Happenings at the Yeshiva

This Monday, my Modern Orthodoxy class - which is devoted to this dialectical discourse of Torah with modernity and post-modernity - met for its last lecture this week, where we wrapped up our discussion of some of the most challenging aspects of this discourse: dogma, ikrei emunah, avodah zarah and other religions, and pluralism and tolerance.  The major question is how in all these cases we can keep our red lines and faith commitments firm, and at the same time adopt a welcoming position towards those whose beliefs differ in small and big ways from our own. Over the remaining weeks, students will be deliver their year-end presentations.  They will be covering a wide array of topics, including:  prenuptial agreements, hair covering, partnership minyanim, gay marriage and Orthodoxy, goals and methodologies of Gemara education, teaching Biblical criticism in schools, belief in miracles, metzizah b'peh, and Zionism in the Orthodox community.  It will be an exciting few weeks as we engage together as a class addressing these challenging topics! And in our regular daily learning, years 1 and 2 wrapped up their learning of Hilkhot Shabbat, and are now reviewing and preparing for their semester-end final.  There review assignment is to take some of the topics that we covered and to write up "cheat sheets" - a simple one page they would give their congregants or students, that gives the bullet points of what can and cannot be done, with relevant examples.  Years 3 and 4 continued in their learning of Kashrut, and this week covered the topic of nat bar nat - the status of pareve cooked in  milkhig (or fleishig) pot.  The bottom line is that the food is pareve, but should not intentionally be mixed withfleishig.  This is a very common case that occurs not only in homes, but also at the manufacturing end.  The different hekhsher organizations deal with this differently - the kof-K will indicate this by adding a "DE" (dairy equipment) to their symbol, whereas the OU will make such items as "D" (dairy).   Thus, if an OU-D product got mixed up with meat, it is important to find out if it is really dairy or not.   When in doubt, find out or ask a rabbi who knows!