Category Archives: Talmud

She tied you to a kitchen chair, she broke your throne and she cut your hair, and from your lips she drew the Hallelujah... No one hearing these lyrics from the song Hallelujah could doubt that Leonard Cohen knew how to write and sing about love, sex and desire. But fans of his music could be forgiven for not realising exactly what he was trying to convey about religion and the intricate references he was making to biblical stories, Talmudic legends and the Mishnah, a third-century Jewish text.

Now, an analysis of Cohens work sets out to reveal how extensively the revered songwriter used both Christian and Jewish stories and imagery to express ideas in his songs.

The book, Leonard Cohen: The Mystical Roots of Genius, explores the many different spiritual sources and the religious folklore the musician was drawing upon when he wrote masterpieces like Hallelujah, Suzanne and So Long, Marianne.

I think he sees himself a little bit as a prophet, says Harry Freedman, author of the forthcoming book, which will be published later this month, just before the fifth anniversary of Cohens death on 7 November. Hes trying to elevate peoples thinking. Most rock music is about the world we live in. And I think hes saying: there is stuff beyond that, think more deeply.

Cohen, who was brought up in the Jewish faith, was deeply learned about both Judaism and Christianity.

His lyrics are full of references to the Bible, the Talmud and Kabbalah [a Jewish mystical tradition with its roots in the late Middle Ages] but they are easily missed he wove them so skilfully into his songs before reinterpreting them in completely new erotic, spiritual or mystical ways.

In Hallelujah, for example, Cohen refers to the biblical story of King David who, according to Talmudic legend, delights angels and sages when he privately plays his harp at night. He is tested by God when on his roof he sees Bathsheba bathing. After committing adultery with her, David has her husband killed. That leads to a series of disasters in Davids kingdom. There are rebellions against him, his son gets killed, his kingdom is broken terrible things happen, because of the terrible things he did.

Importantly, it is David who, according to ancient Jewish folklore, composed the Book of Psalms and invented the word Hallelujah, meaning praise God. David is somebody who, like everybody, is sometimes good and sometimes bad. Hes trapped in the middle. And although he writes Hallelujah, which is a holy word, hes also very, very broken.

There is a reference in the song to Samson, who loses his strength when his hair is cut by his lover Delilah, because like Samson Davids troubles begin when he cant control himself around a woman. I think Cohen is opening himself up in his songs. I think hes trying to say: love can be wonderful. And love can be terrible. It can go horribly wrong and ruin your life.

Cohen suffered from depression and, Freedman believes, would have identified strongly with David, a fellow musician. David messed up. Davids kingdom was destroyed. And yet he sang Hallelujah. Because when you dont know how to make sense of anything, when youve failed, when things go wrong, all you can do is sing Hallelujah. All you are left with is praise God. Its a very religious idea.

For Cohen, there is no conflict between popular culture and profound thinking, and no difference between Judaism and Christianity, says Freedman. He sees them as all part of the same thing. Sex and religion are also often closely intertwined in his songs: In the Kabbalah, sex and procreation are holy acts. They symbolise the union of human and divine. In one version of Hallelujah Cohen wrote, the narrator recalls: I moved in you, and the holy dove she was moving too, and every single breath we drew was Hallelujah.

Cohen, Freedman says, saw the imagery of religion as something he could use in lyrics to express himself and his unique, mystical way of looking at the world. His vocabulary is one of religious myths and legends. This is what he knows and where he gets his metaphors from. In Suzanne, for example, Cohen casually refers to an ancient Christian legend about Jesus rowing the apostle Andrew to a city, performing miracles and converting everyone from cannibalism to Christianity. And thats just in that one line in Suzanne: Jesus was a sailor when he walked upon the water.

So Long, Marianne is one of the earliest songs Cohen wrote which has a mystical, spiritual element, Freedman says, and marks the beginning of the musicians quest for spiritual meaning. He sings Come over to the window, my little darling. Id like to try to read your palm. Thats probably the first time he mentions windows, which later on in his work are going to be a really important trope for him. In Cohens work, a window is a liminal space, a place between two worlds or two states of being, he says. Hes using the window to read her palm. Hes expressing something about destiny, about wanting to see what the future holds.

When he tells Marianne that he forgot to pray for the angels, Freedman thinks hes confessing that he has neglected his religious duties and spiritual side for her. His love for Marianne has pushed everything else out. And maybe thats one of the reasons he says so long, Marianne. Its time we moved on. Youve made me forget too much. And now Ive got to get back to my spiritual core.

Now Ive heard there was a secret chord

That David played, and it pleased the Lord

But you dont really care for music, do you?

It goes like this, the fourth, the fifth

The minor falls, the major lifts

The baffled king composing Hallelujah.

Hallelujah, Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah

Your faith was strong but you needed proof

You saw her bathing on the roof

Her beauty and the moonlight overthrew her

She tied you to a kitchen chair

She broke your throne, and she cut your hair

And from your lips she drew the Hallelujah

Used with permission of the estate of Leonard Cohen

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How Leonard Cohen mined sacred texts for lyrics to his songs - The Guardian

Once upon a time a teacher could walk into a classroom, begin to speak, write on the board and hold the students in the palm of his hand.

Those days are past.

Instead, there is a downward spiral of students attention spans, paralleled by the upward spiral of teachers desperately seeking tools to keep young people engaged.

In 2010, Rabbi Dan Roth walked into a classroom of American students in Israel who had dropped out of their families Orthodox lifestyles. The students ignored him; some even left the classroom. He walked out knowing he had crashed and burned.

Rather than look for another profession, he returned to the classroom, with the same material, in the form of a multimedia slideshow, and the students reacted with enthusiasm.

His goal was not just to reach his students, but also to reach the world, and the seeds of Torah Live were sown.

Torah Lives graphics, animation and film level are highly professional and their team of men and women includes over thirty scriptwriters, animators, video editors, and sound and special effects artists.

Fast forward to the autumn of 2021. Torah Lives graphics, animation and film level are highly professional and their team of men and women includes over thirty scriptwriters, animators, video editors, and sound and special effects artists.

While the world was in lockdown, Torah Live kicked in big time. Since the beginning of COVID, over 1.5 million videos have been viewed, and the website has been accessed by 168,000 active users.It has hundreds of thousands of viewers from around North America and the world, including Moscow, Paris, London, Australia and South Africa.

Hadassah Levy, a Torah Live blogger, writes, An unexpected, and particularly meaningful new user base of Torah Live, has begun among the Bnei Menashe community in India, a group of Jews who claim descent from one of the Lost Tribes of Israel (a claim confirmed in 2005 by the Sephardi Chief Rabbi Shlomo Amar).

Photo courtesy of Torah Live

A new gaming website was recently added to their rich reservoir. The gaming program is advised by Rabbi Yaakov Deyo. A graduate of Harvard Business School, he was the educational director for Aish L.A. for four years (1998-2002), director of Partners in Torah in New Jersey for seven years, and was involved in many other Jewish educational projects. Were basically looking to create something between Fortnite and Kahn Academy, a platform that will not only engage players, but draw them into a world of Torah by learning via film, performing mitzvot and submitting pics of their work, creating positive impacts in the world around them.

Students are given the tools to create their own written content and animated shorts, and can also upload their own photos and short videos. Parents or teachers can create their own program to incentivize their children. The kids choose their picture from an avatar and can send their photos to Torah Live, who will cartoonify them.Each player has his own dashboard that goes up to 36 levels, alluding to the thirty-six full-fledged righteous individuals in each generation (Talmud, Succa 45b, translation by Sefaria). Points in the gaming element are based on creativity, quality and effort. As they participate, they also earn badges.

Rabbi Roth says, The child earns virtual coins, called dinars. They can decide how to spend them, like sending food to a poor family for Shabbat or sending flowers to an elderly person in a retirement home. We hope through partnerships to help fulfill the childs wish Our hope is that when the child grows up, hell give real money to charity, not virtual money.

Among the more than 30 rabbis who offer video approbations on the site are Rabbi Asher Weiss, Rabbi Hershel Schachter and Rabbi Meir Goldwicht, and Rabbi Yisroel Reisman. The late Rabbi Dr. Abraham Twerski says, in a clip, Man was intended to be not just an intellectual animal, but a spiritual animal, and in Torah language, this means the acquisition and the development of midot. He calls the work of Torah Live unprecedented educationally and something that can help both young people and adults achieve tzelem Elokimbe in the image of God.

Torah Live materials are used by all ages, by all denominations of Judaism and even by some non-Jews who are learning for conversion or who are simply seeking knowledge.

Torah Live materials are used by all ages, by all denominations of Judaism and even by some non-Jews who are learning for conversion or who are simply seeking knowledge.

Jacob Scheer, who teaches in a Conservative school in N.Y., used Torah Live videos to teach about the issue of ribis (interest). Zita Weinstein, a home-schooling parent, said that her children, know its coming from the right source I often hear my kids laugh as theyre watching and they just want more and more. Rabbi Binyamin Plotzker of Monsey, director of teaching and learning at Yeshiva Ketana Ohr Reuben, said that, The Tefillah and Emunah series is saturated with hashkafa, Emunah and is dealt with so clearly and humorously. They have also been used by Aish, NCSY and Chabad. Some of their films have even appeared on El Al.

