For campers who wish to spend a part of their summer season exploring the world of science, the Reform motion affords a two-week program simply outdoors the science and know-how hub close to Boston. The 6 Factors Sci-Tech Academy, sponsored by the Union for Reform Judaism, affords college students, grades 4 by 11, the chance to be taught alongside science specialists about topics resembling online game design, coding, robotics, and environmental science.

On the identical time, this system works to place the most recent advances in scientific understanding in a Jewish content material. Not solely do campers be taught in regards to the historic position that Jewish scientists have performed within the growth of know-how, however they examine the current advances that Israel has made as an incubator of innovation. Annually, the camp hosts 10 to fifteen counselors from Israel with intensive expertise on the chopping fringe of science.

Based on Dan Medwin, an Atlanta-based rabbi who co-directs the summer season program, the objective is to encourage an curiosity in science with an appreciation for Jewish technological advances.

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“Final summer season we had our drone teacher who flew drones for the Israeli military,” Rabbi Medwin mentioned. “We’ve a number of laptop programmers who’ve finished that work in Israel’s military. So, we now have the private connections of Israelis who really work within the tech fields in Israel.”

Bringing the current growth of Israel as a world chief in each utilized and theoretical science is only one manner that Medwin believes campers can find out how our information of the bodily world can complement our religious understanding of the universe. What Medwin mentions as Judaism’s core beliefs can be built-in right into a deeper understanding of how science and know-how work.

Along with persistence, the core values ​​that this system encourages are kavod (respect), kesher (connection), taglit (discovery) and sakranut (curiosity). Rabbi Medwin believes that science and faith may be seen as complementing each other.

“Science asks the ‘how’ and Judaism asks the ‘why.’ The faith of Judaism and science are each closely constructed on asking questions and curiosity. We do not assume that they are opposites to 1 one other. So, for instance, we discover, you understand, we are able to take into consideration Gd as a sort of wi-fi. It is all over the place. We do not see it until we now have the fitting instruments. However after we can join, we join with a world and an infinite information. And so, they actually do inform one another.”

Science and spirituality have performed a powerful position in Rabbi Medwin’s life as nicely. He’s married to Lydia Medwin, an affiliate rabbi at The Temple in Atlanta. His mom can also be a rabbi. He has discovered that his job with the Sci-Tech Academy has introduced these private connections right into a sharper focus.

“Once I was 13, a freshman in highschool, and my mom began rabbinical college, I befriended her classmates and actually fell in love with the concept of ​​being a rabbi,” Medwin identified. “However I additionally discovered a powerful draw to know-how and computer systems. Though I began faculty as a pc science main, I did not actually wish to spend my life in entrance of a pc display screen. I wished to be serving to individuals and dealing with them and instructing. Two summers in the past, after I was working on the camp, I spotted that this work actually was such a super merging of my love of science and know-how and my ardour for Judaism.”

Registration for this system started final October and curiosity in attending has been robust. Already one of many three two-week summer season classes has been crammed. This system attracts contributors from everywhere in the nation, together with a quantity from communities the place there are few Jewish residents, so whereas this system teaches science it could additionally assist to strengthen Jewish id as nicely.

“Typically, our campers are the one Jewish child of their space. Typically, they’re the one one actually into math or science or know-how. So, we frequently present an area the place they will discover their individuals, they will discover others who’re each Jewish and into science and know-how. On a private degree, it fills them with a way of heat and connection and neighborhood that they may not in any other case have.”

To this point, there’s a vital delegation of campers from Atlanta who’ve signed up for the Massachusetts program. For others who may wish to join with Rabbi Medwin personally, the URJ’s 6 Factors Sci-Tech Academy might be an exhibitor on the Atlanta Jewish Life Competition on the Georgia Aquarium on March 5.