It is with a heavy heart, and perhaps a conscience somewhat burdened by the weight of unintended consequences, that I address a phenomenon that has increasingly occupied the corridors of my mind. We have always championed the synthesis of Torah and Madda, believing—perhaps with a touch of optimistic naivety—that the "still small voice" of Sinai could not only survive but be enriched by the "best that has been thought and said" in the Western canon.
However, as I look upon the spiritual trajectories of some of our finest students—those who left the Beit Midrash with fire in their eyes only to return with the cold embers of secularism—I am reminded of Matthew Arnold’s haunting lines in Dover Beach. He spoke of the "Sea of Faith" being once at the full, but now hearing only its
"Melancholy, long, withdrawing roar, / Retreating, to the breath / Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear / And naked shingles of the world."
The Vulnerability of the Ben-Torah
We sent our youth to the great universities, those "citadels of culture," under the impression that they would engage in a noble dialectic. We hoped they would find, as Robert Frost suggested, that "Earth’s the right place for love," and by extension, the right place for the manifestation of the Divine. But Frost also warned us of the "trial by existence."
In the hallowed halls of the academy, our students encountered not just ideas, but a pervasive atmosphere—a secular zeitgeist that does not argue against faith so much as it renders it irrelevant. They found themselves in a Shakespearean predicament, caught in a "tempest" where the "elements" of doubt are not merely intellectual, but existential. Like Hamlet, they begin to feel that "the time is out of joint," and the rigorous, rhythmic life of Halakha begins to feel like a "custom more honored in the breach than the observance."
The Halakhic Price of Admission
The Gemara in Chagigah (15b) discusses the tragic figure of Elisha ben Abuyah, "Acher," who "cut the plantings" after entering the Pardes. We often focus on his intellectual heresy, but we must also consider the environment that facilitated his fall.
When we encourage a student to immerse themselves in a world where the primary axiom is the autonomy of the human intellect, we risk a subtle erosion of yirat shamayim (fear of Heaven). We taught them to appreciate the aesthetic beauty of a Keatsian urn, but perhaps we failed to emphasize that while "Beauty is truth, truth beauty," the Truth of the Torah demands a submission that the secular world finds inherently "unpoetic."
The Road Not Taken
I find myself returning to Frost’s most famous crossroads. We chose the road of integration, believing it would lead to a more profound sanctification of the Name. Yet, for some, that road led to a thicket from which they could not emerge.
There is a profound charata (regret) in realizing that the very tools we gave them—the critical faculty, the appreciation for nuance, the love of the human narrative—became the instruments of their estrangement. We see now the wisdom in the warning of Avot (1:11):
"Sages, be careful with your words, lest you incur the penalty of exile... and the disciples who come after you drink [of the evil waters] and die."
We did not intend to provide "evil waters," but the wellsprings of secular knowledge are often salted with a skepticism that a young soul, however well-armored, finds difficult to distill.
A Call for Introspection
Does this mean we abandon the pursuit? Does it mean we retreat into a cultural ghetto? Not necessarily. But it does demand a "reckoning of the soul." We must ensure that before a student enters the "vast edges drear" of the secular world, their internal "Sea of Faith" is not just a tide, but an anchor.
We must cultivate a religious personality that is not merely "well-read," but deeply, vibrantly "well-lived" in the presence of the Almighty. Otherwise, we are merely preparing them for a sophisticated form of spiritual exile.
| Element | The Beit Midrash (Torah) | The University (Mada) |
| Primary Goal | Avodat Hashem (Service of God) | Sapere Aude (Dare to know/Human Reason) |
| Truth Source | Revelation and Tradition | Empirical evidence and Logic |
| The Individual | A link in the chain of Mesorah | An autonomous agent of discovery |
| View of Nature | A manifestation of Divine Will | A system of laws to be decoded |
To deepen the analysis of this spiritual and intellectual friction, we can look to the poets who wrestled most fiercely with the fragmentation of the modern soul—specifically T.S. Eliot—and juxtapose them with the rigorous internal world of the Brisker method of study.
The tragedy is not just that students lost their "faith" in a generic sense, but that they lost the ability to perceive the wholeness of a life lived under the Divine command.
