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B’OR HA’TORAH JOURNAL OF SCIENCE, LIFE AND ART IN THE LIGHT OF THE TORAH
A peer-reviewed journal on the interrelationship of Judaism, science and technology, psychology, the arts, and social issues, B’Or Ha’Torah illuminates a range of topics from the cosmology and ecology of Genesis; the creation ex nihilo vs. evolution and faith vs. reason debates; the views of halakhah (Jewish law) on stem cell research and genetic engineering; and the soul-mind-brain-memory-body connection. Rabbis and religious Jews with no science background as well as professionals in all fields with no Torah background can enjoy this inspiring publication in hardcopy and digital formats.
To receive a free PDF file of an individual article, send the author, title, and volume number to:
bht@jct.ac.il
This offer is limited to three articles.
Rabbi Sholom D. Lipskar
Biologically, the inability to recall memories or the distortion of memory is the result of faulty mechanisms that cannot successfully translate memory into communication. I suggest that successfully communicated memory is what our sages called “memory in the mouth” (that can be verbally shared). But there is also an everlasting source of memory in the soul that our sages called “memory in the heart.” When we interact with people whose brains malfunction, the memory of their hearts (their souls) is in full function and is reacting internally to our behavior with them.
The names of the people in the anecdotal account have been changed.
Editor’s note:
Rabbi Lipskar’s keynote lecture was the definitive presentation at the Ninth Miami International Conference, defining the levels of the human soul. It is a necessary introduction to the other articles in this volume discussing the soul, mind, and brain.
Rabbi Professor Moshe D. Tendler
This paper discusses the halakhic categorization of the stages of human life. As we age we can realize our full potential, if we integrate the knowledge we accumulate throughout a lifetime with our physical and biological existence (nefesh), guided always by halakhic imperatives.
Rabbi Professor Avraham Steinberg, MD
Is there a biological interface between the brain and the soul? In order to address this question, I shall touch on three major issues:
There is no scientific explanation for higher cortical functions such as free will, morality, faith, and other metaphysical phenomena.
Dr. Kenneth M. Heilman
Religiosity can be defined as a specific system of doctrines, shared by a group of people with prescribed rules, value systems, dogma, and practices. In contrast, spirituality is a transcendental belief system or an experiential state, including the belief in the divine, as well as the beliefs that life has meaning and that there are forms of universal harmony and unity. The brain mechanisms that mediate spiritual experiences are not entirely known, and this paper proposes and discusses how spirituality may be related to several brain mechanisms, including left-hemisphere mediated agent detection; sensory isolation with imagery; hallucinations and activation of the default network; as well as the knowledge of our own mortality, the activation of limbic-cortical networks that mediate the fear-dread associated with this knowledge, and how faith may reduce this pain
Yakir Kaufman, MD
Stress is a risk factor for almost every disease. Research also shows that loss of meaning in life is a major risk factor. These factors are associated with brain impairment and Alzheimer's disease. Health is defined as the enhancement of well-being, including physical, social, psychological, and spiritual well-being. Thousands of studies have shown that spiritual well-being is associated with better health or longevity. Therefore lowering stress levels, by enhancing spiritual well-being and meaning in life, may prevent and help alleviate Alzheimer's disease. It has been found that Alzheimer's disease has a prominent vascular component. The Torah teaches us this in various ways, including in the account of the arch-villain Amalek. The name Amalek means "to behead," to disconnect the (warm) blood supply from the heart to the brain. The commandment to both remember and obliterate Amalek can be interpreted in hasidic terms as the need for us to dispel the coldness and doubt of the archetypal Amalek within ourselves, thus allowing an adequate warm flow of the blood supply from the heart to the brain and protecting us from possible brain impairment.
Rabbi Professor Daniel Hershkowitz
In many written testimonies given to Yad Vashem through the decades by Holocaust survivors, the memory of children who were killed is blocked because it is too terrible to bear. There are survivors who testified about their parents and other close and distant relatives but who could not testify about their children. It is almost impossible for the human mind to accept such unexpected and unacceptable painful losses. This anecdotal essay looks for the lesson in life that can we learn about accepting unexpected realities.
