What I learned from a High School program at the RCA Convention

My primary reasons for attending this year's RCA Convention were that I was asked to present a session, and that I wanted to re-connect with friends. This morning, though, I gained a lesson I find significantly more valuable.

I attended a session this morning in which high school seniors from the New York area (some from Jewish schools, some not) answered questions about what it’s like to be a person and a Jew in high school today. They talked about drugs and alcohol and sexual activity, as well as relationships with their rabbis, with their parents, and with Judaism.

Most of what was said was not particularly novel [although I did learn that – contrary to what I had thought – Facebook and Twitter have not yet fallen out of fashion]. The yitzrim are the same, and the prevalence of teen involvement in those yitzrim remains high. No novelties there, no Generation Gap there.

But I did learn something that was new to me: I found the current Generation Gap. The difference between today’s eighteen year old and the eighteen year old of even ten years ago is Control. Access. Power. And it all comes down to Communication.

The same Communication Revolution that has empowered remote populations, economically disadvantaged populations and government-repressed populations has also empowered teenagers.

The result: Today's high schooler has far more independent power than we did as high schoolers, and they know it.

Ten years ago, and certainly twenty years ago when I was in high school, we had no cell phones, no personal email, no ability to text. The result was that nearly all communication took place within a zone that our parents could monitor.

Friends called the home phone to talk, and our parents answered; the only way to communicate in private was by mail, and who was going to write a letter? Sure, we could talk in school, but with teachers present and the fear of supervision, we were very limited.

Today, teens can text each other, send pictures to each other, call each other on cell phones, hold a video chat, and all directly; it’s easy to talk and make plans and arrange whatever they choose.

I never really thought about the impact of all of that that independent communication before, but it’s so clear to me now.

Separately, I learned something else: As part of the program, the students discussed the role of a Rabbi. One person present commented that Rabbis are more benign than parents, because the Rabbi (assuming confidentiality) is not able to punish them. He can only help.

The conversation really made me miss the shul rabbinate. I was never the best at getting close to high schoolers, in no small part because of the reflex reaction of “I’m not cool enough” triggered by being near adolescents. But it was always something I wanted to do better, and I miss not having done more. I can do it somewhat in my current position, but one day, one day…

Kosher Food Producers: Legal Standards or Ethical Standards?

I am a member of the RCA committee that generated ethical guidelines for Kosher Food Certification last year. A major component of our document required that kosher certification agencies verify that food producers have a clear plan for ensuring adherence to the law.

Professor Moses Pava criticized the guidelines in The Forward before Pesach, arguing that we should have demanded that all kosher food producers implement sophisticated ethical codes rather than simply comply with the law.

Pava has a point, one we debated as long as we could before we had to come to a conclusion, but his recommendation is an abstract, ivory tower position, ignoring the realities of both the demands of the law and the nature of the average kosher food producer.

Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir, committee chair, has now published an Op-Ed in this week's Forward explaining the problem. You can read the whole article at The Forward site, but here is a key excerpt addressing Pava's criticism [boldface mine]:

Our task force extensively debated what level of conduct to demand of producers. Ultimately, we decided on lawful conduct for two main reasons.

The objective of our initiative throughout was to insist on adequate standards, not to promote law enforcement per se. Yet as we examined the specific standards we considered vital — truth in labeling, worker safety, animal welfare, etc. — we repeatedly determined that in advanced countries with extensive legislation and regulation in areas of concern to us, existing legal requirements set an adequate bar for ethical conduct. We often raised the question of how to proceed in less developed countries that impose much less demanding standards, but decided that release of the guidelines should not be held up pending resolution of this knotty question.

The second reason for the law-abiding conduct standard was transparency. The most important aspect of the RCA initiative is not the specific demands it contains but rather its creation of a practical mechanism for aligning expectations among kosher consumers, supervisors and producers — expectations that had been grossly transgressed in the scandals referred to by Pava. Aligning expectations requires, above all, requirements that are clear and well understood. By far the most transparent, consistent and well-publicized standard is the law. Our guidelines demand adequate internal mechanisms to enforce legal requirements and emphasize that kosher supervision considers compliance a prerequisite for certification.

