How a Tormented Family Leads Us to Moral Development: University Seminar on Innovation in Education, with Rabbi Burton Visotzky, Monday 11/9, 7-9pm

Rabbi Burton Visotzky challenges us to critically scrutinize our own moral orientations, using contemporary social theorists to radically re-interpret the lives of Abraham, Sarah, and Isaac. He provokes both traditionalists who read the text as an inspirational story without plumbing its troubling complexities, and progressives who reject it as obsolete and irrelevant. He makes particular use of Lawrence Kohlberg's theory of moral development.

His presentation is based on his book The Genesis of Ethics: How the Tormented Family of Genesis Leads Us to Moral Development (Three Rivers, 1997).

Burton L. Visotzky is the Nathan and Janet Appleman Professor of Midrash and Interreligious Studies at the Jewish Theological Seminary. Along with many significant leadership positions at JTS, Prof. Visotzky has been a visiting scholar at Oxford University, a life member of Clare Hall, University of Cambridge, and a visiting faculty member at Union Theological Seminary, Princeton University, and the Russian State University of the Humanities in Moscow. Rabbi Visotzky also served as the Master Visiting Professor of Jewish Studies at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, in Spring, 2007.

With Bill Moyers, Visotzky developed ten hours of television for PBS on the book of Genesis, serving as consultant and a featured on-screen participant. The series, "Genesis: A Living Conversation," premiered in October, 1996. He was also a consultant to Jeffrey Katzenberg and DreamWorks for their 1998 film, "Prince of Egypt."

Professor Visotzky's articles and reviews have been published in America, Europe, and Israel. He is the author of nine books, approximately one hundred articles and reviews, and a novel, A Delightful Compendium of Consolation, which is set in eleventh-century North Africa.

Visotzky holds board and advisory positions on many organizations, including Fordham Law School's Stein Center for Law and Ethics, the New Israel Fund,, the American Jewish World Service, and J-Street, and he was a national vice-chair for Rabbis for Obama.

Rabbi Visotzky is engaged in Jewish-Christian-Muslim dialogue internationally, in capitals such as Washington; Warsaw; Rome; Cairo; Doha, Qatar (where he was in the first group of Jews invited to interfaith dialogue by the Emir); and Madrid, Spain (where he was in the first group of Jews invited by King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia).

This seminar, co-sponsored by Gottesman Libraries and Columbia University’s Seminar on Ethics, Moral Education, and Society, is the second meeting of the 2009-2010 season of the University Seminar on Innovation in Education which is co-chaired by Ronald Gross who also conducts the Socratic Conversations at the Gottesman Libraries; and Robert McClintock, John L. and Sue Ann Weinberg Professor in the Historical and Philosophical Foundations of Education at Teachers College. Founded in 1970, the Seminar explores the process of learning in individuals, organizations, and society – throughout the lifespan and via major institutions.

The next University Seminar will be held on December 7. Topic: TBA.

Where: 305 Russell