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Moot Beit Din

Read about the 2010 competition in the Washington Jewish Week

“Moot Beit Din gave my students an opportunity to work through traditional sources and arrive at a halakhic conclusion to an interesting medical ethical dilemma. In addition to enjoying the advanced text study, the students loved meeting like-minded students from day schools across North America.”

Aliza Sperling, teacher, Charles E. Smith Jewish Day School

Moot Beit Din is a unique program that enables students from Jewish high schools to delve into issues of Jewish law through creative engagement with contemporary situations. It provides students with an opportunity to explore the relevance of Halakhah and to stretch their imagination in applying Jewish traditional resources to their lives and to the modern world. Every year, RAVSAK prepares a new case on a topic that has not yet been adjudicated within a halakhic framework. After intensive study of halakhic sources, students prepare written decisions to a case given to them. They then present and defend their decisions before judges during oral argument at the competition.

The students convene at a four-day Shabbaton held in a different location each year. They break ice and break bread together, learn together, daven together, perform a chesed project, do sightseeing, and celebrate Shabbat in style. Before their teams step into the room to compete, they have formed friendships and established spiritual bonds that will last far beyond the Shabbaton.

The program continues to grow apace; this year, the vast majority of RAVSAK high schools will participate in the program. The Moot Beit Din is the recipient of the prestigious Covenant Signature Grant, which enables RAVSAK to extend generous travel stipends and advisor honoraria to participating schools.

RAVSAK congratulates the winners of the 2010 Moot Beit Din:

  • Group A
    • First Place: Jewish Community High School of the Bay (San Francisco, CA)
    • Second Place: Jack M. Barrack Hebrew Academy (Bryn Mawr, PA)
    • Judges' Choice: Tanenbaum CHAT Kimel Centre (Vaughan, ON)
  • Group B
    • First Place: The Weber School (Atlanta, GA)
    • Second Place: Kehillah Jewish High School (Palo Alto, CA)
    • Judges' Choice: San Diego Jewish Academy (San Diego, CA)

Mazel tov to all competing schools.

For more information on the Moot Beit Din, or to register your school for the 2011 / 5771 program, contact Dr. Elliott Rabin at erabin@ravsak.org.

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Watch the Moot Beit Din 2010 slideshow


Watch the Moot Beit Din 2009 slideshow


Watch the Moot Beit Din 2008 slideshow

Marc Leventhal
RAVSAK has  been instrumental in raising the profile, awareness and academic level of Talmud study at our school.”
Marc Leventhal, Judaic Teacher/Moot Beit Din Advisor
TheWeber School

[Part-time] Hebrew Language Teacher at David Posnack Hebrew Day School

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