The Wasteland of Modernity
If Arnold described the retreat of the sea, T.S. Eliot in The Waste Land described the arid result. For a student transitioning from the "living waters" of the Beit Midrash to the secular academy, the experience can often mirror Eliot’s imagery:
"He who was living is now dead / We who were living are now dying / With a little patience."
The "patience" here is the most dangerous element; it is the slow, intellectualization of the sacred until it becomes merely a "cultural artifact." We taught our students to analyze a sugya (Talmudic topic) with the precision of a surgeon, but in the university, that same precision is turned upon the Torah itself. As Milton’s Satan in Paradise Lost famously claimed, "The mind is its own place, and in itself / Can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven." When the student’s mind becomes its "own place," the external authority of the Halakha begins to feel like an intrusion rather than an embrace.
The fundamental tension lies in the concept of Autonomy vs. Heteronomy.
The Secular Ideal: Represented by the Miltonic hero, prizes the individual’s path and the "unfettered" search for truth.
The Torah Ideal: As articulated by the Rambam (Hilkhot Teshuvah) and many other sources, freedom is only found through the service of the Creator—Eved Hashem hu levad chofshi (The servant of God alone is free).
When we send a student to a secular institution, we are asking them to inhabit two contradictory definitions of "freedom" simultaneously. We hope for a synthesis, but as we see in the Tanakh regarding the "mixed multitude" (Erev Rav), the influence of the surrounding culture often proves more "magnetic" than the abstract theological commitments of the home.
The "Dry Salvages" of the Soul
Eliot, in The Dry Salvages, notes that "the past experience revived in the meaning / Is not the experience of one life only." The student who leaves the fold is not just losing their own faith; they are severing a link in a chain that stretches back to Sinai. This is the "lost connection" that produces the profound melancholy in the educator’s heart.
We see the fulfillment of the warning in Jeremiah 2:13:
"For My people have committed two evils: they have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water."
The "broken cisterns" are the secular philosophies that promise meaning but ultimately leave the soul parched. The regret lies in the fact that we, as educators, handed them the shovels to dig those very cisterns, believing they would find a deeper spring beneath.
| Element | The Beit Midrash (Torah) | The University (Mada) |
| Primary Goal | Avodat Hashem (Service of God) | Sapere Aude (Dare to know/Human Reason) |
| Truth Source | Revelation and Tradition | Empirical evidence and Logic |
| The Individual | A link in the chain of Mesorah | An autonomous agent of discovery |
| View of Nature | A manifestation of Divine Will | A system of laws to be decoded |
Charge to the students
My dear students, as you prepare to cross the threshold from the sheltered warmth of the Beit Midrash into the sprawling, vibrant, and often cold expanses of the university, I feel compelled to speak to you not just as a mentor, but as one who has watched many a bright ship set sail only to lose its bearings in the mist.
You are embarking on what Robert Frost called "the trial by existence." You believe, as we have taught you, that all truth is God’s truth. But do not be deceived: the "truth" you will encounter in the lecture hall is often stripped of its soul, presented as a cold specimen upon a table.
The Architecture of the Soul
In the university, you will be taught to deconstruct. You will learn to see the "seams" in the tapestry of human history and thought. But remember the warning of Wordsworth:
"Our meddling intellect / Misshapes the beauteous forms of things:— / We murder to dissect."
If you dissect your faith with the same clinical detachment you apply to a poem or a chemical compound, do not be surprised if, at the end of the semester, you find that the life has fled from it. The Halakha is not merely a legal system to be analyzed; it is a "covenantal commitment" that demands your heart as much as your mind.
The Peril of the "Objective" Gaze
The secular world prizes objectivity—the view from nowhere. But a Jew always speaks from somewhere. We speak from the foot of Sinai; we speak from the "valley of dry bones" that found life again.
As you read the great works of the Western canon, you may find yourself echoing T.S. Eliot’s lament in The Rock:
"Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? / Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?"
Do not let the "information" of the academy—the historical critiques, the sociological reductions, the psychological deconstructions—drown out the "wisdom" of the Mesorah. The Gemara is not just a text; it is a conversation with the Eternal. If you stop hearing the voice of the Tanna’im because you are too busy listening to the voice of the critics, you have traded a diamond for a magnifying glass.
