Noson, this is not a great post. Of Course Dr. Adina Schick knows that Noah's Ark does not represent contemporary scientific thought, but she is doing her best to negate the NY school board from dictating curriculum to Torah schools. I personally, as you know, am very knowledgeable in most of the sciences (for a layman) and I laud the teaching of science in frum schools. But on the other hand, I'm sure you agree that Torah is more important than science, and some Chasidim (and even Yeshivish as in Lakewood) eschew extended education in the sciences. I don't agree that is the best educational profile, but as long as the schools produce Torah educated fine individuals, I think it is wrong to pressure them to change. However, I don't want the secular authorities to get a foot in the door of curriculum in Jewish schools; that happened when the communists took over Russia, and they wiped out Torah education. I don't care if they cut funding, as long as they leave us alone.
They aren't deceiving any authorities, they are "playing the game." As for children winding up in poverty. Even those in secular schools that have a curriculum that includes bio-chemistry, James Baldwin and game theory, 95% of those children will never use that knowledge to earn a living. I have a son-in-law who never graduated high-school, he is now a world class 5th grade hascholas gemora rebbe, a summer camp director, an online magid shiur, and he's going for his masters in some specialized educational field.
As for parnasa, I am a huge fan of the Landers College model (Torah im Parnasa) and alternatively gearing courses for Kollel leavers in fields like computer programming, medical technology, emergency medical technology, etc. besides business fields. Basically K-12, & undergrad studies are 80% useless for Parnasa. A reasonably intelligent guy who learned in Kollel for 5-10 years can take a night course for 2 years and fit right into a decent Parnasa. However, without 12 or 18 years immersed in Torah learning, it is hard to become a talmid chochom and a yiras shomayim... a kulo ben torah. Yes yes, I know that there are some of those that went that route and were nisrach despite all that, but I'm talking about the big picture.
As for you Reb Noson, I still feel terrible about what they did to you, but there remained a lot of people, perhaps behind the scenes, that agree you got a raw deal.
If the secular authorities get a foot in the door, they will push for teaching LGBTQ and whatever other anti-Torah things they dream up. They have already done this in the UK, with the support of Modern Orthodox rabbis.
I thought Rabbi Mervis's guide was pretty well-balanced. Nowhere does he advocate for changing halacha, unlike Greenberg, Lopez-Cordozo, Farber and their ilk.
Exactly my point. It is because of people who think of LGBTQ in our chinuch system as well balanced that we have to fight tooth and nail against all secular interference
Here, I don't think the many of the applications of the Noah's ark story are actually a poor match to state standards. Here is a link to the standards, which they have for kindergarten, first grade, etc.
You can expand each, and sometimes see examples of each. How does a kindergartener accomplish the subgoal of "contextualization"? Their sub-subgoal examples is: Identify similarities between home and school; identify similarities between him/herself and others; describe an event in his/her life.
These goals each have fancy names, but break it down, and the way they suggest one meet these are things one might write a substack criticizing as too basic. In reality, these are all basic. They don't require grappling with how kangaroos got on the ark. (Midrashim asking how the re'em fit on the ark, or how Og survived could be similar.) Asking how Avraham was similar but different from Noach in terms of righteousness. Describing an event in the parsha. And so on. Yes, expectations should shift by grade, but these aren't *really* kvetches, any more than typical assignment of what is taught is matched to these standards.
The Torah is a terrible read for young kids. Alright class let’s read about Judah and Tamar. Lol
And a story that they read year after year so that it’s memorized isn’t the point. They have to know how to take new material and new information and analyze, synthesize, compare and contrast, make inferences, identify the main ideas, etc.
Wow! Dr. Schick's statement reads like something straight out of The Onion magazine, rendering her a highly suitable candidate for the Nobel Prize in satire.
What is her family relationship to Avi Schick? I think they r both hired guns for Tikvah, who r shills for conservatives to drum up Jewish Trumpsters, regardless of the validity of the individual issues.
I have very much enjoyed reading most of what Rav Slifkin has written over the past several years. It has even directly led me to purchasing 2 more of his books.
