Shabbat Unplugged...How it went

I recently wrote about participating in the National Day of Unplugging. It took place this past Shabbat. Here is what I am sharing about it in the temple bulletin next month:

 

What was it like? Nice. It was a little quieter. I didn’t avoid all technology – I drove, we watched a video and used the phone to talk. There was no internet, no texting. No checking e-mail or voice mail. I came home from work in the late afternoon on Friday, and had a conversation with my wife Audrey. We read books together. Then I prepared Shabbat dinner. My son Harper helped cook. My mother-in-law joined us for dinner. We lit candles, drank wine and ate a challah Harper had baked himself.

                                          

At right is the actual Sabbath Manifesto. You can get greater details about each point at sabbathmanifesto.org. I would say I was 7½ out of ten. (Didn’t spend time outside and I did spend money.) It was a great Shabbat. It would have been even better if we could have left later for the high school debate tournament. Then I would have been able to attend the 8:00 a.m. Shabbat service and breakfast.

If you haven’t made it to that service, you are really missing something wonderful – and easy. NO dress code (I usually wear jeans, we have seen kids in soccer uniforms heading to a 9:30 game). Services are an hour and followed by bagels and cream cheese. The fellowship (a word our Christian friends use, and is quite descriptive) of  conversation and sharing a bite with others who were at services – or who have just arrived and are planning to stay for Young Families Havurah or Torah Study – is delightful. And then on with the rest of the day.

So let me offer a challenge or an opportunity. Don’t wait until next March to sign a pledge and unplug. Give yourself a treat – one that costs nothing and pays off in the ways that truly matter. Put down the Android or iPhone – or at least use it only as a telephone from sunset on this or any Friday until three stars come out on Saturday. Try one or more of the items on the Sabbath Manifesto. Perhaps join us on Saturday morning. Hug and kiss your loved ones. Read.

Have a Shabbat Shalom (a peaceful Shabbat) – try it. You’ll like it!

A gift for Shabbat - Digital Detox

And we're back.

Like many of you, I have a SmartPhone welded to my hand. The folks at an organization called Reboot have developed a group digital detox. It is from sundown to sundown on Shabbat, one week from this Friday. They are not advocating becoming Orthodox or Amish. Just setting devices aside for a day. Keep the car, the stove, the TV (if you must) even your land line phone! Just disengage from the internet (and re-engage with the world around you, family and friends)!

The text below is from their site. What do you think? - Ira

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Do you have multiple cell phones? Take your ipad to the beach on vacation? Ever find it hard to get through a conversation without posting an update to Facebook? Is your computer always on?

We increasingly miss out on the important moments of our lives as we pass the hours with our noses buried in our iPhones and BlackBerry’s, chronicling our every move through Facebook and Twitter and shielding ourselves from the outside world with the bubble of “silence” that our earphones create.

If you recognize that in yourself – or your friends, families or colleagues— join us for the National Day of Unplugging, sign the Unplug pledge and start living a different life: connect with the people in your street, neighborhood and city, have an uninterrupted meal or read a book to your child.

The National Day of Unplugging is a 24 hour period – running from sunset to sunset – and starts on the first Friday in March. The project is an outgrowth of The Sabbath Manifesto (see the ten principles at left), an adaption of our ancestors’ ritual of carving out one day per week to unwind, unplug, relax, reflect, get outdoors, and connect with loved ones.

Just back from a family vacation, I open my e-mail to find that this week's Torah Lesson from the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies at the American Jewish University is by one of the most thoughtful teachers from whom I have ever learned - Rabbi Elliot Dorff. So as a public service, I would like to share it with you and your parents. And I recommend subscribing to the Z School e-mails (link is at the bottom).

The Talmud asks "What is a Father's (sic) obligation to his son (sic)?" (Bavli, Kiddushin 29a). Rabbi Dorff extends that question to the role of the grandparents. Let's talk about it. Then let's take action!

