Orot at the Movies: Orot Proudly Releases a New Educational Film

"On Both Sides of the River" examines the challenges surrounding a young woman from a religious family who decides to marry a non-religious man.

Last year, Rav Reuven Kruger, director of a rabbinic training program called Likrat Shlichut, turned to Rav Professor Neria Gutel for his advice and assistance. Likrat Shlichut trains young rabbis looking to enter the professional rabbinate in Israel, and Rav Kruger had written a series of scenarios to challenge the young rabbis. Would Rav Gutel be willing to offer his thoughts on the scenarios?
Rav Gutel did more than that.
Instead of presenting dry ideas on paper, perhaps Rav Kruger would be willing to work with Orot to create a movie that would accomplish the same goal, but with the power, drama and effectiveness that modern films bring to the screen.
This past month, Orot's Department of Communication Studies proudly introduced the film that resulted from this partnership. The twenty-three minute feature film, "B'trei Avrei D'nahara" – "On Both Sides of the River," depicts the gut-wrenching decision of a young woman from a religious family to marry a non-religious man. This decision carries great weight not only spiritually and halachically, but also socially and personally. As her family grapples with her decision, the young woman's interactions with her parents, her community and her new husband raise a myriad of difficult questions that the modern rabbi – and every Jew – must confront.
The premiere of the film, which took place in early March, featured opening remarks from Rav Gutel, Rav Krieger, as well as Talya Fish, the film's director. A fascinating discussion followed the screening surrounding the halachic, educational and professional aspects of the film. Rav Yaakov Ariel, the chief rabbi of Ramat Gan, addressed halachic issues in the film, which ranged from whether one could accept flowers from a guest who visits on Shabbat, to the challenging issue of inviting guests for Shabbat at all. Rav Yona Goodman, Director of Spiritual Education at Orot addressed some of the educational and spiritual challenges raised by the film including some of the challenges "mixed" (religious and non-religious ) couples face, and some recommendations for how to address these types of situations, both within the family and in a community structure. Finally, Moli Kimmel, an instructor in Orot's Department of Communication Education, discussed the challenge of how religious people are depicted in the media in Israel today, and suggested that we must harness the power of the media to create the images we want to portray, and not wait for others to portray us as they see fit.
The film was recently featured on Israel's Educational Television, (in Hebrew). To watch the clip, click on this link. (The program ran on March 9th. Click on the link to March 9th and fast forward to 45 minutes into the program).

Halacha and the Media

By Rav Eliav Vizel
Lecturer, Elkana Campus

"The basis of Hassidut, and the root of worshiping Hashem with a pure heart, is so that it should become clear and confirmed to every man what his obligations are in His world." – So the Ramchal begins his seminal work "Mesilat Yesharim."

As part of the ongoing discourse in the framework of the "Halacha and the Media" course, a group of Communications Department students traveled to Ramat Gan before Chanukah to participate in a meeting of the minds between the city's chief rabbi, Rabbi Yaakov Ariel shlit"a, and the department's teaching staff. The course deals with the Halachic aspects of the communications professions, including print, electronic and broadcast media.

The nature of the course demands that the students examine a number of complex questions that require the Halachic insight of a recognized posek. To my delight as the course instructor, Rabbi Ariel shlit"a agreed to meet with the students in his home to discuss the difficulties that arise when dealing with the creative world of journalism, television and film making. The president of Orot Israel College, Rabbi Prof. Neriya Gutel, and Dr. Dvori Handler, the department's fieldwork coordinator, accompanied the students and myself on the visit.

Rabbi Ariel explained what needs to be the starting point from where the students, as future teachers in the communications field, should draw their orientation. He emphasized that as with anything innovative, one can choose whether to treat it with caution and disconnect from it, or whether to accept it and use it for positive purposes, imbuing it with worthy values.

