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Darwin In The Classroom Le N ne

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few sessions in the science classes to
discuss the religious ramifications of
the curriculum.
For her eighth-grade life science and
10th-grade biology students, Akiva
teacher Harriet Lorch said she talks
,Althaat mal6.
I
about how species change over time
from the very first day of class. But
always in the back of her mind is the
question: "Who set up the universe so
that these changes would occur?"
Lorch said she does not get into reli-
gion per se in her classes, leaving that
for the school's religion department.
"But we do talk about the beauty
of
the
world — it could not be ran-
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dom," she said.
The Kansas decision came as a sur-
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At the Hebrew Day School of Ann
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kindergarten through fifth grade, the
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creationism story is taught as a
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ation in a way that would exclude
evolution, but as a way to indicate
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that the world has order, and (a guide
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Rabbi Aaron Bergman, recently
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selected to head the Jewish Studies
December 17, 1999.
Department for the new Jewish
Academy, said he would not send his
child to any school that did not
teach evolution — even if it was a
Jewish school.
V
"I believe when God created the
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said. The evidence is the world is
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Jewish calendar year.
The Torah is not a science text-
book, he said, and the science class is
no place to teach theology.
As an example, he offered his inter-
pretation of the words from the
beginning of Genesis that refer to the
BORROW
events of the first few days of cre-
ation. "If the sun isn't created on the
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Rabbi Bergman said, "how do you
have a solar day in the first two days?"
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He said, "I read the story of cre-
ation as addressing a whole other set of
questions — human beings are held
accountable for their actions; we aren't
here by accident; we are the crown of
creation, deserving of respect."

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A National Perspective

Most modern Orthodox day schools
find a way to combine the teaching of
evolution and creationism, according
to Rabbi Yitzchok Adlerstein of the
Yeshivah of Los Angeles.
Rabbi Adlerstein, cited by the
Union of Orthodox Jewish
Congregations of America as a nation-
al expert on Jewish educational philos-
ophy, said the situation in day schools
is "analogous to what it's now going to
be in the state of Kansas: Every school
can dictate its own policy."
The Christian Fundamentalists
fueling the creationist movement have
a different view of the Bible than do
even the most Orthodox Jews, Rabbi
Adlerstein said.
"It's true that traditional Jews
believe every word of it is the word of
God, it's not the product of human
authors," he said. "But a Christian has
no problem looking at a line that talks
about the hand of God and seeing it
as a literal hand. Why? Because if God
can have a son, He can have a hand.
"We don't believe God has a son,
and we can't believe God has a hand."
Some schools to the extreme right
of the Orthodox community do not
teach evolution at all, Rabbi
Adlerstein said. In at least one school,
he said without disclosing the school's
identity, science teachers don't teach
evolution, but students are asked to
read about it in the textbook.
In the two high schools run by the
Yeshiva of Los Angeles, the general
studies principal explains to science
teachers that evolution is an area
that's complex within Jewish thought.
Teachers teach it from the textbook
as they would any other part of the
curriculum, but inform students that
"there are more things to be said than
what appear in the textbook." Then
someone from the Judaic Studies
Department will discuss evolution
with the students as a theory, not a
fact.
"Beyond the facade of certainty,
there are a lot of gaps," Rabbi
Adlerstein said. "There are leaps of
faith — of secular faith — that one
has to take if one wants to buy the
whole thing.
"The bottom line in our schools
would be that evolution is more or
less irrelevant to us as Torah Jews." 1-1