| The Book Thieves |
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| Written by Mordechai Shinefield | |||||
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Literary Struggles of a Yeshiva Bochur Kafka. Doctorow. Frost. Bronte. Dickenson. Those are just a couple of the writers whose work was taken – without my permission and when I wasn’t home –from my dorm room at my old Yeshiva. And it wasn’t just anyone taking them – it was my own rabbis. You see, novels were considered contraband at my Yeshiva, and as I continued to satisfy my passion for reading, my rabbis would raid my room and confiscate the books. With each search mission in my room, the rabbis compiled more and more evidence about my insidious activities. Yes, if reading literature makes one a threat to the Yeshiva system, I was the Charles Manson of the establishment. No matter how hard I hid the books, the rabbis always found them. In fact, I owe my talent for speed-reading to the rabbis’ zealotry in separating me from my novels: if I could read the book fast enough, I could complete it before it was taken away. I finished George Orwell’s 1984 in one brief evening – and as fate would have it, the book was removed from my room early the next morning. In its place, I found another in a long series of notes chastising me for my nasty “habit.” Somewhere around the hundredth confiscated book, I decided that my Yeshiva and I were on a collision course that couldn’t be resolved in any peaceful manner. My Rabbis felt that my books undercut the values that they taught – allegiance to Talmud and halachah – and I felt that the rabbis’ absconding with them undercut the values that I cherished – the right to privacy and personal property, and the joy of reading. “What will we do with you?” my rabbi asked me one fateful day. It was clear to me that my Yeshiva was no longer a place that provided me with an outlet for self-expression. And in any case, I couldn’t afford the financial burden that the rabbis’ Savonarola Bonfire of the Vanities placed upon me (They took away three copies of the Tom Wolfe book). The library wasn’t forgiving and Barnes and Noble isn’t cheap. Then I transferred to Yeshiva University, which, by contrast, has required reading lists – and Talmud isn’t the only thing on them. Once, I couldn’t get away with reading; now I can’t get away with not reading. Most importantly, I don’t have to drill holes in my floor and set up elaborate safes in which to hide my literature. I can just stack it in the bookcase by my bed. It was worth coming to Yeshiva University so that I wouldn’t have to worry during classes about who was digging through my stuff. Not to mention that I can play rock music in my room without the rabbis breaking in like a Talmudic SWAT team. I like to read and to listen to music. I like doing both of those activities more than I like learning Talmud. That kind of statement is normally interpreted to mean that I choose the former over the latter, but Yeshiva University lets me choose both. I don’t want to have to sacrifice one part of my life for another, especially if their coexistence is quite appropriate. There is only one thing I really regret about transferring from Yeshiva, and that is all the books I left behind in the Head of the Yeshiva’s office. It would be nice to still have all of them today.
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