Good Torah, No Viagra

YU seems to be getting it. 3 learning packets are being promoted for self-study during the night of Shavuot, for adults, teens, and kids. Skimming through, the one for teens looks like a winner (on the topic of halakhot of steroid use). They’ve even come up with some really nifty marketing.

The packet for adults is very similar to the teen packet in structure and content, though it addresses issues which are ostensibly of greater concern for adults – IVF, anti-depressants, etc. The topic is ‘Medical Enhancement’. When I first read that, I thought that it was going to be about the halakhic, er, viability of Viagra and other drugs whose stated goals are ‘enhancement’. That might have been a pretty good topic, too, but the packet just doesn’t go there. Sorry, Rafael Palmeiro, only the teenagers will be talking about you.

Well, the Tzelem Project is still pretty new, and is just now starting to address female sexuality. Maybe next year these two arms of the CJF (not to be confused with the EJF) will talk to each other and crank out a packet on that topic.

I plan on tackling Lawrence Kaplan’s article on Levinas’ view of the Revelation at Sinai (based on the chapter called ‘The Temptation of Temptation’ in Nine Talmudic Readings), will be giving a shiur on that same topic (which I also gave, and posted, last year), and probably go through the Yad Ramah’s intro to Perek Chelek, where he takes Rambam to task, with a chavrusa that I’m finishing Rambam’s intro with.