What Would Reb Shraga Feivel Say?
Rabbi Shraga Feivel Mendlowitz, the legendary founder of Torah Vodaath and Torah Umesorah, the trailblazer of American Torah Jewry, was a man of vision, balance, and bravery. A man who built Torah in a barren American landscape, not by isolating from the world, but by harnessing the best of it to build a Torah society with integrity. Were he to witness today’s Haredi refusal to accept any form of secular education and the blanket rejection of army service in Israel, one must ask honestly: What would he say?
He would be heartbroken.
Reb Shraga Feivel was not a man of slogans or partisanship. He wasn’t trying to build a community of dependency, nor one allergic to responsibility. He believed in Torah im derech eretz — not just as a slogan, but as a way of preserving Torah in modernity without fear, without compromise, but also without delusion. He didn’t build Torah Vodaath as a ghetto. He built it to teach Jews how to live Torah lives in America. That meant understanding America. That meant knowing English. That meant earning a living, with dignity. That meant raising generations who were both committed to Hashem and capable of supporting their families.
And most of all — it meant taking responsibility.
Today’s Haredi refusal to include basic secular education in the yeshiva curriculum would have troubled him deeply. He fought against assimilation and ignorance — not by walling children off from knowledge, but by giving them the tools to use it properly. He trained students to live as Jews within modernity, not as medieval relics. He believed you could study math and remain a yarei shamayim. That you could master English literature and still bow before the wisdom of Chazal.
The total rejection of secular studies by many in the Israeli Haredi world is not a product of fear of Hashem — it’s a product of fear of the world. And Reb Shraga Feivel never feared the world. He feared sin. He feared mediocrity. But he did not fear exposure to knowledge. He built the Torah community by being in the world but not of it. He believed the Torah could stand up to scrutiny — and that if it couldn’t, we were teaching it wrong.
As for IDF service — the thought of thousands of healthy, capable Jewish men doing nothing while their brethren defend the country would have broken him. Not because he was a militarist. Not because he believed in the sanctity of the state. But because he believed in achrayus — responsibility. He believed that the Jewish people are one body, and no limb can say to the other, “I have no need of you.” He believed that Torah must lead, not hide. And leadership means sacrifice.
Imagine the pain he would feel seeing Torah used as a shield from duty, instead of a source of it. Reb Shraga Feivel knew the Torah world could not survive if it became a caste system of scholars and peasants — where some learn and others carry the burden. He knew Torah must be integrated into a life of service — to one’s family, to one’s community, and yes, to one’s country.
He would be proud of the yeshiva bochur who learns with intensity — and then dons a uniform when duty calls. He would admire the kollel fellow who spends his morning in Gemara and his afternoon teaching science in a frum school. He would respect the man who never stopped learning but also never stopped earning. That was his model.
What we call “Haredi” today, Reb Shraga Feivel would have called a distortion. Not because they lack sincerity — but because they lack the courage to meet the world head-on. Torah was never meant to be a hiding place. It was meant to be a guiding light.
Reb Shraga Feivel Mendlowitz did not come to America to build walls. He came to plant trees. Trees that could weather storms. Trees that could grow in American soil. Trees whose roots were deep, but whose branches could stretch toward the sun.
He would not recognize today’s Haredi refusal to learn math as a defense of Torah. He would call it a betrayal of Torah’s robustness. He would not see the refusal to serve in the IDF as spiritual heroism. He would see it as moral cowardice.
Because he believed in a Torah that elevates — not isolates. A Torah that builds a nation — not just a sect.
And he would expect no less from the Jews of the Jewish State.
From his grandson - Paul (Shraga Feivel) Mendlowitz
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shraga_Feivel_Mendlowitz
1 comment:
Many years ago, I read Rev Mendlowitz's biography (not my usual reading) and was overwhelmed with his sensible approach to frum Yiddishkeit and his deep appreciation for the beauty in nature created by G-d.
To this day, I co-opted what Rev Mendlowitz said once when needed to engage in some correspondance: "Klap meer oys a letter."
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