Professor Oren Baruch Stier
It is generally assumed that remembering the Holocaust is an ethical obligation incumbent upon every Jew, survivors and non-survivors alike. But what is the specific nature of that obligation? And how is it met as survivors age and pass away, as memories fail, or spokespeople grow tired? How does one confront the increased urgency of remembering the Shoah “before it is too late”? What, indeed, is the relationship between memory and forgetting, remembrance and oblivion? Is there a moral obligation to remember? To forget?
This article examines the notion of memorial responsibility against its presumed opposite, oblivion, in the context of a Torah perspective on memorialization in general. Utilizing material gleaned from literature, memoir, and philosophy, including the writings of Primo Levi, Avishai Margalit, and Elie Wiesel, it presents a snapshot of the present, as living memory passes into history and culture. My aim is to assess what is lost or gained in this process of memorial transformation with which society is currently engaged.
Leah Abramowitz
In our generation, some think that it has become more difficult for adult children to tend to their aging parents. With the increase in life expectancy, many elderly become ill and dependent for years. The wise and surprisingly “modern” teachings of the Jewish sages can be a source of guidance for distraught offspring trying to handle these problems.
Daniel Drubach
One of the premier postulates of Judaism is that humans have been given the ability and responsibility to perpetually re-create themselves.This constant re-creation requires an efficient methodology. Such a system is magnificently delineated by the Mishnah Avot, known as Pirkei Avot or The Ethics of the Fathers. Specifics of this methodology are very much in line with recent discoveries in neuroscience that explain how the brain is re-created in harmony with changes in the self. We shall describe two processes: behavioral plasticity and theory of mind as examples of tools for self-brain renewal. We also introduce the topic of function-specific cellular assemblies and their relationship to changes in the self-brain unit.
Rabbi Natan Ophir (Offenbacher)
In February 1978, Rabbi Menahem Mendel Schneerson (the Lubavitcher Rebbe) sent out a confidential memorandum asking for “doctors specializing in neurology and psychiatry” to develop a meditation program that could serve as an alternative for the popular meditative imports from the Far East such as Transcendental Meditation (TM). Dr. Yehuda Landes, a psychologist in Palo Alto, California, responded positively and soon launched a pilot project. Then in July 1979, the Rebbe issued a public announcement asking for more people to help in developing and disseminating a Jewishly acceptable form of meditation.
Meanwhile, Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan, together with a group of Jewish psychiatrists and psychologists, was exploring meditative techniques from kabbalistic and ħasidic sources. However, the Rebbe directed Landes not to utilize Aryeh Kaplan’s meditations but rather to develop a non-hasidic, scientifically based meditation.
In this article we examine the context of the Rebbe’s correspondence and analyze his request by comparing it to the scientific meditative techniques being developed in the 1970s. We conclude by noting the implications for modern Jewish meditation.
Professor Joseph S. Bodenheimer
The sages of the Talmud had an evidence-based approach to nature and a positive attitude to experimental observation. They derived information from any resource available to them, whether it was friendly or unfriendly, as long as it was reliable, and applied it to halakhic decisions, according to their knowledge and understanding of Torah.
Professor Benjamin Fain
My book, The Poverty of Secularism (Fain 2012), contains a clear and detailed response to the extreme physicalist worldview presented in Richard Dawkins’ book, The God Delusion (Dawkins 2008). I could have simply made these comments in the body of that book. However, Dawkins’ book, in which he misleads readers by his mistaken assertion that there is a scientific rationale to his atheistic view, has become a bestseller. therefore, I have decided to respond to the principal claims presented in his book.
Professor Harvey Babich Ayelet R. Bersson Tehilla Brander
Within the past fifteen years, several studies have focused on the genetic relatedness amongst Jews, particularly of those geographically separated from each other. Analyses of DNA markers on mitochondrial DNA (for studies of maternal lineage), on the Y chromosome (for studies of paternal lineage), and on other nuclear chromosomal DNA (for studies of the entire genome) have indicated: (a) Jews are closer to each other genetically than to non-Jews from the same geographic region; (b) Jews share a common set of genetic markers of the larger Jewish population indicative of shared ancestry traced to the Middle East; and (c) Jews show admixture with non-Jewish populations. This last finding corroborates a talmudic passage (Psaħim 87b) that one of the opportunities of the Jewish nation in exile is to welcome and accept sincere converts. In addition, linkage amongst Jews was indicated by genetic diseases, some of which are specific for particular communities. Reference is made to Tay-Sachs disease, which may reflect an interesting aspect of heterozygote advantage. Lastly, as Jews eventually take on the outer appearances of the peoples of their host countries, there may be no distinctive Jewish phenotype. Reasons for this may include environmental selection, epigenetics, and admixture.
