I EDUCATION Torah High School Fosters Free Thinking SUSAN BASS Special to The Jewish News Remember the 1 lth Commandment: j "And Thou Shalt be Informed" r- 1 You've read the five books of Moses. Isn't it time to try the Fifty-Two Issues of the Detroit Jewish News? It may not be holy, but it's weekly! And such a bargain. To order your own subscription call 354-6060. v'. 4 14 4A;14"/4 1t c-/-1 156 FRIDAY, DECEMBER 11, 1987 erusalem (JTA) Tradi- tional Jewish schools and yeshivot usually emphasize their students' commitment to the authority of the Jewish halachic tradi- tion and the scholars who transmit it. Out of respect for the tradition, students often hesitate to ask too many ques- tions, or to argue with the texts. They, and even their teachers, may reason: "Who am I to question Rashi?" But a new religious high school in Jerusalem encourages its stu- dents to feel free to challenge the texts, their teachers, and each other. The Experimental Torah High School of the Shalom Hartman Institute of- fers students an intensive tra- ditional Jewish education in an atmosphere which em- phasizes free and critical thinking. The Experimental Torah High School, located in Jerusalem's Moshav Hager- manit (German Colony) neighborhood, opened its doors in September 1985, to a class of 11th grade boys. This year, a new class of 11th graders joined the school, bringing cur- rent enrollment to 52 students. School principal, Rabbi Zvi Marx, explained that the ten- tative decision to limit the school to the last two years of high school developed from the faculty's conviction that these years mark a turning point in maturation. "It is most prod- uctive for us to meet the chil- dren at this point". Although the government ministry of education has ap- proved the Experimental Torah High School's cur- riculum, which meets re- quirements for a religious high school, the Jewish studies pro- gram is unique in Israel. The curriculum is organized topically around issues that contain moral dilemmas, such as ethical values in warfare or in medicine, relations between Jews and non-Jews, tzedakah and social policy. Hagi Ben-Artzi who teaches .religion studies to the 11th graders, explained that adoles- cents are preoccupied with such moral issues, while they are not much bothered by is- sues of prayer and man's rela- tionship with God. Ben-Artzi works hard to de- velop his students' listening skills. It is often difficult for adolescents to exhibit the pa- tience and undestanding needed to attend to what their classmates say. Ben-Artzi views this as an essential human quality, somewhat neg- lected in Israeli society. Most of his students came from schools or yeshivot where they listened and rarely spoke. In his class, the students actively engage in a process of give and take which can lead them from a Talmudic text to profound questions about Israeli society. One class session began with a Talmudic textB abylonian Talmud: Tractate Baba Bathra about a group of merchants who decided that each, in turn, would open his store just one day each week. One merchant chose to open his store a second day, and for this his colleagues punished him severely. The sage Rava ruled that the one day a week plan was invalid; that the merchants could not restrict competition in this way. Starting with the text, students raised issues of socialism versus capitalism, free trade versus government restrictions. Several students argued that Rava favored a commercial system of free competition, while others suggested that Rava objected not to the merchant's plan to restrict competition, but to the harshness with which they had enforced their plan. The Experimental Torah High School developed as a re- sult of the work of the Shalom Hartman Institute for Ad- vanced Judaic Studies. Founded in Jerusalem in 1976, the institute trains scholars to deal with classical Jewish texts in the context of the mod- ern world. The institute at- tempts to blend the intensity of yeshivah learning with the openness and rigor of a univer- sity. It functions as a center of learning and as a Jewish think tank for research and action. The teaching staff at the Hartman Institute believe that Jewish tradition can with- stand the test of critical think- ing; that traditional Jewish values have an important place in the modern world; and that Israel is the living labora- tory where these things can happen. It is their hope that the graduates of the Experi- mental Torah High School and the Yeshivat Hesder program will become active participants in this process. World Zionist Press Service Jerusalem Prof. Receives Honor Jerusalem — Prof. Elihu Katz, Karl and Mathilda Newhouse Professor of Com- munications and Sociology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, has been named the winner of the 1987 McLuhan Teleglobe Canada Award.