By COLlive reporter
Barry Strauss, Professor of History and Classics at Cornell University in Ithaca, NY, where he regularly researches and lectures on ancient military history, has boldly decided to take a break to study a subject he is not familiar with.
Strauss, an author of 6 books, chose to experience the life of a simple Torah student for a full week at the Rabbinical College of America in Morristown, NJ, together with some 50 other summer guests.
The learning experience at one of the largest Chabad-Lubavitch Chassidic Yeshivas included a trip to Cambria Heights, Queens, where he prayed at the Ohel gravesite of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem M. Schnnerson.
He found it interesting to compare a student’s experience in Yeshiva classes to university classes.
“The contrast to typical university classes is drastic,” he said. “When it comes to history there’s a limit on how important the matter can be. If a student doesn’t pay attention at a lecture for a bit then not very much is lost.
“However when it comes to Torah study a lot more is on the line. Even the most passionate history student still remains removed from the subject matter. Never will a student complain that he was not able to sleep due to the questions he was having. The Yeshiva student on the other hand has a very pertinent question; how should he live his very life?! Furthermore how can he get closer to Hashem?”
Asked what brought him to the the Morristown Yeshiva, he answered:
“I had been studying with Rabbi Eli Silberstien at Chabad of Ithaca for 7 years and found it truly intriguing. One day I was discussing a Torah concept with one of my non- Jewish colleagues. My friend commented; ‘I myself had the unique opportunity to study Torah once in a Yeshiva.’ I was dumbfounded. Why didn’t I think of doing that myself?!”
Professor Strauss says the students and rabbis he met in Morristown “are on a spiritual quest themselves.”
“The concentration of good people there is amazing, all with common interests and a great deal of friendliness. I was really taken out of my comfort zone, and I loved it,” he added.
The professor has been so moved by his experience in Morristown that he has continued his studies of Mishnayos following the Yeshiva System even after going back home.
He also plans on incorporating some Mishnayos (in which he has found correlations to his history lessons) into his university lectures.
Moshe and C.R.
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