Idit Goldberg and Rachel Shandrovsky
One of the possibilities for performing genetic family programming is preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD). PGD has been successfully applied to cure infertility and to eliminate fatal genetic diseases in the embryonic stage. Are we permitted by halakhah (Jewish law) to use PGD for gender selection? Let’s say a family has four boys and they want a girl. They don’t want to take another chance. By using PGD the family can select the gender of their choice. Is it halakhically permissible to select a certain gender for non-medical purposes?
Merav Yust Renanah Altman
According to halakhah (Jewish law) the activation of an electric circuit on Shabbat violates the Torah prohibition of boneh. Prima facie, however, passing in front of an infrared sensor does not constitute boneh.
Activating an infrared sensor that turns on an incandescent light is forbidden on account of the scriptural prohibition of havarah. However, if the sensor activates an LED (light-emitting diode) or a mercury-vapor lamp, then activating the sensor violates a rabbinic prohibition only (excluding the opinion of the Hazon Ish that creating an electric circuit violates the scriptural prohibition of boneh, which does not apply in this case.
When a person triggers an electronic system by entering the sensor’s field of view, the system is activated without the need of a mediating factor. According to the view of Rashi, this action therefore does not count as grama (indirect action).
Malla Carl comes from a family of Gur Hasidim from Poland who moved before the war to Switzerland, where she studied graphic arts. Living now in Jerusalem with her children and grandchildren, Malla enjoys an international reputation for her calligraphy and fine Judaica.
A native of Prague who was imprisoned in Terezin, Chava Pressburger now lives in Israel, in the northern Negev, and creates works of art from paper that she produces herself from wild plants growing near her home and in her garden.
New York-born Zev Rothkoff studied at Yeshivat Har Etsion and served in an IDF infantry unit. He lives in Efrat with his wife and five children, and practices implant dentistry in Efrat and Jerusalem. In November 2012 he won first prize in the Wikipedia heritage site photo contest, out of 6,000 applicants.
Aliza Auerbach was born in Israel and studied philosophy and Bible at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Her prize-winning photographs can be found in the Israel Museum, Tel-Aviv Museum, Ein Harod Museum, the Museum of Israeli Art, the Museum on the Seam, Tel Chai Photography, and in private collections throughout the world.
Since receiving ordination from the Central Lubavitch Yeshiva in Brooklyn in 1968, Rabbi Sholom D. Lipskar has been an emissary in Miami for the Lubavitcher Rebbe. In 1969 he founded the Landow Yeshiva Center in Miami Beach, Florida. He has served as its principal and dean of its elementary school, yeshivah academy, and high school, and was responsible for training its rabbinical students. In 1981, he founded The Shul of Bal Harbour. As its head rabbi, he is both the spiritual leader and educational programmer for all ages. Also in 1981, Rabbi Lipskar founded the Aleph Institute and the Educational Academy for the Elderly. The Aleph Institute is a non-profit national humanitarian organization dedicated to improving the quality of life for Jews in limited environments, including prisoners and military personnel and their families. Rabbi Lipskar has created alternative punishment philosophies and developed unique educational opportunities for the general public in the field of treatment of closed populations. He directs the pioneering Educational Academy for the Elderly.
Rabbi Lipskar is the founder and chief organizer of the Miami International Conferences on Torah and Science.
rabbilipskar@theshul.org
Rabbi Professor Moshe D. Tendler, noted authority on medical ethics and the relationship of medicine and science to Jewish law, is rosh yeshivah at the Yeshiva University–affiliated Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary (RIETS) and professor of biology at Yeshiva College, and holds the Rabbi Isaac and Bella Tendler Chair in Jewish Medical Ethics at Yeshiva University.
