As part of Rina's programme at Pardes, she has to create a project for the betterment of the Pardes community. She has been working on creating a monthly series of lectures, the first of which was tonight. At around 7:15, our apartment was filled with the most pluralistic group of recently graduated North American Jews we could find, as well as the smell of free pizza (it smells different than paid-for pizza, and you know it!).
The topic discussed tonight was the halachic ramifications of giving up land within Israel's borders. The rabbi who spoke presented a series of viewpoints from Jewish thinkers spanning hundreds of years, and concluded with several modern takes on the issue. The resulting stance, from the lecturer's perspective, was that the sanctity of life is more important than the sanctity of the land, and that military and political specialists must be consulted to determine the possibilty of violence in each situation. To him, the withdrawal from Israeli lands has become less a halachic issue than a strategic one, but somehow this seemingly liberal ideology is supported by tomes of modern day rabbinic poskim. Overall the entire event was a success, both in terms of the turnout and the psychological prodding and provocation it provided.*
*We apologize for the scarcity of details, but the source-sheets were many pages long and would be difficult to recapture here. If interested in the sources discussed, e-mail us and we'll be happy to pass them on.
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1 comment:
That actually sounds really interesting, though I fear I would get lost in the details.
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