Ira

Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies  Today's Torah Shabbat Parashat Vayehi December 29, 2012 / 16 Tevet 5773 By: Rabbi Elliot Dorff, Rector and Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at American Jewish University The Importance of Grandparents   Torah Reading:  Genesis 47:28 - 50:26   Haftarah Reading:  I Kings 2:1-12 "Joseph lived to see children of the third generation of Ephraim; the children of Machir, son of Menasseh were likewise born upon Joseph's knees...Joseph died at the age of one hundred and ten years...." (Genesis 50:23, 26)   We do not really know what to do with the Torah's claims that many of the people in Genesis lived extraordinarily long lives. Once in a while in our times we hear of people living to 110, as Joseph is said to do in our Torah reading this week, but we cannot be faulted if we are skeptical about the numbers the Torah claims our Patriarchs and Matriarchs lived, let alone the lifetimes of hundreds of years for those who preceded them in the genealogies of Genesis 5 and 11. These numbers may simply be the Torah's way of indicating that they were mythical figures, larger than life, as it were. Indeed, the Psalmist indicates that "the span of our life is seventy years, or, given the strength, eighty years" (Psalms 90:10), and it is considered a great blessing to see your grandchildren - "May the Lord bless you from Zion; may you share the prosperity of Jerusalem all the days of your life and live to see your children's children. May all be well with Israel!" (Psalms 128:5-6).  This is closer to what was probably the reality in antiquity. Many died in childbirth - women and children - and those who survived birth often succumbed to infections and other diseases, but if you made it to age twenty and did not have to go to war, the chances were good that you would make it to sixty, seventy, or even eighty. This was true well into modern times, for life expectancy in the United States in 1900 was around 45 years of age, but that figure reflected many deaths in childbirth and childhood.  Thus some of us who are now grandparents remember our own grandparents. (In my case, all four were alive when I was born, but three of the four died before I was Bar Mitzvah.) Now that life expectancy in the United States is about 78, more and more of us will see our grandchildren, and some of us will be lucky enough to see our great-grandchildren. What is the role of grandparents? The Talmud is very specific about that. Not only do parents have the duty to teach Torah (and the skills to earn a living) to their children; grandparents do too (B. Kiddushin 30a), based on Deuteronomy 4:9: "Make them known to your children and to your children's children!" In our day, that might include helping parents pay tuition for Jewish schools, camps, and youth groups for their grandchildren. Grandparents can feel good about doing that, but not too good because it is not an especially generous act on their part; it is their Jewish legal duty!  Grandparents, though, can and should have a much more direct and personal influence on their grandchildren. I have been a member of admissions committees for rabbinical school for over forty years, and time and time again applicants mention their grandparents as a major Jewish influence on their lives. Not every Jew should become a rabbi, of course, but this illustrates the immense affect that grandparents can have on the Jewish character of their grandchildren's lives.  Following the lead of my friend, Dr. Alvin Mars, I now Skype with my nine-year-old grandson who lives across the country in New Jersey each week. We study D'varim (Deuteronomy) together for fifteen or twenty minutes, and then we talk about all kinds of other things. This not only deepens our personal relationships; it also communicates my own commitment to Judaism, and it helps him think about his own Jewish life. Aside from that, it is a sheer delight! This becomes even more important when your children have married people of other faiths. How do you model your own Jewish commitments to your grandchildren so that they know about them and seek to figure out their own Jewish identity as they grow? Rabbi Charles Simon, Executive Director of the Federation of Jewish Men's Clubs, and a number of people working with him have produced wonderful materials to help grandparents do that, including Let's Talk About It - A Book of Support and Guidance (on talking with your members of your family who are intermarried) and Intermarriage Concepts and Strategies. Check out the FJMC website to order those materials here. May we all grow to be grandparents and, if we are lucky enough to be as Joseph was, even great-grandparents, and may we take that role seriously by fulfilling our duties as Jewish educators for our grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Shabbat Shalom. Those interested in more on this may be interested in Elliot N. Dorff, Love Your Neighbor and Yourself: A Jewish Approach to Modern Personal Ethics (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 2003), especially Chapter Four, "Parents and Children." Elliot N. Dorff, Rabbi, Ph.D., is Rector and Anne and Sol Dorff Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the American Jewish University, Visiting Professor at UCLA School of Law, and Chair of the Conservative Movement's Committee on Jewish Law and Standards. Author of over 200 articles and 12 books on Jewish thought, law, and ethics, and editor of 14 more books on those topics, his most recent book is For the Love of God and People: A Philosophy of Jewish Law. Forward this message to anyone who you think might enjoy joining our Torah community. If you have received this e-mail via another person and would like to be added to the list for automatic receipt: Send an e-mail to torahsubscription@ajula.edu  with the following in the body of the message: SUBSCRIBE torah. Please note that this list is not set up as a discussion list. Only the moderator can post to the list. All replies will be sent to the moderator: zieglertorah@ajula.edu. You are currently subscribed to Today's Torah as: a.d.reynolds@cox.net Unsubscribe Help regarding newsletters. Thanks for joining with us in celebration of Torah. © 2012 American Jewish University

What If the Model Isn’t Broken? Using the Congregational Religious School as it was intended to be used

Lynn Lancaster

Lynn Lancaster is Education Director at the Forest Hills Jewish Center. She is also one of the sharpest Jewish educators I have ever met. We became friends when we both were invited to be mentors in the Leadership Institute. And today she was faster than me. She found this excellent article on eJewish Philanthropy and sent it off to me before I even looked at my e-mail. Well played, Lynn!

