Papers at the Sinai Scholars Society’s fourth Student-and-Scholars Academic Symposium dealt with a host of issues last month, with Jewish students from New York University, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Southern California, Dartmouth College and several others touching on philosophy, the Internet, end-of-life questions, civil liberties, democracy, and scriptural belief in their response to the conference’s theme of “ancient ethics in a postmodern world.”
Held this year at Johns Hopkins University, the Chabad-Lubavitch run discussion and learning-based event brought together rabbis, academics and Sinai Scholars graduates, who wrote research papers as part of an eight-week course on 64 campuses coordinated by the Chabad on Campus International Foundation and the Rohr Jewish Learning Institute. Out of more than 30 papers submitted, 14 were selected to be presented at the day-long conference.
Aden Ratner-Stauber, 23, an NYU clinical psychology graduate student, presented the conference’s winning paper. Ratner-Stauber, who grew up in Los Angeles and is distantly related to Sigmund Freud on her mother’s side, made the case that behind the famous psychologist’s secularism and outright rejection of Judaism lies a core concept about the subconscious that corresponds to the teachings of Jewish mysticism and Kabbalah as laid out by Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi, author of the foundational text of Chasidic thought known as the Tanya.
“It’s really beautiful to see a fusion of academia and Judaism in a way in which you can use your strengths and your passions to further Jewish thought and knowledge,” she said.
Sinai Scholars Society director Rabbi Yitzchok Dubov explained that the conference’s strength lay in its ability to challenge students and foster creative dialogue about Judaism and academia.
“Unlike many oral presentations, the student’s talks were not meant to be a defense of their work,” he said, “but rather an opportunity to receive constructive feedback on the ideas raised in their papers and to spur a conversation about these ideas.”
The papers will be printed in the Sinai Scholars Journal and distributed to universities across North America.
Like many participants in the academic panel, Professor Naftali Loewenthal of University College London, who flew to Maryland from England to join the symposium, said that he was inspired by the students’ dedication to their research amidst all of their exams and other assignments.
“And then they write something about Judaism,” he commented. “They research it and they work on it: This is really impressive to me.”
The academic panel also included Professors Beatrice Lang Caplan of Johns Hopkins, Jan Feldman of the University of Vermont, Lewis Glinert of Dartmouth, and Steven Harvey, a visiting Johns Hopkins professor from Bar Ilan University in Israel.
In addition to critiquing the students’ presentations, each professor also presented a talk based his or her own academic specialty. Feldman, who spoke about “Judaism, Islam, and Women’s Rights,” remarked that she liked the opportunity to keep her finger on the pulse of Jewish student thinking: “You don’t have the opportunity to incorporate students into most academic conferences.”
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