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Rabbi Meir Shlesinger |
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On the lecture |
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Participants of the seminar |
The next session of the seminar for the heads of religious
programs in Kazakhstan took place in June 2002. The leader of the seminar
was rabbi Meir Shlesinger the head of department in AJJDC. The main topic
of the seminar was the aspects of the Jewish life, "the life's circle"
as was said by rabbi Josef Telushkin. The traditional Jewish interpretation
of the most important human relations was discussed within the framework
of the seminar: relations between a man and a woman, between parents and
children, treatment of old age and death. The participants of the seminar
prepared detailed reports on abovementioned topics. Lev Kuntarovskiy from
Petropavlovsk and Boris Braginskiy from Bishkek ("Relations between
men and women") did the most remarkable reports ("Treatment
of death").
Summarizing the discussed problems, rabbi Shlesinger stressed
on importance of Jewish family as basis of Jewish society. The striking
example is comparison between Jewish and Christian approach to a family.
It is well known that Christian religion does not allow the Pope to get
married whereas the Great Cohen (the chief priest) was not allowed to
enter Kodesh Kodashim if he was not married by that moment. Today assimilation
of Jews presents a threat to Jewish society because the number of mixed
marriages keeps growing in FSU, USA and South America. It is rabbi Shlesinger's
opinion that this process is not dangerous for individuals; however, it
leads to destruction Jews as a nation. Even Jewish Law establishes standards
of family life; every family has its own life. From this it follows the
question about interaction between men and women's origin; if a family
is a part of the idea of creation, the violation of normal interaction
between a man and a woman is violation of the world harmony.
The wild debates were caused by the discussion of situation
described as a midrash by RaMaSh. A married couple of billionaires concluded
a contract with a woman who had to bear and give a birth to their baby,
i.e. impregnated ovule was taken from the parents. Right after that they
were killed in air crash. What should happen to the fetus according to
the law? Can the child who does not have its biological parents be born?
The main point is to analyze the term "Fatherhood", to put it
more precisely - the correlation between genetic and social factors in
this situation.
A lot interesting opinions were expressed during the discussions
of this and the rest of the seminar topics. What, for instance, rabbi
Shlesinger said about old age: " Since a person talks about the future
- he is young". By the way, we talked with rabbi a lot about future
seminars.
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