We understand that the representatives of the Talmudic high school have sold the home of that institution and are making preparations to build a new home. They have already bought lots for the building and they contemplate establishing a new building that will be large enough to house the Talmudic high school called "Yeshivah Eitz Chaim," and the so-called Beth Medrash Lerabonim, or rabbinical seminary, of which one may say that it is neither rabbinical nor a seminary, but a badly managed third-class Yeshivah because it has no organization, no membership, no organized management, no responsible executive, no board of education, no curriculum, and no teachers. A rabbinical seminary, however, needs all these things to be what it says it is.

Those who speak for the so-called rabbinical seminary admit its shortcomings, but they say that with the reorganization of the Yeshivah Eitz Chaim, this 2institution will be reorganized too. They say that when the rabbinical seminary will have its own home, everything will be all right.

We are sorry to say that we cannot see the wisdom of this argument. A rabbinical seminary having no organization to conduct it and utterly destitute, cannot have a new home because the new building to be established will belong to the Yeshivah Eitz Chaim and not to the so-called rabbinical seminary. The Yeshivah Eitz Chaim is a communally recognized institution. It is supported and controlled by the Orthodox Federated Charities, and before the Yeshivah Eitz Chaim enters into an amalgamation deal with the rabbinical seminary, the Federated Charities must be consulted and must approve of the plan. If the community should admit the need of a rabbinical seminary in the city of Chicago and should establish a special organization to run it, then means and ways may be found how to connect both institutions in one way or another, but at present they cannot be amalgamated or combined because while one of these is an institution, the other is not, while the one has a membership, the other has not, while the one has a board of education and a board of trustees, the other has not.

We do not say that there is no need for a rabbinical seminary in Chicago. But we say that this question is not for us to decide but for the community at large, for it is after all the community that will have to pay the expense of such an institution and be responsible for its success. And the community has not spoken yet. We are not acquainted with the views and opinions of the Orthodox congregations on the subject of a rabbinical seminary in Chicago. We beg to express our humble opinion that since Chicago Jewry is the center of Middle Western Jewry, comprising some five-hundred-thousand Jewish souls, Chicago Jewry should not be dependent on New York, and should train its own teachers and its own rabbis, etc. However, whether the average Orthodox Jew in Chicago is sharing our point of view or not, we do not know. And before we undertake to establish here a rabbinical seminary, we should consult the heads of the various Orthodox congregations, and only when the Orthodox congregations will express themselves in favor of a rabbinical seminary in Chicago, then will we have a right to undertake and to carry out the plan. The attempt of a few ignorant rabbis to run and head such an institution for the sake of their own glory will be of no avail. They cannot impose an institution upon a 4community just because they want to run it and head it.

An institution like a rabbinical seminary cannot be the property of a few. Such an institution has to be financed by the community, and consequently also controlled by the community. Rabbis may determine the Talmudic curriculum of the institution, they may have a say in the board of education, but nothing more. They cannot manage it, and they cannot run it, and should not run it. If the institution is to be deserving of its name, it should not be a secondhand Lithuanian provincial Yeshivah transplanted in Chicago.

To make once and for all an end to the controversy arising out of the so-called rabbinical seminary, which at present in no way differs from the Yeshivah Eitz Chaim, only that the latter institution is well managed, while the former is not managed at all, the heads of the various congregations should be asked whether or not in their opinion a rabbinical institution in Chicago is a necessity, and if it is, let these heads of the congregations proceed to establish a real rabbinical seminary; let them provide for it financially; let them provide 5it with a home; and let them organize a faculty consisting of a half-dozen professors, teaching the various subjects of Jewish and cognate learning; and let them also provide it with two or three great Talmudic professors, who will have to be imported here from Europe because there is none in Chicago who will do the job. There are any number of learned rabbis in Chicago, but one may be a learned rabbi and not be a teacher. Besides, no congregation would permit its rabbi to neglect his duties toward the congregation by devoting the best of his time to a rabbinical seminary. A Talmudic professorship and a rabbinate are two different functions and one man cannot hold both jobs.

If the community is ready to spend fifty or sixty thousand dollars a year on a rabbinical seminary, and is ready to carry all the responsibilities attached to it, let it do so. We are convinced that if the heads of the community should decide that a rabbinical seminary is necessary, that the money will be forthcoming, but we are not so sure that they will succeed in establishing a good faculty because Jewish scholars who are at the same time good teachers are very rare and they are especially rare birds in America. The late Professor Friedlande's 6position is still vacant. And if the New York rabbinical seminary, [which is] richly endowed, has difficulties in finding a good professor, Chicago will have more difficulties because a Jewish scholar would rather live in New York than in Chicago, and rather teach in an old established institution than in a new one. However, a rabbinical seminary, if it should be established in Chicago, can begin with preparatory classes, for which only a few teachers are needed; and it may be that in the course of time, good professors will be forthcoming too. But what we wish to point out is that if we mean to do the job, let us do it thoroughly, let us do it so that the community may be proud of its institution.

If a rabbinical seminary is needed in Chicago, a Hebrew teachers' training seminary is an absolute necessity and it is much more needed than a rabbinical seminary. If those few busybodies on the West Side who are shouting every day, "A rabbinical seminary or the world will perish," have so much Judaism at heart, why do they not first provide the youth with Hebrew teachers, why do they not establish first a Hebrew teachers' seminary? It is true, we could place twenty 7Orthodox rabbis every year, but we could place two hundred Hebrew teachers a year. And Chicago has only a few Hebrew teachers. The fact that so many men teach Hebrew does not mean that they are Hebrew teachers. In many cases they are very poor teachers, and in many more cases, they do not even know Hebrew. If the community is to give thought to the problem of a rabbinical seminary, it is certainly in duty bound to think of the Hebrew teachers' training seminary. And what about a center of Jewish learning in Chicago? Isn't such an institution necessary too? If Chicago is to be a center of Judaism, then it certainly needs a seat of Jewish learning, and not only a theological seminary to produce rabbis.

But if the community should decide to establish a rabbinical seminary, then this seminary should also serve the purpose of a Hebrew teachers' seminary and of a seat of Jewish learning as well. The real problem is not a rabbinical seminary but the establishment of a seat of Jewish learning in all its branches and ramifications.

Does the community understand this need? We wonder.