The Grand Conversation: The Machon Siach Podcast

This episode of The Grand Conversation: "Supporting Sephardic Students in Our Schools" features an important conversation between Rabbi Shmuel Hain and Ms. Denise Samstein, Judaic Studies faculty member and Director of Sephardic Engagement at SAR High School. Questions discussed include: What is the experience of Sephardic families and students in schools where they are a minority? What more can w...

This episode of The Grand Conversation is devoted to the subject of Building Jewish Confidence. In the podcast, Rabbi Shmuel Hain is in conversation with Ms. Adina Shoulson, Chair of SAR High School’s History Department and Dr. Caryn Keller, History faculty at SAR HS. Ms. Shoulson and Dr. Keller were the coordinators of Am V’Ometz: Building Jewish Confidence Conference. This conference, along with...

This special episode of the Grand Conversation is devoted to the subject of teaching Jewish sexual ethics at SAR high school and in the broader modern orthodox community. Rabbi Hain speaks with Ms. Shuli Taubes, the author of This Too is Torah, SAR High School's tenth grade beit midrash program on Jewish sexual ethics, values and practice.

American Jews have benefited greatly from access to higher education and the professional pathways it opened to them. Today, here is a great deal of concern about the culture and climate for Jews and Zionists on campus. But our students are still striving for acceptance into competitive universities, and we still see our students struggling with the endless demands of the college admissions proces...

In this episode of the Grand Conversation, Rabbi Shmuel Hain discusses SAR High School's Vaad program with Rabbanit Lisa Schlaff and Ms. Shira Schiowitz. Vaad enhances the spiritual growth and meaning making of our faculty and students by devoting one period a week to their inner world. Listen to find out how SAR HS teachers and students develop the skills and dispositions to support one another i...

On this special episode of the Grand Conversation, Rabbi Shmuel Hain hosts a discussion with Rabbi Jonathan Kroll and Dr. Rivka Press Schwartz about the upcoming presidential election. In this polarized moment, how has SAR High School tried to foster an environment where all members of our community, staff and students, can engage in political discussion with civility and respect? Transcript Notes...

SAR educators, Dr. Rivka Schwartz, Ms. Sarah Medved, and Ms. Rebecca Glassberg, who have experimented with different forms of ungrading--removing teachers' grading power in the classroom and making students responsible for their own learning--talk about their experiences, what brought them to ungrading, and the anticipated and unanticipated outcomes.  

David Sable and Aaron Mitchell join Rabbi Harcsztark to discuss The Confidence Project, a Machon Siach initiative to connect SAR students and faculty with their peers in three Bronx high schools. This follows on the relationship that SAR Academy has developed with Atmosphere Academy in Riverdale. As we began to bring SAR students together with students from Comp Sci High, The Theater and Arts Prod...

American Jews and Higher Education: This series will explore the experience of American Jews in higher education, and consider some of the challenges raised in recent years by shifting campus culture and changes in law and policies around admissions, discrimination, and free speech on campus. As a school committed to the "grand conversation between Torah and the world", the majority of whose gradu...

In this episode, Dr. Rivka Press Schwartz speaks with two individuals who understand how to gather and use data to offer insight into schools' successes and areas for improvement. Her first guest is Rabbi Joseph Beyda, principal of the Yeshivah of Flatbush Joel Braverman High School, who discusses his use of data to take the measure of his school community and assess the effectiveness of its progr...

For the past six years, Machon Siach has been working to understand the scope of the substance use problem among Modern Orthodox adolescents, and to identify and implement evidence-based interventions to address that problem. This eventually led to the implementation of the Guiding Good Choices parenting program for all 9th grade parents. In this work, we have been guided by Dalene Beaulieu, an ex...

In this episode, Rabbi Harcsztark and Dr. Sarit Kattan Gribetz discuss Dr. Kattan Gribetz's book and research on ​Time and Difference in Rabbinic Judaism. Key questions include: What do we learn from how the rabbis conceptualized time and how can we translate some of these insights and values to our high school students? How do we deepen our understanding of gendered time including the differences...

