[Avodah] The Vilna Gaon and Secular Studies

[Professor L. Levine]

The teaching or more correctly the lack of teaching of secular subjects in Hassidic yeshivas has again come to the fore as a result of  the recent actions of Simcha Felder.

>From  https://goo.gl/Xu9ejv

"Using his leverage as the swing vote in the divided State Senate, Sen. Simcha Felder appears to have strong-armed a provision into the budget that significantly changes state oversight of yeshiva curricula, political observers say. "


I have talked to some people who live in Willimsburg, and the picture they paint of the level of secular education in Hassidic yeshivas is not a good one.  One Satmar woman who lives in Williamsburg told me that her sons received no secular education in the Satmar yeshiva they attended. For the record NYS law requires that all children receive a secular education.


What indeed should our attitude towards the teaching and study of secular studies be.  There was no bigger masmid than the Vilna Gaon who slept only 4 half hours in 24 and spent essentially all of the rest of his time studying Torah. Yet he found it important to master many secular subjects.  The following are selections from


http://personal.stevens.edu/~llevine/rabbinic_openness_leiman.pdf


R. Barukh Schick of Shklov (d. 1808):

When I visited Vilna in Tevet 5538 (1778] ... I heard from the holy lips of the Gaon
of Vilna that to the extent one is deficient in secular wisdom he will be deficient a
hundredfold in Torah study, for Torah and wisdom are bound up together. He compared
a person lacking in secular wisdom to a man suffering from constipation; his disposition
is affected to the point that he refuses all food. . . . He urged me to translate into
Hebrew as much secular wisdom as possible, so as to cause the nations to disgorge what
they have swallowed, making it available to all, thereby increasing knowledge among
the Jews. Thus, the nations will no longer be able to lord it over us-and bring about the
profaning of God's name-with their taunt: "Where is your wisdom?"

R. Abraham Simcha of Amtchislav (d. 1864):

I heard from my uncle R. I:Iayyim of Volozhin that the Gaon of Vilna told his son R.
Abraham that he craved for translations of secular wisdom into Hebrew, including a
translation of the Greek or Latin Josephus, 6 through which he could fathom the plain
sense of various rabbinic passages in the Talmud and Midrash.

The Gaon of Vilna's sons:

By the time the Gaon of Vilna was twelve years old, he mastered the seven branches of
secular wisdom .... 8 First he turned to mathematics ... then astronomy


R. Israel of Shklov (d. 1839):

I cannot refrain from repeating a true and astonishing story that I heard from the Gaon's
disciple R. Menachem Mendel. . . . 10 It took place when the Gaon of Vilna celebrated
the completion of his commentary on Song of Songs. . . . He raised his eyes toward
heaven and with great devotion began blessing and thanking God for endowing him
with the ability to comprehend the light of the entire Torah. This included its inner and
outer manifestations. He explained: All secular wisdom is essential for our holy Torah
and is included in it. He indicated that he had mastered all the branches of secular
wisdom, including algebra, trigonometry, geometry, and music. He especially praised
music, explaining that most of the Torah accents, the secrets of the Levitical songs, and
the secrets of the Tikkunei Zohar could not be comprehended without mastering
it. ... He explained the significance of the various secular disciplines, and noted that
he had mastered them all. Regarding the discipline of medicine, he stated that he had
mastered anatomy, but not pharmacology. Indeed, he had wanted to study pharmacology with practicing physicians, but his father prevented him from undertaking its study ,fearing that upon mastering it he would be forced to curtail his Torah study whenever it would become necessary for him to save a life. . . . He also stated that he had
mastered all of philosophy, but that he had derived only two matters of significance from
his study of it. . . . The rest of it, he said, should be discarded.

To me it seems that the only conclusion one can draw for this is that the study of secular studies is crucial for the learning of Torah.

YL



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