2008 Woodie Awards
After spending the summer with 35 fifteen- and sixteen-year-olds, I began to realize that there is one very important concept that is lacking in our society. We may have all grown up hearing the oldies song "R.E.S.P.E.C.T." by Aretha Franklin, but old is exactly what the title of the song has become.
We live in a world where we compartmentalize halakha, which we generally conceive of as being laws. What kind of laws? Why, the laws of Shabbat, in which case I may not strike a match, or the laws of honoring one's father and mother, of giving charity, of keeping holidays.
This past summer, among many other things, I served as an advisor on an NCSY touring camp in Israel. Some of the NCSY-ers expressed interest in setting up a learning group on a daily basis and together we decided to focus on the halakhot and philosophical underpinnings of shnat shmittah, the sabbatical year.