Yeshiva University - Masmid Yearbook (New York, NY)

Page 18 text:

M A S M I D high structure of our national ideals. The spiritual strain of the seers of Israel, has been the golden thread in the continuous fabric of human unfold- ment to our day, marking in human history the pattern of progress, often crowded by dark or bloody threads, but ever gleaming with the glori- ous faith an d promise of human betterment. For the Bible is the source of living faith and the light of human love, and loyalty, to which nations as well as men must turn under the urge of the Divine Imperative. You are going forth into a world that will prob- ably offer no immediate opportunity to you all. We are still groping in the dark, however some may sense the approaching dawn. If there is soon to come the new day for which the heart of man- kind yearns, it must be marked, not merely by the rising sun of material well-being, but by the golden dawn of a reviving faith, a reaffirmation of trust in G-d and faith in humanity, a faith that com- forts, heals, strengthens, leads onward and forward, to a life of higher meaning, a destiny of greater spiritual enfoldment — in humble partnership with the Almighty — an illumination of the Infinitude within us, to a life spiritually aspiring and cul- turally creative. Never has the world been in greater need of moving faith in its ultimate destiny. Fear and distrust, and the sown seeds of many conflicts are spread wide over the world; only by such faith can we purge ourselves of the inequities and iniqui- ties of the passing ages. On such a faith, directed by such ideals, in the spirit of the eternal teachings of the Torah, rests the future of mankind. It is our hope, it is our prayer, that you, my dear young friends, may ever be among the guardi- ans of the ideals of mankind, that your life and your work may ever tend toward a more discerning restitution of the too often lost, the true and ulti- mate values of life, Israel ' s spiritual and moral truth, and inner happiness ; that your faith in hu- manity ' s great future will hasten the dawning for- seen by the seers of Israel, the day of a new heart — the day when minds and hearts will work in harmony, when the mighty shall be girded with justice, when all children of men shall be as one brotherhood of humankind beneath the fatherhood of G-d, with faith and love directing the counsels of all lands, all persons and peoples inspirited by the profound and intimate pulsings of a new heart.

Page 17 text:

M ASM ID hirlt en A NEW Hi: AIM Bji Dk. Hkhnahij Ki a i i. In these dark and distressful days of a material .Hid spiritual crisis in human history, when the practical and the moral fabrics are strained to the breaking point ; when mankind is at the cross- roads of the spirit, bewildered, yearning for true leadership, for peace and brotherhood, groping toward an unknown destiny, seeking a new way and clearer guidance, whence are to come man ' s sign-posts and man ' s salvation, humanity ' s bridge over the slough of despond and present chaos? We are beginning to understand that the root of today ' s world distraction is moral. The times are spiritually out of joint. On the material plane, in this great land at least, we are being cheered by the promise, and the early indications, of a new deal. But man ' s greatest need in this unprec- edented crisis is, in the words of the Seer of Is- rael, a new heart. The world ' s crying need is for a heart of understanding and compassion, be- getting love and faith, the strengthening of the moral fibre, for a greater discernment of and re- turn to the ultimate values of life, the true values of the spirit. A spiritual interpretation, a spiritual realization of man ' s history and destiny, in the light of the divine optimism and the promise of Israel ' s Prophets, will free us from the mastery, the tyranny, of fear and the clogging apathy of cynicism, with their consequent bitterness and in- humanity and greed, will girdle us about with strength and resolution, and will lead us out of the gloomy shadows of despondency and doubt into the sunshine of greater human progress, human fellowship, and happiness. We must saturate our souls with the spirit of the seers of Israel, whose inspiration sustained the great founders of this coun- try and whose ideals mark every gTeat forward movement of humankind. We must once more become imbued with their passion for humanity, for peace and social justi -. theii insistence thai faith, righteousness and spiritual harmony, the groundwork of lasting human welfare, must super- sede the self-centered quest of material gain, the greed for power and possession. My dear young friends, yours has been a unique training. Here at Yeshiva College the reality of the spiritual life and experience has been the in- tegrating principle in your education. Ideals of intellectual integrity and spiritual aspiration have been inculcated by a faculty of sound, creative scholarship and inspiring personality, in an environ- ment where the distractions of extraneous urges could make little gain. ou have been given scop; to learn, that worth-while knowledge, as all gen- uine achievement, can be arrived at only by in- tellectual industry and honesty, open-mindedness. perseverance, and sympathetic understanding. You have been led to see that education, which is a continuous, a never-ceasing process, is more than the acquisition of factual information, the accumu- lation of however significant data and details. The goal of true education is power and love of thought, the ability to envisage life as a great unity, in a binding frame of intellectual and moral truth, and the devotion and consecration of learning to the steadfast service of mankind. Complementing and deepening your general work, of high scholastic order, you have earnestly engaged in the study of the Bible, the source and fountain of spiritual knowledge and understanding, the God-given charter of spiritual life to mankind, as well as the Halacha and the Agada, the well springs of Jewish reason and Jewish vision. The Bible is the cornerstone upon which the founders and fathers of this great democracy reared the

