The year was 1982. I was studying in Jerusalem for the year and my roommate invited me to join him on one of his visits to an elderly recent immigrant from the Soviet Union now living in an absorption center. When we arrived, I was introduced to the elderly gentleman, who told me that his name was Mr. Morehdin (although I suspected that the name was not his original one). While he had a difficult life in the Soviet Union, having spent time in Siberia, he chose to share with us that day how he survived a Nazi concentration camp.

One day a Nazi guard summoned him, having heard that he was a Talmud scholar. The guard had been told that there were disparaging statements in the Talmud about gentiles, and even laws discriminating between gentiles and Jews in civil matters. This guard wanted to study those passages so that he could “prove” that Judaism is a racist religion. Mr. Morehdin accepted the challenge, and devoted all his energies to demonstrating that those laws were not discriminating against gentiles, but were special privileges granted to Jews as members of a “private community” providing mutual special benefits to each other as members. Those learning sessions protected Mr. Morehdin throughout his years in the camp.

Remarkable as his story is, it is not unique. Ever since there was an Oral Torah, it moderated the written one. An eye for an eye meant monetary reparation, not vengeance; there never was a rebellious son or a rebellious city, and there never will be; polygamy was banned in Ashkenazic communities living in Christian Europe where the practice was considered immoral; Menahem Meiri, a prolific 13th century Talmudist, ruled that many of the Rabbinic edicts against idolators did not apply to Christians. The discussion about the interplay between Jewish ethics and general societal values received great attention in the 20th and 21st centuries, particularly in situations where Jews have integrated into the broader cultures. It has also taken on political significance in the desire to stem that integration, and even more so in the State of Israel where Jews struggle to define themselves either as a nation amongst others or as a distinct people whose trajectory and values set it apart from the rest of humanity. Lurking behind all that is the question: Does our unique destiny justify all of the things that were done ostensibly for the purpose of bringing that destiny to fruition, or do we invoke Rabbi Sacks’s Not in God’s Name?

All this, of course, has profound educational implications. Do we promote an ethic external to Judaism and hold Judaism up to its scrutiny, or do we assert that Judaism’s ethic is the gold standard by which others should be measured? Are our educational institutions mandated to produce Jewish citizens of Western society or “a people who dwells alone” serving as a counter-cultural clarion voice to a world which will always be different?

These are not merely broad philosophical questions, but have very real applications on a day-to-day level affecting basic curricular choices such as what texts from the Tanakh and Talmud do we include or exclude, which Biblical commentaries become part of the daily discourse, and how do we approach those texts, topics, and events with which we believe our students will be—or with which we want our students to be—uncomfortable. How does the age or developmental level of our students impact the kinds of discomfort we want to avoid or introduce at certain ages or developmental levels?

In this issue of the journal, we open the questions and share a very broad range of opinions and positions. As always, these articles are not intended to be the final word, rather, to open the conversations that every individual and institution should engage in to help make sure that they are moving toward the educational goals which they set for themselves. We invite you to read, contemplate, and become part of the conversation.