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By Noam Zion,
The TICHON Seminars in February 2009 are devoted to the narratives of giving - how do we see the needy, how do we see ourselves, as benefactors or brothers or reformers or good Samaritans or fellow needy?
In all of our schools and shuls there are extensive programs to involve students in good works or mitzvah projects sometimes called volunteerism (as if it were not a mitzvah and a school requirement?), or hesed projects (as if the poor were receiving our grace, not their entitlement), or social action, which is much more ambitious than most of hilchot tzedakah.
Here is a chance to study and to think together reflectively on the origins of competing notions of social welfare and how to frame these endeavors so they impact on our student's identity as Jews, as well.
In addition we will have discussion groups to process these themes involving sharing among ourselves our wisdom gained from educational practice in our schools.
Beside the more philosophic conceptions of tzedakah, we will explore the legal narrative and the debates in the classic sugya of Babylonian Talmud Ketubot 67 taught in many schools. Right now I am trying to write a book on this sugya and to compare it with Biblical, Christian and Greek notions of support for the needy. A first draft should be available for each participant as part of the seminar source kit.
Contemporary art (and in New York, music) will also contribute significantly to our perspectives on the needy and the need for change. The photographic art of Adi Nes focuses on contemporary human situations of need through his camera lens and through the Biblical prism of stories such as Hagar, Ruth and the drunken Noah.
In this year of economic instability and, in its wake, unemployment and the radical decrease in giving of tzedakah, we pray and hopefully will act as individuals and as citizens to do tikkun olam. May our brief opportunity to study together as educators add to our reflective practice of tzedakah umishpat.
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