[Avodah] Need For Secular Knowledge

[Micha Berger]

On Mon, Apr 23, 2018 at 08:26:05AM +0000, D Rubin wrote:
: > If you were arguing that we need to know what to pasqen about, ...
: > from LOR on up can't pasqen without knowing such things. But the hamon
: > am?

: What about the 'hamon am' (not sure why i don't like that term here -
: patronising? unclear? unwarranted in this context?) ...

Just to clear up the word, I meant non-posqim. I needed something that
meant someone who wasn't "from LOR on up", and therefore shouldn't be
pasqening for themselves.

: What about the 'hamon am' (not sure why i don't like that term here -
: patronising? unclear? unwarranted in this context?) having a deeper
: understanding of what chazal meant? We can appreciate the meforshim,
: and what they are teaching us...

Yes, as I said, I too believe in a role for limudei chol beyond the
utilitarian study of things that will eventually help you pay the bills.

I was addressing what I thought was a flaw in a particular argument.

There is enough Torah to keep one busy for a lifetime without topics
that require a formal secular education. The question is what to do when
"Mah shelibo chafeitz" is something like hil' qidush hachodesh.


Which brings me to a totally new aspect of this discussion: formal vs
informal education. Secular study in one's spare time was the norm in
places like Volozhin and Slabodka. (Although Slabodka students were
more likely to be reading Freud...) To the extent that RSRH thought
Volozhin were "fellow travelers on the path of Torah im Derekh Eretz"
and described them as such to his followers when fundraisers for the
yeshiva approched Frankfurt aM.

And yet the same Litvisher rabbanim and RY would campaign against
university and formal education. Perhaps their primary concern was
leaving the bubble prematurely leading to assimilation, rather than
expecting their talmidim to define away the concept of "free time"
or afraid of which ideas their students might be exposed to.

Although the Alter of Slabodka would make a case-by-case diagnosis
and give each student different guidelines, at least we could say
there were stduents for whom he thought secular study on one's own was
appropriate. And apparently the norm.

Remember, these are the same bachurim for whom the leading pass-time
when not learnig was chess. Yeshiva wasn't for everyone; the guys who
went were a bunch of intellecturals.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Today is the 23rd day, which is
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