The Dual Loyalty
You will feel the pull of what John Milton described in Comus: the "charming philosophy" that is "not harsh and crabbed, as dull fools suppose, / But musical as is Apollo’s lute." Secular culture is seductive. It offers a sense of belonging to the "enlightened" world.
But remember the words of the Ramban on the verse "And you shall cleave unto Him" (Devarim 11:22). He explains that even while you are engaged in the commerce of the world, your mind must remain tethered to the Divine. You must be like a man who speaks to his fellow but keeps his eyes fixed on the path ahead.
I do not ask you to be intellectual hermits. I ask you to be "spiritual soldiers."
Maintain the Kvi'ut (Fixedness): Let your morning and evening Torah study be the "anchors" that Arnold lacked. Without a fixed time for learning, the "Sea of Faith" will inevitably roar away.
Beware the "Center": Yeats famously wrote, "Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold." If your center is your own ego or your academic success, you will fragment. Let your center be the Will of the Creator.
The Power of Memory: As the Baal Shem Tov noted, "In remembrance lies the secret of redemption." Never forget who you are, whose you are, and the generations that stood in fire so that you could sit in a library.
Go forth with humility. Go forth with your eyes open to the beauty of the world, but with your soul firmly rooted in the "living waters" of our people. Do not become a tragic footnote in the history of our synthesis. Instead, prove that a Ben-Torah can engage the world without being consumed by it.
The challenge of the university was never merely a battle of books or a clash of abstract philosophies. It was, and remains, an existential encounter—one that engages the body as much as the mind.
When we speak of the "evil waters" of the academy, we must be candid: the threat is not only the library’s skepticism but the campus’s permissive atmosphere, where the sanctity of the human person is often sacrificed on the altar of "expression."
The Siren Song: Shakespeare and the "Expense of Spirit"
To address the pull of temptation, one might look to Shakespeare’s Sonnet 129, which provides a psychological map of the "lust in action." Shakespeare describes it as:
"The expense of spirit in a waste of shame... / Enjoy'd no sooner but despised straight; / Past reason hunted, and no sooner had / Past reason hated."
This is the secular equivalent of the Mussar (ethical) warning. The university environment often frames sexual autonomy as the ultimate freedom, yet the poet reminds us that this "freedom" often leads to a "waste of shame." It is a pursuit that promises a "heaven," but as Shakespeare concludes, "leads men to this hell."
For the Ben-Torah, the danger is the fragmentation of the self—where the hands and the heart go where the mind knows they should not.
The Halakhic Fence and the "Fire"
The Gemara in Kiddushin (80b) is brutally honest about human nature: The fire of temptation is real and potent. We recall the words of T.S. Eliot in The Waste Land:
"Burning burning burning burning / O Lord Thou pluckest me out."
Eliot echoes the language of Augustine, recognizing that the "cauldron of unholy loves" (as Augustine put it) can only be escaped through Divine intervention and rigorous self-discipline.
In the university, you will encounter a culture that views the Halakhic laws of Tznius (modesty) and Yichud (seclusion) as archaic relics. But these are not just "laws"; they are sanctuaries. They are the "fences around the rose" (as the Midrash describes the Mishkan). Without these boundaries, the "still small voice" of your soul will be drowned out by what Milton described in Comus as the "sensual sty"—the dehumanizing effect of treating others as objects of desire rather than images of God (Tzelem Elokim).
The Deceptive "Liberty"
We must be wary of the "liberty" preached on campus. It is often what Milton criticized in Paradise Lost: a license that "cries liberty when they mean license."
The Rambam in Moreh Nevukhim (The Guide for the Perplexed) explains that the faculty of desire is the most difficult to govern because it is so deeply rooted in our physical existence. When you enter a world that celebrates the "unfettered" life, you are like a ship entering a storm without a rudder.
The Jew's Strength: It lies in Gevurah—not the strength to conquer others, but the strength of "Who is a hero? He who subdues his inclination" (Avot 4:1).
