December 9, 2016

9 Kislev, 5777

Dear Friends,

As you may know, for the last few weeks, I've been teaching a Tuesday evening course in Jewish ethics, entitled, "The Ethical Life:  Jewish Values in an Age of Choice."  I invite you to consider joining the class, even if you haven't attended the previous sessions.

We began this course by asking the question: Why study " Jewish " ethics? Why not just "ethics"?  We reviewed various sources of Jewish ethical principles, such as law, narrative, and personal experiences.  We then took a look at the ethics of food production (including the ethics of eating meat in an era of increased concern for its impact on our health and on the planet) and the ethics of fracking. If you would like to listen to the sound file of this past week's class on fracking, click here .

This coming Tuesday (December 13), we will be exploring some of the Jewish ethical issues raised by what is often called " Mass Incarceration " in our country.  

Indeed, it is massive. The numbers are staggering:  1 in 100 adults (or more than 2.3 million adults) are currently imprisoned.  This is five times the per capita rate of imprisonment during the years 1925 to 1970.  One quarter of all incarcerated individuals in the world are in U.S. prisons.  I could go on, but you get the point.

The fundamental questions are: Why do we incarcerate? What are our goals? Are we achieving them? At what cost?  Could we achieve our goals more efficiently, more humanely, ... more ethically? At what cost?

Obviously, there's a lot to talk about.  

We will be studying several pertinent Jewish texts, and we'll also be responding to a video presentation by Rabbi Jill Jacobs, Executive Director of T'ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights, who has written and spoken out against mass incarceration in our society.  

All of our course materials are available on-line to anyone who registers for the course.  For details, please contact Marie in our office.

Fortuitously, just this week an article was published in the New Yorker magazine on a group of former prison inmates who are studying at the University of California.  Does this alter your gut instincts on this issue -- or confirm them? Also, just yesterday on WBUR, David Boeri reported on a group of inmates at the Norfolk Correctional Institution who revived a famous debate society and managed to hold their own against a group from Boston College.  Well worth listening to!

Feel free to join us on Tuesday evening after minyan for what I hope will be a stimulating discussion of a complicated contemporary issue -- and on subsequent weeks for other such discussions.  

Thank you and Shabbat shalom,

Rabbi Carl M. Perkins