Rabbi Ariel pointed to the problematic side of the electronic and broadcast media, which could be a factor in encouraging laziness, voyeurism, short-sightedness and lowering intellectual and cultural standards. On the other hand, one cannot ignore the hidden potential in these media, and the role that Torah-observant individuals can play in establishing alternative codes of ethics in these fields, which as of today do more harm than good.

The students asked the rabbi to comment on ethical dilemmas they already encounter as students in the field of communications, and particularly in the profession of film making. For example, should they set limits regarding the screening of films by mainstream film makers? Rabbi Ariel advised that while the halachot of viewing immodest materials are less stringent upon women than men, still, constant intensive and unlimited exposure to films of an immodest nature is not desirable because it can have a negative effect on the purity of the viewer's heart.

Rabbi Ariel appealed to the students to be aware of the heavy responsibility they are taking upon themselves. As future teachers of these important professions they will need to educate the next generation towards creative thinking, ethical values and critical analysis that are different from the norms in these professions. He wished the students much success in their studies and agreed to be available for consultation again in the future as needed. The students found the discussion most helpful in "charging their batteries" so that they can contend with the challenges they face in their chosen fields.

Jewish Life in the Age of Facebook

Rav Yonah Goodman

Director of Religious Education, Orot Israel College

Background
TIME magazine recently named Mark Zuckerberg, founder of the Facebook social networking site, as their “Person of the Year” for 2010. According to the magazine’s editors, Facebook is not just another successful website. Rather, it is a phenomenon which is changing the very face and nature of humanity. The editors explained that Facebook has half a billion subscribers (so far) – i.e. about a tenth of the world’s population – and that Zuckerberg earned the recognition for:
“Mapping the social relations among [Facebook users], for creating a new system of exchanging information and for changing how we live our lives.”
The article also stated that Facebook grows “at a rate of about 700,000 people a day” and referred to it as “a social entity almost twice as large as the U.S.” Moreover, TIME’s editors believe that we have now entered a new era – “the Facebook era” - and that it impacts our approach to life.

A personal note
Before we address TIME’s choice, I should note two things. First of all, our year is not based on the secular calendar, and what is referred to as “New Year’s Day” has no significance for us. Nevertheless, new phenomena - which affect our world and us – are significant, albeit without any connection to the specific timing of the discussion. Second, in our Jewish world, the most influential person is not necessarily the most famous. Perhaps he or she is one of the Lamed Vav Tzadikim (literally, the “36 Righteous Individuals”), whose covert actions change reality and bring us and the world closer to the Geulah (Final Redemption). However, even top experts agree that there are events which occur in unknown ways, and they are only able to investigate discernable and explicable processes. These investigations are important to us as well.

Why Facebook?
Perhaps the reader thinks that this is all nonsense. He is not a member of Facebook, and the notion that computer software can change the world seems ridiculous to him. But for half a billion people, it is not ridiculous at all. Furthermore, experience has shown that profound global trends eventually influence us as well. Their influences extend to our very doorsteps and present us with educational and spiritual challenges.

All this raises the question: Would we choose Facebook’s founder as Man of the Year? Is Facebook a brilliant innovation which we should actively embrace? Or is this the time for us to stand up for ourselves and demonstrate our independence, and to recognize that “being there” is not necessarily the same as actually experiencing and living?

The lessons of Facebook
Much can be written about Facebook, but for now, let us suffice with three items for consideration:

1. According to Zuckerberg, in the “old” Internet, people were afraid to reveal their identities – even though in real life, they trusted each other. Therefore, he started Facebook in order to enable them to live their real lives on the Internet – openly and with confidence.
Yet, is Facebook truly an accurate reflection of real life? After all, it mainly allows you to upload pictures, to update your status, etc. You collect “friends” at a wholesale rate, but you have little to do with most of them. On Facebook, you see your “friends’” faces instead of their personalities and midot (character traits). Instead of focusing on the fundamentals of yirat Shamayim (fear of Heaven) and avodat Hashem (serving Hashem), we have become enslaved to a time-sucking application which lets us look at countless photos and learn who is mad at whom and who is now friends with whom. Can we honestly say that the application inspires us to think? To contemplate? To be creative?