Rabbi Tendler was ordained at RIETS in 1949 and received Yoreh Yoreh in 1953 from Rabbi Moshe Feinstein, of righteous memory. He earned a PhD in biology from Columbia University in 1957. He has served on the Medical Ethics Task Force of the Federation of Jewish Philanthropies, for which he edited the Compendium of Medical Ethics. For nine years he served as its chairman. For decades he chaired the Bioethical Commission of the Rabbinical Council of America. A former president of the Association of Orthodox Jewish Scientists and current member of its board, Rabbi Tendler is author of Pardes Rimonim (a text on Jewish family life); co-author with Professor Fred Rosner, MD, of Practical Medical Halachah, a primer for physicians; and author of Care of the Critically Ill—Responsa of Rav Moshe Feinstein; as well as many articles on science and religion in leading publications. He is frequently consulted by the media and public officials on ethical issues.
Tendler@YU.edu
Rabbi Professor Avraham Steinberg, MD, is an associate clinical professor of medical ethics at the Hebrew University–Hadassah Medical School in Jerusalem. He is the author of The Encyclopedia of Jewish Medical Ethics, published in seven volumes in Hebrew (two editions) and three volumes in English (translated by Dr. Fred Rosner), for which he was awarded the Israel Prize in 1999. Professor Steinberg is a senior pediatric neurologist at Shaare Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem. He directs the Medical Ethics Unit at Shaare Zedek. Head of the editorial board of the Talmudic Encyclopedia, and Editor-in-Chief of the Talmudic Micropedia, he is also director of Yad Harav Herzog, and a member of national and international societies of child neurology, medical ethics, and Jewish medical ethics.
In Israel, Professor Steinberg is the co-chairman of the National Bioethics Council, chairman of the Dying Patient Committee, chairman of the Organ Transplantation Committee, chairman of the Altruistic Live-Organ Donations Committee, member of the Brain-Death Criteria Committee, member of the Status of the Fetus and Pre-Embryo Committee, and chairman of the Pathological Specimens Committee.
He is the author and editor of 40 books and public reports in 59 volumes, and over 280 articles and chapters in scientific journals and books on Jewish medical ethics, general medical ethics, the history of medicine, medicine and law, and pediatric neurology. He has given over 4,000 expert witness opinions in court cases on pediatric neurology and medical ethics.
steinberg@szmc.org.il
Dr. Kenneth M. Heilman is the James E. Rooks Jr. Distinguished Professor in the Department of Neurology of the University of Florida College of Medicine in Gainesville. He received his MD degree from the University of Virginiain 1963 and subsequently spent two years training in Internal Medicine at Cornell University Medical Center (Bellevue). During the Vietnam War he joined the Air Force and was Chief of Medicine at the NATO Hospital in Izmir,Turkey. When he was discharged from the service, he took a neurology residency and fellowship at the Harvard Neurological Unit (Boston). After completing his residency and fellowship, he joined the faculty at the University ofFlorida in 1970, as an assistant professor. He was promoted to associate professor in 1973 and professor in 1975. He received an endowed chair in 1990. In 1998, he was in the first group of the faculty to be awarded the title of Distinguished Professor. He is also a professor of Clinical and Health Psychology.
An active clinician, Dr. Heilman directs the Memory and Cognitive Disorder Clinics at the University of Florida. His primary clinical interests are in attentional, emotional, and cognitive disorders. His expertise as a clinician has been recognized by being listed in every edition of The Best Doctors in America as well as other publications. Dr. Heilman is also an educator. In addition to teaching medical and psychology students, he is active in resident education and has been director of a postdoctoral program that has trained more than 50 postdoctoral fellows. Dr. Heilman has an active research program. He is the author of several textbooks, and has more than 400 books, chapters, and articles in peer-reviewed journals to his name.
heilman@neurology.ufl.edu
Yakir Kaufman was born in Haifa and received his MD from the Hebrew University Hadassah Faculty of Medicine in 1994. In 1995 he became a resident doctor at the Department of Neurology of the Hadassah University Hospital in Jerusalem. Dr. Kaufman is a member of the Israel Neurological Association and the Israel Integrative Medicine Society. He spent two years in Toronto, Canada, as a Fellow in the Behavioural Neurology Program at the Baycrest Centre for Geriatric Care and the Rotman Institute. Since his return to Jerusalem in 2004, he has joined the medical staff of Herzog Memorial Hospital (now called the Herzog Integrative Medical Center), where he heads the department of Neuropsychogeriatrics and has founded the Brain Health Center, which combines conventional and complementary medicine, using also a spiritual approach, placing the patient at the center of the healing process. In addition to teaching medicine with an integrative approach at the Hebrew University Hadassah Medical School, Dr. Kaufman founded and heads the spiritual support program for patients and caregivers at Herzog Hospital. He is a member of the steering committee of the Israeli Network of the Jewish Spiritual Support Organizations. His research on behavioral neurology focuses on psychoneuroimmunology (PNI—the science linking body and mind) and the link between spirituality and health.
