Although I have been an educator for nearly thirty years, I still do not have a high school diploma – and am proud of it. First, some context.
After New York’s hot, turbulent summers of the 1960s, the city started a variety of programs to keep kids off the streets in the summer. One of those was a program called Youth Corps, in which the city would pay teens hefty amounts to work in various businesses. As the money was earmarked for low-income minority groups, and politics being politics, all minority groups – including Jews – were allotted quotas of a certain number of spots.
The Jewish high school I attended ran its own summer camp, partly as a vehicle to reinforce the religious messages the school tried to deliver the rest of the year. Promising students were hand-selected and encouraged to attend that camp. One day in my Junior year I was summoned to a conversation with an administrator. The conversation went something as follows:
He: Eh, Zvi, what are you doing this summer?
Me: I am going back to Camp X, as a lifeguard.
He: And how much are they paying you?
Me: Well, last summer I made $50. But this summer I’m going to make $125!
He: How would you like to make $500?!
I tried to prevent my eyes from bulging out of their sockets, but was probably unsuccessful. $500 was almost as much as my bar-mitzvah money. This was tempting! Seeing my excitement, he continued:
He: If you come to our camp you can work as a lifeguard and make $500. And since we don’t have so much swimming, it’s not such hard work.
Me (gasping for words): Uh.. Ah.. Eh ..
He: We can pay so much because Youth Corps pays $125 a week.
Me (in my own head): Doesn’t 125 x 8 = 1000?
He: Ahh! You’re wondering how we got to $500?
Me (wondering how he managed to read my mind): Uh huh …
He: It’s very simple. The city gives us 8 checks. You sign four of them over to the yeshiva, and get to keep four for yourself. That way you earn $500 for yourself and give $500 for tzedakah!
Me: But isn’t that money meant for people who are poor? My father doesn’t make so little that we qualify as poor.
He: Don’t worry. You just have to sign some papers.
From there the conversation went from bad to worse. I walked away knowing that I could never again learn Torah from this man or the institution with which he was connected. And so I parted ways with them and found a college that would take me after 11th grade.
The Rabbis in Pirkei Avot said it well: Hakhamim – hizaharu bedivreikhem! Wise men, be cautious with your words! lest your students learn from them the wrong things.
Ethics is not merely a subject to be studied and mastered; it must infuse every aspect of our thoughts, actions and interactions. Teaching ethics must have at its core modeling of ethical behavior by parents, teachers and Jewish institutions of all kinds. Students need to see ethics in action – to see how ethical considerations impact on the decisions governing the very fabric of the lives of the people and institutions they value and respect. The place of ethics in our personal and collective lives needs to be inherent and transparent– lest there be any doubt about the centrality of those values.
This issue opens with a brief Research section. Steve Bailey lays out a vision for long-term ethics education, Meni Koslowsky outlines some basic concepts in the world of ethics, and Gabi Cohn explores the dilemma of teaching ethically challenging Biblical texts.
Our Applications section is rich with ideas and programs currently being implemented. Joan Kaye and Robyn Faintich present two aspects of an effort to build and run a values-driven teen education program. Daniel Rothner shares the theory and practice of Areyvut, and organization devoted to teaching ethics to a broad spectrum of Jewish youth. Yossi Kastan and Ari Leubitz describe a two-stage process for enhancing ethical behavior. Miki Young and David Jaffe describe different aspects of the use of mussar to teach ethics in non-Orthodox environments.
In our Features section, Cecelie Wizenfeld and Galya Greenberg each describe action research projects they did in their schools, and Levi Cooper shares a fascinating incident about an ethical will. Finally, Rabbi Elliot Dorff offers some thoughts in our Perspectives column.
Let us hope that when our students write this column in thirty years, they’ll be telling a very different story.
Bivrakha,
Zvi