Speaking on “Education and the Good Life,” yesterday at services in Hendricks Chapel, Syracuse University, Rabbi Abba Hillel Silver of Cleveland, criticized what he called the “novelty hunt” and advised students against hankering after a “bizarre and flamboyant life.”
Rabbi Silver said the irreverence and responsibilities of our day are no different from the stale bravados of every generation since the beginning of time.
“There is nothing new in novelty,” he said. “Every age has its novelty seekers and its spasmodic hankering after the bizarre and the flamboyant.
“Our own age is especially addicted to this idolatry of the novel. Our young people would break with the conventions and restrains of the past and plunge into what they call the new life.”
Flowers which banked the altar were arranged by Zeta Beta Tau fraternity, of which Rabbi Silv is a member.
Dean William H. Powers of the chapel, officiated.
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