To our members and friends,
I now have completed my fourth year of working as the National Scholar of the Institute for Jewish Ideas and Ideals. It has been an honor and privilege working to promote our vision nationwide primarily through teaching and teacher training, and also through writing and internet classes. This report summarizes my various projects and activities over the past year.
It’s not too late to prevent a catastrophe
An open letter to Chief Rabbi Mirvis regarding the Dweck Affair
Dear Chief Rabbi Mirvis,
The Jewish community is looking to you for wise guidance regarding the Dweck Affair, and appreciates your desire to respond sensitively and carefully. At the same time, your statements (and your silences) to date have not been reassuring.
Students of the Talmud may encounter some strange and troubling passages, especially within its aggadic sections.
This is hardly a new phenomenon. Skepticism regarding Talmudic realia — scientific, historical, and other non-legal observations recorded in the Talmud — far predates the modern period. The reliability of Talmudic medicine, for example, was questioned by the Geonim of Babylonia as early as the tenth century.
Yehuda (Udi) Dvorkin is the founding director of the "Mechadshey Kedem" initative. A graduate of the Yeshivat Siach-Yitzchak-Tzerufim leadership fellowship , he is currently a Ph.D. Student in the department of Jewish History and Contemporary Judaism at the Hebrew University.
“Linda, please take my advice. Travel abroad when you are young and strong. Don’t wait until you are old because it might become too difficult to get around. Save America for last—when you are retired.”
—Mae Axelrod
Encounters outside the daled amot can be challenging. And the more religious one is, the higher the stakes. Still, the higher the stakes, the greater the potential returns, so for the most observant, interfaith encounters can be greatly enriching and enlightening. What happens when Orthodox Jews take part in serious conversation with religious leaders from other faiths?
To our members and friends,
Here are some upcoming classes I will be giving that are open to the public:
On Mondays May 15 and 22, 1:00-2:15pm, I will give a two-part mini-series about Shavuot:
Torah holidays in peshat and in our religious observance
‘The Righteous Shall Live by His Faith’: The Message of Habakkuk and Shavuot.
It is with Lamdeinu Teaneck, located at Congregation Beth Aaron, 950 Queen Anne Road, Teaneck, NJ. To register, go to lamdeinu.org.
What could be a better place to work for a traditionally observant Jew than a Jewish organization? Jewish holidays are not considered vacation days, and there is little resistance, if any, to the need to leave early on a Friday to reach home and prepare before the start of Shabbat. So when I moved from the for-profit world to a Jewish non-profit 20 years ago, I never anticipated any Jewish dilemmas. In retrospect, that was a deliciously naïve perspective.
This week's Torah portion includes a strange episode. A "mixed multitude" (asafsuf) riled up the Israelites so that they complained bitterly about their situation. They longed to eat meat. They reminisced about the diet they had in Egypt--fish, cucumbers, melons, leeks, onion and garlic. The miraculous mannah from heaven, that was delivered to them daily in the wilderness, did not satisfy them.
For the past 15 years, I have toiled in the vineyards of Jewish-Christian relations, trying to carve out an ennobling Torah path toward my interactions with non-Jews. Can I see Tzelem Elokim in the face of a gentile Other? If so, how does this shared divine endowment guide our relationship? And perhaps more important, how does it shape my religious commitment to the Torah's demand that Jews play a crucial role in sacred history?