Religion 161 - The Jewish Ethical Life

This course explores what Judaism has to say about living a good life. Judaism’s teachings on responsibility, obligation, and the development of character have both particular and universal elements. They speak to Jews in their particular identity as participants in a covenant between God and the Jewish people, as well as in their universal identity as human beings (for this reason, Jewish ethical teachings have garnered interest beyond a Jewish audience). They also address ethical attention in particular and universal ways, toward the Jewish people and toward the world as a whole. This course considers the values and tensions present in the dynamic of the particular and the universal in Jewish ethics, particularly in modern religious and philosophical thought. Topics covered include: Jewish chosenness, engagements with Enlightenment notions of universal and rational morality, law and the relationship between Jewish law and ethics, the Mussar movement and the perfection of character, ethics of relationality, feminist theology, environmental ethics, and civic responsibility. Throughout, the course will additionally situate Jewish conceptions of the good life among traditional categories in philosophical moral theory like deontology and virtue ethics.

Spring semester. Prof. Greenberg.

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Students who enroll in this course will likely encounter and be expected to engage in the following intellectual skills, modes of learning, and assessment: emphasis on close reading and analysis, classroom discussion and presentations, and formal paper writing.