YU Made Me Who I Am TodayRabbi Mordechai TorczynerRosh YU Torah Mitzion Kollel Zicron Dov - Toronto

YU Made Me Who I Am TodayRabbi Mordechai TorczynerRosh YU Torah Mitzion Kollel Zicron Dov - Toronto

The other day, I had a conversation with someone about all of the great Torah options available in Toronto for university students. That person wasn't wrong; our own Beit Midrash offers a very flexible "Chaverim" opportunity for students to fit in learning around their university studies, and other, more structured options are available around Toronto as well. More than a dozen university students spend significant hours in our Beit Midrash each week, and I am regularly impressed by the way they make time and design their schedules around learning.

Nonetheless, no part-time program built around a university schedule can compare with the Torah opportunities at Yeshiva University in New York – and while that sentence won't surprise anyone who went to YU, I want to take a minute to spell it out further, because I don't know that I have ever thought through fully the ways in which YU is responsible for the Torah I learn and teach today.

First, in terms of the educational experience:

• The Mazer Yeshiva Program required a daily morning sederof study from 9 AM to 12 PM, followed by shiur from 12:45 PM to 2:30 PM. Having this schedule, every day, regardless of midterms and papers, trumps any part-time learning program I can imagine – and that's before the night seder which was voluntary, but which was taken as normal.
• I studied under true talmidei chachamim every day, so that I had the opportunity to learn their Torah as well as see how they conducted themselves.
• The Beis Medrash, augmented by the Gottesman Library, has a collection of sefarim superior in scope and depth to most batei medrash.

Second, in terms of the community of learning:

• There were hundreds upon hundreds of us. People point out that in such a large group of students it's easy to become lost, but it is also true that in such a large group you are apt to find some truly outstanding minds, who can help you learn and who can serve as role models. I was fortunate to find excellent role models.
• The sheer number of people learning creates an atmosphere which is inspirational, motivating greater diligence.

Third, in terms of the future it gave me:

• Being in YU, I was able to build connections with rebbeim I would feel comfortable contacting years later when I had questions.
• I was not a social person, at all; I am hard-pressed to remember more than a dozen or so names from my shiur. And yet, somehow, wherever I go, I meet people who were classmates of mine, or who knew me, and I have an instant YU network.

But perhaps most of all, the advantage I gained at YU was in the expectations that I came to set for myself:

• Because of the tools: When your rebbeim are top of the line, and your beis medrash is top of the line, and you have all of this time given to you, then you expect yourself to truly accomplish.
• Because of the community: When you are one of several hundred who are learning for five hours each morning/afternoon, as well as night seder, then your expectations are high, because they are calibrated based on the people around you.

When I was in college, I was not terribly self-aware, so that I didn't consciously set expectations of look for role models. Nonetheless, I somehow found them without knowing it, and long after I left YU they stayed with me, demanding that I do more.

I know well that enrolling at YU doesn't mean that all of these benefits will accrue automatically; you do need to be self-motivated in order to really take advantage of the opportunities that YU offers. And in truth, my experience in Kerem b'Yavneh was at least as strong an influence for me; I was in YU for a year before I went to Kerem b'Yavneh, and there is no comparison between what I did before and what I did after.

But having said that, I still conclude this: I could have gone to another university and made time for Torah when I wasn't in class, and I wouldn't have done half-badly. But there isn't a chance that I would have had the life I've had since then. In a very real sense, YU made me who I am today.

Rabbi Hanan Balk

Thank you YU, for accepting a young man from JTS into your Rabbinical School.

Thank you YU, for allowing me to study with Rav Yehuda Parnes, the greatest teacher I have ever had, from my college years at Columbia until this very day.

Thank you YU, for giving me access to Rav Herschel Schachter and other talmidim of Rav Yosef Dov Soloveitchik, so that the Rav’s approach to learning, piskei halacha, and philosophical thought could guide both my personal and rabbinic life, in the time that God has granted me to walk on this earth.

Thank you YU, for creating an atmosphere of scholarship which has provided me with sefarim, journals, and great scholars-in-residence.

Thank you YU, for giving me the format of a Beit Yitzhak, wherein I could write my first Torah article.

Thank you YU, for the magnificent website of yutorah.org, which gives me the ability to hear the precious words of so many Torah scholars, Roshei Yeshiva and colleagues, alike.

Thank you YU, for permitting me to post hundreds of my shiurim on the yutorah.org website—thus making a smaller-town rav in Cincinnati into a maggid shiur who counts as his talmidim, thousands throughout the world.

Thank you YU, for the many wonderful young men and women, who were your students, that made Simchat Torah in our city come alive, through the Torah Tours program.

Thank You YU, for recommending me for my rabbinic positions in Stamford and Cincinnati.

Thank you YU, for educating my 5 daughters and one son-in-law at your holy institutions.

Thank YU!

Rabbi Rich Wolpoe

Thank You for

The wide diversity of instructors

TY for my rebbes, especially, Rav Gorelick Z"L

TY for my all my instructors, especially Dr. Robert Goldberg and Dr. Hyman Grinstein

TY for Dr. Israel Miller A"H

who helped me through my transition to YU

TY for R Z Charlap and all of his help.

TY for Dr. Belkin and for Dr. Lamm

TY for a great library.

TY for all the cantoral and music courses.

TY for giving Orthodox boys a chance to play serious competitive sports

TY for my Karate Classes.

TY for the SOY sale.

TY for the incredible Mussar Shmuess from R Lessin Z"L on Kol Nidrei night.

TY for the wonderful chaveirim and lifelong friendships I made there.

TY for the best cafeteria food of any Yeshiva, both taste-wise and nutrition-wise.

TY for educating our son Zvi

Rabbi Moshe Rosenberg

 Congregation Etz Chaim of Kew Gardens Hills, SAR Academy

Thank you for being the only place in the world where the same man - Rabbi Michael Hecht - could be my formative Rebbi in High School and my Constitutional Law professor in college. 

P.S. He also found me my shteller. He taught my brother before me and my son after me.

Thank you for Rabbi Mordechai Willig who ALWAYS answers the phone.

Thank you for the moments of bliss in Rav Schachter's shiur when I wouldn't have traded places with anyone on the face of the earth.

Thank you for teaching me in High School that Torah is not just a class.

Thank you for the experience of watching Rabbi Yitzchok Cohen daven Maariv.

Thank you for validating my struggles to internalize the idea of Torah UMadda and providing role models like Rav Aharon Lichtenstein.

Thank you for fostering my love of Seforim through a sale that morphed over the years from order-by-mail to a muti-million dollar month-long event.

Thank you for the Sunday night $1.95 chicken wing special at the Caf and for Mr. Parker's mantra: "Boys, put back de trays!"

Thank you for Paul Connolly who epitomized devotion to students and to the craft of writing.

Thank you for David Fleischer whose virtuosity in English literature was humbling.

Thank you for the Beis Medrash and the memory of Rabbi Israel Miller walking between its tables late late at night.

Thank you for my parnassa, my profession, my calling.

ThankYU. 

ומה ראו על ככה

Why This Blog?

Yeshiva University has been taking a lot of criticism lately, some deserved, much not. Without minimizing real issues that need to be addressed, this blog is the work of people who think that balance and perspective are also called for. We are united in the feeling of Hakarat HaTov - gratitude - to YU, each in our own way, each with our own memories. This blog is a way of sharing those memories and saying, if belatedly: ThankYU!