I agree with nearly everything Steve Kerbel says. And he makes a key point: the success or failure of any model of Jewish education rises and falls on the commitment of the parents. If we are successful in helping them to make Jewish learning and living as a part of a sacred community a priority, then everything will work and the opportunities for us to be spectacular increase. 

Many who want to blow things up seem to think that doing so will allow us to reach more adults and help them choose to prioritize things in this manner. Others suggest that doing so is giving up on getting most folks to prioritize Jewish living over suburban (or urban) life in general, and so we might as well make it as attractive as we can so we can get at least some of their attention.
In either case, I think Kerbel is refocusing the conversation in a manner that makes sense. 

What do you think?

Ira 

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Steve Kerbel

What if the model isn’t broken?

by Steve Kerbel

I have spent my adult life, even when pursuing other career choices, involved in Jewish education. I spent twenty years on the informal side, staffing and writing study materials for youth groups and Jewish camps, teaching in religious schools, tutoring b’nai mitzvah, and eventually teaching in day schools and leading two congregational religious schools for the last 18 years. I am a product of two excellent day schools, USY and several fine Jewish summer camps.

A few weeks ago, on a Shabbat morning, events converged in the sanctuary of the suburban Washington, DC congregation where I now work that lead me to believe that the congregational model of education might just work, if it’s used properly. Like any tool, you get different results if the tool is in the hands of an experienced craftsman versus a weekend warrior. Allow me to expand the thought.

Two smachot occurred, an auf ruf of a couple who met in the 4th grade of our religious school, and a bat mitzvah of one of our students. This was not the ordinary student, by any definition. She is gifted with a beautiful voice, she is poised and mature. But she has also been in synagogue most shabbatot since she was two weeks old. Her family welcomes Shabbat every week, builds a Sukkah and invites guests to share in its use, her father blows shofar on the High Holidays. When this family’s younger son had a conflict between weekday religious school and his Tae Kwon Do class, it was the Tae Kwan Do that yielded to religious school, not the other way around. The children in this family attend a Jewish content summer camp for four weeks every summer.

I contend that this is the right way to use the Congregational religious school model. You participate in services and activities, you take a role, you bring your Judaism into your home and you carry it out again, sharing it with others. This student led all of Kabbalat Shabbat on Friday evening, led the Torah service, read all 8 aliyot and led the congregation in Musaf. Not a typical suburban bat mitzvah. This was a religious school student, not a day school student. To me, it was a lesson in what can be, when we put a product to its best, intended use.

There is a lot of discussion and dissent in the education and lay communities that the model is failed, its failing most families, its tired, I’ve even heard that it needs to be blown up. The model as designed has the potential for success; to create comfort, confidence and community. The model can create committed, literate, striving Jews who integrate Jewish rhythms into their daily lives. We can connect our people to our living texts, we can teach about the sanctity of people and the sanctity of time, we might even improve the quality of our families’ lives. The cost is family buy-in and involvement. If you commit to raising a serious Jew the same way you commit to a serious musician or athlete, it takes what all these people talk about: participation, cheering your kid on, modeling healthy behavior, and yes, as any concert musician or Olympian will tell you, sacrifice. All those athlete profiles we watched from London this summer moved our emotions about how the athlete’s families have to sacrifice for the success of their child. I think we have to create this same expectation for our families if they want to commit to raising successful Jews.

The problem, however, is that the vast percentage of families involved in congregational education are the equivalent of those who take music lessons or participate in a sport and do not become, nor do they have any aspirations to become, concert musicians or Olympians. What models can we adapt or create to attract and retain these families as active, engaged and continuing participants in Jewish communal life?

The ‘model is broken’ conversation comes from the growing acceptance that, although we know what could work, we have been unsuccessful in convincing our audience. We are constantly in the position of the salesman who ‘successfully’ sells the car except for one small problem – the customer doesn’t buy it. The search for alternatives to the current model is driven by a desire to find the formula that will somehow break through this conundrum. We are without a doubt in a period of searching, transition and change. It may be that the formula I describe will remain as a viable option for some families within a larger community-driven set of alternatives. But for now, the search for the right context and mix goes on.

