Jewish Herald-Voice (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 105, No. 10, Ed. 1 Thursday, June 7, 2012 Page: 4 of 28
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Page 4
Jewish Herald-Voice
June 7, 2012
Up Close
Summer mini yeshiva feeds body and soul
Project Talmud
Summer Mini Yeshiva,
an outstanding Torah
learning opportunity
for the Houston Jewish
community, returns for
its 22nd year, Sunday-
Thursday, June 10-14.
The Houston tradition
will feature interesting
Torah classes and
lectures; a gourmet
kosher meal will be
served at 6 p.m.
From 7-9 p.m., four Torah classes
will be offered. Students can choose
up to two classes per evening and
can enter at any time. The classes
are text based, but Hebrew reading
and fluency are not required.
From 7-8 p.m., Kabbala &
Jewish Mysticism, taught by Rabbi
Moishe Traxler, director of Chabad
Outreach, will examine the classic
Likkutei Amarim - Tanya. This small
book revolutionized the Jewish world
through teaching soul and body self-
mastery.
Maimonides’ renowned Foundations
of Judaism and Faith will be taught
by Rabbi Yaakov Vidal, instructor and
head of the boys division, Torah Day
School. Known as Hilchot Yesodei
HaTorah, it is a groundbreaking and
fascinating text that details, with
clarity, the basis of Judaism.
From 8-9 p.m., Torah Studies
on Parshat Shlach will explore
ancient and mystical Torah insights
and translate them into modern
application. It is taught by Rabbi
Dovid Goldstein, director of CHAI
Learning Center of West Houston
and associate director of Chabad
Outreach.
Learning from the Talmud will be
taught by Rabbi Betzalel Marinovsky,
veteran Torah scholar and dean of the
Chabad Collel and adult education
director for Chabad Lubavitch
Center. He will guide students to
unlock the Talmud and dramatically
sharpen their reasoning skills as
they study the Talmud’s classic
chapter Hamafkid, detailing laws of
deposits, guardianship, liabilities,
oaths and more.
On Wednesday, June 13, the
annual guest lecture will be delivered
by Rabbi Shais Taub of Pittsburgh.
Rabbi Taub is an exceptional
teacher and author known for his
scholarship in mysticism. He is
director of Jewish.TV and a frequent
contributor at the Huffington Post.
He is dubbed by NPR as “an expert
in Jewish mysticism and the 12
Steps,” praised by Publishers Weekly
for his bestseller book, “G-d of Our
Understanding,” and director of
Conscious Contact, a program for
Jewish prayer, meditation and study.
Rabbi Taub will dive into the
sea of Torah knowledge to shed
light on a particularly knotty issue:
At Mt. Sinai, G-d gave the Ten
Commandments on two tablets to the
entire Jewish nation. Surprisingly,
sages of the Talmud described the
fifth, Honoring Our Parents, as the
most difficult commandment.
In a three-part Torah
analysis, Rabbi Taub will
explain 1) Emotionally: Why is
there so much “baggage” with
parents? Psychological conflict,
intergenerational trauma, family
of origin issues. 2) Ethically: How
much time and money must I devote
to my aging parents? What about
respect and love? Inheritance and
estate issues? 3) Mystically: Why
is this commandment on the first
tablet and not the second? What
does this teach us about our own
self-concept and spiritual progress?
Project Talmud is open to every
Jewish adult or mature high school
student. It is an opportunity to
feed both the body and soul, to
grow in understanding and gain
knowledge of Jewishness. It is for
serious learning and for those just
curious.
Registration is on ProjectTalmud.
com or call 713-774-0300. There is a
suggested donation, and scholarships
are available. Project Talmud will
take place Chabad Outreach Center
at 11000 Fondren Rd., Ste B-104. □
Victory From Page 1
of Israel will be recognized as “rabbis
of non-Orthodox communities” and
will receive wages equal to those of
their Orthodox counterparts.
For now, the decision applies
only to Israel’s regional councils -
large districts of rural communities
- but not Israeli cities. And, the
non-Orthodox rabbis, unlike their
Orthodox colleagues, will have
no authority over Jewish law or
ceremonies such as marriage or
divorce. Rather than being funded
by the nation’s Religious Services
Ministry, they will receive their
salaries from the Ministry of Culture
and Sport.
Even though the decision will
not affect most Israeli Reform and
Conservative Jews because the
vast majority of them live in large
metropolitan areas such as Jerusalem
and metro Tel Aviv, the decision
nevertheless opens a door toward
full equality with the Orthodox, non-
Orthodox Israeli leaders said.
“The importance of the decision
is that it sets the model for the
relations between the non-Orthodox
movements and the government,”
said Rabbi Gilad Kariv, the
executive director of Israel’s Reform
movement.
The Reform movement also has
a petition in court to give Reform
rabbis in cities the same rights of
those in regional council areas.
