This excerpt from a lecture by Mortimer Adler to Catholic educators speaks just as powerfully to Jewish educators. If we truly took his words to heart, Jewish education would be in a far better place.
I think maybe there was another phrase I changed, like from "Catholic institutions" to "Jewish institutions" and "seminary graduates" to "graduates of yeshivot" or something like that. Nothing that would affect the substance of his points.
Either I don't understand the question or I don't understand the objection. Is a teacher not allowed to take teaching advice from one area and apply it to another? Can I not read the memoir of a successful coach, or conductor, or guru and apply it to my own field? I understand that it would be wrong to take credit for someone else's work or to misrepresent it by making changes without notifying the target audience, but I was 100% open about who wrote the piece and what changes I made.
I don’t think the substance is changed but a directive to Jewish educators has to have a source in the Torah, not in Catholic tradition, unless It already was, and then was appropriated to Catholicism.
Anyone can make a good point, but it’s not necessarily correct to guide all others in a way that may not be right for them.
Being transparent about changing the language of the author is good, but it’s still appropriation in my opinion, at least.
Ah, so that's where we differ. I don't care about "appropriation." I think that's a modern "sin" which, to my mind, is irrational, impedes progress, and is inconsistently applied even by those who claim to care.
I subscribe to the view most eloquently stated by the Rambam in his preface to the Shemoneh Perakim: שמע האמת ממי שאמרו ("Heed the truth from whoever said it"). Or what he writes in Hilchos Kiddush ha'Chodesh 17:25, after going through all the complex mathematics and astronomy:
"As regards the logic for all these calculations – why we have to add a particular figure or deduct it, how all these rules originated, and how they were discovered and proved – all this is part of the science of astronomy and mathematics, about which many books have been composed by Greek sages – books that are still available to the scholars of our time. But the books which had been composed by the sages of Israel, of the tribe of Issachar, who lived in the time of the prophets, have not come down to us. But since all these rules have been established by sound and clear proofs, free from any flaw and irrefutable, we don’t care about the identity of their authors, whether they were Hebrew prophets or Gentile sages. For regarding any matter whose rationale is evident and whose truth has been verified by sound proofs: we do not rely on the man who said it or taught it, but on the proof that has been demonstrated and the reasoning that we know."
The ONLY reason I'd care about Adler's advice having its source in the Catholic tradition would be if that advice were somehow "tainted" by Catholic premises which are at odds with Judaism. To my knowledge, that's not the case here.
And another thing: I'm frequently sickened by the extent to which Jewish Day School education in America (I can't speak to Israel) has "appropriated" beliefs and practices from American schooling which neglect or are at odds with Jewish teachings and traditions about education. For example, we never had grades, tests, age-segregated groups, class periods in which students are forced to stop learning, no matter how interested they are. I could go on. But what is sinful about this sad reality is not the fact that these practices are appropriated, but the fact that they're detrimental.
Hmm ok if that’s true, then why change the wording at all?
Does the Rambam prove his points to a degree of self-evident truths or still rely on Jewish sources?
Structural adaptations whether beneficial or contrary are not the same as appropriation.
Cultural appropriation would be changing the sensitive memory of something … similar to what the author of The Water Dancer did when he went ahead and took the oppression of African Americans in The United States and applied it to Israel and the plight of the Arabs turning it into The Message. Cultural
Appropriation isn’t just a fad, it’s a twisting of identity and experience in an attempt to equate all without true understanding.
Wait so you substituted “the Jewish Educator” for the Catholic Educator for the sake of your audience? Or did you change something else?!
I think maybe there was another phrase I changed, like from "Catholic institutions" to "Jewish institutions" and "seminary graduates" to "graduates of yeshivot" or something like that. Nothing that would affect the substance of his points.
Isn’t that appropriation?
Either I don't understand the question or I don't understand the objection. Is a teacher not allowed to take teaching advice from one area and apply it to another? Can I not read the memoir of a successful coach, or conductor, or guru and apply it to my own field? I understand that it would be wrong to take credit for someone else's work or to misrepresent it by making changes without notifying the target audience, but I was 100% open about who wrote the piece and what changes I made.
I don’t think the substance is changed but a directive to Jewish educators has to have a source in the Torah, not in Catholic tradition, unless It already was, and then was appropriated to Catholicism.
Anyone can make a good point, but it’s not necessarily correct to guide all others in a way that may not be right for them.
Being transparent about changing the language of the author is good, but it’s still appropriation in my opinion, at least.
Ah, so that's where we differ. I don't care about "appropriation." I think that's a modern "sin" which, to my mind, is irrational, impedes progress, and is inconsistently applied even by those who claim to care.
I subscribe to the view most eloquently stated by the Rambam in his preface to the Shemoneh Perakim: שמע האמת ממי שאמרו ("Heed the truth from whoever said it"). Or what he writes in Hilchos Kiddush ha'Chodesh 17:25, after going through all the complex mathematics and astronomy:
"As regards the logic for all these calculations – why we have to add a particular figure or deduct it, how all these rules originated, and how they were discovered and proved – all this is part of the science of astronomy and mathematics, about which many books have been composed by Greek sages – books that are still available to the scholars of our time. But the books which had been composed by the sages of Israel, of the tribe of Issachar, who lived in the time of the prophets, have not come down to us. But since all these rules have been established by sound and clear proofs, free from any flaw and irrefutable, we don’t care about the identity of their authors, whether they were Hebrew prophets or Gentile sages. For regarding any matter whose rationale is evident and whose truth has been verified by sound proofs: we do not rely on the man who said it or taught it, but on the proof that has been demonstrated and the reasoning that we know."
The ONLY reason I'd care about Adler's advice having its source in the Catholic tradition would be if that advice were somehow "tainted" by Catholic premises which are at odds with Judaism. To my knowledge, that's not the case here.
And another thing: I'm frequently sickened by the extent to which Jewish Day School education in America (I can't speak to Israel) has "appropriated" beliefs and practices from American schooling which neglect or are at odds with Jewish teachings and traditions about education. For example, we never had grades, tests, age-segregated groups, class periods in which students are forced to stop learning, no matter how interested they are. I could go on. But what is sinful about this sad reality is not the fact that these practices are appropriated, but the fact that they're detrimental.
Hmm ok if that’s true, then why change the wording at all?
Does the Rambam prove his points to a degree of self-evident truths or still rely on Jewish sources?
Structural adaptations whether beneficial or contrary are not the same as appropriation.
Cultural appropriation would be changing the sensitive memory of something … similar to what the author of The Water Dancer did when he went ahead and took the oppression of African Americans in The United States and applied it to Israel and the plight of the Arabs turning it into The Message. Cultural
Appropriation isn’t just a fad, it’s a twisting of identity and experience in an attempt to equate all without true understanding.