Adina Gerver (adina@adinagerver.com) is a freelance writer and editor specializing in editing and indexing academic books, and grant-writing/development work for educational organizations. Adina enjoys writing creative non-fiction about Jewish texts, mental health and prayer, and gender as a lens for exploring issues of identity.

When later generations recall the public perception of the first decade of this century in American Jewish history, they will remember Jack Abramoff, Bernie Madoff, and Baruch Lanner, among other public tales of fiscal, ethical, and sexual corruption by members of the Jewish community. They will remember headlines trumpeting “3 New Jersey Mayors and 5 Rabbis among those Arrested in Corruption Probe,” along with images of bearded men in long black coats being lead away in handcuffs.

At the same time, the phrase “religious Jew” is almost universally associated with ritual observances of Shabbat and kashrut. When Jews across the denominational spectrum hear the word mitzvot, they all too often think of ritual observance. Although there has been a developing trend towards teaching teenagers about the need to repair the world at large (tikkun olam), where are the lessons from our Jewish educational institutions about repairing ourselves? About judging others fairly; gratitude; civility; being considerate of others; lying; humility; anger; and humiliating others?

In response, the Jewish Book Council (www.jewishbookcouncil.org) is convening a group of educational experts to create “You Shall Be Holy”: A Jewish Ethics Project, a comprehensive Jewish ethics curriculum for teenagers and adults, based on Rabbi Joseph Telushkin’s book, A Code of Jewish Ethics, Volume 1: You Shall Be Holy. The dual goals of the curriculum are to return ethics to their central place in Jewish observance, thought, and culture, and to create concrete change within people by encouraging the adoption of personal ethical practices that will make us all into, in Telushkin’s words, “more honest, decent, and just people.” The proposed project, which will be specifically targeted to teenage and adult populations in small- and mid-size Jewish communities across North America (although open to all), will amplify those goals of the book.

The project will develop fifteen modular curricular units, each based on one section of A Code of Jewish Ethics, which will serve as a textbook for the course, plus an introductory unit. These curricular units will include guided questions to understand the texts, reflective questions on the virtues and vices, and case studies. Each session would incorporate multiple modalities of learning, including havruta, journaling, frontal instruction, and group discussion. The curriculum will challenge students intellectually, even as it offers very tangible suggestions on how to incorporate Jewish ethical practices into their daily behavior, and will be designed to be useful in both denomination and non-denominational or post-denominational settings. Topics may include: goodness, thanks, honesty, anger, envy, and gossip. The project will be rolled out in stages over three years, with five new units introduced each year in up to five new high school and five new adult educational sites.

The curriculum will be launched and available exclusively online in a format that will be customizable by teachers who will be able to add their own material, which will then be made available to their colleagues who are teaching the curriculum in other locations. Further explorations of key texts in their original languages (Hebrew or Aramaic) will be available on the website. This will enable teachers to integrate the curriculum into existing Bible, Rabbinics, and Jewish thought programs, especially in day schools, as well as offer it as a stand-alone ethics course. A section of the website available to students will include further online resources about the topics covered, connections between ancient texts and the new forms of global online citizenship, and interactive, social-media-based features.

This focus on changing personal behavior through study of Jewish texts, while not innovative in the broad scheme of Jewish history (see: 19th century musar movement), is innovative in the landscape of contemporary Jewish education and Jewish literature in North America. This is not a one-time project to build homes over winter or spring break; it is a new way for teenagers and adults alike to think about and change how they act in everyday situations. This curriculum will be a systematic, organic combination of an academic and advocative approach.

The intended short-term outcomes of the project are:

1. The incorporation into student lives of at least ten personal ethical practices drawn from Jewish sources.
2. For students to have Jewish texts and other sources to consult when they confront ethical dilemmas in their own lives.
3. A new appreciation for the centrality of ethics in Jewish texts and thought, so that personal virtues become an integral part of people’s idea of what it means to be “religious.”

In the long term, the Jewish Book Council hopes that the book, the curriculum, and the cross-continental interaction that surrounds them will serve to change the tenor of conversation about what it means to be a Jew today, as well as bring about broad behavioral changes in the Jewish community.