According to Kariv, last month’s
decision only gives full-service
synagogues with at least 50 affiliated
families in regional council areas
eligibility for the funding.
“There’s no reason to adopt this
in the regional councils and not
in the cities, and the government
knows it,” he said.
It’s not clear when the Israeli
courts will decide on the Reform
movement’s petition, but if
the petition is accepted, the
change would affect virtually
all Conservative and Reform
congregations.
The announcement followed out-
of-court negotiations over a 2005
petition by the Israel Movement for
Reform and Progressive Judaism
and Rabbi Miri Gold, a Reform rabbi
from Kibbutz Gezer in central Israel.
Gold had petitioned the state to fund
the Gezer Reform community, just
as it funds Orthodox communities
and their leaders.
Initially, the government has
agreed to fund 15 non-Orthodox
rabbis in the regional council areas.
But, the funding could increase
as more Conservative and Reform
congregations are established.
Yizhar Hess, executive director
of Israel’s Conservative movement,
known as Masorti, said there is a
more important issue than the initial
number of communities receiving
financial support: Conservative
and Reform Jews in these areas no
longer will have to donate privately
to support their rabbis, while
also paying taxes to support the
Orthodox-dominated Rabbinate.
This, he hopes, will allow more
Conservative congregations to form
and reduce the Israeli movement’s
dependence on donations from
the U.S. Three-quarters of the
Masorti movement’s annual budget
of approximately $4.5 million now
comes from the Diaspora.
“The only way for a Masorti
rabbi to act as a Masorti rabbi was
to be able to raise enough funds
from donations and dues to make
a living,” Hess said. “We know that
there are more communities that
want to reach out and have us.”
For years the government has
held the position that non-Orthodox
rabbis deserve these rights: A
2008 government memorandum
to the court in Gold’s case said
that “a town with a non-Orthodox
community that is interested in
cultural and communal activities
deserves funding from the state.”
The attorney general’s office
used that memorandum as a basis
for its decision, but by defining non-
Orthodox activities as “cultural and
communal,” it shifted responsibility
for overseeing the activities
to the Ministry of Culture and
Sport - meaning that Reform and
Conservative rabbis still do not
have state-recognized authority over
Jewish law.
But Kariv, Hess and their
American counterparts believe that
last month’s decision could pave the
way to increased legitimacy for their
movements in Israel.
David Lissy, executive director
of the Masorti Foundation in New
York, pointed to two recent surveys
of Israeli Jews showing increased
awareness of and identification
with non-Orthodox movements.
One, a recent report by the Israel
Democracy Institute and the Avi
Chai Foundation, showed that 30
percent of Israeli Jews had attended
a Conservative or Reform service.
“More and more people feel that
they would like to take responsibility
for their Jewish identity,” Hess said.
“They understand that there is more
than one way to be Jewish.”
Outside Israel, the Rabbinical
Assembly of the U.S. Jewish
Conservative movement and the
World Union for Progressive Judaism
were among those that lauded the
decision.
“This is a historic day for Israelis
and Jews around the world,” said
Rabbi Julie Schonfeld, executive
vice president of the Rabbinical
Assembly. “In order for Judaism
to grow and thrive in Israel, it is
necessary that the government
recognize its obligation to
provide equal funding to various
Jewish religious streams and
expressions that flower in the
Jewish state.” □
riOpC From Page 1
Israel has created what
Gepstein calls an “empire”
in stem-cell research,
with nodes of highly
focused research taking
place at the country’s
best research institutes.
researchers found that new heart
muscle cells, cardiomyocytes, grown
in a lab dish with existing heart
tissues, were beating together as one
within 24 to 48 hours. They implanted
the resulting culture into the hearts
of healthy rats, where it connected
well to the existing cardiac muscle.
Lior Gepstein, head researcher,
said it will take five to 10 years
before this basic science can get to
the point of clinical trials. “What
is new and exciting about our
research,” he pointed out, “is that we
have shown that it is possible to take
skin cells from an elderly patient
with advanced heart failure and end
up with his own beating cells in a
laboratory dish that are healthy and
young.”
Although patients with advanced
heart disease, today, may never
benefit from this research, it is likely
to be available to people who are
now 30 years old and younger.
Gepstein added that Israel has
created what he calls an “empire”
in stem cell research, with nodes
of highly focused research taking
place at the country’s best research
institutes. Today, Israeli scientists
use pluripotent stem cells,
which come from skin or blood
samples. This circumvents ethical
considerations of embryonic stem
cell research and guarantees that
patients wouldn’t need to take anti-
rejection drugs for the rest of their
lives, since the progenitor cells
originate from their own bodies. □
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Samuels, Jeanne F. Jewish Herald-Voice (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 105, No. 10, Ed. 1 Thursday, June 7, 2012, newspaper, June 7, 2012; Houston, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth544230/m1/4/: accessed April 19, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; .