2. Chazal instructed us: “Acquire for yourself a friend.” (Pirkei Avot 1:6) But nothing could be further from the concept of friendship than that which takes place on a social networking site. It involves neither giving nor cooperating in real life. Note that the word chaver (friend) comes from chibur (connection). What kind of connection can one simultaneously maintain with hundreds of alleged “friends”? True friendship requires sharing a deep bond with a limited number of friends. It does not mean a superficial chat with ten acquaintances or posting personal status updates, which reach hundreds of people at the same time.
More profoundly, Facebook provides an ostensible solution to modern man’s loneliness (hence, its success). However, this solution is no more than a virtual illusion. Would it not be preferable - rather than spending hours amassing virtual “friends” – to build real relationships with real friends? After all, Facebook only allows “friends” to exchange information. But real life human interactions are not only based on information, and they cannot be reduced to a simple click on the “like” button. True friendship cannot be compared to so-called “social networks”, which entangle you in their webs but do not offer you actual friendship.

3. We are commanded to act modestly. In contrast, Facebook “teaches” you to post your personal pictures where anyone can see them and to record your innermost thoughts on a public “wall”. It exposes your intimate world, and as a result, you find yourself unintentionally revealing many of your private sentiments. In addition, the knowledge that hundreds may be reading your thoughts affects and shapes your inner world. The Facebook culture encourages extroversion in lieu of quiet contemplation and looking at other people’s pictures in lieu of delicately working on one’s midot.

Conclusion
TIME’s editors observed that Zuckerberg essentially founded the world’s third largest “country”, surpassed only by China and India (at least for now). To a certain extent, we have all become citizens of that country – without making a conscious decision to emigrate from here. And yet, we believe that our job is not to live in foreign countries. Rather, we are meant to live in the Jewish State with its unique ethos and lifestyle.
It will not be easy, but the time has come to make aliyah back to Eretz Yisrael:

To join the builders, not the “taggers”;
The deep thinkers, not the “surfers”.
To stop building the “People of the Faces”
And to assist in building the “People of the Book”.

Me'orot Haratzyah: A Window in the Thought of Rav Tzvi Yehuda Kook

Orot proudly publishes a set of books culled from the spoken talks of a leading Religious Zionist leader.

Fifty years ago, a young man of eighteen named Hoshea Rabinowitz faithfully transcribed the public addresses of Rav Tzvi Yehuda Kook, in order to preserve his words for future generations. He continued this practice for four consecutive years.
Years passed, and this young man grew both in age and wisdom, and today is known as Rav Hoshea Rabinowitz, a scholar and Jewish educator who served as the Head of the Department of Torah She'beal Peh (Oral Torah) Studies at Orot for seventeen years. During all this time, Rav Rabinowitz lacked the financial wherewithal to fulfill his dreams and properly publish the book.
Hearing about Rav Rabinowitz's dream, Rav Professor Neria Gutel, President of Orot Israel College decided to put Orot College's full support behind the project, in order to finally fulfill Rav Tzvi Yehuda's request to bring his teachings to the wider public.
After three years of great effort and expense, Orot Israel College proudly released "Me'orot Haretziyah" ("The Lights of HaRav Tzvi Yehuda"), realizing the dreams of many of his devoted students. Now, former and future students of Rav Tzvi Yehuda can sit at their Shabbat table and literally study the words their revered teacher. "The talks in the book appear in the language that they were said, such that someone who reads the words and recognizes Rav Tzvi Yehuda and his style can actually hear his voice behind the words," Rav Rabinowitz explained. "We were very careful not to deviate from the Rav's manner of speaking, and only added explanations and source notations at the bottom of the page."
The book carries significant historic value as well. In his talks, Rav Tzvi Yehudah would often allude to current events. He would say that Parshat Hashavua (the weekly Torah portion) is always the Parshah of that specific week, meaning that there is a direct connection between the Torah portion we read on a given week and the events unfolding at that time, be they national, political or even social. Often, the footnotes in the book explain the historic relevance of a specific lecture.
The book was edited by Rav Rabinowitz's son-in-law, Rav Elyakim Zayit, who arranged the book into easily digestible chapters, according to the weekly Parshah and Holidays.