Photo courtesy of Torah Live

In addition to their programs on Jewish ritual and mitzvot are those that relate to ones behavior, such as judging one favorably, the quality of patience, the value of a smile, the importance of humility in leadership, and a magnificent 18-part unit on The Power of Speech. Everything is filmed among the magnificent vistas of Israel, including the ocean (to explore the snails from which the blue dye for tzitziot comes).

The Process

Elchanan Schnurr, the scriptwriter and showrunner, is originally from Los Angeles. He considers the direction that Rabbi Roth wants to take a project and researches the content. The process is a dialogue with Rabbi Roth, and Ben Katz (who writes, shoots and edits) and Ronen Zhurat (theirmain animator) are very influential on the creative side.

Ben Katz, originally from New York, told this writer, It is challenging to create productions that have many locations, or many different characters or a combination of graphics, live action and animation. The Lost Light, which had all of the above, was actually approached as two separate productions that were filmed almost a year apart. It also had many logistical nightmares, and many recurring characters that needed to be tracked down and scheduled a year later.

On the other hand, the stunning Weapon of War segment from The Power of Words was scripted, prepared and filmed in a day.

Validation from the Rambam and a Harvard Professor

The Rambam, in Sefer Hamada (the Book of Knowledge), Hilchot Talmud Torah 4:5, explains that the sages said that one who is shy cannot learn [because they are embarrassed], referring to a subject [the students] dont understand due to its depth, or mipnei daatan ktzara. This last phrase is usually translated because his comprehension is weak but one Torah scholar told me it can also be interpreted as referring to a students short concentration span. Today, a student using Torah Live will feel more confident, as he navigates at his own pace.

More than 800 years later, Professor Howard Gardners ground breaking 1983 book, Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences, noted that in addition to language and logic/math, a person can have an intelligence that is spatial, or musical, or bodily-kinesthetic, or interpersonal or intrapersonal. He later added naturalistic intelligence, and new candidates are Existential IntelligenceThe Intelligence of Big Questions and Pedological IntelligenceThe Intelligence of Teaching.

Whether Rabbi Roth and his crew realize it or not, they are implementing Professor Gardners theory of multiple intelligences through their multifaceted Torah Live programs, enabling children, parents and their teachers to find their own pathway to Torah.

Toby Klein Greenwald is an award-winning journalist, director of Raise Your Spirits Theatre, an educator and the editor-in-chief of WholeFamily.com. She was thrilled to discover many of her actresses in the Torah Live films.

Link:

Torah Live Breathes New Life into Education - Jewish Journal

Pseudoscientific theory in psychology and sociology

Socionics, in psychology and sociology, is a pseudoscientific[11] theory of information processing and personality types. It is distinguished by its information model of the psyche (called "Model A") and a model of interpersonal relations. It incorporates Carl Jung's work on Psychological Types with Antoni Kpiski's theory of information metabolism. Socionics is a modification of Jung's personality type theory that uses eight psychic functions, in contrast to Jung's model, which used only four. These functions are supposed to process information at varying levels of competency and interact with the corresponding function in other individuals, giving rise to predictable reactions and impressionsa theory of intertype relations.[12][13] In contrast to the generally accepted views in science on age-related variability of the human psyche,[14][15] socionics postulates the presence of 16 psychological types unchanged throughout life.[16] The issue of the existence of personality types is considered by modern science to be extremely controversial.[15]

Socionics was developed in the 1970s and 1980s, primarily by the Lithuanian researcher Aura Augustinaviit, an economist and dean of the Vilnius Pedagogical University's department of family science.[17] The name "socionics" is derived from the word "society", because Augustinaviit believed that each personality type has a distinct purpose in society, which can be described and explained by socionics.[18][19][20]

The central idea of socionics is that information is intuitively divisible into eight categories, called information aspects or information elements, which a person's psyche processes using eight psychological functions.[21] Each sociotype has a different correspondence between functions and information elements, which results in different ways of perceiving, processing, and producing information. This in turn results in distinct thinking patterns, values, and responses to arguments, all of which are encompassed within socionic type. Socionics' theory of intertype relations is based on the interaction of these functions between types.[19][21][22]

Independent authors point to the insufficient empirical validity of socionics both in its basis and in its further development, as well as the practical absence of studies on socionics outside the former USSR.[23] In the West, the term 'socionics' (German: Sozionik) is used in a different sense, to refer to an interdisciplinary area of research on distributed artificial intelligence systems and their applications to sociology.[24][25]

In 1995 socionics was recognized as a discovery by the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences (not to be confused with Russian Academy of Sciences), and its creator Aura Augustinaviit was granted a certificate of discovery (diploma) and a medal.[26][27]

The special commission of the Russian Academy of Sciences (Commission on Pseudoscience) has placed socionics among such well-known pseudosciences as astrology and homeopathy.[2]

Socionics provides a means of predicting the character of relations and degree of business compatibility, information sharing and psychological compatibility of people before their joining in one collective group, i.e. to solve the "inverse task" of sociometry.[28]

According to Aleksandr Bukalov and Betty Lou Leaver, socionics uses Jungian typology, informational model of psyche, and theory of information metabolism for political and sociological analysis.[29][30]

According to G. Fink and B. Mayrhofer, socionics is considered one of the four most popular models of personality (including cybernetic theory Maruyama, five-factor model, Big Five" and typology MyersBriggs Type Indicator), deserving special attention because of its importance in the study of personality.[31]

According to J. Horwood, and A. Maw socionics is a science developed by Ausra Augustinaviciute in the 1970s. Augustinaviciute and her colleagues worked with Carl Jung's personality typologies to develop personality-based relationship profiles. It was found that the nature and development of interpersonal relationships (both professional and personal) are far from random. Instead, they are based on how well suited each individual's psychological profiles are to one another, allowing Augustinaviciute to develop 16 'socionic types' predicting and describing the interpersonal relationships between any combination of Jung's personality types.[20]

According to R. Blutner and E. Hochnadel, "socionics is not so much a theory of personalities per se, but much more a theory of type relations providing an analysis of the relationships that arise as a consequence of the interaction of people with different personalities."[32]

Philosopher L. Monastyrsky treats socionics as pre-science. At the same time, L. Monastyrsky himself proposes to pay attention to "the concept of socionic type".[33]

Philosopher E. Pletuhina defines socionics as the study about the information interaction of the human psyche with the outside world, between people. She also defines it as the doctrine of psychological types of people and the relationships between them, as well as notes that the particular quality of socionics is that it considers the innate qualities of the human psyche, including the personality type, which cannot be arbitrarily changed without prejudice to the mental and physical health.[34]

The basic structure of socionics was established in the 1960s and 1970s by Aura Augustinaviit,[35][clarification needed] along with a group of enthusiasts who met in Vilnius, Lithuania. What resulted from their discussions and Augustinaviit's personal investigations was an information model of the psyche and of interpersonal interaction based on Jung's typology but with eight psychic functions rather than four.[36] Augustinaviit's first works on socionics[32] were published between 1978 and 1980.

According to Betty Lou Leaver, Madeline Ehrman, and Boris Shekhtman, like the MyersBriggs Type Indicator (MBTI), socionics is a sixteen-type derivative of Jung's work. Unlike MBTI, which is widely criticized[37] for the lack of validity and utility,[38] the socionics model, which is in some use in Eastern and Western Europe, as well as throughout Eurasia, Central Asia, and the Baltic nations,[39] strives to stay very close to the original descriptions and type labels suggested by Carl Jung.[40] According to Betty Lou Leaver, "today's concepts of personality emanate most frequently from the work of Carl Jung, whose theories and research have blossomed into a juncture of philosophical and sociological inquiry. This field of inquiry has been called socionics."[30]

According to Sergei Moshenkov and Tung Tang Wing, "MBTI and Socionics are contemporary sister sciences that categorize and describe human personality types in accordance to the predominance of certain mental faculties called psychic functions by Dr. Carl Jung."[41]

A. Shmelev in his review of the book "MBTI: type definition" by I. Myers-Briggs and P. Myers notes the highest popularity of socionic books in Russian and remarks that their authors are appealing to the literary and artistic associations of the mass reader, in contradistinction to books on MBTI, which contain the empirical and statistical data on the types distribution in professional groups.[42] S.A. Bogomaz considers the socionic typology as a version of post-Jung typology and believes that on a number of criteria it is more perspective than MBTI for the study of the differences between people, because it expands the volume of the typological features and offers an opportunity to form various typological groups with different motivations, attitudes, temperament, perception of information and thinking styles. It is also important the existence of preconditions to study intertype relations, that are substantially not developed within MBTI. S.A. Bogomaz thinks that the creation of the theory of intertype relationships is undoubtedly contribution of A.Augustinavichiute to the development of Jung typologies.[43]

Currently, socionic methods are widely used in academic and applied research. According to the catalog DisserCat[44] from 1996 to 2011 in Russia, Ukraine and other countries were defended more than 800 doctoral theses,[45][46] using methods and analytic tools of socionics in management, education, psychology, anthropology, medicine, philosophy, philology, sports, and law.[47]

