The Visions of Jewish Education Project is pleased to announce a new essay, “Vision of a Modern Orthodox Jewish Education,” by Rabbi Yaakov Bieler. Rabbi Bieler’s research is part of the ongoing VJEP collaboration with leading scholars and education in North American Modern Orthodox communities. To read more about this project, click here .

Rabbi Bieler’s essay is available here. For readers who would like to learn more about the vision and its author, this page contains brief introductions to some related publications. To download these texts, follow the links below.

About Bieler Yaakov Bieler is a leading voice in the North American Modern Orthodox community through his many publications and years of experience at a wide variety of institutions. He studied at Yeshivat Kerem B’Yavneh and holds a B.A. from Yeshiva College, smicha from RIETS, and an MS in education from Ferkauf Graduate School of Psychology. He is also a graduate of the Mandel Jerusalem Fellows and was a member of the Commission on Jewish Education in North America.

Rabbi Bieler has worked in a number of Jewish educational settings including the Hebrew Academy of Greater Washington, Yeshivat Ramaz and Congregation Kehilat Jeshurun, with organizations such as the ECA and with the publications Sh’ma, Ten Da'at and Babaganewz. He is currently the Rabbi of Kemp Mill Synagogue in Silver Spring, MD.

Integration in Modern Orthodox Judaism and Jewish Education

Bieler’s essay offers a model of Judaism and Jewish education based on the principle of integration. His paper addresses several fundamental assumptions that form the basis for his claims regarding Jewish education. Following the principle of “ongoing, personal involvement with God,” Bieler points to “the sensibility that Judaism is part and parcel of the broadest possible understanding and conceptualization of human civilization and therefore by definition can be harmonized” with other values.

Integration in the religious personality and, following from that, the curriculum, is the subject of many of his publications. Bieler addresses the dual curriculum in “Integration of Judaic and General Studies in the Modern Orthodox Day School,” published in Jewish Education 54:4 (1986).

His essay “Preserving Modern Orthodoxy in our Educational System” (presented at the Edah Conference in 1999 and published as an Edah monograph) challenges day schools to ask whether the possibilities for inculcating integration in Modern Orthodox education are really being realized.

Two articles draw out these ideas further in relation to non-curricular elements of day schools: “Sensitizing Day School Teachers to Issues in Values Education” (Ten Da’at 6:1, 1992) and “Modern Orthodox Jewish Day Schools and Non-Jews” in Formulating Responses in an Egalitarian Age, ed. Marc Stern (Rowman & Littlefield, 2005).

Beyond the school, Bieler also considers the integration model as it is relevant to other expressions and experiences. The example of participation in civic affairs that Bieler mentions in “Vision of a Modern Orthodox Jewish Education” is examined in his article “A Religious Context for Jewish Political Activity,” published in Tikkun Olam, eds. Shatz, Waxman and and Diament (Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson, 1997).

The staff of the VJEP welcome your responses to Rabbi Bieler's paper; please contact us at visions@mli.org.il with your comments and responses.