Word: golds
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...University community, the curriculum, and the teaching attitudes offer a distinctly Christian tradition. Rabbi Gold maintains, though, that the prevailing faith, not only in American universities, but in Western civilization, is not even Judeo-Christian, but Greco-Christian. How does the Jewish student, with only a poor knowledge of his own faith, fare when he meets such foreign and challenging philosophies for the first time...
...Rabbi Gold sees the student in a quandry, suffering from two basic deficiencies: first, he has no fundamental understanding of himself as a Jew; and second, he has no exposure to varieties of thought. "The Jewish student begins to see his Judaism through Christian glasses. This is deplorable, since it distorts his understanding of himself as a Jew. One has to know who he is as a Jew before being exposed to the Christian views...
Torn between conflicting philosophies, the student may turn away from Judaism completely; or he may come back to it with new intellectual tools, seeking to mold a familiar image. "Some people think that Judaism becomes more respectable when it wears the cloak of popular philosophies," Rabbi Gold said. "It is quite likely that students prefer to discuss Jewish questions on grounds more familiar to them: how does religion relate to things taught them at the University? How does it fit in with different philosophies?" Religion is discussed from the reference frame of their new value system. This is inimical...
Hillel provides several informal courses on aspects of Jewish culture and traditions. "Hillel, therefore, should help the students understand themselves as Jews." Rabbi Gold said. "We can hope that the Jewish part of the Judeo-Christian tradition will become a larger part of university curricula, but for the time being it is Hillel which assumes responsibility...
...Rabbi Gold emphasized several times that a student can take or leave his Jewish tradition once he knows what it is. "It is difficult to take or leave something one doesn't know...