6 Out of 10 Isn’t Bad

How I taught a class of teenagers a lesson in ethics without them even noticing

First-year teachers can’t be picky. That’s how my wife and I ended up in Budapest, Hungary. It was 1993, only four years after the iron curtain had come down. Freedom returned to Eastern Europe, and we had been hired to teach the fundamentals of Judaism to Jewish teenagers who had been denied all knowledge of their heritage.

Predictably, we came away with a collection of amusing, disturbing, and bewildering experiences. In a year characterized by culture shock, inspiring successes, and soul-wrenching failures, one 40-minute period stands out in sharp relief among the rest.

It wasn’t even my own class. I was substituting for my wife, covering a class she had been lamenting since Day One: a dozen tenth grade girls, each of them not merely indifferent but openly hostile to Judaism, to education, and to life in general. If that weren’t enough, most of them spoke little or no English.

I entered the classroom to a chorus of scowls. On the far left side of the room was Dora. Having spent the previous year in America, she was official translator for the rest of the girls. Her boyfriend, she said, was studying to be a rabbi. Based on those credentials, Dora knew everything.

On the other side of the room as Andrea: sassy, arrogant, and flirtatious, she exuded attitude by the bucket. With her lip curled, she dared me to try to teach her anything. Next to her sat Petra, perhaps the most pleasant of the bunch, but whose weak smile and wandering eyes indicated a profound lack of engagement.

I took one look at the semi-circle of lost souls and tried to gauge my chances of getting anything across to them. I wouldn’t have bet on myself, even with long odds. My wife had briefed me in advance, however, and I had already mapped out my plan of attack. Without a word of introduction, I turned to the board, picked up a piece of chalk, and wrote:

It’s okay to steal as long as you don’t hurt anyone.

It took nearly five minutes before I was confident every student understood what I had written. Having finally broken through the language barrier, I then posed my question:

Do you agree or disagree with this statement?

I wasn’t sure what to expect. A class full of secular American teenagers might object from a nebulous, poorly-defined sense of right and wrong. However, considering that the most foundational moral axioms had been eroded by seven decades of Soviet-style corruption, it was quite possible that these girls wouldn’t object at all. If that happened, I could always raise the ante to premeditated murder.

Attorney for the prosecution

But the girls immediately objected. Surprisingly, it was Andrea who took the lead. “No,” she said, with deep conviction. “It’s wrong.”

“Why is it wrong?” I asked.

Her answer startled and delighted me: “It’s in the Ten Commandments.”

“Oh!” I said, my eyes widening. “You believe in the Ten Commandments?”

“Of course,” she said, without flinching.

“All of them?” I asked.

“Yes!” she replied, just as quickly. Then, after a moment’s pause, “No. Not all of them.”

“Well, which ones do you believe in?”

As it turned out, the class could only identify two of the ten. So again I picked up the chalk and wrote all ten on the board. “Okay,” I said to the girls who, despite themselves, were leaning forward with interest. “Which ones do you agree with?”

After some debate and negotiation, the class reached a consensus on six of the Ten Commandments: they agreed with the prohibitions against murder, stealing, idolatry, adultery, and swearing falsely, as well as the obligation to honor one’s mother and father. I wrote a large check mark to the left of each of their choices.

“On these six you all agree?” I asked. They nodded their consent. “You’re committed to following these?” I asked again. Again, they nodded. “And the others?” As one, they shook their heads with equal certitude.

“That’s fine,” I replied. Then I spun around, snatched up the chalk and, without rhyme or reason, ticked off another set of check marks on the right side of a different set of six. Turning back to the girls I declared, “These are the six Commandments I’m willing to follow.”

Isn’t turnabout fair play?

I might as well have set off a bomb. Nearly every girl in the room began shouting as if I had committed the worst from or heresy.

I lowered my voice to a whisper, forcing them to quiet down so they could hear me. “Why are you so upset?” I asked, innocently. “You picked six you agree to follow. Why can’t I pick six that I agree to follow?”

Again, it was Andrea who protested: “But you’re a rabbi!”

“I don’t understand,” I replied. “Only rabbis have to keep the Ten Commandments?”

She looked momentarily nonplussed, then recovered her confidence: “Yes!”

“Why?”

This time confusion lingered on her face before she changed tack. “But look at which ones you left off your list. What about Sabbath? What about murder?” She had become quite emotional, and her agitation began to infect the rest of the class.

“You got to pick your six,” I said with a smile. “So I get to pick my six.”

We volleyed back and forth. The girls argued that they had the right to pick which commandments they followed while implying that, by doing the same thing, I was betraying everything sacred. The more I calmly insisted that they justify their double standard, the more personally they seemed to take my cheerful inflexibility in the face of their consternation.

“So what’s the answer?” Dora finally demanded.

“What’s the question?” I replied politely. She looked daggers at me, while Petra literally clawed the desktop with her fingernails.

I finally relented. “Listen. You’re free to make up your own rules. But if you do, you have no right to argue with anyone who makes up different rules.”

The bell rang, and I headed for the door. “Thank you, ladies. It’s been a pleasure teaching you.”

“But wait!” cried Dora. You didn’t teach us anything.”

I gave the class a parting smile. Of course, I had taught them something. I had given them their first lesson in moral relativism. Was it too much to hope that any of them might one day appreciate what it was I had taught them?

From The Spiral of Time: Discovering New Insights and Inspiration in the Jewish Calendar, published by Mosaica Press.