Assume the Position

A year and a half ago, I went to part from my Rosh Yeshiva at the end of the semester and told him I won’t be coming back. He wished me well and all the usual. When our brief encounter was about to end he opened his arms to give me a hug, but stopped halfway through and shook my hand instead. He wouldn’t give me that hug; he was a Litvak and I was a Chasid, and Chasidim aren’t into hugs.

He was a Litvak and I was a Chasid.

A friend recently informed me that my Rosh Yeshiva was in New York. As I was on winter break I went to meet him. Since he’s a Rosh Yeshiva he doesn’t have a cell phone, let alone an email address. The only way to meet him was to look for him at the shul where he went for morning services. When I walked in they were already done praying; my Rosh Yeshiva was still wearing his talis and tefilin, but preparing to wrap them up.

“Shulem Aleichem,” I said. He didn’t recognize me. How could he? I no longer had the nicely curled payess, or the yellowed talis katan.

I told him my name, and his eyes lit up. “Oh, I miss you,” he said “Where are you now?” I told him I was in school and doing well. He smiled.

“You know,” he said, “you remind me of my brother. He went to yeshiva too and now he teaches philosophy at university. He once asked me about the Talmud’s approach to an object whose parts have been replaced, whether it is still the same object or not. I referred him to Mesachet Keilim and he published a paper about it. But, ehh, you’re into practical stuff. He was more into philosophy.”

And I wondered, should I tell him that I am quite familiar with all that “impractical stuff”?  That I know it dates back to Democritus and expanded by Epicurus? I wondered if I should tell him that in my “practical” world it still matters, such as in the field of artificial intelligence, where there’s the question of whether mimicking the brain would require copying the pattern or will it need the same material the brain is made of. But I let it pass; he needed to prove he knew more than I did. I didn’t need to prove anything.

But I’d actually come to see him for a specific reason, and after our philosophical small talk I raised the issue on my mind. I asked why at times he’d scolded me irritably, often bursting with anger, and at other times he was friendly and warm.

“I thought you were a smart student,” he responded. “I thought seventeen was too young an age to make the decision you made, to leave yeshiva. And I was nice to you because you remind me of my brother. He was two years younger than me, and we were very close.“

I asked him how the students were in yeshiva. “They’re doing very well. In my days, you know, most smart bachurim left yeshiva for university.”

I decide to ask that which I’ve wanted to ask him ever since I got to know him. I referred to him in the third person as I’d been accustomed to from my yeshivh days. “Was the Rosh Yeshiva ever tempted to leave?”

He smiled. “When I was sixteen my teacher walked in to class one day and said to one student: ‘You are an apikoires.’ I thought to myself, maybe I’m an apikoires too? I spent that whole day thinking about it. At night I came to the conclusion that I’m a believer and that was it for me. Never thought about it since.”

“So…” I hesitated. “The Rosh Yeshiva made this big decision at seventeen, just as I did.”

He laughed nervously and grabbed the tefilin on his head and began to roll it up. “Yes,” he said, “but I decided to stay where I was, it was shev v’al taseh – retaining the status quo.”

“This is where I disagree,” I said to him, “Continuing what you’re already doing may feel safer, but it’s still making a big choice; a choice you make every morning when you put on your tefilin. I disagree as to what the default position should be; if I’m too young to make a choice, then choosing not to follow anyone is the safest choice of all.”

He laughed again nervously. He started to ask about other matters. Oddly, he asked me, “How Jewish are you?” I challenged him to define Jewishness, and the question remained unanswered. I asked him how his fundraising was going, and he said it was going well.

At this point he’d finished folding his talis and tefilin. I once used to do the same every morning for five years, and by now I could probably do it with my eyes closed. He, after doing it for sixty years, could probably do it in his sleep.

We said our goodbyes and wished each other good luck. We ended with a simple handshake.

He wouldn’t give me a hug. He was a Litvak and I was a goy.