One episode from ninth grade sticks out when I think about hashkafa. A regular shiur was suddenly interrupted by a wild banging at the door, followed by this: “Face it, rabbis, we’re a Zionist school!” The pack of seniors continued to the next classroom, leaving me wondering what they meant.
It was well-known that the rebbeim of this particular school leaned towards yeshivish, while most of the students at the time came from Modern Orthodox or Religious Zionist homes. But what actually constituted the issues that these labels were supposed to weigh in on? Rather than just being “Team Madda” or “Team Israel” versus “Team Torah,” what sources were these disagreements based on?
Life’s Big Questions
When I graduated and began learning in Israel at Yeshivat Hakotel, I was introduced to an entirely new area of learning: hashkafa. The concept of a worldview was new to me; I had only just begun to really confront life’s “big questions” for the first time.
In a conversation with one of my high school rebbeim later that year, I pressed him as to why there hadn’t been more of an effort to introduce many of the perspectives and personalities I was first becoming acquainted with that year.
He pointed out that just as those students had so rudely declared, the school was stuck in a sensitive position. On the one hand, it was neither practical nor beneficial to compel the rebbeim to teach a perspective that they so clearly disagreed with. The cynicism such a class would generate from the students would immediately nullify any potential benefit of the content.
At the same time, it would be a disservice to the students for the rebbeim to present a hashkafa which ran counter to so many of their families. To try to present both sides of each issue would invite the students to see themselves as on “separate teams” from their teachers, also not a healthy perspective.
Because of this clash between the student body and the rebbeim, the school decided to remove the topic from the curriculum. Of course, each rebbe had full right to choose the topics of his weekly divrei Torah or sichos mussar, but “hashkafa” wouldn’t be taught as an official class. Instead, they would teach the basics —Chumash, Navi, Halacha and Gemara—and the students would pick up their hashkafos after graduating at whichever yeshiva they chose to learn in Israel.
While I begrudgingly recognized that my rebbi’s points made sense, I felt that jettisoning the topic wasn’t a satisfactory solution, either. The questions addressed by the study of hashkafa— most broadly, “What should be my goals in life, and how should I accomplish them?”—were too important to be ignored until after a student’s high school career, toward the end of his teenage years. Thus, I continued to think and learn about these questions as I continued studying, first in Yeshivat Hakotel and subsequently at Yeshiva University.
Developing a Worldview
The next few years only convinced me further of the importance of clarifying one’s worldview. My own perspective was principally shaped by Rav Shimshon Rafael Hirsch’s “19 Letters,” followed by the rest of his literary output. Similarly impactful was reading Rav Yosef Dov Soloveitchik, especially “Halachic Man,” and Rav Aharon Lichtenstein.
Their ideas percolated for a number of years, slowly gaining clearer and clearer form as I periodically revisited them. At the same time, as an NCSY advisor working with Jewish teens in public school, I found myself discussing fundamental worldview questions all the time.
Finally, once I returned to Israel and began teaching at Yeshivat Hakotel, much of my time was spent either prompting or responding to many of the questions I myself had first started exploring in yeshiva. So many students were trying to understand how all the pieces fit together—How does learning Torah fit with keeping mitzvos, how do each connect to a relationship with Hashem,and where does Israel fit with all of that? As one student memorably phrased it, “I’m happy to do whatever I’m supposed to do—but please, just explain what the point of it all is!”
Having to present these ideas to talmidim—both in formal shiurim and in informal conversations—pushed me to crystallize them more formally.
One Question, Two Approaches
My premise is that there is one essential question that yields two very different approaches to life: What is the purpose of our lives? One approach says that our time on this world should be spent with our eyes trained above, anticipating sechar (reward) and closeness to Hashem in Olam Haba, the world-to-come. The other approach declares that our focus is meant to be not on Olam Haba, but set firmly on avodas Hashem in Olam Hazeh, for Olam Hazeh.
The next article will explore the ramifications of this central question and define what I mean by hashkafa, as a term distinct from “machshava,” “Jewish philosophy” and “mussar.” After that, I plan to start fresh and build my case from the ground up, arguing that a specific worldview—that of a great battalion—can generate very practical guidance for how we are meant to actualize the potential of a religious life.
Tzvi Goldstein graduated from Yeshiva University with semicha and a degree in psychology. After making aliyah, he taught in Yeshivat Hakotel for five years and now edits sefarim for a number of publishers. He recently published a sefer with Mosaica Press called “Halachic Worldviews,” exploring Rav Soloveitchik’s approach to developing hashkafa from halacha, and writes at tgb613.substack.com. You can reach him at [email protected].