The Poet’s Warning: Remember Yeats’s "The Second Coming"—when "the ceremony of innocence is drowned." Once the boundary of holiness is breached, it is difficult to restore the "ceremony" of a sanctified life.
A Practical Charge
My students, do not trust in your own intellectual sophistication to protect you. The greatest minds have fallen where the simplest hearts have stood firm.
Avoid the "Perilous Edge": Do not test your boundaries. The Halakha of distancing oneself from temptation is not a sign of weakness, but of profound psychological realism.
Seek "Noble Companionship": Surround yourself with those who respect the "gravity" of the soul.
Sanctify the Mundane: In the words of Gerard Manley Hopkins, "The world is charged with the grandeur of God." If you see the Divine spark in every person you meet, it becomes impossible to treat them with the casualness of the modern "hook-up" culture.
Do not let the "burning" of the campus consume the "burning" of the bush that was never consumed. Maintain your heat for the Torah, and the "fire" of the street will find no purchase in your heart.
To understand the challenge of the modern campus, one must recognize that the conflict is not merely one of "rules" versus "desires," but of two competing aesthetics. The secular world offers the aesthetic of the "immediate"—the vivid, the sensory, and the unrestrained. Torah offers the aesthetic of Kedusha (Holiness)—an aesthetic of restraint, hiddenness, and the "sublime."
The Seduction of the "Unrefined" Aesthetic
The Romantic poets, such as John Keats, celebrated the intensity of the moment. In his Ode on a Grecian Urn, he writes of the "Bold Lover" who can never kiss the object of his desire, yet finds a certain eternal beauty in that suspension. However, the modern campus has stripped away Keats’s "suspension" and replaced it with a demand for "fulfillment."
The campus culture views the body as what Dante Rossetti might call a "House of Life," but it often forgets the architect. It treats the physical as an end in itself. This is what the Ramban (Vayikra 19:2) warned against when he spoke of the Naval Bi-reshut HaTorah—the "sordid person within the bounds of the law." One can follow the technical rules but still live a life that is aesthetically and spiritually "ugly" because it lacks the refinement of Kedusha.
Kedusha as a "Counter-Aesthetic"
The Hebrew word Kadosh fundamentally means "separate" or "set apart." It is the aesthetic of the "inner sanctum."
The Secular Gaze: Everything is meant to be seen, exposed, and experienced. It is the "daylight" world where mystery is a problem to be solved.
The Jewish Gaze: As the Rambam suggests in the Moreh Nevukhim, true sanctity involves a "veiling." It is the recognition that the most precious things—the Shekhinah in the Tabernacle, or the intimacy between human beings—are protected by boundaries.
When you maintain your distance from the casual "burning" of campus life, you are not being "repressed," as the psychology department might suggest. You are being reverent. You are treating your own soul as a Kodesh HaKodashim (Holy of Holies), a place where not everyone is permitted to enter.
The Conflict of the Senses
The Vilna Gaon famously remarked that the ears and eyes are the "windows" to the soul. If you leave them wide open to the "garish light" of modern license, the interior of your "house" will fade.
Think of Matthew Arnold’s "The Buried Life":
"But often, in the world’s most crowded streets, / But often, in the din of strife, / There rises an unspeakable desire / After the knowledge of our buried life."
The secular university culture buries that "inner life" under a mountain of sensory stimulation. The Halakhic lifestyle—the Tznius of dress, the Tznius of speech, and the discipline of the "guarded gaze"—is designed to dig that life back up. It is an aesthetic choice to prefer the "still, small voice" over the "thunder and fire" of the street.
My students, do not be fooled into thinking that the secular world has a monopoly on "beauty" while we have only "duty." Our duty is our beauty.
To navigate the social landscape of a modern university, one must understand that the conflict is not merely between "right" and "wrong," but between two fundamentally different maps of human connection. The secular world often views relationships through a Romantic-Individualist lens, while the Torah presents a Covenantal-Sanctified vision.
When you choose to walk away from a situation of temptation, you are performing an act of High Art. You are sculpting your character in the image of the Divine. You are choosing the "enduring beauty" of the soul over the "fading bloom" of the moment.
As T.S. Eliot wrote in Ash Wednesday:
"Teach us to care and not to care / Teach us to sit still."
