Yeshiva University - Masmid Yearbook (New York, NY)

Page 26 text:

Tn entV-Four M A S M I D realization of the dream. For a high school but pushed the problem back to a more critical period. At the time when the student was growing into maturity, when he was reaching the point of de- termining the trend of his later life, he was left to go out of the Yeshiva for all his contacts with the teeming world around. Again he must seek education, if he wanted further training, as the best students did, in the evening colleges, where constant pressure of other interests, and an atti- tude alien to his own, prevail. In the midst of the turbulence of a dominantly commercial age. Dr. Revel strove for the ideal of the harmoniza- tion of spirituality and culture, of the blending of the eternal verities and the age-long traditions of Jewish faith with the knowledge of the mod- ern world, of the application to the problems of life today of the ideals and values tested and attested by the prophets and the sages of Israel. Out of the need and the ideal came the vision now made real. In new buildings, in a har- monious atmosphere, the work of the Yeshiva is blent with and complemented by the work of eshiva College. For four years Dr. Revel has guided this work, concerned personally for the well-being of each student as an individual, as well as for the quality of the College work as a whole. It would involve self-praise on the part of the editors of the Masmid, students of Yeshiva College, to speak of the quality of that work; but for the maintenance of a high standard, and for the unimpeded development of the institution, Dr. Revel, the scholar, almost the recluse, has struggled unflinchingly. His battle has been won; it is for us to prove it was worth while. We shall go forth on that endeavor. As we leave, we feel that we can express no wish nearer to Dr. Revel ' s heart, than that the growth of Ye- shiva College will so shape itself as to allow him, while maintaining his guiding spirit and hand over the institution and the students, time to renew and to deepen those scholarly pursuits, that de- voted study of the Torah, which is so dear to him, and which promised through its fruits great- ly to enrich the fields of Hebrew knowledge which he ploughed.

Page 25 text:

M ASM ;.■■■ I ■ to achieve the Nietzchcan «oal confidence and hardness of individualism, joy, happiness, and wild riotous laughter. We ha e gone far enough to look back and examine our success. Hardness and boldness wet certainly attained, but the vestiges of unbridled laughter and glee are not to be perceived. Nay, we seem to be further away from them than we were ever before. The Captains of Industry go crazy and jump into the ocean; the sailors em- ployed by them are groaning under the crushing loans. The Supermen are breaking one another ' s necks, killing and exterminating their own breth- ren. Strange . . but none overflowing with happiness to freely bestow their gifts on mankind. The old morality, come out of its hiding, is again ready to civilize mankind. The Chosen people, though buried for centuries, have not for- gotten their eternal mission. They are again up, more ready and fresh than ever before, all set, to proclaim the pregnant, all embracing principles of Absolute Unity — unity between slave and master, unity between master and master, unity between state and society, unity that can solve our financial, social, and mental vexations, unity that can give us the laughter denied by Nietz- schean morality. Men of Yeshiva College, as you go out into life, catch for a moment the fiery spirit of our ancient prophets, overflow with righteous indigna- tion at the many breaches of justice, get out of your passive indifferent states, remember the far- reaching Jewish principle — Unity of G-d — Unity of Mankind! E. L. DR. BERNARD REIEL President of Yeshiva College In an office at the end of the second floor cor- ridor sits Dr. Revel, his face lighting with a ques- tion as you come in: What can I do for you? Upon his shoulders rest all the burdens of the Yeshiva and Yeshiva College, and in his mind all its concerns ; but his eyes seem centered on an inner way, as though he has been drawn unwill- ingly from the cloistered study and his beloved Torah to the bustling offi - and il», .iff.nr ' .. Ai head of the Rabbi I .1.1 ' I .l li.iri.in I heo logical Seminary, Dr. Bernard Rrvrl had made a narnr for InniM ' lf, w.i N ' .t only pf-idriit ' ,f lh - I ty, and spiritual leader of the many itudenti there, but .1 student him ' If .ind .i hol.ir of inlTn.i- tional repute. The Yeshiva, however, bearer as it was of th age-old traditions of the Yeshivoth of Europe, stooJ in a newer land, with problems created by its en- vironment, by the opportunities, especially the edu- cational opportunities its students could not but see and desire. Dr. Revel recognized a need, fused it with an ideal, and framed it in a great vision. This three-fold impulsion brought him forth from his scholarly study, and set him upon the long and ardous journey of which th first Commencement of ' i eshiva College is a signifi- cant milestone. The students of the Torah, of the Jewish knowl- edge and faith, who fifteen years ago were draw- ing spiritual and intellectual sustenance from the Yeshiva, looked with legitimate longing on their fellows outside, who in day public high schools were gathering the information, the equipment for life, deemed best by the general educational authorities. The Yeshiva students had none of this, or were forced to the strain of years of eve- ning school, after the ardous days of devotion to their Hebrew studies. So in 1915, Dr. Revel established the Talmudical Academy, where the general high school work was offered to the eshiva students, in their own building, in the afternoons. Approved by the State Board of Regents, this high school was none the less an experiment, to be judged by its results. These have more than justified the Talmudical Academy ; for, although their morning hours have been de- voted to intensive work in Hebrew, the students here have consistently held their high school among the first in the State, in percentage of State-wide Regents ' examinations passed, in the high grades received on these tests, and in the proportion of State Scholarships won by the graduates. When the high quality of the Talmudical Aca- demy work was recognized and securely estab- lished, it was time for the next step toward the