I’m not certain there is an exact formula that will work for everyone, and even the highest quality tool doesn’t produce the highest quality result every time. Perhaps the right investment by the consumers in the product, and quite frankly, better modeling and instruction by education professionals, can make a big difference in making something that may not be working for everyone work better for more people in an affordable, accessible way.

Steve Kerbel is Director of Education at Congregation B’nai Tzedek, Potomac, Maryland, is the current chair of the Education Directors Council of Greater Washington and a national officer of the Jewish Educators Assembly.

Nevermind Oscar, Tony, Emmy and Grammy...Check out the Eddies!

This afternoon I received an e-mail from the folks at EduBlogs. Edublogs is a platform for teachers, students and administrators to blog about their world.  There are some really amazing sites among the 1,508,550 blogs hosted there. And the Eddies are the Edublog awards for outstaning educational blogs in a variety of categories.

Now I am not going to recommend that you look at all of the blogs that have been nominated and vote in each of the individual categories (not that that would be bad). I am going to be a little more narrowly focused (self-serving?).

From time to time, I have been asked to serve as a guest scholar with groups of teachers and synagogue educators, often to talk about technology in the Jewish classroom and in the educator's professional tool box. Sometimes, people just want to know what is out there for them to use and to share some ideas about how to use it. Other times it is about helping veteran teachers -digital olim (immigrants) and tayarim (tourists) get comfortable with the idea of incorporating some digital tools in their repertoire. Sometimes it is both and more. In each case I share a link to my spreadsheet of tech tools and invite them to add tools they find - and to evaluate the ones on my list. It is a massive exercise in crowd sourcing and I learn from it regularly. You are now invited as well. Click here.

So when Edublogs published their list of nominees, I knew the crowd had hit the mother load! Now all of the nominees are blogs, not tools themselves per se. Many of them are blogs about connecting people to the tools that are becoming available on a daily basis. One of my go to blogs is Free Technology for Teachers, Richard Byrne's outstanding blog. He finds the coolest stuff, often before I have ever heard of the category. And the obvious applications from the general ed world to Jewish education are easy. So I have added the nominees as a second page to my list. I encourage you to check some of them out. Please share reviews of what you find here or on the spreadsheet. And go to http://edublogs.org/ and see what they have to offer. Or click on the image above and vote!

Is Jewish Education Broken?

"Is Jewish Education Broken?" is the title of a panel debate being held in New York in two weeks. It looks like it will be a really interesting and valuable evening. Sadly I will not be able to attend. I would like to recommend that you do if you are available. Details are below.

My friend and colleague, Rabbi Gary Greene saw the session title and took issue with it. He said "...knowing what so many colleagues are doing to improve Jewish Education, I have come dislike rhetorical titles like 'Is Jewish Education Broken?' It's like asking 'Do you still beat your wife?'  I find that title self-defeating prophecy to which the answer has to be yes...Why not focus on the exciting innovations going on in Jewish Education?  ...I think a better title could be "How might we meet the challenges of Jewish Education today?"

You go, Gary. Amen Selah. I agree. Now go to the session if you can!

Ira

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DISTINGUISHED EXPERTS TO DEBATE THE FUTURE OF
LIBERAL JEWISH EDUCATION IN AMERICA

Five Leading Scholars Discuss New Visions

For Jewish Schools at a Free Event on December 13

NEW YORK, N.Y. … “Is Jewish Education Broken?,” debates new visions for liberal Jewish schools in the 21st century. This free event takes place on Thursday, December 13 at 7pm and is hosted by the 14th Street Y. “Is Jewish Education Broken?” is presented by Speakers’ Lab, a new public programming initiative of the Posen Foundation, with Tablet Magazine and The New School for Public Engagement, Jewish Cultural Studies Program.

As enrollment declines in liberal Jewish schools, scholars and educators are asking critical questions about the relevance of Jewish education to today’s students. “Is Jewish Education Broken?” will explore current models and challenges facing liberal Jewish education, and propose new curricula and educational models for teachers and administrators for the future. Concerns and topics will include:

• The discrepancy between 20th century Jewish educational models and 21st century perspectives on Jewish life.
• The teaching of Jewish culture as ahistorical and disconnected from contemporary life.
• The role of Jewish schooling in Jewish continuity.
• Concerns about using the American school model to teach Jewish culture.
• The rise of new and informal Jewish educational models.
• The challenges of teaching minority education in America.

