Home>>Halakha for Today>>Kollel for Psak

An Intensive Program for Developing Modern Orthodox Halakhic Leadership

Goals

  • To develop halakhic authorities for the Modern Orthodox community who are anchored in the community’s realities and its ethos and who bring to their psak deep scholarship, rigor, sensitivity and integrity.
  • To produce serious Torah and halakhic scholarship on the pressing topics of today.

Program

The Kollel currently runs for 5 weeks in the summer with the goal of eventually expanding this to a full-year program. It is fully-funded and stipended.

Our fellows are men and women who are high-level learners, with semikha or the equivalent, and who are invested in participating in the halakhic discourse of the Modern Orthodox community.

Each summer focuses on a particular theme, and fellows spend the majority of their time writing teshuvot on different complex, practical questions connected to the theme. The theme for Summer 2021 was Disabilities. Two of the questions addressed were:

  • Communal responsibility to construct a new sanctuary to accommodate a person with Multiple Chemical Sensitivity Disorder (MSCD)
  • Can a person’s father with dementia be in a nursing home that only provides non-kosher food, and if so, can he also count towards a zimmun when spending Shabbat with his family?

In Summer 2022 we focused on Aging and Older Adults. Some of the topics that the teshuvot addressed include:

  • Dementia; Loss of mobility, hearing, or sight
  • Kibbud Av v’Em and conflicting obligations to family and self
  • Loneliness and communal responsibility
  • Health aids: yichud, pay, shabbat, legality, trust

In addition to mentorship, group seminars and regular shiurim, fellows also hear presentations each week from poskim and roshei yeshiva; first-person panels; medical and pastoral experts; and communal leaders.

Avraham stav
Rabbi Dov Linzer Photograph of Rabbi Dov Linzer showing the top half of him. He is a middle aged man with beige skin and his body is slightly angled away from the camera. He has a wide slightly open mouthed smile and is clean shaven. He has short brown hair and is wearing a black keepah. He has circular wire-rimmed glasses and is wearing a navy blue suit with a white button down shirt and a sky blue tie with royal blue hollowed out triangle patterns. The background is blurry and shows a white wall with a sefer of gemarah or mishnah directly behind him.
Rabbi Dov Linzer Photograph of Rabbi Dov Linzer showing the top half of him. He is a middle aged man with beige skin and his body is slightly angled away from the camera. He has a wide slightly open mouthed smile and is clean shaven. He has short brown hair and is wearing a black keepah. He has circular wire-rimmed glasses and is wearing a navy blue suit with a white button down shirt and a sky blue tie with royal blue hollowed out triangle patterns. The background is blurry and shows a white wall with a sefer of gemarah or mishnah directly behind him.

Our Roshei Kollel for Summer 2022 were Rabbi Dov Linzer and Rabbi Avraham Stav, author of numerous halakhic books and articles and founder of the Assif Torah Journal.

YCT is proud to have Yeshivat Machanayim, Yeshivat Maalei Gilboa, Yeshivat Siach Yitzchak and Yeshivat Otniel as co-sponsors.

Siach Yitzchak Logo An indigo blue background with three broad sweeping white strokes that are tapered at each end creating an abstract flame-like pattern.
Otniel Logo Abstract image of 3 arches with the arch on the left and right being cut off halfway. Underneath each arch is a prism divided in half vertically which is meant to look like doors. The arch is dark turquoise as is the left side of the middle and left door and the right side of the right door. There is an implied concave between two more arches that are above the middle arch and they are cut off halfway. The top arch intersection and the left side of the right door and the right side of the middle and left door are light turquoise. Underneath this image are black block letters in two rows with the top row being larger. The top row says "ישיבת עתניאל" and the second says "בית ועד הר חברון".
Machanyim Logo
Maale Gilboa logo