I'm disturbed by Rabbi Stern's claim that the incidence of teenage pregnancy and AIDS in the Jewish community is not a problem that needs to be taken seriously. Similar claims were once made about alcoholism and domestic violence, driving the problems underground, preventing education, and silencing the victims. It has already been more than a decade since the Tzvi Aryeh AIDS Foundation was founded in New York City to serve Orthodox Jews suffering from AIDS. The Tzvi Aryeh Foundation targets the very traditional Jewish community by presenting sexual education and choices in ways that have been sanctioned by Orthodox rabbis and that comport with normative Jewish law. But the organization works in almost total secrecy because of the severe stigma that an AIDS diagnosis brings in certain segments of the Orthodox world.
No, AIDS and teenage pregnancy are serious problems and I would applaud the Orthodox Union if it were actually promoting education, awareness, and prevention. But it’s not. Instead it’s using these issues–as well as the specter of cervical cancer, suicide, and date rape–as scare tactics to push a moralistic agenda. While encouraging teenagers to delay engaging in sexual activity may be a laudable goal for any number of reasons, providing bad information will never be the right way to go about promoting this objective. The OU should rethink it's abstinence website, and perhaps abstain from disseminating misleading information to teens.
Read the Full Debate: Should We Teach Abstinence to Teens?
Rabbi Joshua Waxman: May 2007 Archives
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The Seduction of Abstinence
Regular readers of VT may have noticed my absence from the blog the past couple of weeks – but it has been for the most wonderful of reasons: my wife and I have been extremely busy as we have welcomed our new son, Adir Hanan, into the world. He is a complete miracle and has been warmly embraced into our family by his loving older brother and sister.
Now this may sound like a strange lead-in to the subject we’re taking up this week--the Orthodox Union's brand new website pushing an abstinence-only approach for Jewish teens. The site is filled with the same dubious health claims that the Christian abstinence movement has been making to support its agenda, with a sprinkling of Jewish perspective. Taken together, this makes for a rather unappealing (and possibly irresponsible) mix that is unlikely to convince anyone to abstain. Why irresponsible? Because many abstinence-only programs and curricula provide misleading information, don't lead to lower rates of abstinence in participants, and can increase pregnancy and the spread of disease by discouraging use of contraceptives. In hopping on the increasingly-discredited abstinence bandwagon, it's unclear if the Orthodox Union is actually trying to help teens or if it just wants a stake a claim in cyberspace to the moral high ground.
Now what does all of this have to do with our new son? In Jewish thought sex is generally regarded as a natural and loving act that is not disparaged as it is in some systems of belief. The Song of Songs--at root a celebration of physical love--is a part of our canon, and Rashi claims that the first sexual act (Gen. 4:1) took place while Adam and Eve were still in the Garden of Eden, denying any association between sex and the Christian concept of original sin. The Talmud (B. Yoma 13a) states that the High Priest was required to be married, which is in direct contradistinction to religious traditions that associate sanctity with chastity. Sex is, after all, a necessary ingredient for building a family and the family unit has always been the fundamental building block of Jewish life.
There is no question that sex can also be destructive and that teens are often not emotionally equipped to make healthy choices. But the way to encourage better choices isn't to present distorted information. Instead, it is to articulate a coherent vision of loving relationships that will encourage young people to respect one another in all aspects of life, and not to single out sex in an effort to turn it into something disgraceful or to make sexual urges and desires something to be ashamed of. This is hard work and is much more complex than a website can handle. Let's hope we can find a way to affirm healthy choices and responsible relationships without demonizing our very human, and necessary, sexuality.
Now this may sound like a strange lead-in to the subject we’re taking up this week--the Orthodox Union's brand new website pushing an abstinence-only approach for Jewish teens. The site is filled with the same dubious health claims that the Christian abstinence movement has been making to support its agenda, with a sprinkling of Jewish perspective. Taken together, this makes for a rather unappealing (and possibly irresponsible) mix that is unlikely to convince anyone to abstain. Why irresponsible? Because many abstinence-only programs and curricula provide misleading information, don't lead to lower rates of abstinence in participants, and can increase pregnancy and the spread of disease by discouraging use of contraceptives. In hopping on the increasingly-discredited abstinence bandwagon, it's unclear if the Orthodox Union is actually trying to help teens or if it just wants a stake a claim in cyberspace to the moral high ground.
Now what does all of this have to do with our new son? In Jewish thought sex is generally regarded as a natural and loving act that is not disparaged as it is in some systems of belief. The Song of Songs--at root a celebration of physical love--is a part of our canon, and Rashi claims that the first sexual act (Gen. 4:1) took place while Adam and Eve were still in the Garden of Eden, denying any association between sex and the Christian concept of original sin. The Talmud (B. Yoma 13a) states that the High Priest was required to be married, which is in direct contradistinction to religious traditions that associate sanctity with chastity. Sex is, after all, a necessary ingredient for building a family and the family unit has always been the fundamental building block of Jewish life.