To discuss these issues and more, this panel brings together five forward-thinking scholars including: Zvi Bekerman, Director of the Melton Centre for Jewish Education, School of Education, Hebrew University of Jerusalem; Benjamin Jacobs, Assistant Professor of Social Studies, Education and Jewish Studies, New York University; Jonathan Krasner, Associate Professor of the American Jewish Experience, Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion; and Tali Zelkowicz, Assistant Professor of Education, Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion. The discussion will be moderated by Bethamie Horowitz, Research Assistant Professor, New York University.

This is Speakers’ Lab’s second program. The next public program will take place in the Spring of 2013.

Admission to “Is Jewish Education Broken?” is free. Seating is limited and pre-registration is encouraged. Sign-up at www.speakerslab.org or by calling 212-564-6711 x 305.

Event and Venue Info:
The Theater at the 14th Street Y

344 East 14th Street (between 1st and 2nd Avenues)
New York, NY 10003

Posen Foundation (posenfoundation.org)
The Posen Foundation’s mission is rooted in the belief that Jewish education can make a meaningful difference in Jewish life and should be available to all who are interested. To this end, the Foundation works internationally to promote Jewish learning, support academic research in Jewish history and culture, and encourage participation in Jewish cultural life.

As part of this effort, in 2012 the Posen Foundation launched its new public programming initiative, Speakers’ Lab (www.speakerslab.org), which is dedicated to exploring new perspectives on Jewish culture and identity. Based in New York City, Speakers’ Lab presents debates, arts performances, and panel discussions in collaboration with other organizations and venues. In 2012, Speakers’ Lab is presenting two events, one in the spring and one in the fall.
 
The New School (newschool.edu)
The New School is a legendary, progressive university comprising seven schools bound by a common, unusual intent: to prepare and inspire its more than 10,500 undergraduate and graduate students to bring actual, positive change to the world. From its Greenwich Village campus, The New School launches economists and actors, fashion designers and urban planners, dancers and anthropologists, orchestra conductors, filmmakers, political scientists, organizational experts, jazz musicians, scholars, psychologists, historians, journalists, and above all, world citizens-individuals whose ideas and innovations forge new paths of progress in the arts, design, humanities, public policy, and the social sciences. In addition to its 92 graduate and undergraduate degree-granting programs, the university offers certificate programs and more than 650 continuing education courses to 5,619 adult learners every year.

Tablet Magazine (tabletmag.com)Tablet Magazine, at tabletmag.com, is the daily online magazine of Jewish news, ideas, and culture.

14th Street Y (14streety.org)
The 14th Street Y, a Jewish community center in the heart of Manhattan’s East Village, is a vital neighborhood resource that welcomes people of all backgrounds. We offer programs with a distinctive downtown point of view, emphasizing excellence, innovation, creativity, and a questioning spirit.

U.S. Jews Fighting Wrong Battle

A copy of a book by author Peter Beinart
under the chair of an audience member
as Beinart speaks at an event in Atlanta,
apart from the book fair, on Nov. 14, 2012.
(David Goldman/AP)

Like many, I have spent a fair amount of time monitoring a variety of sources to see what is going on in Israel. And like some I feel torn that I am not there sharing the stresses and helping. The truth is,  given my lack of training and experience, I would probably just be in the way their. But I can help spread the word. There are two postings I have rad over the past several days that I want to make sure as many people as possible read and think about and hopefully act on. Here is one of them. It was posted Friday on Tablet and written by Rabbi Daniel Gordis.

As rockets rain down on Israel, an Atlanta JCC bans Peter Beinart. When did we become so narrow-minded?

This has been a frightening and sad week in Israel. First, Hamas unleashed 160 rockets on Israeli towns. Then the IDF responded, and Israeli civilians were ordered—and many remain—in bomb shelters. And as was almost inevitable, some who did not heed the warnings were killed by rocket fire. At this writing, the end is nowhere in sight.

If there can be said to be a silver lining in this horrendous situation, it’s in the broad range of support for the prime minister’s decision to protect his citizens. “Labor, Kadima, Olmert, Livni back government’s air assault on Hamas,” reported the Times of Israel. But it shouldn’t take war for Jews to acknowledge that we’re utterly dependent on each other, no matter how deeply we may disagree.

