In the heart of ultra-Orthodox Jerusalem two weeks ago, an unwritten taboo was shattered in broad daylight: The first Haredi conference on "Torah archaeology" - having been boldly advertised in the Haredi daily Hamodia, and approved by several leading rabbis - drew a packed audience.
The opening speaker, Chabad Rabbi Shaul Shimon Deutsch, brought several ancient coins to the conference, held in the Beit Bracha hall near Jerusalem's Mea She'arim neighborhood. Deutsch, who flew in from Brooklyn for the event, runs a museum that displays artifacts he acquired on the private market from the time of the Mishna. ...
Read the rest at the link to find out how an ancient scale in Deutsch's collection resolved an old halakhic dispute. More broadly, in the words of conference organizer Rabbi Eliyahu Soloveitchik,
"We're all Haredim who are guided by the fear of heaven, but that's not a reason to be afraid of science. The Haredi fear of science is gradually dissipating."
Go read it all.
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