Jewish Education Halakhic Perspectives
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Staff KOL HAMEVASER General Jewish Thought Editors-in-Chief The Jewish Thought Magazine of “A Tree Planted on Many Chesky Kopel the Yeshiva University Student Body Waters”: Something About R. Chana Zuckier Aaron Levine z”l...................2 Volume V, Issue 2 A memorial for Rabbi Dr. Aaron Thanksgiving, November 24, 2011 Levine, a man of great Torah and Associate Editors great hesed. Ariel Caplan 24 Marheshvan 5772 Rabbi Shalom Carmy Gabrielle Hiller Bringing Gilad Home: Copy Editor Jewish Education Halakhic Perspectives..........8 The government of Israel brought Ze’ev Sudry Gilad Shalit home on October 18, in A Crisis Deeper Than Just Tuition.........................4 exchange for the release of 1,027 Layout Editor When we overstep in our responses to the “tuition crisis,” a terrorist prisoners. Was this an ac- Gavi Brown much larger problem takes form. ceptable price? Moshe Karp Yosef Bronstein Staff Writers “The Government of Israel Believes in Shabbat: A Time of Rest or Gilad Barach Education”...for Some: Schooling for Israel’s Arab Unrest?...............................11 Jacob Bernstein Public Shabbat observance is a Hannah Dreyfus Citizens................................................................6 heated subject that has torn apart Adam Freidmann After 63 years, the state of Arab education in Israel remains Israeli society. How can a long- Kira Joel dismal and pathetic. Is anything even being done to improve term solution be reached? Moshe Karp it? Gavi Brown Davida Kollmar Chesky Kopel Talya Laufer Teaching Experience...........................................10 Creative Arts Elana Raskas Strictly Kosher: How Zahava Rothschild To be a truly committed Jew, one must relate to Torah not Haredi Literature Reflects Rachel Weber only intellectually, but emotionally and experientially as well. and Influences Haredi Penina Wein Chumie Yagod Culture................................22 Chumie Yagod Teaching Prayer: Obstacles, Goals, and Rabbi Yoel Finkelman examines ac- Strategies..........................................................14 culturation in modern Haredi society Webmaster in Strictly Kosher Reading: Popular Rafi Miller Tefillah in schools has descended into a battle between Literature and the Condition of Con- Cover Design student autonomy and teacher control. How can this be temporary Orthodoxy. Ezra Seligsohn rectified? Davida Kollmar Hannah Dreyfus The Untraveled Road from About Kol Hamevaser An Interview with Rabbi Yosef Adler..................15 Kol Hamevaser, the Jewish Thought magazine Ma’aleh Adumim to Alon Shev of the Yeshiva University student body, is A prominent educator and community rabbi discusses balancing ut.......................................24 dedicated to sparking discussion of Jewish communal responsibilities…and the budget Rabbi Aharon Lichtenstein, with the issues on the Yeshiva University campus and Ariel Caplan help of Rabbi Haim Sabato, dissemi- beyond. The magazine hopes to facilitate nates his ideas to a brand-new crowd the religious and intellectual growth of its with Mevakshei Panekha. readership and serves as a forum for students Nakh: The Neglected Nineteen...........................20 to express their views on a variety of issues Why are two thirds of Biblical mikra sorely neglected in Orthodox Talya Laufer that face the Jewish community. It also provides opportunities for young thinkers to communities? From the archives of the Yeshiva engage Judaism intellectually and creatively, Gilad Barach University Museum: and to mature into confident leaders. Kol Hamevaser is published monthly and its About the Cover Images of Alef-Bet Chart..........23 primary contributors are undergraduates, Girls Class, Early State of although it includes input from RIETS The image displayed here is Soldiers check for seditious talk, a creation of Roshei Yeshivah, YU professors, and outside Russian Jewish painter Samuel Rothbort (1882-1971). This image and others Israel........................................26 figures. In addition to its print magazine, featured in the Creative Arts section of this issue are the property of Yeshiva Workers’ Class..........................26 Kol Hamevaser also sponsors special events, University Museum collections. The Museum has provided these images to Kol Future Artists............................27 speakers, discussion groups, conferences, Hamevaser for the purposes of this new Creative Arts section, to expand the ho- At the Yeshiva...........................27 and shabbatonim. rizons of Jewish Thought by exposing readers to new and more creative forms of Scrap of Child Learning..........28 We encourage anyone interested in writing capturing different themes in Judaism and Jewish life. The section also