Community MagazineOctober 2021

26 COMMUNITY MAGAZINE A buzz is in the air. Middle schoolers at Jewish schools and yeshivot such as YDE, Mekor Haim, Ateret Torah, Yeshivat Shaare Torah, and Ahi Ezer have become super excited over the past four years about one particular subject. These students come home quoting the Rambam and the Chovot HaLevavot and they seem more engaged with and aware of their natural environment. This class is not a hashkafa class, at least not in the traditional sense, although its lessons are packed with Torah teachings. Rather, this is a science class taught not as part of their limudei Kodesh curriculum but in their secular studies program. Science Textbooks Like No Others If you have middle schoolers, you will also notice your children enthusiastically waving - or incredibly reading - a rather unique-looking textbook unlike any you may have seen before. For one, it is small and thin, is very colorful, and is packed with photos and illustrations. Secondly, unlike the standard Pearson texts for natural sciences (which are studied in most middle schools, and your older children probably used more as a paperweight than for examining its content), these textbooks are fun to read and bring a smile to children's faces. And not only the children are enamored, teachers and rebbes are, too! Despite the enticing format, these are texts to be taken seriously. They contain all the requisite information and complex designations children need to know to pass their exams, such as what are hyphae (hy-fee) and mycelia (my-see-lee-uh). But in these textbooks, the words are not intimidating. Instead, they pop out above or below cleverly designed illustrations, tickling children's fancies. More than pictures, though, the writing is not boring; it excites and stimulates the imagination. It also tells stories about the natural environment, expanding children's knowledge base using words and ideas that speak to them in a language with which they are familiar and comfortable. Your children and their classmates are not alone in experiencing this phenomenon: In over 120 schools in the U.S., Canada, and the UK, more than 10,000 sixth to eighth graders are similarly engaged. And no wonder. These texts represent the culmination of twenty years of perseverance and four intensive years of actual work. Quite a feat for author Rabbi Yaakov Lubin, 42, a science enthusiast and "a big kid" at heart. As he puts it, “It took me 20 years to write the first book [ Fundamentals of Life Science ] in one-and-a-half years.” It also took the insight and initiative of Yeshivat Mekor Haim’s Rosh Yeshiva Rabbi Yosef Ozeri and its General Studies Principal Rabbi Eli Sultan. They watched Rabbi Lubin's presentation to the Sephardic schools introducing his science program and they enthusiastically endorsedhisuniqueendeavor -writingandcreatingascience textbook that combined high secular standards with a Torah perspective. The Author’s Journey From an early age, the Ft. Lauderdale resident gravitated towards studying the sciences. Becoming religious added a profound dimension to his understanding and appreciation of the natural world. Subsequently, the Rambam's famous words spoke directly to his neshama : “When a person contemplates His wondrous and great deeds and creations … he will immediately love and praise Him, yearning with tremendous desire to know [Gd's] great name” (Hilchot Yesodei HaTorah 2:2). For Rabbi Lubin, studying science was simply a means towards seeing Gd within science. He was 23 years of age and attending the Weizmann Institute of Technology in Rechovot when the budding talmid hacham and scientist first recognized the need for science textbooks for religious students. “The only science textbooks used in yeshivot and Bet Yaakov’s in Israel and the United States didn't have religious hashkafot ," he recalls. New Science Textbooks Put Hashem in the Picture MACHLA ABRAMOVITZ