Pava’s main proposal is to require all kosher food producers to develop codes of ethics that go beyond the requirements of the law. This proposal has many disadvantages. While ethics codes and programs can be a useful tool for improving ethical standards, they are also subject to many limitations. My position on ethics programs, based on current research and my own experience in the field, is as follows: In order to be successful, ethics programs demand careful design to suit an organization’s unique character, a detailed implementation mechanism and a sustained commitment from employees at all levels. Consequently, implementing a meaningful code of ethics is not practical for most small organizations.

Pava states: “Almost all major American and international corporations now have such statements.” But the RCA guidelines reflect our awareness that much of the kashrut industry consists of small firms and family businesses, not major corporations. By contrast, the requirements of the law are equally appropriate and applicable to both tiny local kosher pizza stores and huge multinational corporations.

An ineffective ethics program is worse than none, because it reinforces norms of cynicism and hypocrisy.

Modesty, Responsibility and Tzedakah

I was the Resolutions Chair for last week's RCA Convention.

I am not ordinarily a fan of resolutions; as I told the person who solicited me for the job, I am not sure that resolutions actually accomplish anything. But I was blessed with a good committee, and we produced documents which I feel convey a Torah outlook on topical issues. The documents aren't particularly controversial, mostly expressing common sense, but that's fine with me; I don't feel any particular responsibility to generate controversy.

I am proud of the fact that the documents are not simply We believe X or The community must do X. Rather, they are expressions of a thought-out philosophy, which leads to specific practical conclusions.

One of our resolutions called for people to spend modestly, to spend responsibly and to give responsibly. Here's the text (you can also find it on-line at the RCA website, along with the rest of the resolutions); I am grateful to Sephardi Lady of Orthonomics for some of the ideas herein:


Even in ripest times, the Jew is commanded by Torah and tradition to "Walk modestly with G-d," eschewing ostentation. The Jewish citizen is further required to measure the arc of his financial steps with responsible care. Tzedakah, too, is a fundamental Jewish imperative, conveyed in both lore and law; our righteous ancestors defined their well-being not by the number of possessions they acquired, but by the number of mouths they fed.

Today, in the midst of an international economic crisis, our tradition demands that we re-commit ourselves to these values of modesty, responsibility and tzedakah. Modesty, because the Talmud teaches that we may not enjoy luxury when others suffer, let alone when we, ourselves, are suffering. Responsibility, because the bite of personal debt inflicts pain upon the entire community. Tzedakah, because since the days of Devarim we have been instructed to employ our wealth as a weapon against the poverty of others.

Were the financial crisis to end tomorrow, our community would, nonetheless, be required to live modest, responsible and generous lives; we can do no different when surrounded by unemployment and economic despair.

Therefore, the Rabbinical Council of America resolves that we must turn to Modesty and Tzedakah, as a community, in part through the following practical measures:

We call upon our communal institutions to join forces, pooling purchasing power as well as resources, and avoiding duplicate efforts;

We call upon our yeshivot and summer camps to eliminate expenses wherever possible, to enable more families to afford tuition;

We call upon our simcha vendors, including caterers, florists and photographers, to offer low-cost, modest options for weddings and other celebrations. At the other end of olam hazeh, we call upon funeral homes and cemeteries to likewise offer low-cost, modest options for their services;

We call upon our rabbonim and poskim to continue to be sensitive to the current financial she'at hadechak in legislating for our communities, as well as to look out for the welfare of the neediest among us;

We call upon every Jew to opt for modest choices and lower costs, to guard against deficit spending, and to direct some of the consequent savings toward assistance for others.

And we ask those who can afford more to purchase less, in pursuit of modesty and responsibility and in recognition of the social pressure that their luxury brings to bear upon others.

May Zion soon be redeemed with justice, and may her children return to her with righteousness.