An Anglo Jewish High School in Israel

June 24, 2010

Growing up in Antwerp, where, at the time, it was an uphill fight to have a Orthodox high school, my friends and I had to continue our education either in a yeshiva without secular studies, or go abroad. Those classmates who wanted to finish their university matriculation ended up studying in Israel, the United States or England.

Living in Switzerland, I see the same phenomenon, there is areal lack of Jewish high schools out there.

Without outright endorsing it (frankly, I know very little about this place, beyond what they provide on their web site), I salute the existence of a new American Yeshiva High School in Israel, with a program for boys and a program for girls (in two different locations). The best part is that besides following the Bagrut standards of the Israeli education ministry, the school, being fully subsidized by the Israeli government, is free. That’s right, it’s free, and they even give the students some pocket money.

The program isn’t for everyone, but it’s surely worth checking out. Plus, it reminds us of another good reason to live in Israel: Jewish education is subsidized by the government, as should be in the Jewish state.

For decades American parents have been aware of the wonderful transformative power post High School programs in Israel have on their children. Now, through the YBA-Naale Yeshiva High School program in Israel, your children need not wait so long in order to take advantage of this special confluence of the Torah of Israel, the People of Israel in the Land of Israel.

While it’s true that the program fees amount to only a fraction of a typical American Yeshiva High School (thanks to Israeli government funding through Naale), that in itself should not be the main motivating factor in choosing this program for your son or daughter. Our program offers a first-rate Jewish and general education with the added spiritual and experiential dimension that only a program in Israel can provide.

If you know more about this program, please post a comment.

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Posted by Arie Folger

The New Face of Jewish Studitainment

June 15, 2010

From the Meriam-Webbster Dictionary:

in·fo·tain·ment; Pronunciation: \ˌin-(ˌ)fō-ˈtān-mənt\; Function: noun
Etymology: information + entertainment; Date: 1980: a television program that presents information (as news) in a manner intended to be entertaining.

From Zion, however,”shall go forth the law, and the word of haShem from Jerusalem,” so whereas television brought us infotainment, the Jewish people surely prioritizes studitainment, of the etymology study”entertainment.

Bridging the gap between learning and leisure, particularly for children (but also for adults) who have not yet developed all requisite autodidactic skills, comes Animated Talmud.

Five years in the making, animatedtalmud.com  is a virtual learning experience, designed to capture the attention of today’s children, who are constantly inundated with color and excitement, by using a media they are already attracted to. Animated Talmud required the skills of a team of artists, animators, full scripts and a narrator, resulting in a beautiful website …  Funded exclusively by donations, Animated Talmud is completely free because, in Goldstein’s words, “it was a labor of love, not something to be making money on.”

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Posted by Arie Folger

Should Humanity Call It Quits?

June 10, 2010

Peter Singer, the controversial chair of bioethics at Princeton University, wrote an online feature for the New York Times, where he ponders, considering the multitude of suffering in life, whether it is not more moral to abstain altogether from procreation, knowing full well that that means that within one life span, there would be no more humans on earth. As he emphasizes, this is not a serious proposal, but a thought experiment in order to investigate the morality of bringing children into the world, the parents knowing full well that the child will suffer. On a different level, it is an investigation into the question whether life is worth living.

At first sight, this echoes a long lasting discussion between the Houses of Hillel and Shammai:

Our Rabbis taught: For two and a half years were Beth Shammai and Beth Hillel in dispute, the former asserting that it were more pleasant for man not to have been created than to have been created, and the latter maintaining that it is better for man to have been created than not to have been created.
They finally took a vote and decided that it were better for man not to have been created than to have been created, but now that he has been created, let him investigate his past deeds or, as others say, let him examine his future actions. (Babylonian Talmud, Eiruvin 13b)

ת”ר שתי שנים ומחצה נחלקו ב”ש וב”ה הללו אומרים נוח לו לאדם שלא נברא יותר משנברא והללו אומרים נוח לו לאדם שנברא יותר משלא נברא נמנו וגמרו נוח לו לאדם שלא נברא יותר משנברא עכשיו שנברא יפשפש במעשיו ואמרי לה ימשמש במעשיו (עירובין יג:)

Does Peter Singer have a point, or is he fundamentally misunderstanding what life is all about?

