Rabbi Dr. Moshe J. Yeres serves as Vice Principal of Jewish Studies at the The Anne and Max Tanenbaum Community Hebrew Academy of Toronto, (TanenbaumCHAT) Kimel Family Education Centre, a large community high school in the Greater Toronto area.
There exists a need to sensitize adolescents to Jewish ethics, so that they learn that being a mentch is as important a value in Judaism as celebrating Jewish holidays. We cannot take for granted that teens at the high school level will automatically integrate and apply the ethical values from their Jewish text studies. In educating our children, who grow up in a world of changing moral values, we must ensure that we not only teach them how to live a life of Jewish identity and practice; but we train them how to bridge that system with an ethical lifestyle so that they mature into ethical and honorable adults. In this article, I present a number of ways in which the educational program at TanenbaumCHAT has tried to address this need.
1. Using Rabbinic sources
One method, used to teach Jewish ethics, is through the study of Rabbinic (Talmud) sources that underscore these ideals. A large component of our grade 10 Rabbinics (Torah shebe’al peh) course includes study of a number of cases where either great sages act in accordance with ethical and moral values or where the ruling given to litigants is not strict justice but is based on an ethical response to the situation. These cases are classified under the general headings of the following terms, related to ethical acts of hesed:
- lifnim mishurat hadin – acting to resolve a situation in a manner beyond the letter of the law
- middat hasidut – a pious act not legally mandated
- kofin al midat Sedom – compelling one not to act in a manner within otherwise legitimate legal rights if the act is considered immoral or excessively harsh
- ve-asita hayashar vehatov – behavior that will be viewed as good and upright
This section of our syllabus shows the importance of ethics in Jewish life. The Talmudic and Rabbinic sources studied not only create a human picture of compassion for the less fortunate, but show how a Torah-based society assumes ethics to play a vital role in proper behavior. The common theme from these sources is that there are situations where halakhic Judaism offers clear ethical concerns that transcend actual halakhic practice. Students used to associating Talmud study with strict halakhic decisions are suddenly confronted with real life scenarios of Amoraic rabbis whose decisions are more ethics than law.
For example, the Babylonian Talmud (Baba Baba Metzia 83a) relates how some porters negligently broke a barrel of wine belonging to Rabbah son of R. Huna. When he seized their garments as payment, they complained to Rab. Rab’s ruling to Rabbah to “return them their garments,” clearly not reflective of actual law, was explained as a fulfillment of the verse “That thou mayest walk in the way of good men” (Proverbs 2:20). When the porters still complained that they were poor men, worked all day, and were in need, Rab further ordered Rabbah to go and actually pay them their wages. To Rabbah’s question, “Is that the law?” Rab responded: “Even so, ‘and keep the path of the righteous” (Epstein, 1952). Though the two Amoraim are well known for their legal statements in the Talmud, the sugyah’s conclusion is that the final decision rests on the ethical concern for the destitute porters.
R. Johanan (Baba Metzia 30b) goes as far as to ascribe the reason for the destruction of the Jerusalem, Judaism’s worst theological catastrophe, because their court judgments were based strictly upon law, but they did not go beyond the requirements of the law.
This course syllabus uses about 30 sources, to address some of the real and apparent conflicts between the demands of justice and the obligations of fair and righteous dealings between man and his fellow man, so that students see that concerns for ethical living are highlighted.
2. A Jewish ethics course
A number of years ago, TanenbaumCHAT developed a course to enable our senior students to explore their own values and the principles which underlie their moral decision-making, to compare their principles to traditional Jewish ones and to evaluate each. The ultimate goal is for students to appreciate Jewish value systems and to show them that Jewish values are built upon principles that are reasonable and have withstood the test of time (Sacknovitz, 1994). Over the years this course has gone through various revisions, some to update articles and literature, some to ensure that it qualifies for the Ontario Ministry of Education as a General Philosophy course, but the syllabus has remained faithful to its original directions.
A large segment of this grade 12 Jewish Ethics course, relates to Moral Philosophy, defining what is “right” and “wrong”, what is “good” and “bad” and the basis for determining that. Using readings from general and Jewish thinkers and sources, the course addresses certain fundamental questions: What are the definitions of ethics and morality? Can a person be considered good without God? What exactly is the path to improving one’s goodness? Is the definition of good relative or objective? How does one define Jewish ethics, and how does it vary from secular ethics? How much latitude exists within the parameters of Jewish ethics? How do Jewish ethics compare with other ethical systems? Are all human beings worthy of ethical concern according to Judaism? Can there be an ethic independent of God within Judaism? How do Jewish ethics grapple with divine commands that appear immoral and irrational? (Malamet, 2003).
The teacher’s role, in the course, is to facilitate students to clarify their own thinking on these and other ethical issues. The teacher helps challenge students to discover and understand the ethical principles that Judaism has developed that can serve as a beacon in acting ethically, to learn what guidance Jewish tradition offers.
