https://thejewishreview.org/articles/?id=184
Jewish
Review: One of the arguments against the ?modern Orthodox? or ?Torah im derekh
eretz? point of view is that it
seems to inevitably produce individuals who are less committed to halakha and
who are less involved in Jewish learning.?
Could you comment on this charge?
Rabbi
Rackman: It is true, and there is no doubt that the
rabbis of the Talmud recognized this too.?
They spoke of four men who went into an orchard (the orchard,
presumably, is Greek philosophy); one of them looked and went berserk, another
one looked and converted to another faith, and one looked and died.? Only one of the four, Rabbi Akiva, entered in
peace and came out in peace.? This
indicates that we have always been aware of the danger, and that, therefore,
not everybody should feel that all secular learning should be approached
through an open door.? This is why many
Orthodox parents who send their children to universities encourage them to
study accounting, to become businessmen, chemists even, but not to engage in
the study of philosophy and psychology.?
The threats and challenges to Judaism come from the humanities and the
social sciences, not so much from the natural sciences.? Natural science, we know, has no pretense to
absolute truth; at best it gives you a good guess, a relative truth, and thus
most observant Jews can safely enter its realm.?
By the same token it is very important for some people to study
the humanities, philosophy and social sciences, because, first, we know that
the majority of Jews are going to be exposed to modern culture, and hence our
permitting the dual exposure to Torah and philosophy, for example, helps to
allow those who want to remain loyal Jews to do so without undue conflict.? In addition, we ultimately discover, for
example, that the writings of the Rambam and his successors (including those
who frowned upon him and prohibited his works) showed an influence of ?secular? ideas.? There were some
ideas which emerged from the encounter of torah and secular thought which are
of everlasting religious value.? For
example, the writings of Samson Rafael Hirsch are so influenced by Immanuel
Kant that we cannot fully appreciate Hirsch without an understanding of Kant,
and there are indeed some insights of Hirsch, albeit stemming from a Kantian or
Hegelian influence, which are valid despite these influences and have and will
outlive (what might be perceived to be) the failure of Kant or Hegel.
