The mission of the CJL is to facilitate academic inquiry that is relevant to, and indeed promotes, a flourishing contemporary society. Most of our educational projects focus on higher education at the undergraduate and graduate levels. But we believe that talented students at the high school level stand to gain from, and have much to contribute to, interdisciplinary study of Jewish law. We are pleased to be partnering with the Israel-based institutions Yesodot: Center for Torah and Democracy and Yeshivot Bnei Akiva on the development of a high-level Talmud and Jewish law curriculum for Israeli and American high school students that focuses on comparative law, democracy, and civic virtues.
The new Talmud curriculum will focus on the following topics: Constitutional law; the relationship to alternative legal systems and legal pluralism; the laws of contracts, property, and tort law; and laws of war and international law. The curriculum brings modern texts on political theory, legal theory, and comparative law into conversation with the traditional text of the Talmud and the medieval commentators. Supervised by academics in both Israel and the United States, this curriculum will bear the stamp of academic and intellectual rigor, as it comes to respond to important needs in high school curricula for Jewish students.
Halakha-observing Jews living in democratic countries such as the United States and Israel often perceive themselves as living in two worlds, a religious one and a secular-democratic one. For an increasing number of citizens, the seeming tension between these two worlds appears to be irreconcilable, with the result that many religious Jews feel that democratic concepts and values conflict with their Jewish religious values. For example, a growing number of religious Jews believe that religious Judaism’s commitment to absolute religious authority cannot co-exist with obedience to civic, democratically elected authority. They also believe that a commitment to absolute truth does not allow one to be tolerant of other ways of life. In Israel, such a rift can lead to (and has already precipitated) violence and lawlessness; in America, many young observant Jews have become alienated from their traditional upbringing, or, at the opposite end of the spectrum, have increasingly isolated themselves from American public life.
In order to facilitate tolerant and understanding dialogue among a diverse citizenry in both countries, and in order to educate Jewish students to respect, appreciate, and promote secular democratic ideals, it is important to think creatively about educational methods for narrowing the perceived gap between the two worlds. Religious education must expose students to ideas from different traditions and include a serious comparison of Jewish law with existing legal systems. Only this kind of education will enable religious Jews in both Israel and America to understand that there are many more commonalities between the two systems than there are conflicts. It will explain how their Jewish religious commitments and their identification with the civic, democratic legal system and polity are not only reconcilable, but can complement and enrich one another. It will also enable our future religious leaders to convincingly present the Jewish perspective to those who are formulating public policy and broaden the influence of Jewish law on contemporary society. Moreover, exposure of American religious students to Israeli law and Israeli religious students to American law will contribute to greater understanding between Israeli and Diaspora Jewry.
Another benefit of introducing a program in comparative law to the religious studies curriculum is that it will make religious studies more interesting. Today, religious students spend as much as 20 hours per week studying Talmud and more and more students find it arcane, boring, and anachronistic. By showing students how the issues raised in the Talmud are relevant to modern- day dilemmas and how talmudic reasoning can serve as the basis for democratic laws and values in their own and other countries, students’ attitude toward the study of Talmud will improve considerably. Discussions will no longer deal only with the past, but rather will show that Jewish religious values and concepts can make important contributions to the modern democratic world.
The new curriculum will be piloted at several Israeli and American high schools in the academic year 2011-12. After it has been refined and perfected for the Jewish high school setting, the curriculum will be significantly adapted for use in the undergraduate classroom, either as an introduction to Jewish law, or as an introduction to Jewish law and interdisciplinary studies.