Temple discusses ethics in a season of reflection
Questions for Rabbi Matthew Gewirtz
Rabbi Matthew Gewirtz will host a panel discussion on business ethics as part of Selihot services at Temple B’nai Jeshurun in Short Hills.
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September 9, 2009
Business ethics will be the focus of the Selihot program at Temple B’nai Jeshurun in Short Hills on Saturday evening, Sept. 12.
Selihot is the service that ushers in the final week of preparation before Rosh Hashana.
A panel discussion will featuring a roster of members of the Reform synagogue that reads like a “who’s who” of business. It includes Leon Cooperman, director of Automatic Data Processing, Inc. and chairman and chief executive officer of Omega Advisors, Inc.; Charles Dreifus, portfolio manager and principal for Royce & Associates; Fred Fraenkel, vice chairman of Beacon Trust Company; and Jon Winkelried, former president, co-COO, and director of Goldman Sachs Group.
Allan Chernoff, CNN senior correspondent and a member of Congregation Beth El in South Orange, will serve as moderator.
Services will begin at 7:30 p.m., followed by the discussion. The program is free and open to the public.
In advance of the conversation, NJJN spoke with B’nai Jeshurun’s Rabbi Matthew Gewirtz about the event’s goals.
NJJN: Does this community need a frank discussion of business ethics in light of the Bernard Madoff and Deal rabbis scandals this year?
Gewirtz: A major issue has been the economic distress in our country, and there have been all kinds of allegations from one sector of society to another about blame and fault. So why not ask the questions about money and about how it is we navigate these difficult times in an ethical manner? Let’s talk about greed and let’s talk about Main Street, and Wall Street, and hiring and firing, and Bernie Madoff — because he’s a Jew we have to ask the question whether what he did is worse because he’s a Jew, and how it affects the psyche of the Jewish community and the philanthropic organizations that came down along with him.
NJJN: Why now? Why focus on these financial issues and ethical scandals now, and why here, in the synagogue?
Gewirtz: This year the underpinnings of our society have been shaken, questioned, challenged; our common sense wisdom has been shaken to the core. And these events with the rabbis who would sell body parts or take cash in cereal boxes — it’s surreal. You can make 100 excuses for funneling money. But once you cross the line, it’s hard to come back. There are things in ethics that are not gray. Moral relativity is a dangerous game to play. It’s important to talk about what defines us and this is a good time for reassessment.
Synagogues have to be a place to air concerns and talk about what’s right and wrong. Rabbis should stand up and talk, lay people should stand up and talk, and lay leaders must stand up and talk about it. I think synagogues should be a model of safe places to understand issues and to disagree about them.
NJJN: Why take up the issue of business ethics as part of a Selihot program?
Gewirtz: Selihot is a season of reflection, a time to remember who we are and how to achieve the highest sense of ourselves. Why not open the season asking one tough communal ethical question as part of our reflection on the High Holy Days?
NJJN: What do you hope congregants will take from the discussion?
Gewirtz: In general, a sense of what the season is — a season of reflection, of finding balance, of reconciliation, a season of renewal. Specifically, I want them to hear experts in finance talk about things we don’t talk about in public: how their ethics and how their sense of being Jewish informs how they operate in this world, how they continue to stay centered in ethics, and how that can lead us all to calmer waters.
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