Far from the fighting, the conversation among American Jews about Israel has become so toxic that it’s often impossible even for people who are allies to listen to each other. Not long ago, I was invited by a major national Jewish organization to give a lecture in the United States. Soon after, the person who’d invited me called me in Jerusalem to tell me that the major sponsors of the event had pulled their support and their funding because I’d signed a letter asking the Prime Minister Netanyahu to ignore a legal report claiming that Israel’s presence in the West Bank is not technically an occupation.

“You’re not embarrassed?” I asked her. She couldn’t understand why she should possibly be embarrassed. She explained that her organization believed that the report was important for defending Israel’s international legitimacy. “That’s fine,” I said, “and I think that adopting it would do us great damage. But so what? Doesn’t the fact that we disagree make it all the more critical that we talk to each other? Or have we reached the point where your supporters will listen only to those with whom they agree completely? Your sponsors based their decision to invite me on a record of 15 years of writing and speaking. I do one thing that they don’t approve of, and they pull the plug?”

That’s precisely what they did. I ended up giving the lecture, but the sponsors never restored their support.
They represent, I believe, a scary anti-intellectual trend in the Jewish community. These people believe that an increasingly narrow tent will best protect the state of Israel, and so they continue to move the tent’s pegs. But they are doing just the opposite of bolstering the Jewish state: They weaken Israel and make it more vulnerable because they exclude enormous swaths of the community that we need—particularly on a week like this.

The latest example of this narrowing happened this week in Atlanta, where one of the country’s major Jewish book fairs canceled an appearance by the writer Peter Beinart. “As leaders of our agency, we want the center to always serve as a safe place for honest debate, but we want to balance that against the concerns of our patrons,” said Steven Cadranel, president of the Marcus Jewish Community Center. I have no unique knowledge of what actually transpired, but this has become an old story: Many Jewish organizations have been pushed into such corners by donors who refused to contribute to festivals or organizations who will host people whose views they find reprehensible. Jewish community professionals regularly find themselves between a rock and a hard place.

I disagree with Peter Beinart on more issues than I can count. I was appalled by his oped in the Times calling for a boycott on some Israelis, and I found his most recent book far too accommodating of Israel’s enemies and unfairly critical of Israel. I think he’s completely wrong when he asserts the occupation is the core cause of Israel’s marginality. But his views represent those of a not inconsiderable swath of American Jewry, so I agreed to debate him at Columbia University. Our debate was fun—and far more important, it was civil.

I don’t know how many minds were changed that night; Beinart’s wasn’t, and neither was mine. But we did model for the hundreds of people who were there and the many more who watched the debate online that the Jewish community doesn’t have the luxury of refusing to speak to those who disagree with us. Instead, Peter and I did what the Jews have always done: We engaged the ideas, assumptions, and moral positions of the other, and in the spirit of the brave marketplace of ideas that Judaism has always been, tried to make our most compelling case.

Are there no limits to who’s in the Zionist tent? Of course there are. For me, the litmus tests are Israel’s Jewishness, democracy, and security. Anyone publicly committed to those three—even if I believe that their policy ideas are wrong-minded—is in the tent. There are many Israeli politicians whose ideas I believe are naïve or dangerous. But should I say that they’re not Zionists? That would absurd. For the same reason, Beinart is in my tent.

Speaking with people who agree with me is no challenge. Engaging with those whose views seem to me dangerous is infinitely harder, but far more important. That sort of conversation is perhaps the most critical lesson that we inherit from centuries of Talmudic Judaism. The Talmud is essentially a 20-volume argument, in which even positions that “lost” the battle and were not codified into law are subjected to reverential examination. When Hillel and Shammai debate, Jewish law, or halakhah, almost always follows Hillel. But we still study Shammai with reverence. Even those views not codified, we believe, have insights to share and moral positions worth considering.

The American Jewish community is the most secure diaspora community the Jews have ever known. Economically, socially, politically, culturally—we have made it, and what we say and model is watched by countless others. Yet New York Times readers this week can only conclude that in the midst of that security and comfort, we’ve utterly abandoned the intellectual curiosity that has long been Judaism’s hallmark.

Are we not ashamed to have created a community so shrill that any semblance of that Talmudic curiosity has been banished? Has the People of the Book really become so uninterested in thinking?

Daniel Gordis is Senior Vice President and Koret Distinguished Fellow at the Shalem Center in Jerusalem. His book Saving Israel won the 2009 National Jewish Book Award.