The International Institute of Socionics publishes four scientific peer-reviewed journals on the practical application of the methods of socionics in management, consulting, psychology, pedagogy, education, psychotherapy, and humanities.[48] The Institute gives "popularization and proliferation of socionic knowledge" as one of its goals.[49]

There are several socionics organizations.The International Institute of Socionics[50][51] (IIS) was established in 1991 in Kyiv, Ukraine, and for years has held the most prominent annual international socionics conference. The institute pursues the continued development of socionics theory, renders commercial consulting services, and since 1994 has released a bimonthly journal Socionics, Mentology, and Personality Psychology (six issues a year). Topics in the journal usually range anywhere from studies and applications of the primary principles of socionics to speculative extensions of the theory.[52] The director and founder of the institute is Dr. Aleksandr Bukalov. In 2006 the institute established an International Academic Board to issue bachelors, masters, and PhD degrees in socionics.[53]

The Scientific Research Socionics Institute is located in Moscow, Russia, and is led by Tatyana Prokofieva.[54][55] The institute primarily studies socionics, personality and relationships within a socionics context, and develops methods of individual and business consulting.[56] Furthermore, the institute provides socionics instruction allowing participants to receive a bachelors or master's degree in socionics according to the criteria of the International Institute of Socionics.[57]

The Applied Socionics School[58] founded in 2003 is located in Moscow, Russia, with local branches in several cities (Murmansk,[59] Petrozavodsk,[60] Rostov-na-Donu,[61] and Krasnodar), and is led by Elena Udalova.[62] The School developed educational courses about basic knowledge of socionics, the intertype relations, and sociotype distortions, as well as local trainings devoted to the introverted ethics and introverted intuition. The local trainings are conducted for persons of sociotypes having their strengths in respective functions (Fi or Ni, respectively).

The School of System Socionics[63] was founded by Vladimir Davidovich Ermak in November 1991 in Kyiv, Ukraine. In 2005 official School of System Socionics web site was founded by I.M. Eglit. Since then it has become creative laboratory of practical socionics and platform for training socionistsexperts in TIM identification. The School has developed Methodology of remote TIM Identification, introduced a school-standard identification protocol and computer-aided type identification techniques.[citation needed]

Through the work of the International Institute of Socionics and other schools of socionics, there are four peer-reviewed journals and an annual International conference on socionics.[64] A.V. Bukalov and O.B. Karpenko note that socionics is taught in more than 150 universities[47][65][66] in Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and other CIS countries, as well as in Bulgaria, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Romania, either as a separate course, or, in view of the applicability of the various methods of socionics Humanities, as part of educational courses on Sociology, Pedagogy, Social Psychology, Management and Psychology of Management, human resource management, Conflictology, social services and Tourism, Computer Science and Programming, Philosophy, Neurology, Journalism, Library Science, Social Work, Didactics and others, including Engineering disciplines.[46][65][67]

Some universities in Russia (including Altai State Technical University,[68]Bashkir State University,[69][70]Krasnoyarsk State Pedagogical University,[71] andSaint Petersburg State University[72]) Ukraine,[73] Bulgaria,[74] Romania[75] have published or commissioned a number of textbooks and monographs on socionics, or on psychology, pedagogy and management, which socionics and its methods are devoted to specific topics.

There are new areas of research, such as educational socionics,[76][77] sociological socionics,[78] aviation socionics,[79][80] library socionics,[81][82] technical socionics, linguistic socionics, penitentiary socionics, and socionics in other subject areas.

Socionics is used in education process, not only as a tool for teachers to manage the learning process,[83] but also as a basis for the development and improvement of education and training.[74] Bogdanova claim that a teacher holding socionic knowledge and technologies can consciously collaborate with others and improve professional efficiency.[84] Targeted use of intertype relations helps intensify the didactic process, increase the motivation of students.[85] Socionics is also used to assess the individual psychological and personal qualities to forecast the success of employee career.[86]

Izmailova and Kiseleva found socionics interesting to be applied in advertising[87] and marketing, because it allows you to explain the reasons for the behavior of consumers.[88]

Socionics is a tool for the study of personality and creativity of the writer, the typology of the characters in his works.[89] The method of linguistic-socionic modeling proposed by L. M. Komissarova,[90] used for analysis of individual lexicon of language personality.[91] A translation of socionic characteristics in verbal ones is called the "method of linguistic-socionic modeling" and widely used.[92][93]

Socionic methods have been proposed for the modeling of information processes in the "human-machine" systems,[94] and practically used to model systems "aircraft operator" in pilots' training,[79] and other similar areas.

Due to the variety of applications of socionics, its concepts and information models, in the 1990s, Bukalov was proposed to distinguish socionics of personality, or differential socionics, and generalized, more abstract integral socionics.[95] Bukalov believes that the concept of information metabolism, cybernetic modeling and general systems theory extends beyond of psychology and sociology, and consider the relationship of technical information devices, and the types of information human interactions as operator with various technical and electronic management systems of major industries, including chemical, nuclear power stations, complex computer complexes with adaptive tunable to a specific operator interfaces.[95]

International Institute of Socionics lists a number of academic publications on socionics in English in peer-reviewed journals.[96] Since 2000 socionics as a scientific discipline and a field of research has been recognized in Russia and Ukraine.[96][97] The 2015 academic research and applied work in the field of socionics was held in Ukraine, Russia, Kazakhstan, Belarus, Armenia, Georgia, Moldova, Bulgaria, Great Britain, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Estonia, Austria, Germany, and others, as well as in the United States.[96]

Socionists[who?] have devised humanitarian, political, and information technologies that have been applied to various fields of human activity.[98][99] Socionic techniques have been applied at more than 120 enterprises from Russia, Ukraine, Germany, and the Baltics by members of the International Institute of Socionics.[99] Socionics is widely used in management, recruitment consultancy (professional orientation, team-compatibility, building company's strategy according to employees types), trainings of aviation and space crews, pedagogy (researches on interaction between teacher and students, problems of learning), family consultancy (marriage and divorce issues, age problems), fundamental science researches (mathematical modeling, genetics, psychophysics, morphology external parameters of socionics types), psychology games and trainings.[100][101][102][103]

Management is the area concerned with the application of both theoretical and practical socionics methods and S-technologies.[104][105] Socionics methods and techniques were successfully implemented by the fellow consultants of International Institute of Socionics and their colleagues in management, reorganization, and team building in more than 150 firms, banks and companies in Germany, Latvia, Russia, Ukraine and other countries, included 30 enterprises of the Russian gas concern "Gazprom" in the North of Russia.[28] Management of Deutsche Bank is using socionics methods to evaluate potential of its future employees.[106]

Prof. J. Horwood and Prof. A. Maw socionics used to form the surgical ambulances[20] Socinics model has been implemented in enterprises of the world's largest aluminium company Rusal for evaluating its employees.[107] Different tools are used to define sociotypes, this involves observing and testing based on well-known test methods.[108]

Numerous researches[who?] dedicated to practical and theoretical socionics have proved its efficiency in forming collectives, particularly special and related to security systems. For example, experimental research of aircraft control services, which was conducted at St. Petersburg State University had shown that quality of interaction integral controller which was calculated on the basis of SMoIR (socionics model of intertype relationships) is correlated with sociometric data colour test relations.[109] Also there are a number of scientific monographs and textbooks about significant role of socionics practices and methods in forming effective teams.

Authors of these works point out that modeling of situations in groups can be done in two ways: by forming small groups based on socionics structure (quadras, clubs and temperament types) or by analysis of intertype relations between team members. Choice of approach depends on the goals set. If a goal is to analyse a situation in the team and the interaction between its members, then the best choice is the intertype analysis between members[110][111][112][113][114][115][116][117][118][clarification needed][119][120]

Socionics methods are described in more than 110 PhD and doctoral dissertations in management, economics, organizational psychology.[121]

Socionics allocates 16 types of the relations from most attractive and comfortable up to disputed. The understanding of a nature of these relations helps to solve a number of problems of the interpersonal relations, including aspects of psychological and sexual compatibility. The researches of married couples by Aleksandr Bukalov, Olga Karpenko, and Galina Chykyrysova, have shown that the family relations submit to the laws, which are opened by socionics. The study of socionic type allocation in casually selected married couples confirmed the main rules of the theory of intertype relations in socionics.[122][123] So, the dual relations (full addition) make 45% and the intraquadral relations make 64% of investigated couples.

Security management of dangerous chemical or nuclear enterprises requires special methods of recruitment and work. To provide high security level on nuclear power plants by optimizing the human factor defined a number of ergonomic factors which have an influence on a person in a modern management system: the intensity of work, time factor, isolation of workplace that causes tight interpersonal contacts; monotony of work; lack of physical activity; negative external influences (noise, vibration, etc.).

