Our children may get a first rate education in public school, but not much in ethics. Most school curricula avoid moral issues because they (wrongly, I believe) hesitate to infringe on the parental prerogative of setting ethical standards. That makes the role of the parents all the more important. While the father has an important influence, despite all the changes in the family, I concur with Louis Marshall's observation a century ago that the mother has the greatest impact on our youth. It is still the mother that spends the most time with children in their formative years, including in most families where both parents work. We are a long way from a Scandinavian sharing of responsibility for the children, and that is a long way from making the role of mother and father the same. Being part of a team of equals, still allows for a division of labor with each parent doing what he or she does best and enjoys the most. I expect natural factors to keep the roles of mother and father distinct even in modern, equal marriages. For that reason, we must provide a strong ethical education to girls who will become the mothers of our kids if we want ethical adults.

Family Bible study, religious education and Sunday school are all needed. There is nothing wishy-washy about the message of the prophets in the Bible, and Reform Judaism is prophetic Judaism. Likewise the morals from Proverbs and other parts of the Old Testament offer strong guidance. Where neo-Orthodox Reform Judaism went astray was to divert most of its resources and focus on inconsequential fluff like performance Hebrew instead of the substantive message of our Bible. There are some who fear translating the Bible and even the prayer book into English because they want nothing of substance, only bland and meaningless ritual. They can't agree on what to say even reducing everything to the lowest common denominator is too provocative for them. A message of substance is something that we have to confront and either accept or reject. With our Cartesian foundation as Reform Jews, we don't have to agree on the interpretation, but we are obligated to question what is true and what is applicable in today's world and reason our way through the big questions using Biblical ethical principles.

I am a first time visitor to your site and am impressed with what I am finding here. I am, however, confused as I read about "Sunday School." I am a Christian Sabbath keeper, and as such am familiar with "Sabbath School." I also sing in the choir of a local Sunday keeping church that has Sunday School.
Can you enlighten me on how Shabbat and Sunday School are connected in your fellowship?
Thanks,
Susan McNutt

Rebeca Gratz, who was born during the Revolutionary War, began the Sunday School in Philadelphia in 1838. She started a Sunday School with two hours of instruction each week run by women, giving women one of the first major public roles in modern Judaism. Sunday, then as now, was the day that almost everyone was off work and out of school, so it was free for religious education. It allowed American Jews to maintain their all important participation in public school and still obtain Jewish education for their children. Rebeca Gratz had been giving private lessons in her home from about 1818, and saw the need to expand to a larger, more formal program. Rebeca wrote to her sister-in-law in Kentucky "If it succeeds I shall feel I may have been useful in my generation." The Sunday School spread quickly in the U.S., Canada and the Caribbean islands and became the model for Jewish education. Rabbi Isaac Lesser was an early backer of Sunday Schools.

Philadelphia was the home of Dr. Benjamin Rush, one of our great patriots and leading medical doctors who was a founder of the American Sunday School Society in 1791.

William, the Babylonian Talmud is with its arcane debates, has long since become largely irrelevant to Jews integrated into a pluralistic, democratic society. I am much more interested in what the great Egyptian scholar, Maimonides had to say, but even his work is hampered by the primitive state of knowledge in his day and of the drastically different conditions under which he lived. The general storehouse of knowledge has increased tremendously since his time. He never envisioned life in America, Canada, Australia or the EU and I am confident that his views as a bright and adaptive scholar and man of science would be vastly different today than nine centuries ago. We have plenty of intelligent and well educated men and women today who can analyze and comment on religious issues much more accurately and relevantly than someone living three thousand years ago in what is now Iraq.

I agree with your idea of the need for ethical education, I would just like to see a more progressive Reform version of it.

Larry, the course you were teaching sounds very interesting. Are you still doing that?

William:
Q: Would I go back to animal sacrifices?
A: Neither Reform Judaism nor I have ever supported a return to the sacrificial cult. Prayer and good deeds, i.e. ethical living, is the way to repent for sin, i.e. straying from God's commandments. It is also the way to create the kind of world in which Jews and all of mankind can flourish. You don't need the Talmud to tell you that. Karaite Jews who were leaders in rejecting the Talmud over a thousand years ago, never practice animal sacrifices.

Q: Because the Bible reports divine commandments to wipe out entire populations, does that mean we are supposed to do the same today?
A: No. The commandment was directed to specific individuals in specific situations thousands of years ago. They are not evergreen commandments like the Ten Commandments. You don't need the Talmud to tell you that.

On the other hand, if God told you to kill a mother with a young baby, would you do it? Would that be moral? What if it was the late 1800's and that baby was an Austrian named Adolph? How about wiping out the entire family? How about the entire town?

In the absence of direct guidance, we must use our best judgment taking the principles from the Bible including justice, mercy and the right of self defense.

Q: What about killing stubborn and rebellious sons?
A: That is one of the many areas that is now in the hands of civil authorities. The Biblical commandments no longer apply. Reform Judaism advocates pluralistic democracy, not theocracy. In any event, it has been considered a time bound commandment, not intended for the modern age, including by those who have no Talmud, like Reform Jews.

Q: Do we need the Talmud to weasel out of commandments which we see as outdated and harmful?
A: No. We can openly reject them as Reform Jews always have, without the strained and convoluted justifications presented in the Talmud. Unlike Orthodox Jews, we do not feel bound to pretend to observe these outdated and harmful rules.

Q: Are progressive Reform Jews in favor of non-parochial ethics that give parents moral authority in the family?
A: Without a doubt. We reason our way to that conclusion without a Talmud.

Reform Jews have gotten along just fine for almost two centuries without the Talmud and all the harmful side effects it has. We are far better without it.