If you are interested in purchasing this sefer, you can buy it online at this link.

Audio Shiur from Rav Prebor: Nevi'im Achronim, Then and Now

Audio Shiur:
Rav Sinai Prebor: Nevi'im Achronim, Then and Now
If you could not join us in person, (or just want to give the shiur another listen), feel free to listen to Rav Prebor's shiur.

Click here for the audio link, or listen in the handy audio player supplied below.

Being a School Principal

By David Shavit,
Rechovot Campus

2010 was the third year that Orot Israel College Israel offered an educational management training course for future school principals at the Moreshet Yaacov Campus in Rehovot, and the second year at the Elkana Campus. The following are excerpts from the speakers at the Orot Israel College Rehovot Campus 2010 graduation ceremony.

"He who is all kindness risks anarchy
He who is all wisdom risks skepticism
He who is all faith risks extremism
One needs kindness, wisdom and faith." (Rabbi Simcha Bunim of Peshischa)
- This is the essence of being a school principal.

Orot's Educational Management training course prepares a cadre of candidates for elementary and secondary school principal positions for the near and distant future. 64 men and women are presently studying in this course.
When we started planning the course curriculum, we started with three basic assumptions, following developing trends in the education system:
• The school principal, as the central figure leading an educational institution, must possess the image of a professional educator.
• The job of a school principal is very complex and requires extensive knowledge of management and leadership skills, as well as an ability to initiate and lead change as the head of the staff.
• The school principal must be an educational leader with a clear educational-ethical philosophy, and must possess the ability to design and implement complex educational processes.

The course exposes students to the theory of educational management so that they are ready to deal with the real world – actual management. The course continuously stresses the connection between theory and practice by exposing the students to actual situations that school principals must address. Students meet with experienced teachers, leading school principals, senior figures in the education system, and more.
Students devote many hours to practical field work. In the first year students visit schools and meet with seasoned principals, observing and learning according to a pre-designed curriculum. In the second year the students' field work experience involves leading a task independently under professional supervision, as assigned in conjunction with the school principal.
As a result of the two-year course of study, our graduates have come to use a different lexicon when discussing education, fully incorporating prominent concepts from the fields of education and management. Students experienced a personal transformation as well, from an apprehension of management and leadership to an eagerness to take responsibility and be on the cutting edge of Israel's educational system. Many of our graduates already serve as school principals and still maintain contact with the college.
We expect that studies in a religious educational college like Orot Israel will help the students formulate a worldview based on faith, and help them develop a personal and educational identity on both a theoretical and practical level. We expect our students to develop as professionals and leaders who know how to listen to and involve others, while leading them to create an educational environment with a creative vision. We expect our graduates to know how to inspire their colleagues to take responsibility for the implementation and results of their school's curriculum development.
We pray that this task that the college has taken upon itself, to prepare Israel's next generation of educational leadership, will serve as a catalyst for the enhancement of the entire educational system in the years to come.

"Being There"

By Avia Sonnenfeld,
Fourth year Informal and Community Education major

Six students in the college's Informal and Community Education track specializing in youth work volunteered to join the "Coffee on the Beach" project last summer as part of their field work assignments. The project, run each summer by Elem, a non-profit organization that works with "youth at risk", provides a first response to youth camping out at the Dugit Beach on Lake Kinneret. Orot's third and fourth year students were supervised by Sally Gov (Director of the Kiryat Shmuel Municipality's Youth Advancement Department and lecturer at Orot College) and spent each evening reaching out to youth on the beach, engaging them in conversation. Avia Sonnenfeld, a fourth year student, reports on their experiences.