I have a lot of blogs and sites which I enjoy reading for free and others which have turned into paywall protected sites. Unfortunately, I cannot afford to fork out month after month the money requested by all those sites which have gone the paid subscription route.
So I will have to make due with what is published for free. At least I hope that Rabbi Slifkin will remain market savvy enough to us skinflints and keep promoting the causes and books of his own works and of others whom he recommends. ברכה והצלחה.
You should not feel the need to defend your decision to charge. Creating content takes energy and resources and thus is valuable. Keeping that in mind, I wish you would remove the IP theft that is on your site in the form of stolen graphics.
With regards to this post, this phrase stuck out: "I don’t know why they are trying to help them". Perhaps it's worth asking? There are many reasons mostly having to do with freedom of religion and ensuring that the state doesn't overreach. There is the possibility of forcing on schools troubling curricula that run antithetical to religious values. And as others here have commented, it's not like NY Public Schools are turning out stellar students. Their overall literacy/numeracy rates don't even hit 50% of the expected standard. So the topic is far more complex that you may grasp not being immersed in the American frum community.
Btw the funding that the schools receive has little or basically nothing to do with education ("strings attached") but to do with benefits for needy families (food etc.). Public schools have essentially be social service agencies, but that a whole other topic.
Receiving billions of dollars of Government aid almost always come with strings attached. Also, in todays day an age young people not achieving basic academic skills will severely hamper their options later in life. Maybe it is child abuse. Sacrificing your own children for religion.
This is a great post. It's clear, erudite, and to the point.
I just wanted to say thank you for all your free content. I really appreciate it and have read it. (I have also bought all your books, plus some of your digital monographs). However, 8 dollars a month for mere digital content seems a little steep to me. I would happily purchase a book based on the blog posts, because I have something to keep, even if all the blog posts in it remain available for free (it could look like "Second Focus").
Like other readers I deeply value this blog even though I regularly disagree on some issues. I certainly agree science should be taught from scientific books.
I also do not deny the author's right to demand money for his work. However, the price is too high for me.
Anyone who objects to the new freemium model is endorsing theft and parasitism. Rav Slifkin has a perfect right to demand payment for some of the intellectual property he creates. Time is money.
You need not feel a need to explain yourself for charging a fee to view content that you created. It is nice that you use the proceeds for charity but that doesn't justify your claim any more than if you would have said that it belongs to you and it is available to read for whoever wants to pay.
I'm assuming your response was representative of what rationalists think is the correct way to understand the Flood story. I wanted to know what other aspects of the story rationalists interpret differently than the understanding many (probably most) Orthodox Jews have of the story.
Presumably, people would not survive a flood of the proportions described in the Chumash. So yes, Noach and his family would have been the sole survivors in the area.
If someone is willing to re-interpret the flood story this way, he's re-interpreting it in a way that's different from the way every or almost every commentary understood it for most of Jewish history. Once a person is willing to do that, what's to stop him from re-interpreting the following ideas in the Torah: that there were 600,000 Jewish men at the time of the Exodus (which would mean 2-3 million Jews total); that the first nine plagues happened; that every first-born in Egypt died during the 10th plague; that the Sea split allowing all the Jews to go through but then went back and killed all the Egyptians; and that Moshe spent 40 days and 40 nights on Har Sinai without food or water?
Do you really think that there have never before been interpretations of Torah "that's different from the way every or almost every commentary understood it for most of Jewish history"? Go study how Chazal interpreted the rakia and the heart/kidneys. I'm pretty sure that you don't follow their explanation. To give but two examples.
What's your limiting principle? To re-ask my questions, what's to stop someone from re-interpreting the following ideas in the Torah: that there were 600,000 Jewish men at the time of the Exodus (which would mean 2-3 million Jews total); that the first nine plagues happened; that every first-born in Egypt died during the 10th plague; that the Sea split allowing all the Jews to go through but then went back and killed all the Egyptians; and that Moshe spent 40 days and 40 nights on Har Sinai without food or water?
