Word: rabbie
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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...
There are many other factors besides the influence of professors which affect the student's attitude toward religion, Rabbi Zigmond noted. "You always have to bear in mind that a student's attitude toward Judaism is closely linked with his attitude toward his parents, since in Judaism, the parents represent Jewish tradition," he said. The opposite sex also exerts a significant influence in shaping the student's religious views, he added (15 per cent said that the "influence of friends" was responsible for a change in attitude...
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...
Religion seems to be gaining back some of the respectability it used to have. In his twelve years at Hillel, Rabbi Zigmond has noticed a trend in the University toward greater acceptance of religion, and greater recognition of the importance of religion in the lives of students. He sees this as part of a trend in America toward greater affiliation with churches and synagogues...