Mark Gottlieb on Jewish Sexual Ethics
The Tikvah Podcast
Tikvah
4.6 • 620 Ratings
🗓️ 26 February 2020
⏱️ 37 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In the year 2020, we live in the shadow of the sexual revolution. The radical changes in sexual mores and family life that American society experienced in the 1960s and 1970s still reverberate today, having made their impact on everything from popular culture and public education to religious life and the most divisive political controversies.
What caused this massive social revolution? How should Jews think about what it has meant for our own way of life? And what vision of sex, romance, and family can Judaism offer the world?
These are the questions Rabbi Dr. Eliezer Berkovits takes up in “A Jewish Sexual Ethics,” first published in 1976 and republished in 2002 as part of the anthology Essential Essays on Judaism. In this episode, Jonathan Silver is joined by Tikvah Fund Senior Director Rabbi Mark Gottlieb for a discussion of this seminal essay. They examine Berkovits’s life and thought, his understanding of the causes of modern confusion about sexuality, and his distinct vision of Jewish sexual ethics.
Musical selections in this podcast are drawn from the Quintet for Clarinet and Strings, op. 31a, composed by Paul Ben-Haim and performed by the ARC Ensemble as well as “Ulterior” by Swan Production.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | We live in the shadow of the sexual revolution. |
| 0:10.5 | The radical changes in sexual manners and mores and the consequent ramifications for family |
| 0:16.6 | life that American society experienced in the 1960s and 1970s have made a lasting impact on us, |
| 0:23.5 | on the way we live, on our popular culture, and our public education, on our religious lives, |
| 0:29.9 | and questions about sexual probity and sexual practice still reside at the very center of our |
| 0:35.5 | most divisive political controversies. |
| 0:38.6 | Welcome to the Tikva podcast. I'm your host, Jonathan Silver. Today we'll discuss how Jews should |
| 0:43.8 | think about sexual ethics, and from the perspective of our religious tradition, what the dramatic |
| 0:49.0 | cultural changes of the 20th century have meant for our way of life. Now, in the aftermath of those dramatic changes, we'll try to think also about an alternative |
| 0:59.0 | vision of sex, romance, and the family that Judaism can offer the world. |
| 1:04.6 | The text that guides today's conversation was first published in the heyday of the sexual |
| 1:08.5 | revolution in 1976. The essay, A Jewish Sexual |
| 1:12.9 | Ethics, was written by Rabbi Dr. Eliezer Berkovitz, and today's guest, to help us understand |
| 1:18.2 | Berkovits himself and the core arguments of the essay, is my very dear friend and colleague |
| 1:23.4 | at the Tikva Fund, Rabbi Mark Gottlieb. If you enjoy this conversation, you can subscribe to the Tikva podcast on iTunes, |
| 1:31.1 | Stitcher, Google Play, and Spotify. |
| 1:33.0 | I hope you leave us a five-star review to help us grow this community of ideas. |
| 1:37.6 | I welcome your feedback on this or any of our other podcast episodes at podcast at |
| 1:42.7 | tikfafund.org. |
| 1:46.0 | And of course, if you want to learn more about our work at Tikva, you can visit our website, tikfafunds.org, and follow us on Facebook and Twitter. |
| 1:52.4 | Here now is my conversation with Rabbi Mark Gottlieb. |
| 1:57.2 | Rabbi Gottlieb, welcome back to the Tikva podcast. Thanks so much, John. It's great to be back with you. |
... |
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