by Malavika Balachandran
Sex ed. in my high school meant learning about STDs, watching a birthing video, and finally the P.E. coach informing us, “The best way to prevent STDs or an unwanted pregnancy is abstinence.” Yet, in the Jewish Orthodox Ramaz High School in the Upper East Side of Manhattan, sex education takes a more intellectual and progressive form. In a mandatory course titled “Jewish Sexual Ethics,” high school sophomores study a broad range of topics, including abortion, homosexuality, and even swinging (of sexual partners, not the dance form). Students analyze a variety of sources, pulling information from newspapers, scholarly journals, books, and religious texts.
Affectionately nicknamed “Sex with the Rabbi,” the class at first makes many students nervous about the discussion of “taboo topics”, but soon the students become comfortable with the open, honest dialogue on sex. While the course focuses on the Modern Orthodox stance, the it still maintains an open and tolerant attitude to all topics discussed. Rabbi Lookstein, the course’s professor, explains, “I keep saying to the students as we move along in the course, ‘I believe there is a right and a wrong. But you’re going to make a decision.’ So it’s better not to just come down on them with a heavy-handed moral absolutism.”