Rabbi Slifkin, if you could answer my question about what your limiting principle is when it comes to re-interpreting things the Torah says, I would appreciate it.
I think I read something from Joshua Berman about numbers in the old days having symbolic value and interpreting the tribe sizes in the census in some such fashion such as importance of this or that tribe at the time( if anyone has a citation ..... thank you.)
I cannot say for certain what R' Slifkin would say, but this is the approach of one of the greatest chareidi Torah scholars of the previous generation.
העובדה שסיפור המבול מצא הדים גם באגדות שאר העמים, איננה יכולה אלא לשמש לאישורו של המסופר בתורה. ויש מן הטענות המועלות כנגד המסופר כאן, שכמעט ואין מקום להתחשב בהן. כך, למשל, כאשר מפקפקים באפשרות המעשית לשיכונם של כל בעלי החיים ואיחסון המספוא שלהם לשנה תמימה בתוך התיבה — כאילו אפשר לקבוע בבטחון, כמה מיני בעלי חיים היו קיימים אז. ומלבד זאת, הרי כלל לא נאמר במפורש במקרא, אם אמנם כל כדור הארץ הוצף במימי המבול, או שמא בא המבול רק באותן ארצות, שהיו כבר אז מיושבות על ידי המין האנושי. ואם כך, כלום אין להניח שבעלי חיים ממינים שונים נשארו בחיים באזורים הלא־מיושבים?
(יט) כל־ההרים וגו׳ – לפי זה נראה, שאכן כסו מי המבול את כל פני האדמה, ואמנם, מחקריהם של מדעני טבע רבים אשרו דעה זו.10 אולם עדיין אפשר גם להגן על הדעה שלפיה לא היה המבול כללי, דעה שמסתמכת על תופעות אחרות, כי הביטוי ״אשר־תחת כל השמים״ יהיה מוצדק גם אם נפרשהו — כל חלקי הארץ המיושבים על ידי בני אדם, ומה גם שאף לפי דעה אחת שבתלמוד ״לא ירד לארץ ישראל״.11
Rabbi Dovid Tzvi Hoffman wrote it in his commentary on the Torah. As far as interpretations go, it's not the worst, but it also doesn't help that much. I don't think the scientific consensus supports a local flood that destroyed all/most of human civilization (which is Rabbi Hoffman's approach). And if somebody is kofer in miracles, then kangaroos from Australia is the least of his problems.
There’s valid scientific evidence for catastrophic local or perhaps world-wide events. Why rely on miracles when we have precise documentation of calamitous events?
U say: "Rav Aharon Feldman told me, when I asked him 25 years ago how kangaroos got to the ark, that I shouldn’t be bothered by such things."
That is ALWAYS the rabbinic response when u ask a good question: Do not worry about that stuff! The Torah system that Haredim teach is incompatible with the real world. Forget "science"! Even without science, any intelligent person can see the Torah is NOT consistent with itself or with reality!
Noson, this is not a great post. Of Course Dr. Adina Schick knows that Noah's Ark does not represent contemporary scientific thought, but she is doing her best to negate the NY school board from dictating curriculum to Torah schools. I personally, as you know, am very knowledgeable in most of the sciences (for a layman) and I laud the teaching of science in frum schools. But on the other hand, I'm sure you agree that Torah is more important than science, and some Chasidim (and even Yeshivish as in Lakewood) eschew extended education in the sciences. I don't agree that is the best educational profile, but as long as the schools produce Torah educated fine individuals, I think it is wrong to pressure them to change. However, I don't want the secular authorities to get a foot in the door of curriculum in Jewish schools; that happened when the communists took over Russia, and they wiped out Torah education. I don't care if they cut funding, as long as they leave us alone.
But they're not saying "Leave us alone and we won't take funding." They are trying to deceive the authorities.
(Incidentally, I would also say that their approach is objectively wrong, because many of their children end up in poverty.)