After quoting some excerpts of his article, I present an analysis of the Jewish sources on the matter, in the hope that, when asked “what is the meaning of life,” we will give a better answer than “42.”
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Posted by Arie Folger

Sollten wir alle Kohanim sein?

June 10, 2010

DeutschKórachs Hauptargument in seiner Rebellion gegen Moschè Rabbénu war:

רַב־לָכֶם כִּי כָל־הָעֵדָה כֻּלָּם קְדֹשִׁים וּבְתוֹכָם ה’ וּמַדּוּעַ תִּתְנַשְּׂאוּ עַל־קְהַל ה:

Zu viel für euch! Alle in der Gemeinde sind heilig, und unter ihnen ist Gott; warum erhebt ihr euch über die Gemeinde Gottes? (Bamidbar 16:3)

Während die Tora Kórachs Behauptungen nicht genau zitiert, können wir aus Moschès Reaktion schliessen, dass Kórach Moschè der Vetternwirtschaft beschuldigte, weil er seinen Bruder Aharón als Kohén Gadól (Hohepriester) eingesetzt hatte. Aber diese Männer wollten nicht, dass das Priesteramt allen zugänglich sein sollte. Obwohl sie behaupteten, alle seien heilig, zogen sie nicht die logische Schluss­folgerung aus ihrem Argument und verlangten Gleichheit – nein, jeder wollte nur einfach selbst als das zeremonielle Oberhaupt von ‘Am Jissra’él, als Kohén Gadól, ausgewählt werden.1 Moschè forderte seine Kritiker dementsprechend auf, Read the rest of this entry »

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Posted by Arie Folger

Videovortrag: Wer hat die Psalmen verfasst?

June 2, 2010

Es ist allgemein bekannt, dass König David als Verfasser der Tehillim (Psalmen) angesehen wird. Allerdings gibt es im Talmud, in zahlreichen Midraschím und auch im Text der Tehillim Hiweise darauf, dass König David nicht der einzige Verfasser der Tehillim ist.

Wer denn waren die anderen Verfasser der Tehillim, und was wissen wir über sie?


Dieser Schi’úr (Vortrag) wurde am So. 7. März ’10 in der Schomre Thora Basel vorgetragen und ist der zweite in einer Reihenfolge von Video-Schi’úrim (Vorträge) zu den Psalmen. Der frühere Vortrag heisst Tehillim als Gebet.

[Sie können sich diesen Video auch bei Vimeo anschauen.]

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Posted by Arie Folger

Die Gaza-Hilfsflotte kritisch betrachtet

June 2, 2010

Jürg Bischoff schreibt in der NZZ:

Die Erstürmung der Schiffe wurde zu einem Blutbad, weil die israelischen Militärs zwischen einer Kriegssituation und zivilem Widerstand in der Regel keinen Unterschied machen. Seit Jahren setzen israelische Soldaten in den besetzten Gebieten ihre Schusswaffen ein, ob sie sich nun bewaffneten Kämpfern oder unbewaffneten Demonstranten gegenübersehen.

Seine Gedanken wiederspiegeln die von vielen anderen Journalisten im Westen.

Peter Münch schreibt in BaZ:

Es wird nicht reichen, sich damit zu rechtfertigen, dass die Soldaten beim Kapern von den Aktivisten angegriffen worden seien. Es klingt angesichts der Kräfteverhältnisse und der Opferzahlen fast obszön, wenn der Armeesprecher angibt, die Soldaten hätten sich gegen Lynch-Attacken zur Wehr setzen müssen.