Each of these factors and especially their combination leads to extreme modes and related stresses (not to mention other circumstances that faced operational staff of plants). However, those approaches are difficult to implement because of financial and timing loss. Except factors caused by external operational activity there are many social stressors as well.[citation needed]

Social stressors may cause mistakes, but more often its provoking mistakes in situations, where they are the most likely to happen.[citation needed] So, a person who doesn't have clear understanding of his duties, or somebody who takes his work as a dangerous activity, will commit more mistakes while working in short supply than a person who is not stressed by social factors. In order to reduce this kind of stressor, on some plants, for example on Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant were implemented testing, which were conducting communication trainings and other socionics methods.[124] Also socionics approaches are taught in terms of courses training staff reserve on Leningrad nuclear power plant.[125]

Socionics principles implemented to security system of nuclear power plants are described in a textbook.[126] It includes analysis of the social structure of the staff, the concept of which coincides with the notion of psychoinformative space of collectives in integral socionics.[127][128] Socionics tools combined with psycho informational theory of relationships are using to describe various models of human interaction with complex technological processes that take place in enterprises and transport.[129]

The concepts and methods of socionics are widely used in pedagogy, this collaboration creates a new scientific branch pedagogical socionics.[130][131]

Pletuhina noted that the parent, trainer or teacher, who knows the theory of socionics, who also understands an idea of the "image of a socionics type" and who can determine the child's personality type with a sufficient degree of probability can use those opportunities of the individual approaches that socionics provides to raise and educate a child.[34]

The role that socionics takes in the educational process is not limited to being a teacher's tool for the managing process.[132] It is also a base for development and improving the educational system and for preparing staff. Teachers armed with socionics technology can consciously establish relationships with other people and increase efficiency of their pedagogical skills.[133] Rational implementation of intertype relationships can push educational process to become more intensive and increase students' motivation.[134][135]

Socionics is also researched practical methods and techniques dedicated to evaluation person's individual psychological values to prognoses professional success.[136] Keneva, Marchenko, and Minaev argue that socionics might become a theoretical base for personal-oriented educational technologies.[137][138]

In Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center which located in Star City, Russia socionics methods are successfully used since 1992 for training Russian astronauts and international astronauts' crews and preparing them to spaceflights.[citation needed] Interpersonal issues and effective collaboration are extremely important in extreme conditions while working in a close space and are vital for successful spaceflight.[139] In Star City conducted number of science seminars based on socionics methods and person typology to training space crews. Problem of forming space crews by socionics methods was a central topic at the International conference on space researches,[140] at the Space forum 2011 and at the conference "Piloted flights into Space", which were taken place in Star City and in The Russian Academy of Sciences, also these issues were taken a part in works of Doctor of medical science professor Bohdashevsky, Doctor of philosophy Bukalov A.V. and Doctor of philosophy Karpenko O.B.[141]

Socionics methods appeared helpful for aviation due to the safety of flights, passengers and crew members. This reasons leads to development of such branch as aviation socionics, which is a part of training process for crew members of aircraft.

According to order of the Ministry of transport of Russian Federation Flight Standards Department approved a default application "Training of pilots in the field of human factor", which expects basic socionics knowledge not only among pilots and other crew members, but also prognosing interaction in air crews by socionics methods, including such topics: "Topic 5. Aviation socionics and its place in solving human factor": sources of aviation socionics. The doctrine of Jung's personality type. A. Augustinavichiute and sources of socionics. Current status of socionics science. Sociotypes and its classification. Intertype interaction. Socionic components of professional characteristics. Topic 6. "The problem of forming flight crew and other aviation groups with high collaboration in it": The document, which regulate the formation flight crews. Socionics approaches in forming teams: quadras and typology of "non-quadral" teams. Forming teams in the concept of pursepoful systems. Topic 7. "Forming effective teams based on socionics model": Fuzzy sets: terms and definitions. Socionics model of human being. Socionics model of a crew member. Crew members as a collective operator. Socionics characteristic of crew members. Evaluation of effective collaboration. Conditions to reach synergism. Socionics prognosis in evaluation crew members. Socionics model of intertype interactions. Socionics model of crew members and its evaluation. Using socionics model of intertype interactions to form effective team. Topic 8. "Problems in evaluation relationships "human-machine" ": evaluation of interaction within system "pilot-aircraft". Criteria of interactions' evaluating. Socionics aspects of pilot-aircraft interaction. Preventing pilot's mistakes by constructive and technical tools"[142]

There are numerous studies, dissertations[143][144] and fundamental monographs in this field.[145]

To improve interaction among crew members, specialists of Saint Petersburg University examined 2330 people by socionics methods, including students of St. Petersburg State University of Civil Aviation, Russian State Pedagogical University of A.I. Herzen, St. Petersburg State University of Culture and Arts; aircrews of airlines: "Syberia", "Atlant-Soyuz Airlines", "Ural Airlines", "Lukoylavia", "Gazpromavia", "Tomsk Avia", "Enimex" (Estonia), "Air Kazakhstan", "AZAL", "Kazair West", "RusAir" and others; air traffic controllers from Moscow, Khabarovsk, Rostov-on-Don, Novokuznetsk, Magadan, Norilsk, Saratov, Omsk, Kemerovo, New Urengoy, Syktyvkar, Nalchik, Ust-UTA, Kolpasevo, Pechora, Evenkii, Yakutia and Sakhalin; professors from almost all flight academies of Russia; delegates from Azerbaijan, Russia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Ukraine, and Estonia.

This data base represents result of 10 years of scientific work. In their researches authors are relying on fundamental works of the Kyiv School of Socionics, International Institute of Socionics, publications in journals "Socionics, mentology and personal psychology", "Management and staff: management psychology, socionics and sociology".[146]

Experimental researches of National Aviation University and Kropyvnytskyi Flight Academy of National Aviation University of Ukraine showed that sociometric and socionics approaches are playing a great role in the working process of aviation specialists, especially in forming flight crews and dispatcher changes.[citation needed]

By system approach were defined socionic types of aviation professionals' personalities and level of their interaction of professional performing in small groups as an example of control changes.[citation needed]

According to the experimental results were obtained socionics and sociometric data of air traffic controllers and correlation analyses of its parameters, also was determined the connection's intensity between person's interaction levels. The practical values of this research is to develop automated module to determine individual characteristic of operators and to evaluate the effectiveness of socionics in the management of air traffic, particular in special cases of flight[147]

Carl Jung describes four psychological functions that are capable of becoming applicable psychically, but to differing degrees in individuals:[148]

In addition to these four types, Jung defines a polarity between introverted and extraverted personalities. This distinction is based on how people invest energy: either into the inner, subjective, psychical world (usually called Seele, soul, by Jung), or toward their outer, objective, physical world (including one's body).

By Jung's rules, 16 psychological types exist. But in his book "Psychological Types" he described in detail only 8, distinguished by the 8 possible dominant functions. Contrary to Socionics and MBTI, Jung did not conclude that the types had two introverted functions and two extroverted functions. He instead outlined that extroverted personality types had a Dominant extroverted function, with the remaining functions being of varying if lower levels of development that range from being Inferior introverted functions that are necessarily retarded to auxiliary functions that lie in the middle.[149]

In socionics, Jung's cognitive functions are always either introverted (focused on refining quality) or extroverted (focused on increasing quantity), and are referred to as information metabolism elements (IM Elements).[150] These are said to process information aspects. To understand what an information aspect is, it is necessary to understand information metabolism as Augustinaviit understood it.

Augustinaviit states that the human mind uses eight elements of information metabolism (mental functions) to perceive the world, and each of these eight elements reflect one particular aspect of objective reality.[151] In her works she describes aspects of the world based on physical quantities such as potential and kinetic energy, space, time, and their properties.

Often, other socionists[who?] have equated these information elements with their definition and according to fundamental physical concepts as well (Matter-Time-Energy-Space) (N. Medvedev,[152] V. Ermak[153]). Matter is compared to Thinking, Energy to Feeling, Space to Sensing, and Time to Intuition. Given the division of aspects of the absolute between Extroverted ("black") and Introverted ("white"), being four times two, their number is eight.[citation needed]

The 8 socionics symbols ( ) were introduced by Augustinaviit while working with Jung's typology[154][clarification needed] and remain the dominant method of denoting the functions and the corresponding information aspects that they process. Text-based notation systems also enjoy use online, such as Victor Gulenko's 8 Latin letters ('P' for Pragmatism, 'E' for Emotions, 'F' for Force, 'I' for Ideas, 'L' for Laws, 'R' for Relation, 'S' for Senses, and 'T' for Time, correspondingly).[155] Among western enthusiasts, Myers-Briggs notation (Te, Fe, Se, Ne, Ti, Fi, Si, and Ni, correspondingly) is also popular.[156]

Socionics divides people into 16 different types, called sociotypes. They are most commonly referred to by their two strongest functions, which in socionics are called the leading function (Jung's dominant) and the creative function (Jung's auxiliary). The creative function is opposite to the leading function in extraversion and rationality. For example, if the dominant function is introverted logic (a rational and introverted function), the secondary function must be irrational and extraverted, which means it must be either extraverted sensing or extraverted intuition.[citation needed]

Aura Augustinaviit usually used names like sensory-logical introvert (SLI) to refer to the types. In SLI the leading function is introverted sensation and the creative function is extraverted logic. She also introduced the practice of referring to types by the name of a famous person of the type (although types of these persons are not universally agreed upon, with the old name Napoleon for the SEE being replaced by Caesar after being deemed an inaccurate type assignment). For example, she called the SLI Gabin and the SEI Dumas. Also sometimes names such as Craftsman or Mediator are used to express the social role of the typea convention introduced by socionist Viktor Gulenko in 1995.[157] Given the formal similarities present between Socionics and the MyersBriggs Type Indicator (MBTI) abbreviations frequently used in English, some prefer to distinguish socionic type names from MyersBriggs' names by writing the last letter (J or P) in lower case (for example, ENTp, ESFj)a practice introduced by Sergei Ganin.[158] This is because the relationship between socionics and MyersBriggs and Keirseyan types is controversial.