There is no question that sex can also be destructive and that teens are often not emotionally equipped to make healthy choices. But the way to encourage better choices isn't to present distorted information. Instead, it is to articulate a coherent vision of loving relationships that will encourage young people to respect one another in all aspects of life, and not to single out sex in an effort to turn it into something disgraceful or to make sexual urges and desires something to be ashamed of. This is hard work and is much more complex than a website can handle. Let's hope we can find a way to affirm healthy choices and responsible relationships without demonizing our very human, and necessary, sexuality.
Read the Full Debate: Should We Teach Abstinence to Teens?
Sunday May 6, 2007
Questioning Jewish Genius
An article by Charles Murray that recently appeared in Commentary Magazine has been inspiring both conversation and criticism with its claim that Jews are uniquely gifted when it comes to intellectual accomplishment, especially in the arts and sciences. Although much of his methodology seems more anecdotal than rigorously analytical, there are some salient facts that are hard to ignore. Chief among them is the observation that more than 30 percent of the Nobel Prize winners in the fields of literature, chemistry, physics, and medicine since the second half of the 20th-century have been Jewish. This is huge considering Jews representing only two-tenths of one percent of the world population.
Murray’s conclusion? That Jews have higher IQs than the general population, especially in the realms of verbal and reasoning skills. Murray (who, incidentally, is a self-proclaimed "Scots-Irish Gentile from Iowa") engages in a fair amount of speculation as to why this may be so (none of which struck me as particularly compelling). Ultimately he argues that Jews self-selected for increased intelligence because of the demands that being a learned Jew put on us–literacy at a bare minimum, but also the ability to read and engage with difficult commentaries and the high status that was accorded to those who excelled in this area.
Many, myself included, find the claims in the article distasteful. Certainly it’s not politically correct to assert that any ethnic group is inherently superior in any area–and the Jews know all too well the tremendous capacities for evil that emerge when one ethnic group claims to be a "master race." And yet it’s hard to argue with a record of Jewish accomplishment in Western civilization. Perhaps it’s not a superior intellect that’s at play. Raw intelligence, as Murray acknowledges, is only one ingredient that would go into intellectual accomplishment. I find myself struck by a comment from Walter Isaacson (yes, he’s Jewish) based on his recent biography of Albert Einstein (yes, he’s Jewish too) to the effect that Einstein succeeded not because he was so much smarter than other scientists of his time – and many scholars agree that he lacked the raw mathematical ability of many of his colleagues – but because he was creative in the way he viewed the world and posed questions.
This to me is the perhaps the crux of what I would term a "Jewish intellectual legacy": the value placed on posing questions and exploring their implications from many different angles. The Talmud is based on series of questions, often questions asked for the sheer joy of posing them, and the numerous and conflicting answers that co-exist side-by-side demonstrate that questions and debate are more important to the rabbis than arriving at easy answers. The Torah tells us to remember our going forth out of Egypt and teach this to our children. The rabbis respond by creating the seder (traditional Passover meal), based on the premise that children are taught by being encouraged to ask questions (according to the Mishnah, the famed Four Questions asked during th eseder are only fallbacks in case the children cannot come up with questions of their own). Many of the breakthroughs of recent intellectual history, not just Einstein, but also Marx, Freud, and Oppenheimer, came not as a result of sheer superior intelligence, but from Jews looking at the same information everyone else had, asking different questions, and thinking about it in different ways. If Jews show a track record of increased intellectual accomplishment, I imagine fostering thoughtful and reasoned questions must be a key ingredient.
Nu?
Read the Full Debate: Are Jews Intellectually Superior?
Murray’s conclusion? That Jews have higher IQs than the general population, especially in the realms of verbal and reasoning skills. Murray (who, incidentally, is a self-proclaimed "Scots-Irish Gentile from Iowa") engages in a fair amount of speculation as to why this may be so (none of which struck me as particularly compelling). Ultimately he argues that Jews self-selected for increased intelligence because of the demands that being a learned Jew put on us–literacy at a bare minimum, but also the ability to read and engage with difficult commentaries and the high status that was accorded to those who excelled in this area.
Many, myself included, find the claims in the article distasteful. Certainly it’s not politically correct to assert that any ethnic group is inherently superior in any area–and the Jews know all too well the tremendous capacities for evil that emerge when one ethnic group claims to be a "master race." And yet it’s hard to argue with a record of Jewish accomplishment in Western civilization. Perhaps it’s not a superior intellect that’s at play. Raw intelligence, as Murray acknowledges, is only one ingredient that would go into intellectual accomplishment. I find myself struck by a comment from Walter Isaacson (yes, he’s Jewish) based on his recent biography of Albert Einstein (yes, he’s Jewish too) to the effect that Einstein succeeded not because he was so much smarter than other scientists of his time – and many scholars agree that he lacked the raw mathematical ability of many of his colleagues – but because he was creative in the way he viewed the world and posed questions.