Waren die Kräfteverhältnisse richtig obszön? Schauen Sie sich die folgenden Videos an, und beschliessen Sie selber.
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Posted by Arie Folger

Offenbarte Vernunft

May 13, 2010

DeutschDie Offenbarung am Sináj ist der Inbegriff von religiöser Erfahrung. Wenn diese Offenbarung einer derart spiritueller, himmlischer Bedeutung sind, warum handeln die letzten fünf der Zehn Worte von so einfachen Dingen wie dem Verbot von Mord, Diebstahl und falscher Zeugenaussage? Sind das nicht Mizwót der Art, die Raw Sa‘adjá Ga’ón מצות שכליות ‘rationale Gebote’ nannte,3 oder, wie Raschi es ausdrückt (Bereschít 26:5), Vorschriften, die selbst dann, wenn sie nicht in der Torá stünden, für uns bindend wären? Read the rest of this entry »

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Posted by Arie Folger

From the NYT: Helping Patients Face Death, She Fought to Live

April 13, 2010

Healthy people who think of death and dying often express a wish that if and when they will have to face their own looming death, that they would not want to be put through excessive, even hopeless medical intervention in order to “irrationally cling to life” while in intensive care. No, they say, when death comes, they would rather have it be a clean affair, to get over with quickly and painlessly. If and when they will be terminally ill, the would not want to go through “excessive” chemotherapy, nor remain endlessly on life support; they would want to die with dignity, rather than irrationally cling to life.

These reflections often result from suddenly coming face to face with human frailty and looming death, either because they visit a possible terminally ill patient, or because they have very recently discovered that they are affected by a grave illness.

Upon seeing a much weakened patient out of whose body several tubes and wire emerge, connected to advanced medical machinery, their fear of dying becomes so great, that they would rather be spared the effort to remain alive.

Many doctors would encourage such a person in “bravely” facing death. In fact, such is the role of palliative care doctors, to encourage patients facing their own looming death to let go.

And yet, when push came to shove, a palliative care doctor chose to pursue every hope for life (from the New York Times):

She preached the gentle gospel of her profession, persuading patients to confront their illnesses and get their affairs in order and, above all, ensuring that their last weeks were not spent in unbearable pain. She was convinced that her own experience as a cancer survivor — the disease was first diagnosed when she was 31 — made her perfect for the job.

In 2008, while on vacation in Boston, she went to an emergency room with a fever. The next day, as the doctors began to understand the extent of her underlying cancer, “they asked me if I wanted palliative care to come and see me.”

She angrily refused. She had been telling other people to let go. But faced with that thought herself, at the age of 40, she wanted to fight on. Read the rest of this entry »

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Audio-Schi’ur zu Psalm 91 – im Andenken an der Frau Beatrice Bernstein

April 11, 2010

Es ist mit grossem Bedauern, dass wir von der schmerzlichen Mitteilung vom Hinschied der Frau Beatrice Bernstein s.A. — בריינדעל בת יהודה — vernommen haben. Zum ersten Schiwa’-Lernen wurde der schwierige, aber schöne und tiefe Psalm 91 ausgelegt. Anbei die Aufnahme dieses Lernens. Read the rest of this entry »

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Posted by Arie Folger

Significant Recent Manuscript Finds

April 7, 2010

We are known as the People of the Book, and it would be no exaggeration to call us the People of the Books, in the plural, for our stewardship of the Torah has only been possible because we also preserved the teachings of the Sages, who taught and elucidated the Torah. And so, the manuscripts linking us to the transmitters of Tradition in the distant past are of great value. Sometimes, they help us correct texts that had been corrupted by a copyist’s error, while at other times, the manuscripts confirm our holy heritage. Two recent articles report on modest, yet spectacular manuscript finds, which are now being made available to the public, whether through museum display or through publication: Read the rest of this entry »

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Posted by Arie Folger

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