Summer Beit Midrash
The Center for Modern Torah Leadership awards 2011 Summer Beit Midrash Fellowships and expands its programming
2011 SBM will focus on the theme “Judaism and Art; towards a Halakhic evaluation of Beauty”. The CMTL is adding new program for middle and high school students to study Midrash.
The Center for Modern Torah Leadership, the intellectual catalyst of Modern Orthodoxy, is proud to introduce the Fellows for its 2011 Summer Beit Midrash. Fellows include men and women from leading universities, yeshivot, and seminaries with advanced textual skills and a passionate commitment to learning Torah in an environment that welcomes the moral challenges of modernity as spiritual opportunities and sees recognition of each human beings as a Divine Image as a fundamental assumption and telos of Torah study.
The Summer Beit Midrash is an intense and exhilarating learning program that allows Fellows to pursue compelling questions with intellectual rigor and ethical integrity in the framework of a warm and challenging Orthodox community, and to experience themselves as active contributors to the halakhic conversation. This year's seminar, our fifteenth, will center on the theme "Judaism and Art; towards a Halakhic evaluation of Beauty." It will run from July 5 – August 13 at Young Israel of Sharon, 100 Ames Street.
SBM is headed by CMTL Dean Rabbi Aryeh Klapper, with an array of distinguished guest lecturers. SBM Fellows will lead a variety of public learning opportunities during the seminar, including one-on-one study, thematic text-study groups, and formal classes.
This year, The Center for Modern Torah Leadership is introducing Yeshivat Hakayitz, an exciting new program this summer for high school and middle school students. This program is ideal for a student who wishes to learn Rabbinic Literature over the summer in an Orthodox environment right here in the Boston area. Mrs. Deborah Klapper will serve as the director for this program.
The dates for this summer's program are July 11-August 12, with a weekly commitment. The program will also take place at the Young Israel of Sharon, with the fellows preparing source sheets and teaching some of the sessions for the new group.
For more information about the summer, please contact Anne Sendor at moderntorahleadership@gmail.com. For more information about CMTL and its programs, as well as for many terrific articles and audio and video classes, please see www.torahleadership.org.
Jared Anstandig, from Detroit, is a Bible major at Yeshiva College. He is a passionate learner who will put forth as much effort as is possible in order to understand the texts he is given, and then do his best to find a way to deliver that knowledge to others. As a result, he is constantly looking for new opportunities and experiences to learn, grow, and develop. The ability to balance both the very traditional and the not-so-traditional of the Summer Beit Midrash is quite unique, and he is looking forward to contributing to the group and to the Sharon community.
Miriam L. Jaffe is from Monsey New York. She is currently studying Mathematics at Johns Hopkins University. She also spends her time in school driving a student activities van, supervising, and eating from the Kosher kitchen. Miriam is looking forward to spending the summer learning Torah, meeting and having discussions with interesting people, and gaining all kinds of positive experiences while doing so.
Adena Morgan, from Yardley, PA, just finished her first year at Brandeis University where she plans to study Near Eastern and Judaic and gender studies. Before Brandeis, she spent a year in Israel studying at Midreshet Nishmat. Adena enjoys reading, philosophizing about life and Judaism, interfaith work, and hanging out in the Brandeis beis. She is very excited to spend the summer in an intensive beit midrash in a vibrant Jewish community.
Emily Pisem just finished her first year at Barnard College, where she is studying psychology. Emily is a native of Brooklyn, where she attended Yeshivah of Flatbush. She also studied at Nishmat. She looks forward to the opportunity to explore Torah and Halakhah in new ways with motivated and interesting people, and is also excited to explore a new Jewish community.
Rachel Renz, from Sharon, MA, is entering her second year at Stern College, where she is majoring in Judaic Studies with a minor in English literature. Rachel loves reading autobiographical and African-American literature and watching musicals. Hoping to eventually pursue a PhD in biblical literature, Rachel would also love to publish some of her writing on Torah and Parshanut. She looks forward to spending a wonderful summer learning Torah with both new and old acquaintances.
Yedidya Schwartz is a native of Riverdale, New York, an alumnus of Yeshivat Maale Gilboa, a graduate of Yale University, and is returning to SBM for his second year. Yedidya hopes to go into the rabbinate, and as such he hopes that he can use time at SBM well to grow in his knowledge of practical halakhah and its applications. He also relishes the prospect of learning and growing together with such an exciting and dynamic community of learners and teachers.
Ora Shore, from Toronto, is currently in the Master’s Program in Biblical and Talmudic Interpretation at Stern. She gives a weekly gemara shiur at NYU and has been involved with many batei midrash in camps, Israel, and college. Each of these experiences has taught her how to interact with people of various ages and backgrounds in a Beit Midrash setting. She is excited to spend the summer developing her understanding of the halakhic process and is looking forward to being involved in the Sharon community.
Ezra Waxman, from Newton MA, just completed his BA/MA from Boston University, with an independent concentration in "Philosophy and the Mathematical Sciences". Next year he will be attending the Weizmann Institute in Rehovot, Israel, where he will begin his graduate studies in mathematics. Ezra looks forward to the opportunity to discuss interesting halakhic issues with interesting people, and is particularly excited to learn from Rabbi Klapper and his peers about the various ways to approach Jewish texts.
Jonathan Ziring, from Staten Island, NY is returning to Sharon and the SBM for year number three, but this year is bringing his Kallah Ora. He had an amazing time last year, learning from everyone, and the scenic Sharon is a nice change from Washington Heights, his not-so-scenic base during the year, where he attends Yeshiva University. This coming year he is continuing semikhah and a BA-MA program in Bernard Revel Graduate School and will be studying Jewish Philosophy. Above all, he's looking forward to seeing everyone again.
