JERUSALEM – Yeshiva University’s Centre for the Jewish Future (CJF) recently ran two innovative winter break missions for 71 select undergraduate students.

Torontonian Raphael Shorser was among those who joined ‘Shabbat 2010,’ an experiential education program that explored the roots of Shabbat observance and exposed students to the contemporary effects of Shabbat on Israeli society and the global Jewish community. The participants comprised two separate groups of 20 men and 20 women who studied relevant religious texts and learned how the concepts they regularly encounter manifest themselves in the modern world.

“In a nutshell, every day had a particular theme,” Shorser explained. “We would study a set of sources in the morning for two hours and then we had a shiur (lecture). Afterwards, we would take that topic and go ‘see it in the field.’ For example, one day was [practising] medicine on Shabbat, and so we would learn the intricacies of pikuach nefesh (life-threatening situations) and then we went to Shaarei Tzedek, which is a totally Sabbath-observing hospital and saw how it ran. The president of the hospital spoke to us about how decisions are made, what the philosophy of the hospital is, etc. The director of the Schlesinger Institute for Jewish Medical Ethics spoke to us as well about certain issues he has had to deal with.”

According to Shorser, by starting with the biblical and Talmudic sources and witnessing the application of halacha (Jewish law), the students gained an understanding of its effect on Israeli society. Almost every component of the trip dealt with the tension between secular and religious Israelis, but within a larger context, he said.

The ‘Operation Healthcare’ mission began in Washington, DC, where participants spent three days learning about the development of healthcare before continuing on to Israel, where they attended lectures on medical ethics and medicine in Jewish law and volunteered in hospitals. Among the 31 men and women who took part in the program – all with pre-med and political science backgrounds – were Torontonians Aliza Wolynetz and Adina Minkowitz.

In addition to its Israel missions, CJF ran two other winter-break educational service programs: ‘Jewish Life Coast to Coast’ and a humanitarian visit to Central America.

“The primary goal of these and all CJF programs is to inspire our students to become agents of change in their communities and the world at large,” said Rabbi Kenneth Brander, CJF dean.