This episode features an eye-opening discussion between Rabbi Tully Harcsztark and Rabbi Dr. Daniel Roth- the director of Mosaica, an Israeli NGO focusing on insider religious mediation. What exactly does the work of insider religious mediation look like during a war? Is there ongoing dialogue between religious leaders in Muslim and Jewish communities in the Middle East at this terrible time? What...

This special episode of the Grand Conversation, recorded at the end of October, is devoted to important, complex, and ongoing issues being discussed in our community in this Post-October 7th world: How can we meaningfully connect with and support our alumni on college campuses, and how are we helping parents and current SAR HS students navigate the college guidance process? Our guest host is Dr. R...

This special episode of the Grand Conversation emerged from the meaningful UJA mission to Israel that our Founding Principal Rabbi Tully Harcsztark was fortunate to join. On that mission, Rabbi Harcsztark ran into Effie Shoham- Shteiner in Jerusalem, an historian specializing in Medieval Jewish History. He is an associate professor at Ben-Gurion University in Be’er-Shevah. Since October 7th, Effie...

This special series of the Grand Conversation is devoted to the topic of Gemara Education. Our guest host is Rabbi Tully Harcsztark, Founding Principal of SAR HS and Dean of Machon Siach. In this first  episode  of the series, Rabbi Harcsztark and Dr. Elana Stein Hain have a timely discussion on whether and how to teach the talmudic sugya of redeeming captives in the aftermath of the Hamas terror...

In this episode of The Grand Conversation, Rabbi Tully Harcsztark Rebecca Wolf, and Yossi Ben-Harush discuss several important questions about Israel Education at S.A.R. High School, including: How has our approach to teaching Modern Israel evolved over the years? How do we navigate critical discussions of Israel current events in our history classrooms? How do we educate our students to participa...

In this episode of The Grand Conversation, Rabbanit Lisa Schlaff joins Rabbi Shmuel Hain to discuss the goals of high school gemara education, recent trends in gemara education in post high school yeshivot and midrashot, and how teaching Torah Shebe'al Peh at S.A.R. High School has changed since the school's founding twenty years ago.

In this episode of The Grand Conversation, Dr. Jeffrey Rubenstein and Rabbi Tully Harcstark join Rabbi Shmuel Hain to discuss methods and tools which are valuable in teaching gemara to high school students, including both academic and conceptual/lomdus approaches.

In this episode of The Grand Conversation, Ms. Chana Krasnjanski joins Rabbi Shmuel Hain to reflect on the importance of authenticity and spirituality in the classroom. They discuss the distinction between personal and private information as well as the potential differences and parallels between the secular studies classroom and the Judaic studies classroom.

In this episode of The Grand Conversation, S.A.R. High School Principals Rabbi Tully Harcsztark and Rabbi Jonathan Kroll join Rabbi Shmuel Hain to reflect on the role spirituality has played in the development of S.A.R. High School. How central was the goal of spiritual growth of students in the original vision of S.A.R. High School and how has that goal evolved over the past twenty years?

In this episode of The Grand Conversation, Rabbanit Lisa Schlaff and Dr. Gillian Steinberg share perspectives on spirituality in yeshiva high schools along with personal reflections on the role of spirituality in adolescents and adults. Part one of two.

In this episode of The Grand Conversation, Dr. Tammy Jacobowitz and Ms. Shira Schiowitz join Rabbi Shmuel Hain to discuss the Makom B'Siach Research Group. Formed in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic and the alignment of the entire SAR community around individual and communal health, this group of teachers, parents, and alumni explored other areas of potential alignment and tension between the val...

In this episode of The Grand Conversation, Rabbi Tully Harcsztark and Professor Avi Helfand join Dr. Rivka Press Schwartz to discuss their Enounter trip and the Machon Siach research group formed to explore the Israeli-Palestinian conflict from a range of disciplines. How do we as American Jewish educators think about and teach the conflict, especially when current events make it even more charged...

In this episode of The Grand Conversation, Rabbi Shmuel Hain welcomes the Honorable Robert Wexler and Rabbi Tully Harcsztark to discuss Machon Siach's partnership with The S. Daniel Abraham Center for Middle East Peace on the Yeshiva High School Educators Cohort, a pioneering program for Yeshiva High Schools principals and educators to engage in deep exploration of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict...