“A Jewish law competition?” was what I repeatedly heard when I told my friends why I was not going to be at school for the next few days. Little did I know, the competition was only three hours out of the entire four-day trip.

Recently, I attended a conference correctly termed “Moot Beit Din” (mock rabbinic court), in Toronto, Canada, with three of my classmates and my Jewish Studies teacher, Rabbi Neal Scheindlin. Expecting to arrive 3,000 miles away from my Los Angeles high school at a four-day debate regarding centuries-old texts, I was surprised when we arrived at the bright and airy host school in Toronto with facilities and students not too dissimilar from my school at home.

Despite this, there was a sizeable difference in Judaic backgrounds. As the program was headed by RAVSAK: The Jewish Community Day School Network, I assumed all of the other participants would have a similar Judaic emphasis at their respective schools. Instead, every male wore a kippah (mandatory at all of the participating schools except my own) and spent at least double the time each day in Talmud class. 

Regardless, it was cool to be able to discuss the same case (a contemporary copyright case between two Jewish scholars) with Jewish teens from across the continent. Although my school did not win the competition, we all enjoyed experiencing the vibrant Jewish community in Toronto, meeting dozens of other Jews and culminating our months-long preparation for the 2008 Moot Beit Din.

For more info, visit http://www.ravsak.org/moot.php.