They aren't deceiving any authorities, they are "playing the game." As for children winding up in poverty. Even those in secular schools that have a curriculum that includes bio-chemistry, James Baldwin and game theory, 95% of those children will never use that knowledge to earn a living. I have a son-in-law who never graduated high-school, he is now a world class 5th grade hascholas gemora rebbe, a summer camp director, an online magid shiur, and he's going for his masters in some specialized educational field.
As for parnasa, I am a huge fan of the Landers College model (Torah im Parnasa) and alternatively gearing courses for Kollel leavers in fields like computer programming, medical technology, emergency medical technology, etc. besides business fields. Basically K-12, & undergrad studies are 80% useless for Parnasa. A reasonably intelligent guy who learned in Kollel for 5-10 years can take a night course for 2 years and fit right into a decent Parnasa. However, without 12 or 18 years immersed in Torah learning, it is hard to become a talmid chochom and a yiras shomayim... a kulo ben torah. Yes yes, I know that there are some of those that went that route and were nisrach despite all that, but I'm talking about the big picture.
As for you Reb Noson, I still feel terrible about what they did to you, but there remained a lot of people, perhaps behind the scenes, that agree you got a raw deal.
If the secular authorities get a foot in the door, they will push for teaching LGBTQ and whatever other anti-Torah things they dream up. They have already done this in the UK, with the support of Modern Orthodox rabbis.
https://chiefrabbi.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/The-Wellbeing-of-LGBT-Pupils-A-Guide-for-Orthodox-Jewish-Schools.pdf
That's why it's critical for us to fight, even if we choose more secular studies in our own schools.
I thought Rabbi Mervis's guide was pretty well-balanced. Nowhere does he advocate for changing halacha, unlike Greenberg, Lopez-Cordozo, Farber and their ilk.
Exactly my point. It is because of people who think of LGBTQ in our chinuch system as well balanced that we have to fight tooth and nail against all secular interference
Here, I don't think the many of the applications of the Noah's ark story are actually a poor match to state standards. Here is a link to the standards, which they have for kindergarten, first grade, etc.
https://www.nylearns.org/module/Standards/Tools/Browse?LinkStandardId=0&StandardId=190505
You can expand each, and sometimes see examples of each. How does a kindergartener accomplish the subgoal of "contextualization"? Their sub-subgoal examples is: Identify similarities between home and school; identify similarities between him/herself and others; describe an event in his/her life.
These goals each have fancy names, but break it down, and the way they suggest one meet these are things one might write a substack criticizing as too basic. In reality, these are all basic. They don't require grappling with how kangaroos got on the ark. (Midrashim asking how the re'em fit on the ark, or how Og survived could be similar.) Asking how Avraham was similar but different from Noach in terms of righteousness. Describing an event in the parsha. And so on. Yes, expectations should shift by grade, but these aren't *really* kvetches, any more than typical assignment of what is taught is matched to these standards.
The Torah is a terrible read for young kids. Alright class let’s read about Judah and Tamar. Lol
And a story that they read year after year so that it’s memorized isn’t the point. They have to know how to take new material and new information and analyze, synthesize, compare and contrast, make inferences, identify the main ideas, etc.
Wow! Dr. Schick's statement reads like something straight out of The Onion magazine, rendering her a highly suitable candidate for the Nobel Prize in satire.
What is her family relationship to Avi Schick? I think they r both hired guns for Tikvah, who r shills for conservatives to drum up Jewish Trumpsters, regardless of the validity of the individual issues.
I have very much enjoyed reading most of what Rav Slifkin has written over the past several years. It has even directly led me to purchasing 2 more of his books.
I have a lot of blogs and sites which I enjoy reading for free and others which have turned into paywall protected sites. Unfortunately, I cannot afford to fork out month after month the money requested by all those sites which have gone the paid subscription route.
So I will have to make due with what is published for free. At least I hope that Rabbi Slifkin will remain market savvy enough to us skinflints and keep promoting the causes and books of his own works and of others whom he recommends. ברכה והצלחה.
