Comments from some of this year’s participants:

Through my time at CMTL, I intensified my sense of place in the Halakhic system, and my awareness of the vibrancy and responsiveness at the core of our Mesorah. I encountered engaging texts and teachers who fostered my love and respect of the rabbinic tradition, and who engendered a wish to preserve Halakhah faithfully. The desire to learn Torah Lishmah was palpable at CMTL, and kindled a desire to continue learning.

Avinoam Stillman (Yeshivat HaKayitz)

I expected to spend my time at the Summer Beit Midrash having fun learning a lot of Torah. I was not disappointed and enjoyed the learning very much. However, what stands out to me is that this was perhaps my only opportunity, as a woman, to have this level of learning with a focus on p’sak. I feel very privileged to have gained even a little insight into the halakhic process. Rabbi Klapper himself is a wonderful educator and mentor and I’m very happy to have had the chance to meet and develop a relationship with him.

Adena Morgan (Summer Beit Midrash)

I discovered that there is a group of people who thinks about the ideals of Modern Orthodoxy in a way that surpasses the practical convenience of the movement and instead attempts to discover its ideological underpinnings as they stand, both in harmony and in contrast with other movements.

I also learned how to look for clues in texts—to pick apart nuances and word choices in halakhic statements in order to uncover their essences—and this helped me discover that there is rarely a halakhic text that is undeveloped and simplistic. It is the quantity and quality of attention that you give your analysis that determines how much of the depth you can uncover. 

Emily Pisem (SBM)

As always, I am struck by how much of Halakhah is more than exegesis.  However, the more I study with R. Klapper, the more I come to realize how one can simultaneously recognize that Halakhic decisions are not made in a vacuum, but fidelity to the texts is still critical.  The happy medium between allowing oneself to distort the meaning of texts to conform to personal perspectives and pretending that one can remove oneself entirely when reading a text is hard to reach.  Rabbi Klapper, as always does a phenomenal job of combining fidelity to tradition with a commitment to bringing what he values to bear on the text. 

Jonathan Ziring (SBM’09-’11)

Every year, it enriches me, supports me, and encourages me to expand my thoughts and approaches.

Yoetzet Halacha Atara Eis (conference)

The Conference is by far the most valuable rabbinic conference I attend in any given year. Not only do the participants openly and creatively engage each other in the theme at hand, but they really think together, with courage and spontaneity, and with a sense of deep trust and camaraderie, about the critical issues that really challenge Torah Jewry. Only in this conference do I get the sense that we are wrestling, right then and there, with the destiny of Am Yisrael, and that the ideas and directions that we explore together will stick with me and guide my approaches to my own work.

Rabbi Meir Sendor (conference)

Year after year, the conference consistently confronts the issues facing the American Orthodox community with intelligence and idealism. 

Rabbi Moshe Simkovich (conference)