Mad Science

Families picnic with burgers, slime
and a stormy fog of dry ice.

SheIli Liebman Dorfman
Senior Writer

T

he rabbi was flipping ham-
burgers and the youngest
guests were creating bub-
bling chemical potions and watching
flash-paper fires.
That's exactly how the folks at the
Birmingham Bloomfield Chai Center
had planned to celebrate Lag b'Omer.
With the help of Mad Science of
Oakland County in Rochester Hills,
the interactive demonstrations were
brought to a May 6 kosher barbecue at
Springdale Park in Birmingham.
Among Lag b'Omer's traditions is
the commemoration of the death of
talmudic scholar Rabbi Shimon Bar
Yochi, a teacher of Kabbalah, a branch
of Jewish mysticism. His request was
that the anniversary of his passing be
celebrated rather than mourned.
And so worldwide the day is filled
with bonfires and barbecues, which
Chai Center Rabbi Boruch Cohen calls
an allusion to the mystical fire con-
tained in Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochi's
teachings."
"Rabbi Shimon was very scien-
tific of mind and method:' Rabbi
Cohen said. "Historically, Jews were
very advanced in science, primarily
because of the teachings of the Talmud
and rabbis like Rabbi Shimon. And,

"

as for Kabbalah, that's the science of
the unseen. We thought Mad Science
would be a nice way for the children to
connect to the day."
During the event, Rabbi Cohen
spoke of Rabbi Shimon and also of the
students of Rabbi Akiva who had been
dying of a plague that stopped on Lag
b'Omer.
"Both rabbis were interested in sci-
ence — meaning how the world works
— which they expressed through
their study of Talmud, which is full of
scientific inquiry and methodology:'
Rabbi Cohen said. "Both `mad scien-
tists' came to the same conclusion,
that kindness, sensitivity, and respect
— love for one another — are the
secrets of life'
Among the 90 or so barbecue guests
were those who dared to be led by
Mad Science's "Phlorescent Phred"
through such interactive experiments
as investigations of the properties of
fire and ice, demonstrations of air
pressure dynamics and a dry-ice fog
storm.
"He also stuck a quarter into dry
ice, which was neat:' Rabbi Cohen said.
"The quarter shook like a rabbi giving
a Rosh Hashanah sermon!"
Children who attended took home a
sample from a scientific experiment:
a container of brightly colored slime
they made themselves. Fl

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May 17 • 2007

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