My father, Philip Rosten had a remarkable balance between Jewish values and the life of a scientist and husband and a father. He knew he had to make his way on his own with no help from anyone but his own parents to help him get started. The brother of his father and his wife were the first to arrive in the USA from Poland and started a bakery on the lower east side of Manhattan. Next came the younger brother Yaakov. His sister in law told him that she has a sister also in Poland that he would like. He agreed to meet her so they sent for her. When she arrived from Poland they married and thus my father and his brother and sister were born. Yaakov also worked in the bakery and sent his children to public school. Philip was interested in the violin and also science but in the end he decided to go into mechanical engineering. He applied to Cal Tech and the University of Michigan. But in the end decided to go to the university of Michigan because it was $100 cheaper than Cal Tech. He went to Cal Tech later for his masters degree. And then World War Two interrupted, he became a captain in the United States Air Force (USAF). [His uniform was covered in medals, but I never found out what they were for.]
After the war, he invented a telescope that could see through fog and clouds many miles away. It was the first successful attempt to focus infra-red light to make a coherent image, and was the beginning of night vision. He got a whole write up about it in Life Magazine. His sister said just to see his picture in Life, his mother would have given ten years of her life. [Later he invented an x-ray copy machine and after that the government recruited him for some highly secretive work at Hychon and to make the camera for the U-2 project, and then for the SDI project.]
But all this is just background. What was unique about him and my mother was their home life, and their relationship towards their children. There was some kind of amazing intuition they had about their children.
Jewish values were very important to them and we went every Shabat to Hebrew School.[Temple Israel] But Torah values were more expressed in our home than in the synagogue. There was a kind of peace and love that permeated our home that was unearthly. My brothers and I fought and played like normal kids, but when ever we walked in the front door of our home we felt a kind of peace and light. We never ceased to marvel at it. Not that we were religious at all. It was just a kind of light and peace and spirit of wholesomeness that permeated everything.
. Being self sufficient and working for an honest living were of foremost importance to him.--especially the magic words "to be self sufficient."
A few years later that I was able to start bringing some balance into things. Because I found a polynomic theory of value That is even though at the Mir I was involved a lot in the Pnei Yehoshua and the Maharsha, but just being there and talking with Reb Shmuel Berenbaum a lot I got by osmosis an idea of his kind of approach. I was accepted into Reb Shmuel's class which was highest level , and I used to go to him for Shabat also.
Just for background. My parents sent my brothers and me to public school. My Torah education was mainly at Temple Israel in Hollywood on Shabat and at home. Only when I was eighteen did I go to NY Litvak yeshivas, first Shar Yashuv and then the Mir. Though the Mir has the reputation of the most advanced of all yeshivas along with Brisk and Ponovitch, I would have to say that Shar Yashuv was not far behind. They do start at beginning levels but when they get up to higher levels they are as advanced as the Mir.]
[Public school I should mention has changed. (Allan Bloom already made the point about the social studies and humanities departments in universities. The way he put it was more or less to say that they are worthless. And that was already in the 1980's.) To the Rambam a great deal of secular studies are in fact bad. His idea of a proper education was the Oral and Written Law, Physics and Metaphysics.]
The best short introduction to Torah is I think the Musar book from the Middle Ages חובות לבבות
Obligations of the Heart.
After the war, he invented a telescope that could see through fog and clouds many miles away. It was the first successful attempt to focus infra-red light to make a coherent image, and was the beginning of night vision. He got a whole write up about it in Life Magazine. His sister said just to see his picture in Life, his mother would have given ten years of her life. [Later he invented an x-ray copy machine and after that the government recruited him for some highly secretive work at Hychon and to make the camera for the U-2 project, and then for the SDI project.]
But all this is just background. What was unique about him and my mother was their home life, and their relationship towards their children. There was some kind of amazing intuition they had about their children.
Jewish values were very important to them and we went every Shabat to Hebrew School.[Temple Israel] But Torah values were more expressed in our home than in the synagogue. There was a kind of peace and love that permeated our home that was unearthly. My brothers and I fought and played like normal kids, but when ever we walked in the front door of our home we felt a kind of peace and light. We never ceased to marvel at it. Not that we were religious at all. It was just a kind of light and peace and spirit of wholesomeness that permeated everything.
. Being self sufficient and working for an honest living were of foremost importance to him.--especially the magic words "to be self sufficient."
A few years later that I was able to start bringing some balance into things. Because I found a polynomic theory of value That is even though at the Mir I was involved a lot in the Pnei Yehoshua and the Maharsha, but just being there and talking with Reb Shmuel Berenbaum a lot I got by osmosis an idea of his kind of approach. I was accepted into Reb Shmuel's class which was highest level , and I used to go to him for Shabat also.
Just for background. My parents sent my brothers and me to public school. My Torah education was mainly at Temple Israel in Hollywood on Shabat and at home. Only when I was eighteen did I go to NY Litvak yeshivas, first Shar Yashuv and then the Mir. Though the Mir has the reputation of the most advanced of all yeshivas along with Brisk and Ponovitch, I would have to say that Shar Yashuv was not far behind. They do start at beginning levels but when they get up to higher levels they are as advanced as the Mir.]
[Public school I should mention has changed. (Allan Bloom already made the point about the social studies and humanities departments in universities. The way he put it was more or less to say that they are worthless. And that was already in the 1980's.) To the Rambam a great deal of secular studies are in fact bad. His idea of a proper education was the Oral and Written Law, Physics and Metaphysics.]
The best short introduction to Torah is I think the Musar book from the Middle Ages חובות לבבות
Obligations of the Heart.