Dmitri Lytov and Marianna Lytova state that "main spheres of application of socionics are almost the same as for the MyersBriggs Type Theory", and that observed differences in correlation "represent characteristic stereotypes of the socionics and the Keirsey typology.[159] Others state that MBTI and socionics "correlate in roughly 30% of cases," and that "there are many subtle differences".[160][clarification needed] J and P in Socionics and MyersBriggs are completely different:[161] in MyersBriggs, J and P stands for the first extraverted function (Jextraverted thinking or feeling, Pextraverted sensing or intuition); in Socionics, J and P stands for the first function (Jrational (thinking and feeling), Pirrational (sensing and intuition)). This formal conversion is carried out in accordance with the MyersBriggs Type Indicator.

In dividing the socion according to the four Jungian dichotomies, from this is formed 16 socionic types. The following tables provide a list of types with the names most commonly used in socionics:

Among socionists[who?], the prevailing view is that sociotypes are inborn and genetically determined,[163] although the content of different functions and dimensions may vary. Some socionists[who?] believe that sociotypes may temporarily change while in altered states of consciousness or under great stress.[citation needed]

Vladimir Ermak first introduced two important concepts of modern socionics further confirmed by Elena Udalova research.[citation needed] The first one is the growth dynamics which means that every horizontal block of two functions (see below) is filling in the certain age, from bottom to top, with the roughly 7-year interval, so that the lowest block is done before 7, the next is complete before 14, the weak part of the mental track is done before 21, and the top block finally leads after that. Due to this process, a child, or a teenager, may demonstrate faces of other sociotypes according to the active horizontal block. Besides, being introduced to the unknown people, or in stressful situations, people again may demonstrate adaptive or protective behaviour directed by the appropriate blocks (see below).[citation needed]

The second concept is so called functional dimensions. It was introduced by Aleksandr Bukalov.[164] He defined the first dimension as the personal experience (Ex), the second dimension as social norms (Nr), the third dimension as the current situation (St), and the fourth dimension as the globality, or time perspective (Tm). This concept is useful because it best illustrates the difference in cognitive power (imagine measuring capability of 2D v. 3D measuring tool) and roughly describes abilities of each function to process and generate information. Still, definitions of dimensions require further research and clarification. For example, the vulnerable function tends to lose knowledge which haven't been used.

Since socionics is mathematically Base-16 and also a psychology of personality in the same way as the typology of Carl Jung and MyersBriggs, it shares a similar degree of mathematical consistency, while enduring the same serious shortcomings in the experimental justification of these theories.[citation needed]

Taking this, socionics also differs from other typologies in that it also includes a complementary Base-16 relationship set, with the intent of penning to paper the key social dynamic traits between grouped combinations of socionic types. Therefore, socionics could be considered to be within the realm of the science of social dynamics, intended to describe social behavior according to mathematical applications of Base-16, group theory, set logic, and reduction of the Gulenko-Jungian notation for socionics types to hexadecimal and Base-2 bitwise operation. While this mathematical approach is strictly theoretical and has been criticized for lack of empirical testing,[165] systems theory has been the tool of socionics theorist, such as Gregory Reinin to derive theorical dichotomies within socionics theory. In 1985 Aura Augustinaviit acknowledged the mathematical theories of Reinin and wrote a book titled The Theory of Reinin's Traits to describe the mathematical processes of socionics theory. Mathematical methods have been a standard part of socionics theory since this time.

Studies of Elena Udalova show that at least three of Reinin's Traits are distinguishable and can be used for detection of a sociotype.[citation needed] Those include: statics/dynamics (having appropriate functions in their mental track), questims/declatims (tending to raise questions or declare opinions), and aristocrats/democrats (understanding inequality or equality of people). Not all names of Reinin's Traits reflect their actual meaning very well, but they were defined historically and now seem to be fixed.[citation needed]

In 2006, Viktor Talanov sought to identify cognitive correlates for functions.[166] Recent advances in cognitive psychology have facilitated understanding of information processing at the cognitive level.[citation needed] Introversion has been correlated to high brain-blood levels; extroversion to lower levels. Viktor Talanov has proposed[citation needed] to identify the processing centers of the four Jungian functionslogic, ethics, intuition, and sensingas a first step towards demonstrating the existence of the function types. (called simply "functions" in socionics).[167]

Socionics has been brought up at conferences on psychology, where its practical applications were discussed. For instance, in 2005, socionics was discussed at the British and East European Psychology Meeting in Krakw, Poland, which was attended by British, American and Eastern European psychologists.[168][169]

The opinion of scientific community about socionics is not uniform. Socionic analysts and theorists see it as "the fusion of science and technology that makes it possible to predict behavior and activity style of an individual, group of people, and society as a whole" and "the science that discovered the laws of human compatibility".[170] Psychophysiologist Sergey Bogomaz says there is no reason for considering socionics as a separate science. He considers socionic typology to be a Russian version of post-Jung typology, similar to the Myers-Briggs typology, but improved by a greater number of typological features and the formulation of prerequisites for the study of intertype relationships. Bogomaz considers the construction of the theory of intertype relationships to be an undoubted contribution of Augustinaviit to the development of Jung typology, but criticized it by stating that there is little experimental data in socionics, there is no empirical verification of many claims, and by having many unsystematic pseudoscientific publications.[171] In later publications Bogomaz used socionics and Jungian typology for psychological research.[172][173][174]

Philosopher L. M. Monastirsky[175] identified the use of speculative categories as the first shortcoming of socionics. Secondly, he stated that it lacks clearly defined typing method and each socionics school defines methods of their own. At the same time Monastirsky, recognizing the potential of socionics, proposed to turn to the concept of a socionic type for carrying out some research in the field of the methodology of science.[175]An important issue in the field of socionics is the problem of convergence between type diagnoses of different analysts. Vladimir Ermak showed that ignorance of model A of the type of information metabolism leads to numerous mistakes in the definition of a socionic type.[176] In the early 2000s, socionic analysts tried to develop more rigorous approaches to type diagnosis.[177]

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"Socionics was developed in the 1970s and 1980s mainly by the Lithuanian researcher Ausra Augustinaviciute. The name 'socionics' is derived from the word 'society, since Augustinaviciute believed that each personality type has a distinct purpose in society, which can be described and explained by socionics. The system of socionics is in several respects similar to the MBTI; however, whereas the latter is dominantly used in the USA and Western Europe, the former is mainly used in Russia and Eastern Europe. For more information, the reader is referred to the website of the International Institute of Socionics and to several scientific journals edited by this institution<http://socionic.info/en/esocjur.html#top>. Despite of several similarities there are also important differences. For instance, the MBTI is based on questionnaires with so-called forced-choice questions. Forced choice means that the individual has to choose only one of two possible answers to each question. Obviously, such tests are self-referential. That means they are based on judgments of persons about themselves. Socionics rejects the use of such questionnaires and is based on interviews and direct observation of certain aspects of human behavior instead. However, if personality tests are well constructed and their questions are answered properly, we expect results that often make sense. For that reason, we do not reject test questions principally, but we have to take into account their self-referential character. Another difference relates to the fact that socionics tries to understand Jung's intuitive system and to provide a deeper explanation for it, mainly in terms of informational metabolism (Kepinski & PZWL, 1972). Further, socionics is not so much a theory of personalities per se, but much more a theory of type relations providing an analysis of the relationships that arise as a consequence of the interaction of people with different personalities."

Let's notice that the relation of psychologists to socionics is ambiguous. As it is noted by A.V. Bukalov and O.B. Karpenko, wide circulation of socionics as scientific direction is confirmed by that for the last 15 years socionics ideas and methods are used approximately in 800 theses according to all sections of the humanities and in a number of technical sciences. Now socionics is taught in more than 150 universities of Russia, Ukraine, the CIS countries and countries of the European Union.