Daniel Hershkowitz was born in Haifa, where he was ordained by its two chief rabbis. He received the degrees of BSc, MSc, and DSc in mathematics at the Technion Israel Institute of Technology. He has taught mathematics there from 1971 to the present, with the exception of 1983-1986 and 1988-1989, when he was a visiting professor at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. His main professional field is linear algebra and matrix analysis, including inverse eigenvalue problems, combinatorial spectral theory, matrix stability, and nonnegative matrices and their applications. In 2002 and again in 2005 he was elected president of the International Linear Algebra Society. In addition, he heads and participates in many academic committees and forums in Israel. He is the editor-in-chief of the Electronic Journal of Linear Algebra and a senior editor of the journal Linear Algebra and Its Applications. In 1982 he was awarded the Landau Research Prize in Mathematics; in 1990, the New England Academic Award for excellence in research; in 1990, the Technion’s Award for Excellence in Teaching; and in 1991, the Henri Gutwirth Award for Promotion of Research. The recipient of numerous national and international research grants, Professor Hershkowitz has published over eighty articles in professional mathematics journals.
Parallel to his academic career, Daniel Hershkowitz serves as the rabbi of the Ahuzah neighborhood of Haifa and is active in many areas of religious life in Israel. Elected to head the Jewish Home political party in 2008, Rabbi Professor Hershkowitz was appointed Minister of Science and Technology in the current Netanyahu government. As a member of the Knesset he is active in the lobby to increase tolerance between the religious and secular sectors of Israeli society. He and his wife Shimonah, a principal of a special education high school, have five children.
hershkow@technion.ac.il
Oren Baruch Stier is Director of the Judaic Studies Program and Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Florida International University. He received his BA from Princeton University, and his MA and PhD from the University of California at Santa Barbara, specializing in modern and contemporary Jewish religion, thought, and culture. Stier’s primary research focuses on the contemporary culture of Holocaust remembrance. His first book, Committed to Memory: Cultural Mediations of the Holocaust, was published by the University of Massachusetts Press in 2003. A coedited volume, Religion, Violence, Memory and Place, was published by Indiana University Press in 2006. Currently he is working on a second monograph entitled Holocaust Symbols: The Icons of Memory. Stier has published articles in the Journal of the American Academy of Religion, Prooftexts, Jewish Social Studies, and Numen, among others. In 2004 he was a Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies Fellow at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Stier’s other research interests include contemporary Hasidism, Jewish life, and South African Jewry. The last arose from his three years teaching Judaic Studies at the University of Cape Town. At FIU, Professor Stier teaches a wide range of courses related to modern and contemporary Judaism.
Born in Germany, Leah Abramowitz grew up in S. Louis, Missouri. After receiving a BA in sociology and psychology from Sir George Williams College in Montreal, she made aliyah in 1960 and earned another BA and an MA in social work from the Hebrew University. Since 1971 she has worked as a geriatric social worker at the Shaare Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem. Today she directs the Geriatric Institute of Studies in Aging at this hospital. Together with Professor A. Rosin, she founded the Melabev network of day-care centers for the cognitively impaired elderly in the community, which she coordinated until 2008. In recognition of her pioneering work with the elderly, she was given the prestigious Yakir Yerushalayim award in 2008. A founding member of the Israeli branch of Nefesh, the association of Torah-observant mental health workers, she has served as its co-chair for many years.
Since 1973, she and her husband, Abe, have lived in the Jewish Quarter of the Old City, where they raised a large family. The author of a biography of Nehama Leibowitz entitled Tales of Nehama, she also freelances for a number of Jewish journals. Most importantly, she finds time for her many children and grandchildren, may they increase.
