The rabbi who wrestles with crocodiles

[Ian David]

The rabbi who wrestles with crocodiles
By Tamar Rotem <mailto:[e-mail]>

His first sin was that from childhood he loved lions, bears and elephants.
In a culture in which nature is not considered a legitimate interest and
curiosity and a yen for general knowledge can turn out to be a mine- field,
Rabbi Natan (Nosson) Slifkin marked himself out as an oddball.

Born in Britain, Slifkin, 29, who is an ordained rabbi and an autodidact in
the natural sciences and zoology, was considered a curiosity at the
ultra-Orthodox yeshiva in Jerusalem where he studied in his youth. But as
long as he was only that - for example, when he wrestled with crocodiles and
ate grasshoppers for his pleasure (definite proof that they are kosher), as
described in the articles on his Internet site www.zootorah.org - nobody
bothered him. As long as he called himself the zoo rabbi and guided visiting
Jewish tourists along the paths of the Biblical Zoo in Jerusalem, no one
ever heard about him.

But when he dared to publish a series of books (in English) trying to
reconcile the contradictions between science and the Torah, his troubles
began. Slifkin did go to the trouble of obtaining the agreement of important
ultra-Orthodox rabbis in the United States whom he cited in his books, such
as Rabbi Shmuel Kamanetsky, the head of the Philadelphia Yeshiva, and the
son of one of the greatest American rabbis of the previous generation, Rabbi
Yaakov Kamanetsky. But when the books become popular among ultra- Orthodox
readers, especially Anglophones, they made the rabbis see red.

Slifkin, who lectures around the world on science and Judaism (in Israel he
lectures at Midreshet Moriah and the Lev Hatorah Yeshiva in Jerusalem),
openly questions the most sacrosanct taboo in the ultra-Orthodox outlook,
namely, that the theory of evolution is heresy and the story of Creation is
the only official version. He presents the possibility that the two versions
can exist side by side. In his book "The Science of Torah," he explains, for
example, that the description of Creation can include or exist in parallel
to the big bang theory in evolution. Elsewhere, he says that the age of the
world as determined by tree rings or ice strata clearly indicates that the
world is more than 5,765 years old.

<snip>
his website is www.zootorah.org

More:
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/565257.html

[mike_c]

1. and then there's the surfing rabbi....

He's a kosher hot dog!

http://www.surfingrabbi.com/

[Ian David]

2. Oy. Let's go surf and hang 18!

Gov. Arnold Speedo-nager at the beach

[beam me up scottie]

3. He really needs

a bikini top for those man-boobs.
:puke:

[fla nocount]

4. Damn...he looks just like a fat Republican tourist an his way

to the boardwalk in Daytona. Ugly stuff, kids don't look, they'll spend their money and go back to Ohio.