On a campus that never sits still, your ability to "sit still" in your faith, to "not care" for the cheap thrills of the crowd, and to "care" deeply for the sanctity of your own person, is the greatest intellectual and spiritual achievement you can attain.
| Feature | The Romantic-Individualist View (Secular) | The Covenantal-Sanctified View (Torah) |
| Foundation | Spontaneity: Emotional "spark" and physical attraction as the primary guides. | Commitment: Will and shared values as the bedrock of the structure. |
| Duration | The "Now": Valid as long as the "feeling" persists (The Keatsian Moment). | The "Eternal": A link in a chain of generations (The Eliotic Tradition). |
| Boundaries | The "Open Book": Total exposure is seen as "authenticity." | The "Enclosed Garden": Modesty (Tznius) creates a space for true intimacy. |
| The Other | Self-Actualization: The partner serves one's own emotional growth. | Tzelem Elokim: The partner is a Divine image requiring infinite reverence. |
The "Enclosed Garden" of the Song of Songs
In Shir HaShirim (The Song of Songs), the beloved is described as Gan Na'ul—"A garden locked, a fountain sealed" (4:12). To the secular mind, a "locked garden" is a tragedy, a waste of beauty. But in Jewish thought, this "locking" is what makes the garden holy.
When everything is public, nothing is sacred. Shakespeare, in his darker moments, realized this in Sonnet 102:
"That love is merchandised whose rich esteeming / The owner's tongue doth publish everywhere."
By "publishing" your private life—through the casual hook-up culture or even the digital exhibitionism of social media—you "merchandise" your soul. You turn what should be a "sealed fountain" into a public well, and as Jeremiah warned, those cisterns eventually run dry.
The "Expense of Spirit" vs. The "Elevation of Spirit"
We return to the warning of the Ramban on Kedoshim Tihyu ("You shall be holy"). He notes that a person can follow every technical rule of the Shulchan Aruch and still be a "scoundrel with the Torah's permission."
The campus offers a path where boundaries are seen as obstacles to "knowing oneself." But as T.S. Eliot reminds us, the "knowledge" gained through the transgression of boundaries is often just a "shameful waste." True self-knowledge comes from the dialectic of restraint. It is the "No" we say to our impulses that defines the "Yes" of our character.
A Final Charge on the Covenantal Life
Do not be afraid to be the "man of faith" who stands alone in the cafeteria or the dorm. Your "separateness" is not a wall of exclusion, but a veil of dignity.
In the words of John Milton in Comus, describing the power of "Chastity" (which we might translate as Kedushat HaBrit):
"So dear to Heav'n is saintly chastity, / That when a soul is found sincerely so, / A thousand liveried angels lackey her."
When you carry yourself with the dignity of a Ben-Torah, you carry the "liveried angels" of our ancestors with you. You transform the "Wasteland" of the campus into a "Place of the Name."
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Note: The Pierian Spring (often referred to as the "Pierian stream") is a metaphorical fountain of knowledge and inspiration rooted in Greek mythology.
It is most famous in modern English literature because of a couplet by the poet Alexander Pope in his 1711 work, An Essay on Criticism:
"A little learning is a dang'rous thing; Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring."
1. Mythological Origin
In ancient Greek mythology, the spring was located in Pieria (a region of Macedonia near Mount Olympus). It was sacred to the Muses, the nine goddesses of the arts and sciences. It was believed that anyone who drank from the spring would be filled with great knowledge, creativity, and inspiration.
2. Alexander Pope’s Metaphor
When Pope refers to "drinking deep," he is warning against superficial knowledge. His argument is:
Shallow Draughts: Taking just a "sip" of knowledge makes you feel wise and arrogant (it "intoxicates the brain").
Drinking Largely: Studying a subject deeply makes you realize how much you don't know, which humbles you and brings clarity (it "sobers us again").
3. Cultural Legacy
Because of its connection to the Muses, the term "Pierian" has become a poetic synonym for anything related to the arts, poetry, or deep learning. You'll find it referenced everywhere from classical literature to modern pop culture—for example, in Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 or even in the Call of Duty zombies storyline.
