A little over fifty years ago, Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, the revered Talmudist and theologian,
saw ghosts at his beloved Yeshiva University
. In 1970, the rabbi publicly shared his fears about the secularization of the institution. By that time, the religious roots of Harvard, Columbia, and Yale felt like a footnote of history, and Rabbi Soloveitchik was concerned that a similar fate lay in store for Yeshiva—a few years earlier, the school’s charter had been changed, turning it from a religious institution into an educational organization. Rabbi Soloveitchik was worried that the legal change would effect a change in the status of the institution, and, perhaps more importantly, in the minds of friends and foes alike.