"In this case it is really important to recall for socionics and related fieldsit's accessible methodology that helps to determine a person's type through numerous binary features. For example, it helps to understand is he an extrovert or an introvert, is he better in working with details and facts or he has more intuitive mind, is he able to finish his work or he is easy involved in a new activity. By creating this profile we can evaluate does the specific person is able to handle the exact task and only after that we have a look on his certificates and working experience. That's how we are working in Deutsche Bank"

Recommendation: Recommended for students taking course of organizational behavior staff, teachers and specialists in field of staff management.Annotation, quote: Book dedicated to one of the most new and prospective areas in organizational psychology socionics. Book is designed to assess the base criterion for evaluation individual-psychological and personal qualities in order to prognosis professional success of the person, it reflects two-years experience of using socionics model in evaluating staff at enterprises of company "Russian Aluminum"

Socionics is devoted to the study of how people interact with each other, compatibility of their sustainable types of thinking and behavior (sociotype) and patterns of relationships (information metabolism) between different sociotypes. Socionics as a new science derives a great deal from psychology, sociology, philosophy within social management. Carl Gustav Jung considered to be a forerunner of socionics and Aura Augustinaviit developed it to a new science in the early 1970s Socionics helps to define person's type and to prognoses relationships with other sociotypes (16 sociotypes, that formed from different combinations of extroverts and introverts, rationalists and irrationalists, logical, ethical, sensory or intuitive types). Different tools are used to define sociotypes, this involves observing and testing based on well-known test methods as MBTI, Buns, semantic differential. In recent years socionics tools are widely applied by Russian companies to recruitment

About authors: Oleh Kondratiev specialist of refining NK "YUKOS", PhD. chem. Sciences. Author of more than 40 scientific papers and publications. He prepared for edition textbook "Socio-psychological management on the basis of socionics."

Quote: socionics is the science that treats people as bearers of certain types of information metabolism, that interacting with each other basing on social laws.

Quate: Socionics "art of communication and understanding"

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Socionics - Wikipedia

Joshua Angrist, part of a trio that won the economics Nobel Prize on Monday, has used,in much of his research on natural experiments, the Israeli education systems reliance on a theory by Maimonides.

Angrist and Guido W. Imbens won their half of the award (the other half went to David Card) for working out the methodological issues that allow economists to draw solid conclusions about cause and effect even when they cannot carry out studies according to strict scientific methods.

The Nobel committee said the three shared the prize for providing new insights about the labor market and for showing what conclusions about cause and effect can be drawn from natural experiments.

But much of Angrists work has been based on his research in Israel, and in particular on education and labor.

Last year, Angrist told the Econ Focus publication by the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond how he began to work on natural experiments, the area in which he eventually won the Nobel Prize, with research focused on the Israeli education system, which has maximum classroom sizes based on a theory by 12th-century Jewish scholar Maimonides.

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Angrist said that the research was initially born of the fact that he was living in Israel at the time.

One thing I learned is that empiricists should work on stuff thats nearby, he said. Theres a temptation to just mimic whatever the Americans and British are doing. I think a better strategy is to say, Well, whats special and interesting about where I am?'

Students arrive to the classroom on the first day of the new academic year, at Orot Etzion School in the West Bank settlement of Efrat, September 1, 2021. (Gershon Elinson/Flash90)

It turned out that the Israeli school system had a lot of interesting things going on. One was that they had a rule about class size that can actually be dated back to the Talmud, Angrist said, explaining that Maimonides had determined that the size of a group of students must be capped at 40.

Even though the details of the rule have changed, we call it Maimonides Rule, because the biblical sage and scholar Moses Maimonides had said in the 13th century that thats what youre supposed to do, Angrist said. If youre in a grade cohort of 41, theyll split your class because youre over the cap of 40; if youre in a cohort of 39, youll stay lumped. So you get a nice natural experiment there.

Angrist said that he and colleagues continued to use the Israeli education system when they repeated the research a number of years later using a larger sample size, and came up with different findings.

Maimonides (Wikimedia commons)

In the newer, much larger sample, theres not much relationship, basically none, between class size and achievement. I cant say that we actually figured out why it changed. Overall, classes have gotten smaller in Israel; maybe were into a zone where it doesnt matter much anymore, he said.

Angrist has also written several papers about education and labor conditions in Gaza and the West Bank and in 2001 published a paper on the impact of teacher training in Jerusalems public schools.

He also served as a member of Israels Finance Ministry Working Group on Israeli-Palestinian Labor Market Relations in 1994.

Shortly after graduating from Oberlin College in Ohio, Angrist served as a paratrooper in the Israel Defense Forces. He later taught at Jerusalems Hebrew University.

Agencies contributed to this report.

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Maimonides in the classroom: The research that led Angrist to the Nobel - The Times of Israel

Drawn to biology from childhood, Rabbi Tendler, while studying at Yeshiva, simultaneously took evening courses at New York University. There he received a bachelors degree in biology and then a masters degree in the subject before eventually earning the doctorate at Columbia.

Yeshiva hired him as a biology instructor in 1952, and within a few years he was appointed assistant dean in charge of student affairs. He was later named a rosh yeshiva at the seminary, a title given to the schools leading teachers and one he held at his death. He lectured from his hospital bed by Zoom until five months ago, his son Mordecai said.

Years ago as a student, Rabbi Tendler was studying at a local library when he was approached by Shifra Feinstein, Rabbi Feinsteins daughter, who asked him a chemistry question. They went on to marry and have eight children, moving to Monsey in 1960. There he was named rabbi of the Community Synagogue.

Mrs. Tendler died in 2007. Besides Mordecai, he is survived by three daughters, Rivka Rappaport, dean of an Israeli high school, Sara Oren, a nurse at Hadassah Medical Center in Israel, and Ruth Fried, chair of science at Yeshiva University High School for Girls in Holliswood, Queens; four other sons, Yacov, an internist, Aron, a rabbi in Baltimore, Hillel, a Baltimore lawyer, and Eli Don, a lawyer on Long Island; a brother, Sholom, dean of a yeshiva in Los Angeles; more than 200 grandchildren and great-grandchildren; and four great-great grandchildren.

In a tribute he wrote for the online magazine Tradition, Dr. Edward Reichman, a professor of emergency medicine at Einstein and a former student of Rabbi Tendler, said that Rabbi Tendler had taught generations of observant medical students to think about the implications of Jewish ethics in their training and that he had forever changed the way the Jewish world analyzes and integrates the field of medicine through the lens of Torah.

It is no exaggeration, he added, to say that Rabbi Tendlers name was in the Rolodex (or, today, smartphone) of every religious Jewish physician.

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Moshe Tendler, Authority on Jewish Medical Ethics, Dies at 95 - The New York Times

In Parshat Lech Lecha (Breisheet 13:17), Avraham is told:

Rise, walk (hithalech) the land through its length and breadth, for to you I will give it.

This reminds us of Yishayahu 42:5 where we read:

Thus says God the Lord, He that created the heavens, and stretched them out; He that spread forth the earth, and that which comes out of it; He that gives breath to the people upon it and a spirit to those who walk within it (laholchim bah).

The Talmud, Ketubot 111a explains the words and a spirit to those who walk within it: Rabbi Yirmiya bar Abba said in the name of Rabbi Yochanan, Whoever walks four amot (cubits) in Eretz Yisrael is assured of a portion in the World to Come.

Maharit (Tshuvot Maharit II, Yoreh Deah 28) suggests that this may even apply to a tourist who has no intention of settling in the Land of Israel. Maharit declares that there is no known mitzvah associated with visiting the Land of Israel, yet one still receives merit. He even suggests that one who was not able to fulfill the mitzvah of settling the Land of Israel when they were alive still receives merit for being buried there.

Receiving merit is a step in the right direction and that is why it is so wonderful to see so many tourists visiting Israel on a regular year. However, with numerous travel restrictions in place due to Covid, many people who would have wanted to travel to Israel dont have that opportunity.

Unfortunately, during these difficult times, there are those who can only get in to Israel to bury a loved one.

May we merit to have tourists safely come back to walk the Land of Israel and may Jews continue to make aliya and fully observe the mitzvah of Yishuv Ertetz Yisrael, the Settlement of the Land of Israel.

Sharona holds a BA in Judaic Studies from Stern College and an MS in Jewish Education from Azrieli Graduate School, Yeshiva University. Sharona was the first Congregational Intern and Madricha Ruchanit at the Hebrew Institute of Riverdale, NY. After making aliya in 2004, Sharona founded Torat Reva Yerushalayim, a non profit organization based in Jerusalem which provides Torah study groups for students of all ages and backgrounds.

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Our Reward for Settling the Land | Sharona Margolin Halickman | The Blogs - The Times of Israel

Freshly baked challah has been carefully wrapped in individual paper packages and arranged in a wicker basket by the entrance into the Jewish Community of Florence. While the copper dome of the Synagogue stands out on the citys skyline, the community remains relatively little known locally and yet it offers a lifelong commitment to Jewish heritage.

We want to encourage people to come and study Jewish culture with us.

Menorahs greet members and visitors in the cosy reception area where noticeboards provide news about the communitys services, from young groups to Talmud Torah learning. Copies of bimonthly magazine Toscana Ebraica top a table and sporting trophies won by community members line a shelf by the entrance into Rabbi Gadi Pipernos well-appointed office.

Here in via Farini, 15 or so preschool children learn in light-filled classrooms with the Hebrew alphabet posted above the windows. Its hard to imagine a more idyllic place to go to school when you observe the toys and slides beside the 19th-century Moorish-style temple. Theres the sukkah, a temporary hut for eating during the week of Sukkot (last year, the structure stayed up longer due to the pandemic), and even an organic vegetable garden for kids to try gardening, while a reminder of the circle of life is omnipresent as the communitys 42-bed nursing home lies through a gate beyond the playground. As with all things living, theres no such thing as a status quo: in recent months, a number of families from Canada, the United States and Israel have joined the community, which comprises just under 1,000 members, bringing growth, renewed vigour and an international feel.