This to me is the perhaps the crux of what I would term a "Jewish intellectual legacy": the value placed on posing questions and exploring their implications from many different angles. The Talmud is based on series of questions, often questions asked for the sheer joy of posing them, and the numerous and conflicting answers that co-exist side-by-side demonstrate that questions and debate are more important to the rabbis than arriving at easy answers. The Torah tells us to remember our going forth out of Egypt and teach this to our children. The rabbis respond by creating the seder (traditional Passover meal), based on the premise that children are taught by being encouraged to ask questions (according to the Mishnah, the famed Four Questions asked during th eseder are only fallbacks in case the children cannot come up with questions of their own). Many of the breakthroughs of recent intellectual history, not just Einstein, but also Marx, Freud, and Oppenheimer, came not as a result of sheer superior intelligence, but from Jews looking at the same information everyone else had, asking different questions, and thinking about it in different ways. If Jews show a track record of increased intellectual accomplishment, I imagine fostering thoughtful and reasoned questions must be a key ingredient.
Nu?
Read the Full Debate: Are Jews Intellectually Superior?
Thursday May 3, 2007
Does Darfur Need a Good Publicist?
A few weeks ago my congregation was fortunate enough to host Ruth Messinger, executive director of American Jewish World Service, who spoke to us on the situation in Darfur and the obligations that our Jewish values–and recent history–demand of us. Besides the heartbreaking statistics and images (and there were plenty of those) the point that Ruth kept making was that, at least until recently, nobody has been paying attention. Sure, there’s a group of activists and organizations that are passionate about, and deeply engaged with, Darfur, but, in America at least, the humanitarian crisis gets hardly any exposure or discussion on a national level. Americans have always had difficulty getting concerned about events beyond our own borders; to the extent that we’re paying attention to foreign affairs these days, it’s largely Iraq that makes the headlines (sadly, with good reason). Yet, a genocide is being perpetrated before our eyes and we’re not looking.
What to do? AJWS has recently been shifting its energy into political activism and advocacy, recognizing that providing direct assistance while waiting for the rest of the world to start caring isn’t doing the trick. The Save Darfur Coalition, AJWS, and other organizations have begun to step up the pressure with rallies, divestment campaigns, and high-profile celebrity statements – including Mia Farrow, Steven Spielberg, and George Clooney. Hey, it may be tacky but if it gets Americans to pay attention and demand action on Darfur, I’m all for it. The case of China that Rabbi Stern mentions is a perfect example: China, which has a veto in the United Nations security council, was protecting Sudan until Mia Farrow shamed them into softening their stance by labeling the 2008 Olympics in Beijing "the Genocide Olympics" on the Wall Street Journal editorial page. China changed its tune fast, not because it started caring about the people of Darfur, but because it cares about its reputation.
All of which is to say: before we can convince people to get involved, we have to cut through the noise and convince them to pay attention. Even if we’re not Mia Farrow or George Clooney we can do this by focusing on programs and events that raise awareness like attending rallies, writing letters to our local newspapers, wearing wristbands, and speaking out. I guess I thought that the deaths of 450,000 men, women, and children would be sufficient to get the world to pay attention but now it’s clear that the people of Darfur stand alone, unless we stand with them.
Read the Full Debate: What Should Jews Do About Darfur?
What to do? AJWS has recently been shifting its energy into political activism and advocacy, recognizing that providing direct assistance while waiting for the rest of the world to start caring isn’t doing the trick. The Save Darfur Coalition, AJWS, and other organizations have begun to step up the pressure with rallies, divestment campaigns, and high-profile celebrity statements – including Mia Farrow, Steven Spielberg, and George Clooney. Hey, it may be tacky but if it gets Americans to pay attention and demand action on Darfur, I’m all for it. The case of China that Rabbi Stern mentions is a perfect example: China, which has a veto in the United Nations security council, was protecting Sudan until Mia Farrow shamed them into softening their stance by labeling the 2008 Olympics in Beijing "the Genocide Olympics" on the Wall Street Journal editorial page. China changed its tune fast, not because it started caring about the people of Darfur, but because it cares about its reputation.
All of which is to say: before we can convince people to get involved, we have to cut through the noise and convince them to pay attention. Even if we’re not Mia Farrow or George Clooney we can do this by focusing on programs and events that raise awareness like attending rallies, writing letters to our local newspapers, wearing wristbands, and speaking out. I guess I thought that the deaths of 450,000 men, women, and children would be sufficient to get the world to pay attention but now it’s clear that the people of Darfur stand alone, unless we stand with them.
Read the Full Debate: What Should Jews Do About Darfur?
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Brad Hirschfield currently blogs on Windows and Doors.
Author, radio and TV talk show host, and President of CLAL-The National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership, Brad Hirschfield is the author of You Don’t Have To Be Wrong For Me To Be Right: Finding Faith Without Fanaticism. Listed as one of the nation’s 50 most influential rabbis in Newsweek, and a regular commentator on Court TV, he is the creator of the popular series, Building Bridges, airing on Bridges TV, and the co-host of the weekly radio show, Hirschfield and Kula.
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