You should not feel the need to defend your decision to charge. Creating content takes energy and resources and thus is valuable. Keeping that in mind, I wish you would remove the IP theft that is on your site in the form of stolen graphics.
With regards to this post, this phrase stuck out: "I don’t know why they are trying to help them". Perhaps it's worth asking? There are many reasons mostly having to do with freedom of religion and ensuring that the state doesn't overreach. There is the possibility of forcing on schools troubling curricula that run antithetical to religious values. And as others here have commented, it's not like NY Public Schools are turning out stellar students. Their overall literacy/numeracy rates don't even hit 50% of the expected standard. So the topic is far more complex that you may grasp not being immersed in the American frum community.
Btw the funding that the schools receive has little or basically nothing to do with education ("strings attached") but to do with benefits for needy families (food etc.). Public schools have essentially be social service agencies, but that a whole other topic.
Receiving billions of dollars of Government aid almost always come with strings attached. Also, in todays day an age young people not achieving basic academic skills will severely hamper their options later in life. Maybe it is child abuse. Sacrificing your own children for religion.
Billions? How many?
This is a great post. It's clear, erudite, and to the point.
I just wanted to say thank you for all your free content. I really appreciate it and have read it. (I have also bought all your books, plus some of your digital monographs). However, 8 dollars a month for mere digital content seems a little steep to me. I would happily purchase a book based on the blog posts, because I have something to keep, even if all the blog posts in it remain available for free (it could look like "Second Focus").
Like other readers I deeply value this blog even though I regularly disagree on some issues. I certainly agree science should be taught from scientific books.
I also do not deny the author's right to demand money for his work. However, the price is too high for me.
Anyone who objects to the new freemium model is endorsing theft and parasitism. Rav Slifkin has a perfect right to demand payment for some of the intellectual property he creates. Time is money.
Especially after a post decrying taking money for torah. Sarcasm.
In what post, exactly, did he decry taking ANY money for ANY Torah? Like when did he ever say that school teachers should not be paid?
In the first Tashbetz post. The Rambam the Tashbetz was refuting spoke of teachers as well. RNS limited the Tashbetz’s refutation.
When challenged in a comment , RNS responded that it was ‘normative’ to pay teachers, which is true and correct.
What still remains is to address this contradiction within the context of his understanding of the Tashbetz.
I chuckled at the "creating models (e.g., drawing a picture of the ark)" quote.
Fascinating stuff. Can you please share a link to the original source?
I'm having trouble finding the affidavit from Dr. Adina Schick online.
im so grateful you have given away so much for free. im a broke student and i dont know where i'd be without you, but probably a lot more foolish.
You need not feel a need to explain yourself for charging a fee to view content that you created. It is nice that you use the proceeds for charity but that doesn't justify your claim any more than if you would have said that it belongs to you and it is available to read for whoever wants to pay.
What's your answer for how kangaroos got to the ark?
They didn't. The flood was local to the region discussed in the Torah.
Do you believe Noach, his wife, his 3 sons, and their 3 wives were the only people to survive the flood that occurred in that region?
Why are my beliefs relevant here?
I'm assuming your response was representative of what rationalists think is the correct way to understand the Flood story. I wanted to know what other aspects of the story rationalists interpret differently than the understanding many (probably most) Orthodox Jews have of the story.
Presumably, people would not survive a flood of the proportions described in the Chumash. So yes, Noach and his family would have been the sole survivors in the area.
Thank you.
If someone is willing to re-interpret the flood story this way, he's re-interpreting it in a way that's different from the way every or almost every commentary understood it for most of Jewish history. Once a person is willing to do that, what's to stop him from re-interpreting the following ideas in the Torah: that there were 600,000 Jewish men at the time of the Exodus (which would mean 2-3 million Jews total); that the first nine plagues happened; that every first-born in Egypt died during the 10th plague; that the Sea split allowing all the Jews to go through but then went back and killed all the Egyptians; and that Moshe spent 40 days and 40 nights on Har Sinai without food or water?