Page 19 text:

M ASM II) OR. SAFIK ' .S PvUlSSAC I From .1 thousand colleges, within a month, mi lifly 1 1n ii i ,inil graduates will he M-nl forth. In i vr|l the now slowly diminishing army ol the unem- ployed, Their problem will nol I -. in any e in tial respect, different from thai ol tin- inilln.ii ,il ready seeking work; except that, instead of experi ence, they can exhibit only a sheepskin which pro- claims them bachelors of art or bachelors of science. 1 hey soon find that preference is given 1 married men, particularly la those who for some years have been devoted to their work, and have become expert in their fields of life endeavor. I he college graduate, in other words, is handicapped in com- petition with the young man of equal age who has had four years not of study, but of business. Unless he is planning to enter a professional field, for which college study is prerequisite, the gradu- ate, looking around at the world today, may well question what good his degree has brought him. The value of a college education is something that must be questioned, indeed, not only by the student and the graduate, but by all those con- cerned with the general well-being of the com- munity, especially in a metropolis like New I ork City, which maintains three free colleges for its generations of growing citizens, and wherein are almost twenty other educational institutions of col- legiate and university rank, including two that are among the largest in the world. However im- mediately practical the college graduate, hunting for a job, may be in his estimate of the worth of the four years he has spent in absorbing the subjects and amassing the points required for his degree, the community may perhaps be forgiven if it looks with less interested eye on the graduate ' s pocketbook, and turns its attention upon other aspects and values of his college education. In the minds of many, too many even of the students themselves, the function of the college of liberal arts and science has been confused with that of the technical and the professional schools. These in- titution . ii i -.I,-. ion ,in l iru -. art • ■quip thru Indents with tli - trainim w •■ -iry for carrying on, in later life, a specific type of ■ • — engineering, teaching, medicine, the law. are, for mature) yeai . the equivalent .l thi school and the technical high school, ihey are tin- modern counterpart f appr ' -nticethip and reading foi a profi ion. The college of libera I arts and science has quite another function, holds quite another position, another significance, in the scheme of higher education. Its aim is to lead its students, not to do something, but to be something. Not specific training, but character and culture, are its goal. The leaders of our land, of all lands, are drawn increasingly from the ranks of the college gradu- ates. Whether, indeed, they rise to individual prominence or remain undistinguished among their communities, it is ultimately from them that the cultural ideals of the land must emanate, from them that the leaven must come to lift the level of intelligence, of tolerance, of liberal and truly- democratic acceptance of the many racial tradi- tions and cultural and ethical systems that meet in this land, to combine and to fuse them into the high American spirit and truly American ideals. Especially in these days, when the darkness of medieval intolerance and racial persecution has engulfed a great European nation, it is essential to keep in mind the spiritual and cultural aspects of college life, and to find in them the true signif- icance of the years spent in a college of liberal arts and after these the years given to the com- munity. For every life, no matter how spent, is given to the community, is a living model for good or for ill; and his years at college become to the thoughtful graduate a responsibility and a pledge to something more than a spree at football re- unions, to a maintenance of the long tradition of spirituality and culture of which he has briefly partaken. but by which, we trust, he has been