Daniel Drubach, MD, completed training in neurology and psychiatry at the University of Maryland and went on to complete a fellowship in neurorehabilitation there. He was head of the Traumatic Brain Injury Rehabilitation Program and codirector of the Coma Emergency Program at the University of Maryland for several years. He then joined the Behavioral Neurology Division at Mayo Clinic, where he has worked for the past seventeen years. He is active in the training of medical students as well as residents and fellows. He has written extensively on the neuroscience of music, meditation, language, religion, and many other topics. He also has published several articles discussing how the application of newly discovered neuroscience concepts can help us answer existential questions about free choice, empathy, mystical experiences, and other phenomena. He has lectured on this subject at multiple academic facilities. His main interest, however, is the interface between Judaic precepts and neuroscience. He is deeply convinced that the study of Judaic works can help us understand the brain, and vice versa.
Dr. Natan Ophir (Offenbacher) received his MA (1988) and PhD (1993) in Jewish Philosophy from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem where he served as campus rabbi from 1982-1998. Born in Philadelphia, he graduated from the Talmudical Yeshiva of Philadelphia and completed his BA at Yeshiva University in New York in 1974. He then came on aliyah, spending seven years at Yeshivat Mercaz Harav Kook where he received rabbinical ordination. Dr. Ophir has written many articles on Jewish philosophy. His most recent publication is a biography of Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach. Dr. Ophir's specialty is teaching Jewish meditation in the light of neuropsychology. He is currently teaching at the Jerusalem College of Technology. See http://jerusalemmeditation.com; www.JewishMeditation.org.il.
Editor-in-chief of B’Or Ha’Torah, Joseph S. Bodenheimer is a full professor of electro-optics at the Jerusalem College of Technology (Machon Lev) and president emeritus of this unique college. He received his PhD from the Hebrew University in physics. He did postdoctoral studies in laser spectrometry at Kings College, London University, and discovered two previously unknown phase transitions and also developed a new spectrometric technique.
In 1982, Professor Bodenheimer was appointed head of the electro-optics department of the Jerusalem College of Technology. In 1989 he was elected rector and subsequently, up until 2009, was president of JCT. Under his leadership, JCT expanded dynamically to become a world-class institute, supporting Israel’s position as a global hi-tech superpower while combining Torah and academic studies.
Professor Bodenheimer has endeavored to make Israel a world leader in the field of optical engineering through his students and applied research. Awarded substantial research grants from institutes and foundations throughout the world, he has published over eighty papers and holds eleven patents in a broad range of electro-optical devices and systems. He has served as consultant for numerous high-technology companies in Israel and the United States and as a member of several national scientific committees.
Professor Bodenheimer sets aside time for daily Talmud study, and gives regular shiurim. A founding member of the California chapter of the Association of Orthodox Jewish Scientists, he is a member of the Zomet Institute for Halacha and Technology, a member of the board of Nishmat Center for Advanced Torah Study for Women, and the president of Ramban Synagogue in Katamon, Jerusalem.
Fascinated by the combination of science and technology with Jewish studies and ethics, Joseph Bodenheimer is a life-long Zionist leader who loves working with young people, especially his own extensive family. He and his wife, Rachel, have eight children and many, many grandchildren.
Born in Kiev in 1930, Benjamin Fain was named after his grandfather who was murdered in the Proskurov pogrom. During World War II, the family was evacuated and wandered from place to place until settling in Dushanbe, where Fain completed school. While studying at the Moscow Power Institute, Fain began to visit the synagogue there. He was deeply impressed by the first Israeli ambassador to the USSR, Golda Meir. In 1950, Fain was accepted to study physics at Gorky University. His mentor was Nobel laureate Vitaly Ginzburg, and he graduated summa cum laude. By 1965, Fain was appointed to be a professor at his alma mater. The scientific books he wrote were translated into English and German. In 1966 he moved back to Moscow, where he worked at the Institute of Solid State Physics and became involved in the Zionist movement. He participated in a refusenik scientific seminar and in the general Samizdat (anti-Communist underground). After applying for an exit visa to Israel in 1974, he was dismissed from his work for political reasons.
