Torah UMadda: Really

Bar Ilan University just finished celebrating its Jubilee anniversary. In that connection a lot was said about how important it is to foster Torah UMadda. I was, however, disappointed to see that the regnant conception of Torah UMadda is caught in something of a time-warp. People still think, mirabile dictu, that one this is confined to Physics/Biology/Chemistry. One ostensibly learned person told me that the Rambam only considered the so-called exact sciences to be part of his religious program. I don't know why I bothered, but I tried to show him that the opposite is true. The Rambam viewed these disciplines as propaedeutic to philosophy (which at Bar Ilan is in the Faculty of Humanities). Of course, he remained unconvinced. Neve try to confuse a scientist with a theory with the facts.

However, there is real danger with this kind of limited mindset. The real challenge to religious life is specfically in the area of the humanities and the social sciences. The Slifkin Controversy may be shaking up the Haredi world, but our community is reeeling from its inability to deal with the results of post-modern anarchism in all of its manifestations. Unless we develop tools to tame and/or address the questions Hokhma (instead of just Madda), Modern Orthodoxy in Israel will not rise. (The kippot, however, will continue to fall.]