The Madda behind the Torah Curtain.

Success In Torah Is Often Powered By Repudiated Madda

I noticed that many guys from very modern backgrounds rapidly rose to the front of Shiur in yeshiva, seemingly easily overcoming their weak backgrounds.

They leveraged their Hebrew skills, especially their knowledge of grammar and their wonderful study skills, to outpace products of yeshivah high schools with more robust gemera backgrounds. They even often outpaced those from more “black-hat” yeshivas.

Similarly, I noticed that the most successful learners in yeshivish kolleim that I know through family and friends are products of those few yeshivish high schools with secular educations.

Often, I have observed that older successful professionals, who were well-educated and worldly, tended more self-motivated learners than their children who were, “full-time in learning,” and less educated.

I have discovered that many of the most impressive rabbanim, in the YU and in the Israel dati world, were those who came from highly educated backgrounds before they devoted themselves to just learning and may even had turned their back on secularism.

Someone I know heard the wife of Rabbi X (one the great American “black hat” Torah scholars of today) boost his high school (or was it college) essays on Shakespeare. He of course had turned his back on anything even remotely secular. One of the premier Torah scholars in Israel turns out to not only have a much more secular primary education than any of his peers but also be an art fan, avidly discussing his yearly visits to museums with an acquaintance of mine.

I have read first person accounts about two of the great posikim of the previous generations, that one was an avid reader of the newspaper and the other was a great reader in his youth.

Most of the great 20th-century “machshava” thinkers and their inoculators had strong secular backgrounds, backgrounds that are often glossed over today, but are not hard to find out about.

I don’t believe that these are examples only of how these people had multiple strengths or just about how they turned their back on (and many did turn their backs) on other things to devote themselves to torah. I also don’t believe that these rabbanom were the only people in the frum world who had the strengths to become who they did.

Rather I believe that – against the way some or even many of these people thought or would argue- it is not despite the secular backgrounds or educations that they became so great or prominent, it is because of it.

Because they know how to organize information, because they know what the antithesis to true values are, because they were trained, often without realizing it, to differentiate between assumptions and facts, and of course, because they understand different worldviews and can appreciate their own better. A feeling for the secular world equipped them to understand the difference between knowledge and faith. Knowing what learning for intellectual stimulation taught them what learning for divine commandant is. They know what reality is and even if they reject reality for faith they know what they are doing.

These are just some of the ways that often madda has a positive but hidden effect on the torah.