3. Teaching by practice
As importantly, I believe that in order to understand, evaluate and integrate the ideals and values of ethics to our students, we should be involving them in various practical ethical experiences. The Talmud (Sotah 14b) notes that the command of vehalakhta bedrakhav (lit., walking in His ways) is meant to be carried out through our mimicking God by doing acts of hesed and kindness. While the Talmud intended this as a lesson in imitatio dei – trying to find virtue by resembling God – there is a lesson here as well about teaching middot, specifically the ethics of hesed. Rather than simply discussing ethics and virtues, students should be given opportunities to model these behaviors so that they become part of their lives. Through students’ active engagement in out-of classroom activities, we are able to train them in life values of ethical behavior. Traditional classroom study may offer students proficiency in a specific discipline of knowledge; but proficiency in ethics can be better gained by tapping into informal education opportunities outside of the classroom.
Every grade 9 student at TanenbaumCHAT attends a school Shabbaton, with the obvious goal of experiencing Shabbat in an informal school setting. However, just as important a value for us is that the Shabbaton experience teaches students responsibility, about building a caring community where they live together and help each other. It is as much about teaching ethical concerns as it is about teaching laws of Shabbat.
We have been sending down annually a group of close to 50 students for a week of volunteer work in West Virginia helping build houses with Habitat for Humanity. While there, the group adheres to kashrut, includes daily prayer and other Jewish faith opportunities during their mission, so that students actually live the message that Judaism values reaching out and helping others. Similarly, a few years after Hurricane Katrina, thirty-three students went to help rebuild New Orleans. Students actively undertake various charity projects – Jewish, general and civic, from United Jewish Appeal to Darfur. In fact, volunteer community service is a graduation requirement, well in excess of the hours mandated by local legislation, and we publicly acknowledge and award the senior with the most hours of volunteer work.
The impact of social action on students is tremendous, as the following reactions from Yeshiva University students make clear: “I think we have to realize we have a responsibility to the world around us, that we’re not just people of change for ourselves and our community… It’s powerful to be interacting with people who have experienced suffering and are living vastly different lives than you are.” (Klein, 2009). And that is exactly the point: that these programs have such a transformative effect on students that the ideals of Jewish ethics become inculcated into them in a way that cannot be approached by classroom teaching. JESNA recently highlighted “Jewish service learning” as one of their “top ten” Jewish education trends in the twenty first century’s first decade. They note that “today’s young people want to be ‘hands on’ when it comes to repairing the world,” and these programs help them learn and apply Jewish values to make a better world (Levin, 2010).
Finally, mention should also be made of the role staff modeling behaviors can have on students. We teach moral and ethical living not only by instruction in the classroom but by modeling it in our actions in front of our classes.
4. Gauging success
How can we gauge the success of these initiatives on our students? That is a very hard question to answer; it would be extremely difficult to empirically prove that our graduates act more ethically because of the ethics components in our educational program.
The real success of these programs is that they open the students to various components of in Judaism and Jewish thought and practice, which stay with them after high school. The purpose of the ethics curriculum is to foster the students’ critical thinking skills, as we show them the sophistication and relevance of Jewish value systems. A spring 2008 survey of our graduates, commissioned by an independent research company, indicated a strong majority who felt their high school experience very valuable in allowing them to develop their own minds, and recognized that it was instrumental in shaping and deepening their exceptionally strong Jewish identities relative to their peers. It is hard to separate the effects of the various specific components of the “CHAT experience” from the graduate survey and assess the unique effects of the ethical aspects discussed in this article, but a quick summary of the goals discussed above supports our feelings of success, if admittedly in an unscientific fashion:
- Studying Rabbinic sources that focus on extra-legal ethical solutions to situations allows students to recognize that the halakhic literature of the Oral Law (Talmud) also includes Jewish ethics that coexist with the law (either as part of it or as a check on it). The importance of Jewish ethics in their lives is highlighted.
- The Jewish Ethics course described above especially, because of its use of contemporary ethicists and Jewish philosophers, presents students with a sophistication in Jewish literature and brings them to recognize that Judaism’s own sources and thinkers offer the same complexity that they have usually ascribed only to certain general studies courses. The course is considered successful if we foster in students an appreciation for the diversity and sophistication of the approaches so that they can use their own critical thinking skills to develop their own sense of ethics.
- Training and requiring students to do practical acts of hesed and community service gives students first-hand experience in living a lifestyle of helping individuals. The hope is that students will progress through the “see one, do one, teach one” approach; having learned about hesed in class, given opportunities for practical expression within the context of the school, they will grow into adults who will take leadership positions in Jewish philanthropy and communal organizations.
References
Epstein, Isidore, ed. (1952). The Babylonian Talmud. London: Soncino Press.
Klein, Amy. (2009, Nov. 16). Orthodox students are embracing social action. Retrieved from http://jta.org/news/article/2009/11/16/1009221/orthodox-students-embrace-social-action
Levin , Rika. (2010). Jesna’s picks for the best in Jewish education of the decade. Retrieved from www.jesna.org/component/k2/item/626.
Lichtenstein, Aharon. (2004). Leaves of faith: the world of jewish living vol. 2. Jersey City, NJ: Ktav.
Malamet, Elliot. (2003). Jewish ethics – teacher outline. Unpublished.
Sacknovitz, Chaim. (1994). Teaching values in a community high school. Retrieved from https://www.lookstein.org/retrieve.php?ID=6764144.