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i heard that rav shimon shkop taught in yu, is this correct?
He was a rosh yeshiva there for a very short time.
Writersoul: Source?
You can google it.
Source?
My first post didn’t make it through, apparently due to the link so here it is again but without the link.
The YU website lists him as a Rosh Yeshiva but I’ve been told he was only a Visiting Scholar because he was still Rosh Yeshiva in Grodna.
Edited
Well, I’ll be honest, the exact details I discovered from Wikipedia. But I was confirming what I heard from his great-granddaughter in conversation. (Foggy details, etc.)
So that’s pretty choshuv for yu
Most people don’t realize how much YU contributed to American (and world) Jewry by helping to bring European Gedolim to America.
Umm, there are many great Rabbi who teach in YU. YU was one of the first yeshivas/colleges in America and they’ve done an incredible job teaching their students how to balance yeshiva and schooling. If it weren’t for YU, most people would have gone to secular colleges and not had a yeshiva education.
MachaaMaker:
It’s not chashuv for YU, certainly not for today’s YU.
YU was, until that year (about 85 years ago) a Yeshiva, not a University that happened to also have a Yeshiva.
Regardless, Rav Shimon Shkop’s short tenure there was no impediment to the various famous quotes of the gedolim about YU.
Rav Elchonon’s words about that institution are well-known and can also be found online.
Rav Elchonon Wasserman, Rav Aharon Kotler and others would not even walk into the place.
Etc.
Not very chashuv.
He was a Rav there in 1927-1928. He is famously standing next to R’ Moshe Soloveitchik in a picture from the dedication of one of the Beis Midrash buildings.
haktan- if so many gedoilim were against it, then why would rav shkop zt”l step foot in YU, let alone accept a teaching position there?
Rav Elchonon Wasserman, Rav Aharon Kotler and others would not even walk into the place.
Etc.
Not very chashuv.
Perhaps they were incorrect. As chashuv as these rebbeim were, they were only human.
Well, my rosh yeshiva can beat up your rosh yeshiva
rationalfrummie and takahmamash:
The statements by various gedolim about YU are clear as to their opinion of the institution and its philosophy. It’s not “only” those particular Torah giants. Both Rav Shach and Rav Schwab, for examples, are (similarly) on record about this.
As to some gedolim refusing to enter the place while others did do so, different gedolim have different approaches to the same set of facts even while holding the same opinion on the matter.
To illustrate with a different example, the Chazon Ish and Brisker Rav both struggled greatly to defend the Jews in E”Y against Zionism. But while the Brisker Rav refused to meet, liHavdil, David Ben-Gurion, liHavdil, the Chazon Ish did meet with him.
So while their respective tactics were different, their daas Torah on the matter was otherwise the same and they fought these dangers together.
Same with YU. Some Torah giants adopted the tactic of refusing to step into the place. Others not only did enter the building but they even taught there.
But it was a question only of tactics, not daas Torah opinion on YU’s theology, which has, of course, been considered dangerous and deviant by the Torah giants who addressed it even close to a century ago.
Moreover, in YU’s case, a certain Rav (not YU’s “The Rav”) who taught there was asked why he taught there given the above. He explained regretfully that he was somehow convinced by a certain R”Y of YU that the future of Torah in America was only in YU but that had he known at the time that this would not be the case then he would not have taught in YU.
So the greatness of some of the people who taught there does not in any way convey legitimacy to that institution and its theology, particularly in light of the gedolim’s strong opposition to which those same people there agreed.
It is correct. He was invited there by Rav Moshe Soloveitchik Z’TL
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