Do you really think that there have never before been interpretations of Torah "that's different from the way every or almost every commentary understood it for most of Jewish history"? Go study how Chazal interpreted the rakia and the heart/kidneys. I'm pretty sure that you don't follow their explanation. To give but two examples.
What's your limiting principle? To re-ask my questions, what's to stop someone from re-interpreting the following ideas in the Torah: that there were 600,000 Jewish men at the time of the Exodus (which would mean 2-3 million Jews total); that the first nine plagues happened; that every first-born in Egypt died during the 10th plague; that the Sea split allowing all the Jews to go through but then went back and killed all the Egyptians; and that Moshe spent 40 days and 40 nights on Har Sinai without food or water?
Rabbi Slifkin, if you could answer my question about what your limiting principle is when it comes to re-interpreting things the Torah says, I would appreciate it.
Read my book
https://www.mayimachronim.com/how-many-israelites-actually-left-egypt/
https://www.amazon.com/Ani-Maamin-Criticism-Historical-Principles/dp/1592645380/
I think I read something from Joshua Berman about numbers in the old days having symbolic value and interpreting the tribe sizes in the census in some such fashion such as importance of this or that tribe at the time( if anyone has a citation ..... thank you.)
There are rishonim that say the mabul was local.....
Who?
I cannot say for certain what R' Slifkin would say, but this is the approach of one of the greatest chareidi Torah scholars of the previous generation.
Who?
https://mg.alhatorah.org/Dual/R._David_Zvi_Hoffmann/Bereshit/7.1#m7e0n6
העובדה שסיפור המבול מצא הדים גם באגדות שאר העמים, איננה יכולה אלא לשמש לאישורו של המסופר בתורה. ויש מן הטענות המועלות כנגד המסופר כאן, שכמעט ואין מקום להתחשב בהן. כך, למשל, כאשר מפקפקים באפשרות המעשית לשיכונם של כל בעלי החיים ואיחסון המספוא שלהם לשנה תמימה בתוך התיבה — כאילו אפשר לקבוע בבטחון, כמה מיני בעלי חיים היו קיימים אז. ומלבד זאת, הרי כלל לא נאמר במפורש במקרא, אם אמנם כל כדור הארץ הוצף במימי המבול, או שמא בא המבול רק באותן ארצות, שהיו כבר אז מיושבות על ידי המין האנושי. ואם כך, כלום אין להניח שבעלי חיים ממינים שונים נשארו בחיים באזורים הלא־מיושבים?
(יט) כל־ההרים וגו׳ – לפי זה נראה, שאכן כסו מי המבול את כל פני האדמה, ואמנם, מחקריהם של מדעני טבע רבים אשרו דעה זו.10 אולם עדיין אפשר גם להגן על הדעה שלפיה לא היה המבול כללי, דעה שמסתמכת על תופעות אחרות, כי הביטוי ״אשר־תחת כל השמים״ יהיה מוצדק גם אם נפרשהו — כל חלקי הארץ המיושבים על ידי בני אדם, ומה גם שאף לפי דעה אחת שבתלמוד ״לא ירד לארץ ישראל״.11
Rabbi Dovid Tzvi Hoffman wrote it in his commentary on the Torah. As far as interpretations go, it's not the worst, but it also doesn't help that much. I don't think the scientific consensus supports a local flood that destroyed all/most of human civilization (which is Rabbi Hoffman's approach). And if somebody is kofer in miracles, then kangaroos from Australia is the least of his problems.
There’s valid scientific evidence for catastrophic local or perhaps world-wide events. Why rely on miracles when we have precise documentation of calamitous events?
https://youtube.com/watch?v=DBBCKghodVI&feature=share
Two words:
PUH LEEEZE
U say: "Rav Aharon Feldman told me, when I asked him 25 years ago how kangaroos got to the ark, that I shouldn’t be bothered by such things."
That is ALWAYS the rabbinic response when u ask a good question: Do not worry about that stuff! The Torah system that Haredim teach is incompatible with the real world. Forget "science"! Even without science, any intelligent person can see the Torah is NOT consistent with itself or with reality!