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Rabbi Ari Berman, president of Yeshiva University, speaks at Brigham Young University on Tuesday, Jan. 31, 2023.

Christi Norris, BYU Photo

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Rabbi Ari Berman, president of Yeshiva University, speaks at Brigham Young University on Tuesday, Jan. 31, 2023.

Christi Norris, BYU Photo

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On Tuesday, president of Yeshiva University Ari Berman spoke to a gathering of Brigham Young University students on faith in the modern day — particularly around religious universities.

In addition to serving as president of the private Orthodox Jewish university, Berman has worked as rabbi for the The Jewish Center in Manhattan, a Talmud instructor at Herzog College and Yeshiva College and as the chief executive at the Center of Jewish Heritage in Israel.

Berman began his speech by quoting from a letter Thomas Jefferson wrote in 1818 to Mordecai Manuel Noah, a Jewish leader and diplomat. The passage describes the unique plight of the Jewish people in facing religious intolerance, and Jefferson’s suggested solution.

“Nothing I think would be so likely to affect this as to your sect particularly as the more careful attention to education, which you recommend, and which placing its members and the equal and commanding benches of science will exhibit them as equal objects of respect and favor,” Jefferson wrote.

Today, though, Berman believes more needs to be done.

“(The) value of education in a religious institution is not solely through our contributions to science or any area of the academy, but a larger approach to life itself that touches the soul of our nation … there is another mind which is not based on the consumer, but the covenant,” he said.

Berman emphasized the importance of covenants being united with education, stating that the purpose of education is to enrich covenants and help people become better disciples.

“The continental model of faith will always provide meaning and values for the lives of our students. Faith nurses, strengthens and enriches life; it guides one beyond acquisition of information towards an earnest quest for truth,” Berman said.

He shared that the Yeshiva University basketball team, Division III, won 50 games in a row between 2019 and 2022, but that didn’t excuse their team members from any studying, attending prayer services three times each day, or religious or educational classes. They simply had to find time for basketball outside of these daily activities because of how essential they were to receiving a transformative religious education, Berman said.

“When the Jewish people accepted the Torah at Sinai, they collectively uttered the famous Hebrew words ‘na’aseh v’nishma’, (meaning) ‘we will do, and then we will listen,'” Berman said. “Commitment precedes knowledge. One cannot access the knowledge unless one is first fully committed.”

BYU, sponsored by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and Yeshiva University are among the country’s most prominent religious colleges and universities. Other well-known private religious schools include Pepperdine University (Churches of Christ), Liberty University (Baptist), Seattle Pacific University (Free Methodist Church) and Azusa Pacific University (interdenominational Christian), among others.

In September 2022, the Supreme Court denied a request from Yeshiva University to block a state ruling ordering the school to approve a Pride Alliance club. The school subsequently canceled all clubs rather than allow the LGBT student group.

In October, students at BYU, Yeshiva and religious universities across the country held a walkout, alleging discrimination by the schools.

“We will faithfully continue to transmit the terms of the covenant to our children and grandchildren, spreading God’s word and infusing the world with God’s spirit. A consumer questions value. A covenant discovers value. And a life of covenant brings a life of mystery, meaning and purpose, that we should all be seen as equal objects of favor and respect before God and build lives of intrinsic human dignity and individuality … ‘all in service of our higher calling bringing honor to God’,” Berman said to close his speech.

Berman’s forum address is available to stream on BYUtv. Audio recordings and text in most languages are expected later this week.

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