Canadian students shine at moot beit din competition

The TanenbaumCHAT team, from left, Summer Hart, Avigayil Margolis, Ryan Ripsman and Ben Shore, pose with Rabbi Shalom Krell at the Moot Beit Din competition.
The TanenbaumCHAT team, from left, Summer Hart, Avigayil Margolis, Ryan Ripsman and Ben Shore, pose with Rabbi Shalom Krell at the Moot Beit Din competition.

Montreal’s Herzliah High School made history at the 2016 Ravsak Moot Beit Din competition when three Herzliah teams won first place in each of the divisions.

“This was the first time any school had even two teams that won,” Herzliah head of school Laurence Kutler said.

Moot Beit Din is an intellectual contest that challenges Jewish high school students to examine contemporary situations through the lens of Jewish ethics and morals.

The contest, which was held this year in West Palm Beach, Fla., is presented by Ravsak, a non-profit group that serves as a resource and network for more than 135 Jewish day schools across North America.

Each of the 29 teams from 21 schools was required to present a written and oral argument before a panel of rabbis, scholars and lawyers. This year’s case study asked students to examine Jewish legal perspectives on medicine, and to respond to questions about the medical treatment of an elderly man with Alzheimer’s disease facing a life-threatening heart condition.

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Kutler explained that while each team in each division argued the same case, teams in the first division were required to find their own Jewish sources to back up their stance, teams in the second division were given a list of Jewish sources to cite and had permission to refer to non-Jewish sources such as medical research documents, while teams in the third group had to adhere to the Jewish sources they were provided with to make their case.

In one of the divisions, Herzliah and the Anne and Max Tanenbaum Community Hebrew Academy of Toronto placed first and second, respectively, adding to Canada’s success at the competition.

The winning TanenbaumCHAT team was represented by Summer Hart, Avigayil Margolis, Ryan Ripsman and Ben Shore.

Shore, 16, said although all the teams had the same case to argue, it was interesting to note the varied conclusions that were reached.

“I think it was a very interesting case. There was a lot of applying Halachah to modern ideas and it was very interesting how we went about answering the questions, bringing in sources that you might not think are necessarily relevant but were able to be applied,” Shore said.

“Everyone worked so hard and it was really amazing.”

Ian Langleben, a 15-year-old Herzliah student who was on the winning team in the third division with Ysabella Hazan, Jonathan Cohen and Moshe Ohana, said he thinks the way in which they presented their argument won the judges over.

“We presented the argument not only in a way that would be telling the judges what would be the best options, but in the form of a discussion between the members of the group as if we were a Jewish court discussing the best options, as if we were a panel of rabbis,” Langleben said.

“We think that created an aspect that added to the content… the drama aspect helped push us over and above the rest.”

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Summer Hart, an 18-year-old Grade 12 student on the TanenbaumCHAT team, said her participation in this competition benefited her in a number of ways.

“I think I gained more confidence in my public speaking and gained a better appreciation for Jewish Halachah and Talmud,” she said.

Langleben said he was impressed with the event, adding, “You get to think about modern problems in a way that’s refreshing because you’re adding the Jewish aspect to it and looking at it from a completely different perspective. The event itself is fun and also a great opportunity to meet other students from across North America.”