The following article is from the Lancaster Online: Workers building a deck at the rear of 616 High St. had already checked the city building code for height restrictions relating to a neighbor’s fence.

Rabbi Shlomo Tzvi Baden urged them to consult the Talmud, too.

“I’m not a construction guy. I’m a rabbi guy,” Baden, executive director of the Lancaster Yeshiva Center, said Sunday.

“But that is part of what we do, blending a Jewish religious education with real-life work experience.”

The Talmud is a central text of Judaism pertaining to Jewish law, ethics, customs and history. It also, Baden said, has sections on privacy rights that could affect construction plans.

And for the workers at 616 High St., Jewish law is an important consideration. All are students, ages 17 to 22, enrolled in Yeshiva, a unique vocational-training program based in Lancaster.

“What we have going here is a win-win proposition,” program principal Rabbi Shaya Sackett said during an open house Sunday.

“We’re giving boys who are not college-bound, who are not particularly academically inclined, an opportunity to learn a trade and to remain a part of the greater community,” he said. “They’re learning skills so they will be productive members of society.”

It’s also good for the city, Sackett said. The High Street property, purchased from the Redevelopment Authority for $23,500, is the third blighted property in as many years the Yeshiva has taken and restored.

“This was a condemned property that investors were passing over as not worth the investment. They couldn’t turn a profit,” Sackett said. “But we have a different goal. If we can break even, we’re happy.”

A previous project on Pine Street, for example, cost Yeshiva about $24,000 to buy, $60,000 in materials and contracts and a year’s worth of work equity. Yeshiva was then able to sell the property for $117,900.

“And we were able to return a very livable house to the city,” Sackett said.

The current project was started in late August and will conclude early next summer.

It’s obvious when walking in that the house is in the early stages of reconstruction. Largely gutted, it has exposed beams, pipes and wires. There are holes in the walls. Shreds of a faded floral wallpaper are still stuck to the kitchen wall, and the floors have been stripped to bare wood.

While guests viewed the house, vocational instructor Roy Musick Jr. worked in the backyard, teaching students to cut boards for the deck.

Although Lancaster-based, Yeshiva serves students from elsewhere. The current students, Sackett said, hail largely from the New York and Baltimore areas, and one is from Switzerland.

It’s program like no other in the world, Sackett said.

(Source: Lancaster Online)