Were the only school that walks around the city to visit theatres, such as nearby Teatro Verdi and museums, like Palazzo Strozzi, Palazzo Vecchio and the Uffizi, explains teacher Sabina Sadun as the children collect autumn leaves in the walled garden and generously share them with us. The Birth of Venus inspired a longer study into flowers and the sea based on slow observation.

Over on the other side of the Synagogue, older children kick a ball around a small football pitch, a short distance from the recently added miqveh, a bathing house for ritual purification. Downstairs in a large room used for special occasions, film projections and everyday life, the children are munching lasagne made in the on-site kitchen.

Upstairs, we gaze at the collections of books and documents making up the communitys extensive library, with sections dedicated to Judaism in Tuscany and wider Italy, before heading up several flights of steps into the archive. The very history of the Jewish Community of Florence is contained in these light blue, metal-trimmed files that stand in two apartment rooms from floor to ceiling. The Synagogues construction, financial ledgers, births and deaths: every single detail is stated. Thats not all: books that were damaged during the 1966 flood have been restored in Rome and are slowly returning to Florence, in need of cataloguing and storage.

Our aim is to expand the scope of our library and archive, hosting people and attracting scholars, comments Enrico Fink, president of the Jewish Community of Florence. We want to encourage people to come and study Jewish culture with us.

Dialogues is the title of the European Day of Jewish Culture, which will be celebrated in Tuscany with an introductory concert aired from Sienas Teatro dei Rinnovati with a live audience on October 9 at 9.15am. Click here for more details.

On October 10, a full day of events will take place at the Jewish Community in Florence (via Farini 4), with talks, food, book stands and exhibitions from 11am to 7pm. A Stolperstein will be laid in memory of Rabbi Nathan Cassuto in the morning. The program will be posted on http://www.firenzebraica.it.

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The Jewish Community of Florence: from kindergarten to care home - The Florentine

Avshalom Davidesko, from the Israel's Antiquities Authority, examines a jar in a massive ancient winemaking complex dating back some 1,500 years in Yavne, south of Tel Aviv, Israel. Tsafrir Abayov/AP hide caption

Avshalom Davidesko, from the Israel's Antiquities Authority, examines a jar in a massive ancient winemaking complex dating back some 1,500 years in Yavne, south of Tel Aviv, Israel.

Near a soccer pitch and a suburban neighborhood in central Israel, archaeologists say they discovered the world's largest known Byzantine-era winery.

The winery, dating back 1,500 years, is believed to have produced one of the finest white wines of the Mediterranean at the time. It was widely praised in Byzantine-era literature and known as vinum Gazetum or Gaza wine because it was exported from the ancient port city near modern-day Gaza.

Archeologists found a large complex of five winepresses, four large warehouses where the wine was aged, kilns where the clay wine jugs were fired, and tens of thousands of broken pieces of jugs.

They estimate the winery produced between two to three million liters of wine a year.

"The proportions here are incredible," said Elie Haddad, an Israel Antiquities Authority archaeologist who co-directed the two-year dig on the outskirts of Yavne, south of Tel Aviv. Archaeologists were called in to survey the area before an overpass is built there.

Each winepress found covers an area of about 2,400 square feet. Around the treading floor, where grapes were crushed by foot, were compartments for fermenting the wine and large octagonal vats that collected the wine.

The dig also unearthed even more ancient wine presses about 2,300 years old, pointing to a longstanding tradition of winemaking in the area. The Talmud speaks of the "vineyard of Yavne" where Jewish religious sages gathered after the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D.

The ancient cosmopolitan city of Yavne was home to a patchwork of Jews, Samaritans, Christians and others. Who operated the winery is unknown, but archaeologists say the large, intricate conch-shell decorations suggest the owners were wealthy.

The archaeologists even found several, completely intact, slender clay amphorae where the wine was aged and stored for export.

The same kind of long clay jugs have also been discovered in the Gaza Strip, where they are displayed in a museum testifying to a time when Gaza was not a blockaded area of conflict but rather a bustling portal to the ancient world.

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1,500-year-old winery discovered in Israel - NPR

Of all the challenges facing the Jewish community in our time, the greatest might be the declining Jewish birth rate occasioned by delayed marriage on the part of Jewish singles. By this I dont only mean in the less observant Jewish community, where the situation is truly dire, but rather even in the Orthodox Jewish community, which normally boasts a very high birth rate.

On Simchat Torah I went to Crown Heights where I spoke at several shuls that boast large numbers of Chabad Jewish singles. Foremost among them was Chevra Ahavas Yisroel, run by Folly Tessler, and the Townhouse community run by Yankee Pearson. Both had hundreds of people.

It was an eye opener to see a Chabad singles scene. In the Chabad community, we were all raised to have strict segregation between men and women and matches were made by matchmakers. When I was in Yeshiva, the thought of going to events with Chabad girls was a non-starter.

But heres the problem. In a community that is now absolutely colossal and global, with tens of thousands of young people who are the products, thank God, of that high birth rate, how can one expect matchmakersmost of whom are volunteers and work on commissions received for successful matchesto ever cope with the numbers?

In addition, matchmaking, in the words of a friend of mine, is a rigged system. It highlights qualities like pedigree, money, and beauty, which do not accord with Jewish values. It would be nice if we could consistently rely on holy attributes like character, refinement and goodness coming to the fore in arranged dating. Unfortunately, we cant. The shidduchsystem, which I mostly believe in, has proven itself to be a hit or miss affair. It works for some. It doesnt work for many.

On Simchat Torah night I spoke to more than 500 Chabad singles. It was amazing. I spoke of the three kinds of love. The first and lowest is exploitative love. Its where you love someone in a transactional way where person gets something from the other. In dating this represents people who marry based on similar education background and future earning power. The second kind of love is selfless yet selfish at the same time. You want to give to the other but you enjoy seeing how your love them positively and how they appreciate you. But the highest form of love is utterly altruistic. Its where you love someone and receive nothing in return. You simply celebrate the fact that the other person is, which is why, on Simchat Torah, we dance with a closed Torah. We are not celebrating the fact that the Torah enriches us intellectually or spiritually. We are simply celebrating the fact that the Torah is.

In dating, it represents our desire to devote ourselves to a soul-mate unconditionally and watch them flourish and prosper.

I admit that an Orthodox singles scene can also spill over into what sometimes looks like a secular singles scene, where outward attractiveness can get more attention than qualities that are more internal or subtle. Still, religious singles have to meet and the Orthodox Jewish community is not addressing the scale of the problem.

Still, religious singles have to meet and the Orthodox Jewish community is not addressing the scale of the problem.

The secular Jewish community has mostly addressed it through online dating, and many Orthodox singles have also gotten engaged through online apps. But while they are effective in allowing people from all over the world to meet, they present their own problems. The first is the massive scale and the variety of people you can find online. Strange as it may sound, too many choices can actually make it much harder to choose. Online dating can become its own addiction. Then there is the fact that physical attraction is going to be the most highlighted of all qualities since online dating is a visual medium.

This brings us back to the original problem.

How do we get Jewish singles to date, get serious and connect through marriage?

Judaism is not a proselytizing faith. Our numbers are dependent entirely on our birth rate.

In the same way that an organization was created to get young Jews to visit Israel (Birthright), and in the same way that there is an organization that promotes Israel in Congress (AIPAC), and in the same way there is an organization to combat antisemitism (the ADL), we likewise need a Jewish organization that is dedicated exclusively to Jewish marriage. It seems incredible that it doesnt yet exist. Think about how every priority of the Jewish community is addressed with massive numbers of organizations, like those fighting antisemitism. Yet there isnt one national organization designed to promote Jewish marriage, even though the absence of marriage represents an existential threat to the Jewish future.

Yes, I get it. Some, like Birthright, are hoping that Jewish singles will meet and marry when they go on trips to Israel. But its not the same thing. We need an organizationdedicatedto getting people to meet and marry.

I can envision a national organization that either arranges or provides funding for regular events around the country that will bring Jewish singles together, with special emphasis on those who wish to date not just casually but also to marry. No doubt levels of observance will factor into whom attends which events. But the general idea will be Jewish men and women who want to marry other Jewish individuals and build Jewish families.

I can envision a national organization that either arranges or provides funding for regular events around the country that will bring Jewish singles together, with special emphasis on those who wish to date not just casually but also to marry.

In last weeks Torah reading, Genesis, God Himself brings Adam and Eve together, serving as historys first matchmaker. The Talmud says that God found it harder to make that match than He did to split the Red Sea.

When I was studying to be a Rabbi in Yeshiva I found that statement incredulous. How hard is it to have men and women meet and marry? Whats the big deal?

But once I became the father of nine children and, more importantly, once I started writing books on sex and marriage and people came to me for dating advice and marital counseling, I began to understand just how challenging marital happiness really is.

A happy marriage is a miracle. It requires people meeting, being draw to each other, successfully dating, overcoming commitment-phobia, prioritizing each other, keeping the marriage fresh, sustaining attraction, allowing the relationship to remain primary even amid the advent of kids, and to weather all the financial and health challenges that every marriage faces. Yes, its a miracle that any marriage is happy.

