(1). I don’t usually subscribe to “channels” on YouTube. I am not even sure what a YouTube channel is, but I saw a video made by a young Russian woman several months ago called “Eli from Russia”. In the midst of this terrible war, Eli is creating 30 minute videos to show “the real Russia”, and I have enjoyed the few I have seen so far. This morning, I accompanied her on a trip from Yakutsk to Omyakom, which just took place. That is, in the middle of the winter (of course, in those places, winter is a seven month season), with temperatures between 40 and 55 degrees below zero.

We saw beautiful scenery – frozen lakes and rivers, snowy mountain views and so forth. We traveled about 600 kilometers, I think, over the one road that exists, but that meant driving on the frozen River Lena for a while, driving on a well kept, cleared road for a while, and waiting while the narrow road was totally blocked by a car that had sunk into some ice and could only be removed by being towed.

Omyakom is a small Siberian village in the large Sakha Republic of Russia, with a population of about 650, and with the distinction of being the coldest inhabited place on earth. We spoke with native farmers and with a native crafts person and author. We went ice fishing, and even ice swimming (well, dipping). We saw the unique breed of Yakutian horses. We learned about eating raw horse to help ward off scurvy. We learned about village central heating, and available wifi. We learned how cars are protected from the bitter cold. And we learned that the natives are so accustomed to the weather that if it is over below 40, they are pretty comfortable.

(2) I started a class today on Torah-in-Motion website. Torah-in-Motion is a Toronto based website, run by an orthodox rabbi, which has an extraordinarily full schedule, and on which I have taken several classes. I hesitated on this one, only because I am six classes behind on the last one I took. This is OK, because (a) the classes are free, and (b) because they are immediately available on YouTube, but still…..The last class was on the Book of Daniel, about which I know virtually nothing. It is a text based class, slowly going through the book (English, with Hebrew gloss), something that I normally find tiring, but in this case, because it gave me an overview of Babylonian and Babylonian Jewish history, I found fascinating. But it isn’t the kind of class you can listen to while you’re driving to the grocery store; it’s a class that takes an hour of concentration, and those are hard to find when there are so many other options. The Daniel class is taught by Rabbi Moshe Shulman, the rabbi of Young Israel in St. Louis

At any rate, the current class has a more complicated title: “Halalkha, Public Policy and End of Life Dilemmas”. The first session, which I attended today, was titled: “Are Jews Obligated to Spread Observance of the Seven Noahide Law? Ethics, Interests and Moral Ecology”. Enough to drive anyone away, huh?

The instructor is a young rabbi named Shlomo Brody. Originally from Houston he is now the director of the Halachic Organ Donor Society in Israel and a columnist for the Jerusalem Post. He is an extremely personable instructor and seems to have a large range of interests, all related to the intersection between Jewish law and public policy. An interesting combination you don’t always find. He seemed quite bright, so I was only partially surprised to learn he is a summa cum laude graduate of Harvard. He is currently a post doctoral fellow at Bar Illan University.

Speaking from a Jewish perspective, his points today were (as far as I noted them down):

Why should Jews bring a Jewish perspective to public policy issues? 1. Things in our non-Jewish world affect our Jewish world. 2. We live in societies which can only continue if they are governed by civil discourse and law, and its our obligation to participate in the civil discourse and the structuring of the laws. 3. Because all humans are made in the image of God, civil discourse and laws should recognize that. 4. Without doing this, how will we become a “light to the nations”.

Is this purpose of this to protect Jews in their observance of Jewish law, or to convince others? The Lubavitcher Rebbe apparently would say that Jews should convince others, as well as protect themselves, although most other Jewish scholars do not go that far. So that is one question. (He also cited a Canadian Jewish scholar, David Novack, who said that if gentiles would study Talmud, maybe more Jews would study Talmud). And clearly civil law should be followed by Jews resident in a civil society.

There is much more to be discussed in this class, taking specific issues and looking at them from both a Jewish and a public policy perspective. A number of elements need to be considered: human autonomy, community preferences, legal provisions, religious considerations, ethical and moral thinking.

We shall see what comes next.

(3) 100 year old Bernard Kalb passed away, after suffering injuries from a fall. Did you see the obituary in the Post today? A cute reference: apparently one day, the mother of Bernard and his brother Marvin called at CBS, where they both worked, and told the operator “Hello, this is Marvin Kalb’s mother. Is Bernie in?”

(4) The clock on the wall tells me it is 4:32. You know what that means. Only 28 minutes until we can watch the House of Representatives agree to, or not agree to, the rules of the game.