This past Wednesday, MTA participated in this year's first poetry slam. The slam took place at Rambam, in Lawrence. Once everyone arrived, the participants were separated into two rooms. Each person had been told to prepare two poems on a specific topic or of a specific style. There were two rounds, each person reading one poem per round. At the end, everyone was brought into one room and a few finalists were selected by the judges - unfortunately, though. none from MTA - and each finalist read one of his poems. Afterwards, the winners were announced and we went back to school. 

This first competition provided the MTA team with a valuable learning experience more than anything else. We are planning to put together a more official team for future competitions. The dates for the meeting and/or tryouts should be announced in the coming weeks.

On Thursday, MTA Students and faculty joined roughly 1,000,000 New Yorkers in an attempt to set a new world record for "most people at an apple crunching event". In MTA, this meant that every one of us was given a fresh apple, hand-picked by the members of our Student Council on Wednesday (see video), and at noon on Thursday, made a beautiful berachah and crunched into incredibly delicious apples. 

Click to view video

Thursday was National Food Day, and the Big Apple Crunch was one of thousands of events happening around the country promoting healthy eating. Our goals in participating were to promote that idea within the MTA community as well as to re-ignite our passion for making berachos. 

Both goals were certainly accomplished; students made proper berachos with wide smiles, and the buzz in the hallways was about how yummy those apples tasted. Many students even came to Rabbi Green's office later asking for more. It was fun and meaningful program, and we look forward to creating many more throughout the year. 

Next on the agenda for The Office of Student Activities: Spirit Week and the Shabbaton!

This year, the MTA Science Department has teamed up with the Orthodox Union (OU) to assist in the OU's Mesorah Project. This project is attempting to breed less common kosher birds and establish a mesorah, or a reliable tradition,regarding the kashrus status of these different varieties of birds. Mr. Chayim Goldberg, our new chemistry teacher and a trained shochet, brought us six Coturnix Quail, which are native to Europe, Africa, and Asia. Four of them are the common variety (light brown) and two are the rarer dark "Tibetan" quail. We are attempting to breed them in order to prove that the Tibetan quail (which were actually bred in the USA from other domesticated quail) are indeed a variation of the same species and not a different species, thus proving that they are kosher. We also have two Bobwhite Quail, which look similar to Coturnix quail but are completely unrelated. They are native to North America, cannot breed with Coturnix Quail, and are thus not kosher. They provide an example of convergent evolution, in which unrelated species develop similar features as adaptations to similar environments. None of the quail have started laying eggs yet, but they are providing much avian entertainment and a hands-on Torah U'Madda experience for our biology and chemistry students.