Rabbi Dr. Yitzhak Breuer (1883-1946), grandson of Rav Shimshon Refael Hirsch, ztz\u2019l, was a philosopher, an intellectual, and a leader ahead of his time.<\/p>\n
He perceived the scope of the historical, spiritual and cultural changes and challenges facing the Jewish People, and was troubled by the state of the Torah world, which did not fully understand the spirit of the times and was not prepared for the new reality of Jewish existence in the mid-20th<\/sup> century. To the ideal of \u201cTorah with derekh eretz<\/em> [\u2018the way of the world\u2019]\u201d, bequeathed by his great teachers, he added \u201cTorah with the way of Eretz Yisrael\u201d, thereby expressing the historical turning point of his era, which remains part of our reality today.<\/p>\n From the perspective of today\u2019s generation, it is sometimes difficult to understand how Rabbi Dr. Breuer personified a firm and unwavering ultra-Orthodox world view along with intimate engagement with modern European culture. The combination of his political leadership of Agudat Yisrael and intensive occupation with the philosophy of Immanuel Kant appears to us altogether paradoxical, but for Breuer it was unremarkable and, indeed, almost self-evident.<\/p>\n It becomes easier to understand the coexistence of opposites embodied in Rav Breuer\u2019s approach if we bear in mind his understanding of the concept of \u201cTorah with derekh eretz<\/em>\u201d. For him, this was not an ideology. He was not calling for a synthesis of Judaism and modern values that would lead to a new type of modern Jew. On the contrary, for Breuer the eternity of the Torah and its transcendental Source allow no possibility of integrating it with the transient values of any culture.<\/p>\n For him, the principle of \u201cTorah with derekh eretz<\/em>\u201d pertained not so much to the substance of the Torah, but rather to its implementation within our reality. As he saw it, fulfillment of the Torah requires an awareness of the religious challenges posed by the period in which we live. We must be attentive to the problems that concern Jews and mankind, in order to be able to seek solutions in the Torah. His extraordinary combination of ultra-Orthodoxy and profound engagement with the problems of modern culture can only be understood against the background of his firm belief that all the solutions to man\u2019s problems are to be found in the Torah. An intimate familiarity with modern culture is the prerequisite for an accurate and comprehensive formulation of the questions for which the Torah is required to provide solutions.<\/p>\n g<\/span><\/p>\n Rabbi Dr. Breuer introduced the idea of establishing a beit midrash that would provide Torah scholars with the training to grapple, halakhically and spiritually, with the problems facing modern society. The name he gave to this future beit midrash was \u2018Bina la-Itim\u2019, and he wrote:<\/p>\n In the Holy Land, all-embracing Jewish life is currently developing, on the basis of an extensive Jewish economy. However, the connection between this environment and the law of the Torah is weak. There are not enough great Torah scholars whose hearts are open to this environment and who understand its manifestations in all their scope and their depth, who feel an inner urge to draw these developments closer to Torah and to mold them through Torah. There is a need for unmediated contact between the institutions of Torah study and this living reality. The \u2018Bina la-Itim\u2019 institute comes to fill this critical need\u2026 The institution aims to train leaders with the ability to act in the realm of conflicts between Torah law and the real aspects of economic and cultural life developing in the Land of Israel\u2026 The institution will accept elite scholars with comprehensive knowledge of Torah, who are exceedingly God-fearing, and who have demonstrated an openness to the reality of life\u2026<\/p>\n The \u2018Bina la-Itim\u2019 Institute, which today goes by the name \u201cTzerufim\u201d, is a realization of Rabbi Dr. Breuer\u2019s vision. It aims to fulfill his aspiration \u2018to train leaders with the ability to act in the realm of conflicts between Torah law and the real aspects of economic and cultural life developing in the Land of Israel.\u2019 Like the man who inspired it, the institute is a rare combination of faith, fear of Heaven and commitment to Torah, in the full and authentic sense, with an openness to the reality of life in our reborn state.<\/p>\n The quest to apply and strengthen Torah in a world of changing values is no less relevant today as it was then. As in Rabbi Dr. Breuer\u2019s time, Torah study today is often severed and separate from the new spirit that God has introduced into the world. Our aim is to draw the positive and holy essence from their shells in current social and cultural trends. Not every new idea is positive, and not every transient fashion has a place in the beit midrash. There must be a distinction between a genuine openness that seeks to enrich reality with holiness, and anarchy and debauchery that impoverish it. Still, we cannot avoid this work of differentiation and separation, so as to propose a solid Torah-based response to the questions of our time.<\/p>\n May Rabbi Dr. Breuer\u2019s memory be blessed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Rabbi Dr. Yitzhak Breuer (1883-1946), grandson of Rav Shimshon Refael Hirsch, ztz\u2019l, was a philosopher, an intellectual, and a leader ahead of his time. He perceived the scope of the historical, spiritual and cultural changes and challenges facing the Jewish People, and was troubled by the state of the Torah world, which did not fully […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":10693,"menu_order":50,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"templates\/template-06.php","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-11215","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/siachold.bdev.co.il\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/11215","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/siachold.bdev.co.il\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/siachold.bdev.co.il\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/siachold.bdev.co.il\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/siachold.bdev.co.il\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11215"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/siachold.bdev.co.il\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/11215\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11220,"href":"https:\/\/siachold.bdev.co.il\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/11215\/revisions\/11220"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/siachold.bdev.co.il\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/10693"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/siachold.bdev.co.il\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11215"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\u201cBina la-Itim\u201d Institute<\/strong><\/h4>\n