includes about or discussing Jewish issues to get reviews of new books that are potentially of interest to the Kol Hamevaser This magazine contains words involved in our community, and to participate readership. Submissions to the Creative Arts section, whether of art, poetry, art in the magazine, the conversation, and criticism, or book or film reviews, are welcome. Please email kolhamevaser@ of Torah. our club’s events. Find us online at www. kolhamevaser.com, or on Facebook or Twitter. gmail.com for more details. Please treat it with respect. www.kolhamevaser.com Volume V, Issue 2 2 Jewish Education Editors’ Thoughts: A Transformative Time for Jewish Education BY: Gabrielle Hiller The face of Jewish education is constantly crisis and the consequent the increasing number simply cannot connect to the words? Is co-ed One aside: We, the editors of Kol Hamevaser, changing in today’s world. The style of of families who must request scholarships or separate-sex education more conducive to would be remiss if we did not acknowledge education that yeshivah day-school students because they cannot afford the rapidly rising maximum growth for students? With limited the return of Gilad Shalit to his family. In of this generation receive is markedly different tuition, schools are struggling to stay afloat. time, priorities of which subjects to teach and our discussion concerning the continued from the models experienced by our parents. Talk of charter schools, a more affordable how to teach them are constantly under review. revitalization of our nation’s future, we felt Teaching methods have changed, and the role of option, has led to a debate over the value of the These issues have not gone unnoticed or it essential to address this event and some of the teacher has evolved. With the introduction traditional day-school education. unaddressed. There are now many organizations our complicated emotions in its wake. Jews of Smartboards and other technologies to the While yeshivah day-schools do have much working with school administrators to solve all over the world struggle to understand the classroom, new and dynamic methods of to offer, there has also been a number of failures these problems. Curricula are being revamped, significance of Israel’s prisoner swap with relating knowledge and instilling values are and points of contention concerning these and the standards and expectations for teachers Hamas, torn between happiness for Gilad’s being discussed every day in online forums of schools. Tens, even hundreds, of thousands are being raised. return and safety, the terrible price Israel may Jewish educational professionals. Experiential of dollars have been spent by many Jewish Our era is a time of introspection in the have paid for him, and pride in the astonishing education is on the rise, women have access families on yesshivah tuition, the results of world of Jewish education, as we question value our state places on life. In these pages, to new and exciting learning opportunities, which are often, nonetheless, a lack of fluency in what has been done in the past and what various aspects of this matter – halakhic and and Yeshiva University is in the process of Hebrew language, frustration with the system, should be changed for the future. It is a subject otherwise – are addressed in an article by “reimagining,” an attempt to consolidate and most disconcerting of all, apathetic Jewish of vital concern to many of us, as it ensures Wexner Kollel Elyon member Yosef Bronstein. and reform the educational framework of its teens whose teachers, intent on merely relating the strong continuity of our people. In this We hope that it will shed light on this complex undergraduate institutions. knowledge, fail to inspire them. We battle with issue of Kol Hamevaser, we investigate and issue. Yet recently, Jewish education has been at many questions, most of which do not have survey a number of issues relating to Jewish the forefront of our community news for not clear answers: Is there a way to teach tefillah education, and we hope that you will join us in entirely positive reasons. Due to the financial without alienating the many students who our exploration. Creative Arts “A Tree Planted on Many Waters”1 Something About R. Aaron Levine z”l BY: Rabbi Shalom Carmy When almost all of my mother’s local friends, He raised funds, with palpable and infectious but on his pioneering application of economic no book - R. Aaron was quoting from memory. and most of her relatives, were dead, and she enthusiasm, for a variety of causes that were theory to Halakhah? Well, kibbud em and Such gifts, even when fully developed, make could not go out on her own, and I was away not directly connected to the Young Israel of charity are prominent among those mitsvot a brilliant scholar but make neither