micha

That said, there is one thing to embrace Torah im Derekh Eretz when secular culture embodies much derekh eretz. When higher culture has little influence in daily life, when far more of the surrounding civilization’s culture is crass or outright assur than thoughtful, ennobling and humanizing, it becomes a much harder argument to make.

As I wrote earlier… “Modern Orthodoxy” was the historically mainstream approach to living a Torah lifestyle; the isolation and backwardness of the shtetl was a sad aberation forced upon us. But that doesn’t mean it’s the more correct response to today’s world.

Frankly, I think neither response is correct. Deciding in advance that everything modern is something we are capable of sanctifying through Torah, or that everything modern is dangerous and needs avoiding are both false. You need to know the person, the change to the world in question, and come up with thoughtful, case-wise, answers for each. But that’s just my own worldview.

… and the Netziv’s Zionism and his introducing secular studies in Volozhin. Admittedly Russian classes in Volozhin were only introduced under gov’t compulsion, but since the yeshiva velt felt a need to rewrite that bit of history, I think it’s still relevant. Also, RSRH found it to be embraced heartily enough that he wrote his followers an approbation for donating to the Volzhiner Yeshiva as fellow travelers down the path of TIDE!

Kelm, the mussar yeshiva, also had a HS with a full gymnasium’s curriculum for secular studies. And that was without any government involvement.

Most of the yeshivos actually encouraged informal study of other subjects — as long as the students did so in their own time. R’ Avram Elya Kaplan’s diary reports debates about topics like Freud and Marx being commonplace in the halls of Slabodka.