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.
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.