And yet, so many, thank God, are.

But were also taught never to rely on miracles. The Bible is clear: God will bless you in all the things that you do.

Its time for the American Jewish community, at every level of observance, to focus on getting Jewish singles married.

Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, Americas Rabbi, is the author of Dating Secrets of the Ten Commandments and Why Cant I Fall in Love? Follow him on Instagram and Twitter @RabbiShmuley.

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Jewish Singles Meltdown and How to Fix It - Jewish Journal

On Sept. 8, 2021, the United States Supreme Court took the unusual step of staying Texas execution of John Ramirez, a convicted murderer. The question the court has decided to consider is a narrow one. Notably, the question is not whether the execution should take place.

Instead, the only question is whether Texas may constitutionally deny Ramirezs plea that his pastor, a Baptist minister, pray out loud and place his hands on Ramirez at the moment of execution. That question may be narrow, but it speaks broadly to our continued embrace of our national sin of capital punishment, and it sheds a not very flattering light on white evangelicals who claim to worship a crucified Christ, yet who disproportionately support the states right to kill without mercy.

While arguments rage in certain circles about the moral and ethical viability of the death penalty, there can be no reasonable debate on one crucial point: As a nation, we have murdered scores of wholly innocent people, all under the sanction of the law and in the name of justice. In this regard, the facts simply do not lie, no matter how much capital punishment proponents wish that they would.

As a nation, we have murdered scores of wholly innocent people, all under the sanction of the law and in the name of justice.

As tabulated by the Death Penalty Information Center, 185 Death Row inmates have been exonerated prior to their scheduled execution, and it bears stressing that such exonerations were not, in all cases, simply a question of finding an existence of reasonable doubt. Instead, in at least 28 known cases, later-tested DNA evidence has conclusively eliminated the man convicted and sentenced to death as the perpetrator of the crime. The question is not whether we have killed innocent death row inmates. The only question is how many.

A shameful example is offered by the case of Claude Jones, who was executed in Texas in 2000 for the 1989 killing of a liquor store clerk. He had been tied to the scene of the crime by a single hair a hair that the prosecutors convinced the jury had come from Jones. It hadnt. While DNA tests were sought as a part of a last-minute stay request, that stay was denied by then-Gov. George Bush. As a result, such tests were not performed until 2010, a decade after Jones was killed by the state of Texas. They conclusively proved that the hair did not come from Jones but was, instead, from the victim. Jones had not killed an innocent man. Texas had.

The injustices inherent in the death penalty are accentuated by a very ugly truth. Often, the determinative factor in a jurys choice between life and death turns more on the color of the accused persons skin than on any other single factor. That chilling truth has been repeatedly demonstrated, perhaps nowhere more clearly than in a pair of studies by University of Iowa Professor David Baldus in the 1980s and 1990s, who determined that, in America, Black persons are 38% more likely to be sentenced to death based solely on their race.

Combined with the fact of the death penaltys known error rate, this means that it is exceedingly likely that we have, as a nation, executed dozens if not hundreds of innocent persons solely for the crime of being Black. This horrifying truth perhaps explains the wide gap in white and Black Christian views on the death penalty, with one 2014 study finding 59% support for capital punishment among white evangelicals but only 25% support among Black Protestants. The fact that white evangelicals do not share their Black brothers and sisters concern for the sanctity of Black lives is simply one of the many sickening truths laid bare by the death penalty.

Interestingly, while pro-death-penalty Christians often avoid Jesus altogether and resort, instead, to a full-throated endorsement of the eye for an eye passages of Mosaic law to justify their position, they do so without realizing that the travesty of justice embodied by the death penalty in todays American legal system bears no resemblance whatsoever to its Old Testament ancestor. Under that system, no execution could be had absent two direct eyewitnesses to the crime itself. (See Numbers 35:30 and Deuteronomy 12:6). The extent to which this requirement was to be rigorously enforced is reflected in the following example provided by the Talmud:

Even if the witnesses saw (the assailant) chasing (the victim), gave him warning, and then lost sight of him, or they followed him into a ruin and found the victim writhing, while the sword dripping with blood was in the hands of the slayer, the court does not condemn the accused to death, since the witnesses did not see him at the time of the slaying.

Leaving aside for a moment the question of whether the state is ever morally or ethically entitled to kill, its clear that our modern-day thirst for vengeance is given much freer rein than we see authorized by the Old Testament. Who needs an eyewitness, much less two, when a death penalty conviction can literally rest on a single hair that may, or may not, be from the accused?

Even the most cartoonishly drawn image of a wrathful God of Old Testament justice and vengeance cannot hold a candle to the cavalier way in which we are willing to kill the accused.

No. Even the most cartoonishly drawn image of a wrathful God of Old Testament justice and vengeance cannot hold a candle to the cavalier way in which we are willing to kill the accused. Quite the contrary, we hear God solemnly swear in Ezekiel 33:11, As surely as I live, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live. I wonder how many Bible-believing white evangelicals who support the death penalty today despite all of its flaws would lend their amen to that statement.

Credible research shows that, rather than deterring murder, capital punishment tends to have a brutalizing effect on society, desensitizing us to the sacred value of life and actually increasing the homicide rate, at least in the immediate aftermath of an execution.

Simply by way of a single notable example, in the October 1980 edition of the journal Crime and Delinquency, Northeastern University researchers W.J. Bowers and G.L Pierce published the results of their meticulous study tracking homicide rates in comparison to executions in New York from the early 1900s through the mid-1960s. These researchers found no deterrent effect from the death penalty whatsoever, and, in fact, found a brief uptick in homicide rates immediately following executions, amounting to on average between two and three excess murders correlating to each of the executions during the time period studied.

It is a damnable lie that our government, or any other government, can point the way toward a greater respect for the sanctity of human life with blood-soaked hands.

In short, it is a damnable lie that our government, or any other government, can point the way toward a greater respect for the sanctity of human life with blood-soaked hands.

It would be a gross understatement to say the churchs past views on the death penalty have been vacillating and inconsistent but with the notable exception of Americas white evangelicals its present voice is now being heard with growing clarity and insistency. By way of example, Pope Francis, in his encyclical Tutti Fratelli, sought to settle the question once and for all, unequivocally declaring the death penalty inadmissible in all cases, and committing the Catholic Church to seeking its abolition worldwide.

Of note, Pope Francis call for the death of the death penalty did not rest on the ugly truth that some of the executed may be innocent. Rather, even as to persons unequivocally guilty of the crimes for which they have been convicted, Pope Francis echoed the caution of Saint Augustine that we must not, as a society, allow their crimes to feed a desire for vengeance, that we must desire instead to heal the wounds which those deeds have inflicted on their souls.

At its very heart, Pope Francis unwavering opposition to the death penalty is rooted in his recognition that not even the vilest murderer can, by his crime, shed himself of the dignity of being made in Gods own image or separate himself from the love of Christ.

Or to quote Karl Barth, The death penalty has been abolished on earth by the execution of Jesus Christ on Golgotha. The atonement of the Son of God has annihilated it completely; nothing speaks for it, everything speaks against it.

For Barth, and an increasing number of Christians worldwide, there is simply no room for lynch mobs or executioners at the feet of a Christ who rejected the chance to condemn the guilty (John 8:11) and who spoke words of healing, mercy, grace and life to both the just and the unjust, and even to those agents of the state who had unjustly nailed him to the Cross.

Ending where we started with John Ramirez, we are struck in the face with the ugly truth of the incompatibility of the death penalty and our Christian faith. Why would Texas be so desperate to deny a convicted murderer the spiritual consolation of touch or of prayer by a trusted minister at the moment of execution? Because the death penalty demands, for its supposed legitimization, the utter dehumanization of the executed criminal. It needs the fiction that we are putting down a mad dog. An animal. A monster. It simply cannot bear any evidence of the truth that, with every execution, we are killing a human being.A child of God, made and loved by God with a love greater than any sin or crime. A fellow Christian, forgiven through the shedding of the same blood of Christ shed to forgive you and me, yet still in need of our help to find wholeness and healing from the damage inflicted upon himself by his own crime.

It is jarring for us to hear a call to view a killer as a victim to be rehabilitated and saved because, deep down, we unlike God do, in fact, take pleasure in the death of the wicked and have no desire whatsoever to help them turn from their ways and live. It is shocking because we have allowed the merciless retribution demanded by Fox News to all but extinguish the unmerited love commanded by Christ.

John Ramirez is not alone in his need for prayer and forgiveness in the shadow of the gallows. I pray that our eyes are opened more fully to our own sin and that we, as a nation, grasp hold of life not death, love not hate, faith not fear. I pray that we finally put to death the death penalty that is slowly but surely killing us as well as the accused.

Chris Conleyis an attorney and graduate of the University of Georgia and of the Emory University School of Law.He and his wife, Mary, live in Athens, Ga., where both are members and deacons at First Baptist Church. They have one son, Aaron, who also is an attorney, and a miniature schnauzer, Oso, whose career path remains uncertain.

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A prayer for the death of the death penalty Baptist News Global - Baptist News Global