This is an irony but just about the greatest practitioner of the "Torah Umadda" ideal in this generation, never studied in YU nor did he "make a thing" about Torah Umadda.
I refer to Rabbi Dr. Avraham Twersky ztz"l.
He really embodied everything YU is trying to produce - someone who is fully engaged in the non-Jewish world, highly educated, a walking Kiddush Hashem, who doesn't compromise one iota on his spirituality and is unabashedly a Torah Jew. To use a popular "drasha" word - the 'quintessential' synthesizer of the Torah and secular worlds. He made EVERYTHING holy, in the best tradition of the Chasidic concept of "קידוש החומר". WOW!
His Torah wasn't watered down [like it is for many - including me] and his Madda wasn't watered down [ditto]. He was the real deal.
He also didn't negate Goyim as being just an annoying appendage to Am Yisrael in this world who only have value when they turn lights on for us on Shabbos but rather genuinely cared for them as Hashem's children. It is unsettling to think [as some do] that almost 8 billion thinking, feeling human souls have no real purpose in this world. He certainly didn't view them that way.
I think all of us who are engaged in the outside world [if you are reading this you probably are...] can use him as a shining example, for ourselves and for our children.
