‘Indeed, R. Hirsch emphasized the need to be extremely careful when learning “secular” subjects so as to be able to tell the difference between those ideas that are consistent with Torah and those that are not. ‘
It should be noted that every pre-modern and early modern Jew whom I have found who pursued university education — and the number is in the hundreds and included Rambam and Sforno — had extensive torah education prior to commencing university studies. The idea that the torah forbids university education is simply untenable: You just can’t say that Sforno was not an observant Jew! Yet the extremism coming from the anti-modern polemicists here causes us to avoid a serious issue: Universities can be dangerous places for Jews who come unprepared. I want to cry every time I hear a supposedly frum Jew spouting philosophy from Ayn Rand.