Good work, Russell Hendel, on the response to the Tova Mirvis query. Allow me to just highlight a couple of points that I think are particularly significant:

Be skeptical of what people say about themselves. Someone’s claimed crisis of faith could well be something else entirely – even if the person is sincere. For some funny examples of how self-reporting fails, see [www.nationalreview.com]. It’s a worthwhile piece beyond that, as it encourages epistemological humility. If we can drill this idea into the kids, we can save them from growing up to be educators who write to Lookjed saying “I know the kids think this way because they told me so.”
Slandering God, slandering the Jewish people, slandering Jewish belief, the rabbis, Halacha… is slander – even if nobody complains about hurt feelings. People should approach such statements with trepidation, and when they’ve been too blithe we should pull them up short.

As an aside, for those confronted by high-schoolers who seem to have an actual question about theodicy – that being a popular one – there’s a small chance that you’ll find a short essay I wrote useful - [medium.com]. Let me know if you do.

Michael Berkowitz



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/06/2018 01:56PM by mlb.