YU made me who I am today

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 seder of 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.

New YU/RIETS End of Life Care Halachic Advisory Program

Even though I am a big believer in the need for local rabbis to make halachic decisions, it is recognized that (1) Local rabbis themselves need to consult greater authorities on certain issues, and (2) Not everyone has access to a rabbi. Therefore, I was very happy to see this new program announced yesterday:

A major impediment for observant Jewish families to seeking halachically appropriate, excellent end-of-life medical care is a lack of knowledge of the intricate laws that govern such care. Recognizing this Yeshiva University, under the auspices of RIETS, has formed an alliance with Calvary Hospital to provide rabbinic consultation for families and community rabbis that includes the following:

• YU/RIETS has assembled a panel of rabbinical experts well versed in the halachot of end-of-life issues who serve as pre-hospice advisers and are available for ongoing end-of-life shealot.
• The advisers answer questions on a rotating basis from patients’ families and community rabbis as to the permissibility of entering a patient into hospice care and with what provisos. 
• Another panel of physicians is available to advise rabbis on the clinical issues related to the terminally ill.

While this advice is independent of any specific hospice facility, we have particularly aligned with Calvary Hospital to answer a major need of the Jewish community. In existence for more than 113 years, Calvary is the nation’s only fully accredited acute care specialty hospital devoted exclusively to providing palliative care to adult advanced cancer patients. The panel is, however, prepared to provide halachic advice as it relates to any facility.
Calvary will take responsibility to provide its usual outstanding care for patients and also provide on-site Orthodox rabbinic pastoral care, kosher food for patients and nearby prayer services and Shabbat hospitality for families at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine Synagogue. The hospital is located across from Yeshiva University’s Albert Einstein College of Medicine and the Einstein-Weiler Hospital of Montefiore Medical Center.
If you or your family would like to contact one of our rabbinic experts, please complete the request form on the right. To learn more about Calvary, please go to www.calvaryhospital.org.

RIETS Rabbinical Panel                                 Medical Advisory Panel
Rabbi Herschel Schachter                                Dr. Edward Burns
Rabbi Yaakov Neuberger                                 Dr. Seymour Huberfeld
Rabbi Mordechai Willig                                     Dr. Beth Popp
Rabbi Moshe Tendler                                       Dr. Edward Reichman
                                                                         Dr. Robert Sidlow

Yesterday's Chag haSemichah at YU

[This week's Haveil Havalim is here]

Thanks to the largesse of RIETS and the coordination of CJF, I was able to fly in for yesterday's Chag haSemikhah at YU.

I was able to witness more than 200 young men become rabbis; to participate in a gathering which hosted more inspirational talmidei chachamim than I can readily count; to celebrate with two members of our kollel, Netanel Javasky and Meir Lipschitz, as they became musmachim; to see the eager smiles on the faces of the men who will replace my many colleagues who have made aliyah; to meet many old friends with whom I've been in and out of contact over the past 13+ years, since receiving my own semichah.

A particular source of joy: Hearing that the majority of musmachim who will be 'practicing' will do so outside of the New York area.

It was exciting, watching these young rabbis embark on a life I began recently enough that I can still remember my frame of mind in those days. Not my chag hasemichah; I was fortunate to sit next to a friend yesterday who was able to remind me of what happened our chag, which is good, because I couldn't remember anything at all. But I remember what it felt like, being declared a rabbi, going to Pawtucket to serve a community, feeling entirely over my head in so many situations. To crib a line from R' Adir Posy's speech at the chag, I remember the first time they asked whether there was a Rabbi in the house, and the answer was “Yes, that's me.”

Part of me, as always, is an incorrigible curmudgeon, and wants to tell these young men that they have no clue what they're entering. The learning curve in those first few years is incredibly steep. I remember the great respect I felt for shul rabbis when I suddenly became one and realized just how much they do, and how little of it I had ever understood.

But they'll figure it out on their own, and when they do, they'll look back at their naïve younger selves much the way I look back at my own naïve younger self.

One of the speakers yesterday, I believe it was Rabbi Yona Reiss, cited the famous dictum, “הרבנות מקברת את בעליה,” “Authority buries its holders.” There is much, much truth in that line, which על פי פשוטו, in its straightforward sense, is a warning against taking positions of authority, the rabbinate included.

But as I listened to the speeches, I had another thought. All trades bury their holders, some sooner and some later; all livelihoods, all careers, take our life force as our investment. Stock trading buries its holders, middle management buries its holders, medicine buries its holders.

The question is not whether your career buries you, for all careers, in some sense, do. The question is what your career provides to take with you at that time. The rabbinate does not only take; it also gives. It does not only drain energy and strength; it also provides an opportunity to build a real, worthwhile life. It does not only demand; it also gives. Taking the line homiletically, הרבנות מקברת את בעליה, The rabbinate provides a proper burial for its holders.

And even taking the line literally: הרבנות מקברת את בעליה, but, in my opinion, what a way to go.