enlightened" countries closed their doors to Jews who were 
trying to escape the Holocaust. In addition, they knew that most of 
the Christian religious leaders of Europe did not protest the 
organized murder of millions of Jewish men, women, and children; 
moreover, many Christians in the countries occupied by the Germans 
actively assisted the Germans in rounding up the Jews for the death 
camps. In fact, a number of Jewish survivors of the Holocaust who 
returned to Poland after the war were murdered in Polish pogroms! It 
is understandable that these survivors felt the need to first heal 
themselves before worrying about the world which had abandoned their 
suffering people.

In addition, these survivors did not have the strong attraction to 
secular western culture which an earlier generation of Bais Yaakov 
students had once experienced, and their feelings are expressed in 
the following memoir of Dr. Judith Grunfeld:

"Almost seventy years have passed since, and we have today most 
unfortunately an easy enough means of demonstrating that all cultures 
which we then venerated have revealed themselves to be nothing but a 
flimsy veneer covering over diabolical inhumanity. European 
humanitarian ideas so prevalent then, so much on the tip of 
everyone's tongue, preached by leading university representatives, 
have been proven utterly hollow. For they did not succeed in 
preventing, and indeed could be said to be frequently instrumental in 
strirring up the raging, terrible fire of man's inhumanity to man." 
("Rebbitzen Grunfeld" by Miriam Dansky, p. 72)

Nevertheless, our sages teach that Torah - the Divine wisdom - is the 
blueprint of creation, and that the Creator looked into the Torah 
when He created the world (Genesis Rabbah 1:1). If our Creator looked 
into the Torah and created the world, then when we look into the 
Torah we can rediscover this world. In addition, the Torah reveals 
that we have the potential to become holy vessels with the spiritual 
power to transform and elevate the world; thus, no matter how much we 
turn inward, the study of Torah reminds us that we must eventually 
turn outward. This may be one of the reasons why a growing number of 
Torah-committed Jews in our generation are rediscovering the writings 
of Rabbi Hirsch, as a major theme of his teachings is the universal 
goal of the Torah path.

The Bais Yaacov High School of Baltimore, under the leadership of its 
principal, Rabbi Binyamin Steinberg, gave renewed emphasis to the 
universal vision of the Torah. Rabbi Steinberg himself was a 
Holocaust survivor, and in one of his talks to his students about 
respect for other peoples, he reminded them of the Compassionate 
One's promise to Abraham that "through you all the families of the 
earth will be blessed" (Genesis 12:3). The following is an excerpt 
from his talk:

"All the families of the earth," he declared. 'Who cares about all 
the families of the earth?' you ask. Nevertheless, that's what the 
Torah says...The people of Israel will be a blessing for all the 
families of the earth. That means the Albanians, the Greeks, the 
Chinese, the Indonesians, the African Americans - all the families of 
the earth. That's what it says in my Torah! " (A Matter of Principal 
- a biography of Rabbi Binyamin Steinberg by Hanoch Teller).

Before we can become a blessing to others, however, we first need to 
turn inward in order to develop our unique strengths. As Sarah 
Schneirer realized, we first have to renew ourselves before we can 
renew the world. As the Prophet Isaiah proclaimed to our people:

"O House of Jacob: Come, let us walk by the light of Hashem! " (Isaiah 2:5)

See the above URL for more.  YL
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