Said to Myself

When it comes to parenting, ” We plan and God Laughs”. We have planned and tried to raise our children to live as Modern Orthodox Jews, but who really knows what will happen? We can just do our best to model, educate, and curate experiences for them.

Near the end of his Senior High School Yadid came to me and said, “Aba, I do not think I am an Orthodox Jew” I responded, “But you have been excited all year about returning to Camp Stone this summer. How is that anything other than a Modern Orthodox camp?” He replied, ” Well I am going to camp, if you want to send me articles to read this summer- we can talk about it throughout the summer.”

Wow, what a great request? It was a great process to explore what were the shortest and most critical article and resources. I vividly remember when I was not much older than Yadid reading Rabbi Aharon Lichtenstein‘s article Does Jewish Tradition Recognize an Ethic Independent of Halakha? This piece was critical to my own identity formation. Reading this I was able to imagine a philosophical underpinning for the existential significance of Halacha without rejecting other world views or falsely claim Jewish supremacy. So, what would I put on the reading list?

In the process of answering Yadid question I asked a bunch of people. I got a torrent of content, but mostly books, and not articles. I will share the fruit of that labor at another time. I drafted to a curriculum of critical readings on Modern Orthodoxy. I even have done some editing since I sent a hard copy of it off to camp with Yadid. While our talking about the articles has not worked out so well- his phone broke twice this summer- the process of putting it together it self was compelling. Regardless I wanted to share with list of articles that one might find formative to Modern Orthodox identity and practice. I would love your thoughts, feedback, and input on this list. What did we miss? What other questions would you want to ask? I will update the resource over time.

• Here is the link