By William Berkson
As I explained in previous posts, Reform Judaism can become much stronger by serving families. And it can do this by showing how the personal ethics of the Talmud, updated, can powerfully assist sacred relationships, strong marriages and families.

However, before this we first have to convince teens that Judaism can make a difference to their lives. As is well known, there is a huge drop off of students attending religious school after Bar and Bat Mitzvah. What can we teach teens that will be compelling evidence that it will help them to have Judaism as part of their lives?

I have been working on a solution for over ten years, in part shown by my Becoming a Mentsh Workshops, which show teens and their parents how to apply Jewish values to improve life today. These teach how to creatively apply values in Torah and Talmud to issues such as: parent-teen relationships, relationships between the sexes (love, sex and marriage), and how to deal with the stress of the struggle for success in school and career. The distinctive thing about my approach is that it synthesizes the insights of the sages of the Talmud with insights of modern psychology--particularly insights on communication and problem-solving skills. 

I am now starting to expand these into a full classroom curriculum for Temple Rodef Shalom of Virginia, and the first of the full classes will be on Peer to Peer ethics. I will come later to issues of the place of psychology, but let me state by explaining why Talmudic ethics is, I believe, so crucial to success in relating Jewish values to modern life.

Currently a lot of teaching in ethics is done by teaching 'middot' or virtues. The 'virtue' approach to ethics comes from Aristotle, and was brought into Judaism by Maimonides, who tried to synthesize Aristotle and Jewish tradition. Much of this synthesis didn't stick, but the virtue ethics did. The Hebrew 'middot' is a translation of the Greek 'arete' or virtue, made by the translator of Maimonides' Guide for the Perplexed, in consultation with him.  In this approach the meaning of 'humility' 'truthfulness', and so on are taught.

The 'virtue' approach has a lot to recommend it, particularly with younger children, but it does not enable one to really engage the heart of Jewish ethics, and see how it can lift up relationships and make them more holy. This is because the real challenges and rewards of living an ethical life only become clear when we engage specific issues, as the Talmud does. Then it becomes clear that the challenge of doing the negative mitzvot, such as not standing by when others sin, is a matter of moral courage. And then it also becomes clear that the challenge of doing the positive mitzvot, such as doing justice, are a complex matter of choices that involve right vs right, and the lesser of evils. These choices require thoughtfulness and creativity to find the right way, as well as courage to follow it. General concepts like 'justice' are essential, but more specific guidance is needed.

A small example of this is an issue that comes up in one of the peer-to-peer ethics case studies in the class. In this case, 'The Purloined Exam', a student has stolen an advance copy of an exam, and is giving it to friends. The difficult choice for the 'mentsh' is whether to report the thief, and to whom.

Interestingly, keeping secrets and not informing is generally speaking preferred in rabbinic ethics. This is because saying bad things about others, even if true, is generally prohibited, and is known as lashon hara, the 'evil tongue'.  Now the theory of lashon hara appeals to some 'proof texts' in the Torah, but it is largely a Talmudic and post-Talmud Jewish creation. Most famously, a Rabbi known as Chafets Chaim wrote a treatise on it at the end of the 19th century. And he, like earlier rabbis, regards it as one of the most common yet also grave sins, a sin that does great harm to relationships.

In this case, the rule against lashon hara is in conflict with the mitzvah not to stand upon the blood of your neighbor (Lev. 19). This is interpreted by later Jewish ethics as prohibiting being passive in the face of any wrongdoing. We have a positive obligation to stop the wrong, if we are able to.  In this case, the wrong will be done to the students who don't get the exam, the teacher, and the society at large. Such deceit, known as geneivah da'at or "stealing the opinion" of another, is viewed as quite wrong, of course. So what is the student to do? My current thinking is that the right thing to do is for the student to tell a parent or a school counselor, so the scheme will be stopped, without 'fingering' the student who stole the exam. But it will be interesting to see what students and other teachers think. -And how the obligations would change if the student brought drugs, or worse, a gun.

My point here is that generalized virtues like 'truthfulness' do not give positive guidance in what to do in the way that the fuller development of Jewish ethics in the Talmud does. Now in other cases, we have to develop the ideas beyond what they are in the Talmud, and sometimes even modify them. But the key thing is that by being issue and case-oriented, as the Talmud is, we enable students to see how Judaism can guide and uplift their lives.

Unfortunately, such Talmudic concepts as lashon hara, though it is in the confession at Yom Kippur, are ones that most Reform Jewish are not familiar with. We need to do more than just quoting the great saying of the prophet Micah--to do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with God--and give some specific guidance to teens. This kind of engagement with our tradition engages both their critical thinking and their idealism, and is I believe our best hope of showing teens that Judaism is something that will be a treasure to study and live throughout their lives.

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