In 1976, Fain initiated sociological research on Soviet Jewry, attempting to organize an international symposium on the subject. This attempt was foiled by the KGB, who began to follow him. After a period of arrests, searches, interrogations, and a hunger strike, Fain was finally permitted to immigrate to Israel in 1977. During his final period in the USSR, Fain gradually became a Torah-practicing Jew.
In Israel, Professor Fain continued to struggle to improve the life of Jews in the Soviet Union. He worked in the School of Chemistry of Tel Aviv University in the fields of quantum electronics, lasers, and condensed matter. Starting from 1998, his interests moved to the philosophy of science and Judaism and their interrelationship. After retirement, Fain wrote his first book in this field, Creation ex Nihilo. Originally in Hebrew, this book was translated into English and Russian. In 2008, Fain completed another book in Hebrew, Law and Providence—Spirit and Matter, Divine Providence and the Laws of Nature, and the Openness of the World to G-d and Man, which was translated into English by Urim Publications and reviewed in B’Or Ha’Torah, volume 21. In 2011, Professor Fain’s third book, The Poverty of Secularism, was published in Hebrew by Mosad Harav Kook. It was translated into English by Urim Publications in 2012.
Dr. Harvey Babich received a BA in biology from Yeshiva College of Yeshiva University (YU), an MS in microbiology from Long Island University, and a PhD in biology from New York University. Subsequent appointments included Senior Research Scientist in the Biology Department at NYU, Senior Staff Scientist at the Environmental Law Institute, and Senior Research Scientist at the Rockefeller University. He served as a committee member for the National Academy of Sciences. Research interests have included the effects of pollutants on microbes, the development of short-term toxicity assays with mammalian cell lines, and, currently, the comparative responses of human oral fibroblasts and carcinoma cells to nutraceuticals. His research has appeared in over 130 peer-reviewed publications. Dr. Babich joined the Biology Department of Stern College for Women (SCW) of YU in 1987 and is a professor and the chair of that department. He is the originator of the SCW publication, Derech HaTeva: A Journal of Torah and Science, published since 1997 and available online at YUTorah.org. His communal activities have included involvement with the Young Israel of Ocean Parkway and the Young Israel of Homecrest and currently with Agudath Yisroel of Madison (all in Brooklyn), in which his favorite activity is “shul candy man.”
Ayelet R. Bersson is currently at Yeshiva University’s Stern College for Women, where she is pursuing a major in biology. She has assisted Dr. Harvey Babich in research of in vitro toxicology. Ayelet graduated Bruriah High School for Girls in 2010, after which she studied in Israel for a year at the Michlalah-Jerusalem College.
Tehilla Brander is currently pursuing a degree in biology at Stern College for Women in New York City. She has been involved in research for the Center for Genomics and Systems Biology of New York University, in the area of in vitro embryonic development, as well as the Human Genetics Lab of the Jacobi Medical Center, in the area of Jewish genetic diseases. Prior to coming to SCW, Tehilla studied in the Stella K. Abraham Beit Midrash for Women at Migdal Oz, Israel.
Idit Goldberg lives in Tel Menashe.
Rachel Shandrovsky, a native Israeli, currently resides in San Francisco, where she and her husband are emissaries for Ezra Olami and the Jewish Agency. She has a BEd in biology and chemistry and is currently writing her thesis for her masters in science, halakhah, and education at Bar-Ilan University. Previously in Israel, Rachel was a junior-high science teacher and additionally gave lectures on topics in Torah, philosophy, and science at the Mayanot Institute for Jewish Studies women's program.
Merav Yust grew up in Kedumim, where she completed the Lehavah Ulpana and did her national service. After a year at the Michlalah in Jerusalem, she completed a degree in special education and mathematics at Bar-Ilan University. She teaches math in various schools, mainly Ulpana Baharan. Married with ten children, she lives at Yeshivat Kerem B’Yavneh, where her husband teaches.
Renanah Altman grew up in Karnei Shomron, completed her high-school studies at the Lehavah Ulpana in Kedumim, and earned a degree in applied physics and biomedical engineering from Machon Tal (JCT). While studying for an MA in the science, halakhah, and education program at Bar-Ilan University, Renanah teaches physics to the pre-academic students at the Jerusalem College of Engineering. In 2011, she was awarded the title of Outstanding Lecturer at the college. She and her husband, a student at the Mercaz Harav Yeshivah, are raising four children.
