Recent graduate Benjamin Levine has shared with us the exciting news that he has been selected as one of two winners of the Sinai Scholars Academic Symposium for his paper “Judaism’s Emphasis on Preventing Loss of Life with a Parapet.” Out of 2000 papers submitted, there were 13 finalists who presented their papers orally. Out of those papers, two winners of the National Jewish Academic Innovation Award were selected. Benjamin's paper will also be published in the Sinai Scholars Academic Journal. His mentor for the project was Dr. Samuel Levine of the Touro Law Center. We asked Benjamin to tell us a bit more about the process and about his paper-- please see his note below.
Congratulations, Benjamin!
After participating in the Chabad Sinai Scholars Program in 2019, 13 out of approximately 2000 research papers were chosen to present at the Sinai Scholars Academic Symp
osium. As a finalist, I was charged to present a 15-minute synopsis of my research paper to a panel of Rabbis and Professors of Judaic Studies. The title of my paper was “Judaism’s Emphasis on Preventing Loss of Life With a Parapet.” After my presentation, I had to orally defend the thesis of my paper using the Talmud and other Judaic sources.
Dr. Schiffman of New York University commented that my paper revealed an important theme of the Torah. While halacha sets specific parameters on the height of a proper parapet that can prevent bloodshed and loss of life from happening, the Torah commands us to be more strict than halacha when life is endangered. I really enjoyed using the evidence in my paper to answer the questions posed by the panel to defend my theses.
My paper was dedicated to a close high school friend who tragically committed suicide by scaling a very short guardrail to jump off the Natchez Trace Parkway bridge in Williamson County, Tennessee. In my paper, I explored Judaism’s emphasis on the importance of building parapets with specific dimensions to prevent people from dying. My paper examined how the Torah could be used to design an appropriate guardrail of the Natchez Trace Parkway Bridge. It also discussed the societal benefits of implementing this important mitzvah of the Torah. Through writing the paper, I discovered secular research that confirmed the essential sagacious commandment of the Torah to build a proper parapet. Building a guardrail around a roof extends to both public and private domains emphasizing the individual and societal responsibilities to prevent bloodshed on both private and public property. This practical mitzvah of a building a parapet with the appropriate dimensions has the potential of saving lives by making it more difficult to commit suicide.