I spent last summer on the beach together with many Israeli religious Zionist teens. I saw many sights, talked into the wee hours and discovered that to get to know our youth better and to really gain their confidence you have to be with them where they are, even if it is in places you don't want to be.
At the Orot's Informal and Community Education Youth Advocacy Unit, we deal with individual therapy for alienated and at-risk youth. "Youth at-risk" include boys or girls in danger of dropping out of school due to behavioral, scholastic or other difficulties. Boys or girls who are not in a school framework are more likely to become involved in dangerous or self-destructive behavior.
During our field work assignments we met with teenagers in youth clubs, community centers, boarding schools and regular schools. When summer begins and schools go on vacation, teenagers don't just disappear. They look for work, hang out, or "let loose", sometimes straying into places where they put themselves at risk.
So a group of us students went to meet them there.
Of course, not all cases are the same and not all youth are drawn toward risky situations, but the potential for danger looms large.
One of the places where teens often choose to hang out at is the beach. Israel has many beaches and there are many alternatives venues for youth. During the summer the beaches on the Mediterranean coast, in Eilat and the shores of Lake Kinneret are filled with teenage boys and girls. What do they do at the beach all day? Swim, hang out with the guys, sunbath, but most importantly, the agenda is to be out on your own – staying as far away and out of touch from the adult world as possible.
What about at night? At night things really start to get interesting: music, bottles of booze (and sometimes more) suddenly appear, boy-girl interactions become more alluring, and the youth just let the night set its own pace.
So what's the problem? Many youth spend days or even weeks alone on the beach. Sometimes they leave from there to go trekking, often neglecting to get organized in terms of water, food and hygiene, which can lead to situations of dehydration. Moreover, boys often end up in situations of drunkenness, violence, drugs, and occasionally in danger of drowning from reckless behavior. Apart from the physical dangers there are also, of course, problems of spiritual confusion and personality disorders associated with these situations. Some teens, even those who are not dragged into extreme risk situations, will have many questions about themselves, about coming of age and about what is happening around them.
For this reason, the "ELEM" Association, together with the "Say No to Drugs" Authority and other youth advocacy organizations, has, through a grant from the Ministry of Education, sponsored an "open tent," offering hot drinks, light, food, and especially adults who want to be there for and with the youth, to provide information, conversation and guidance. The tent is open from 9:00pm until 2:00am.
Most of the volunteers who came to the tent were amazing, and it was wonderful to work with them, but they were not from religious backgrounds. However, many of the teens found on the beaches are from "our public" – from the religious community. The teens need to talk with an adult, but an adult who doesn't come from the same background as the youth cannot give an ideal response because he doesn't understand his world. That's why there is such a great need for volunteers who come from a religious background. For that reason we – religious students studying youth work – were "drafted" as a group combining talent for working with at-risk youth and a religious background and education.
Our group, supervised by Ms. Sally Gov, worked with the youth at the Dugit Beach over the course of two nights. We saw a little of what they were seeking at the beach, and discovered how important it is to give the youth a chance to engage with a non-judgmental adult, even though they are supposedly running away from the adult world.
We received much positive feedback from the boys and girls we met. We met many of "our" youth there, even some who we knew personally. There were some difficult moments, such as when we saw girls practically unconsciousness from excessive alcohol, or when we saw a boy or girl from the community where we live. Our conversations with the youth were interesting and we were quite surprised to learn that the youth actually wanted us to be there. This important experience taught us a great deal both about ourselves and about the youth.
Finally, we gained a great deal from the experience of working together as a team under the professional supervision of Ms. Gov, who conducted serious workshops during the day we spent together.
I'm very happy that I had this experience and recommend that anyone who wants to better understand the world of our precious youth should volunteer for ELEM's beach activities next year.