Yeshiva University - Masmid Yearbook (New York, NY)

Page 9 text:

i The founder and first President of Yeshiva College was Dr. Ber- nard Revel, a familiar name around these parts. It is his dream that we are living today. The college grew out of Yeshiva Etz Chaim and the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary. Dr. Revel noted that some of the brightest minds coming out of the Talmudic Academy High School were aware that a high school di ploma was not suffi- cient to get by in American Society. They departed for secular col- leges thereby disrupting their Jewish education. In a prospective yeshiva college, he saw a means to retain these students: offer them a college education. In addition to keeping them, the college would in- sure that those students who were ordained from the Yeshiva would be better equipped for their task of disseminating Orthodoxy to the American Jewish community. The college would improve their in- tellectual resources.

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Tradition. Change. Two words that represent conflic- ting concepts, seemingly at odds with each other. Two words that perhaps equally summarize and symbolize the pattern of Yeshiva University from its inception to the pre- sent day. How is it possible for one institution to be both a bastion of Jewish learning, safeguarding the continuance of Orthodox Jewish tradition, and, at the same time, a fountainhead of change in the American Jewish communi- ty. ' ' The answer is to be found in the study of two factors: Firstly, one must understand what was and is the ideal behind the concept that is embodied by it. Secondly, one must examine the history and development of Yeshiva.

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Dr. Revel himself, in a manuscript entitled Aims of the Yeshiva wrote: The College which is to be added as an aux- iliary to the Yeshiva is in no sense to be placed in competition with existing colleges and universities, but is to provide a general academic training to those who are also stu- dying in the other departments of the Yeshiva, so that they may harmoniously combine the best of modern culture with the learning and the spirit of the Torah and the ideals of tradi- tional Judaism. And so it was the stated objective of Dr. Revel to create a yeshiva college that would serve as a suitable alternative to existing colleges for the Jewish youth who craved both a Torah education and a secular one. Academic excellence in a secular sense was not foremost in his priorities.