Page 27 text:

MASMI Till ' . Ai ' OSTI.I. OF I lAKMONI .A ' l ION IU, l.i o Jung. M. A. (Cantab. ) Ph.D. (London) Kol mah she eera I ' Youj sera [ ' Zion. Tanchuma Vayigash XIII, («■ . Buber) The glory of youth is its you.h. The tragedy of youth is its youth. Its storm and stress con- tains within the course of its adolescent years an epitome of humanity ' s slow and painful progress from infancy with its attendant ills towards the level path of maturity. Growth means expansion, integration, reinteg- ration, rebirth. No wonder that it is attended with the pains and puzzles of pregnancy, of par- turition: The wonder of one ' s increasing power, the awe before one ' s broadening vision, the assault of so many new energies, not yet employed. The characteristic of youth is its dream, — the subconscious striving after self-expression, made daily more difficult by the very daily expansion, by the deepening and widening of its ego. The task of youth is to develop through its dream. The task of youth is to expand. IK- ' task of maturity is to interpret youth to itself, to lead turbulent adolescent t ti ' ' source of their being, so that they might appreciate theit dreams as the manifestation of their growth: on the one hand the struggle for continued lelf-ex- pression, and on the other the battle of the in- dividual ego against the host of powers that stand between its hopes and its self-realization. I. Jacob had dreamt the dream of man: the earthi- ness of his physical milieu, the impulse towards heaven as its goal. Joseph dreamt not of human- ity, but of himself. He was to defeat the forces which a generous imagination calls social deter- minism economic determinism and the like. This Israelite boy, stolen from the land of the Hebrews, would not bow to fate. He would over- come the stars which were said to shape inexorably life ' s course. All his handicaps — the timidity of father, the absence of mother, the envy and hatred of his brethren — he would conquer. He had royal ambition and this ambition he knew would come true. He was a lad says the Torah. A boy with all the charming vanities of boyhood, say the Rabbis. He loved the locks of his hair. He was fond of beautiful clothing and the trappings dear to the heart of youth. But the Torah also men- tions the other fact, overshadowing the first. He played not with his brothers, the children of Leah or with Benjamin. Too young then for their com- panionship, he was a boy with the sons of his father ' s wives. the handmaidens of Leah and EDITOR ' S NOTE: Rabbi Jung has just joined our faculty. He is one of the outstanding Orthodox Rabbis of New ork. He has given us a beautiful course in Jewish ethics this past semester. We are indeed fortunate to have received this contribution from him.