By Emily Goldberg, Editor-in-Chief
The opportunity to attend Yeshiva University is not a given for everyone. Still, many actively choose to attend YU despite the obstacles they face in their decision. I came to YU because being immersed in a Torah environment was more important to me than anything another college might offer me. Yet, almost three years later, I cannot say that I have gotten the experience that I thought I chose.
I come from a small town in Massachusetts that you most likely have never heard of. Most of my neighbors are not Jewish, and even those that are Jewish are not Orthodox. My dad is a doctor, and my seder table is often full of his non-Jewish residents, but they always ask me about the meaning behind each tradition and are eager to learn. In my hometown, everyone is embraced for their uniqueness and understands that each individual journey, religious or in life, has value.
Therefore, the minute I stepped foot outside of my hometown and into the larger world of the American Orthodox Jewish community, the version of Judaism that I was met with shocked me.
In YU, the unjust way out-of-towners are treated is not just a matter of practicality (such as having to stay in school for in-person classes between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur), there are also subtle social divisions that separate us. Students who are deemed as ‘other’ (by the mere fact that we are referred to as the term ‘out-of-towner’ in the first place), and more broadly, those who do not come from a ‘typical’ orthodox community, are sometimes made to feel like they are not practicing the ‘right’ kind of Judaism. As if they don’t belong in YU.
In our community, I feel it’s as if what one wears matters more than their actions. Not wearing the ‘right’ clothing means that I am stared down in the elevators that often display the five core Torah values on the outside. The clothes that I wear do not warrant stares that make me feel like my observance of Judaism is less.
In our community, we have lost sensitivity over the words that we say. Over the past few years, I have had many encounters where people have directly questioned my religious observance on the basis of not having grown up in a typical in-town community. I have spent whole days feeling like I am not a ‘good Jew’ because of comments directed towards me about my religious practices. Small comments like these may seem insignificant and may even be unintentional. However, after having worked my entire life on my relationship with Hashem, comments like these make me feel like my practice of Judaism has been wrong this entire time and that Judaism has to be practiced in a specific or ‘right’ way. That I have to fit in, otherwise, I am less.
But Judaism teaches us otherwise.
Examples like this are only a microcosm for the problems we face in the American Orthodox Jewish community at large, the biggest one I have seen lately being our lack of “v’ahavta l’reacha kamocha.”
I would be remiss if I therefore did not mention the culture in YU surrounding the recent presidential election. In this school, where the majority of the student body and administration lean right, students have continuously been told by their peers that they are not Zionists if they voted for the Democratic ticket.
Despite the divisiveness and intensity surrounding this past election, we live in a democracy, and therefore each individual has the right to their own opinion, which is necessary in order for democracy to survive and thrive.
However, in YU, I have found that we treat those who oppose the ‘mainstream’ opinion as if they do not care about Israel at all. All the time I see people accusing those who support the Democratic party of not caring about the lives of the hostages, which makes me sick. How does one Jew look their brother in the eye and tell them that they don’t care about the lives of their brothers and sisters who we all know and fear are suffering the most unimaginable horrors?
Making your fellow Jew feel like less of a Zionist does not make you more of a Zionist.
And making someone feel like less of a Jew does not make you more Jewish.
To “love your neighbor as yourself” means to be accepting of everyone no matter what town they come from, no matter the clothes they wear, no matter what political party they support and no matter how else they decide to practice Judaism.
It is the uniqueness of every individual which makes up the diverse place that YU is and what it can further become. We cannot let meaningless labels continue to divide us, and we certainly cannot let one way of practicing Judaism be seen as the only correct way of connecting to God.
I would hate to write this article in a vacuum. YU is an extremely special place and there is a reason I decided to accept admissions here many years ago. I have found communities in YU that have accepted others wholeheartedly for who they are. In the Stern College Dramatics Society (SCDS), I have felt embraced by a community that welcomes all different types of creative personalities, where we can jam out to music and make fools of ourselves in improv sessions while everyone laughs together. In the art major, I can thrive wearing overalls and Blundstones while making quirky pieces of artwork late at night with my friends. When I stay in for Shabbat with the same group of 60 girls every week, I can sit at a table with many unique individuals who all have different stories to share, each one different but just as special as the next.
Communities such as these are the reason I am glad I decided to attend YU. However, when I first entered its halls, I was overwhelmed by the majority of people who all looked exactly the same and preached one ‘correct’ way of practicing Judaism. The fact that I had to search for the communities I found comfort in and that the diversity of YU could only be found if sought out, is frightening.
I have gone on a long journey throughout my life searching for a version of Judaism that would allow me to grow in my avodas Hashem and be the best eved Hashem that I can be. But perhaps the beauty of our religion is that there is no one practice of Judaism that can fully encapsulate a perfect way to connect to God. Therefore, we must always keep learning in order to strengthen our relationship with Him. I decided to attend YU hoping to continue to grow in that way here. Yet, with six months left, my question still remains: here at Yeshiva University, where are our Torah values?
They may be plastered all over the walls, but what really counts is if they are practiced from within.
Photo Caption: The five core Torah values displayed on YU’s Wilf campus
Photo Credit: Dalya Eichler / the YU Observer