Light & Truth Conversations: Rabbi Mark Gottlieb, What is education really for?

In this episode of Light & Truth, Jonathan J. Sanford sits down with Rabbi Mark Gottlieb to explore one of the most urgent questions in education today:

Is education about job preparation—or the formation of the whole human person?

Drawing on the thought of Dietrich von Hildebrand and the shared intellectual traditions of Judaism and Christianity, this conversation examines:

• Why classical education is a living tradition—not a relic of the past
• The role of truth, goodness, and beauty in forming character
• How habit, discipline, and intentional living shape virtue
• Why specialization alone cannot form leaders
• The shared mission of Jews and Christians in renewing Western civilization

At a time when education is increasingly reduced to utility and speed, this discussion offers a compelling vision: education as formation—rooted in tradition, oriented toward purpose, and capable of renewing culture.

About Light & Truth
Light & Truth is a podcast series from the University of Dallas, featuring conversations on the renewal of culture, faith, and the enduring value of the liberal arts in the modern world.

Learn more about the University of Dallas:
https://udallas.edu

Explore the Classical Education Program:
https://udallas.edu

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:03

Rabbi Mark, thank you for taking some time to sit down with me. Thank you for being our McDermott lecturer. It's wonderful to have you at the University of Dallas. Total honor, President. President JJ. Yeah. This reveals that we know each other quite well. And it's a it's a friendship that continues to build and grow. And we we labor together for the Dietrich von Hildebrand Legacy Project. I'm currently the chair, you're the vice chair. Before I say a few things about your extensive work in education, maybe let's start with Hildebrand. What attracted you to Dietrich von Hildebrand, this and in some ways, um, not known as well as he should be, but major philosopher and social commentator? So much so that you've been on the on the Board of Trustees for at least half a decade.

SPEAKER_00 0:59

Well, that's a great opening question because it gets to the core of a lot of different concerns of mine and my own trajectory as a Jew. I was introduced to von Hildebrandt as a high school student by a rabbi and a mentor of mine who you might expect to be attracted to von Hildebrandt because of his anti-Nazi writings and his great defense of the human person. And ironically, it was it was his anti-Vatican II writings on liturgy and uh liturgy and personality, um the New Tower of Babel, pieces that looked at beyond the core personalist issues. I think um the essay that I remember most vividly from my early readings of on Hilderband was Beauty in the Light of the Redemption, which is a a great little piece on what value does beauty have in a world that's already been graced by the sacrifice and atonement of Christ and what does beauty do? What's its function in in a new world like that? Yeah. And I had always been interested in questions of aesthetics and beauty from a Jewish point of view. What value should be possess in in a worldview that puts a lot of emphasis on ethics and morality? Are there tensions between beauty and morality? And of course there are at times. So that's how I first got um connected to or really just exposed to von Hilderbrand. But then later in life, in my late 30s, early 40s, I I met John Henry Crosby and Professor John Crosby, and I became involved with the living disciples and the living tradition of von Hilderbrand, and that's of course how we met. Right. Right. Uh so it it deepened that latter exposure deepened my understanding of von Hilderbrandt, fixing especially now on the personalism and such a valuable tradition of ethical and and metaphysical understanding of the human person. Especially relevant for today. We've discussed this, JJ, that without a sense of the dignity of the human person, people can be reduced to political interests, to enemies and that have no value, that have no dignity. These are dangerous things, especially in a world that is easily moved to and easily swayed by radicalism of both stripes of the right and the left. Aaron Ross Powell Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:50

Yeah. Agreed. You know, um I I should do a better job introducing you to people who are who are tuning in. And you have been with the Tikfa fund for uh a number of years. You were the chief education officer running programs in the summers and then through the full academic year, deeply involved in the education of um those who will preserve their Jewish heritage, their Jewish devotions, and um need to exercise uh the kind of formation of mind and character that that our culture so desperately needs. But you've been the head of several schools. You're currently now the head of the Adelson School in the Las Vegas area and um working to bring that um into a uh a fully Jewish and classical model. And of course, we've been partnering um institutionally um with the TICFA Fund for a Jewish concentration within our Masters of Classical Education. We've got the standard masters of classical education, but we've carved out this particular emphasis. And I know you've been involved in various ways with launching um uh classical schools that are uh fundamentally Jewish in their in their basis, which is a um um a delight, a much needed partnership um between Catholics who are doing a similar thing within the classical education movement. And and in fact, you're gonna be addressing the goal of this effort in your remarks at the McDermott lecture this evening. Um so what what is the problem that um you and and and your fellows are striving to address within the sphere of education? And and what what why classical education? This is not the typical approach within the Jewish tradition.

SPEAKER_00 5:51

Well, I think the Jewish tradition of education has deep affinities with the main principles of classical education. And and in one particular way, it's the notion that education is really a form of acculturation or formation, that it's not creating beings out of nothing, de novo, uh, but drawing on our traditions, our cultural traditions, our religious traditions, and forming young people in in a community, in a living, breathing. You know, Chesterton once said that tradition is the democracy of the dead. Yeah. And the modern world loves democracy, at least it pays lip service to democracy, but it doesn't understand this democracy of the dead terribly well. No. And it wants to start from the here and now as as if it was shorn off from everything that preceded it. And that, of course, is is poor thinking. I think that's poor thinking religiously, of course. So much of our respective traditions look to the past for models, for exemplars, for creeds and deeds and commandments to form our way forward. But it's also true culturally and intellectually that we we're standing on on the shoulders of giants. And if we don't develop young men and women who can see tradition as something vital, as something healthy and natural, to be to be deepened and moved forward by their own work, but drawing always on the vitality of the past, uh, if we don't do that, then we're never gonna produce a culture or a civilization that's that's worth defending. Um in in Hebrew, the word education is rhinukh, which really means a form of consent consecration or of devotion. It means that we consecrate what it consecration is bringing something, an object or a person into a role that they already inhabit in some land, in some sense. And and so to me that's the perfect description of what education ought to be. It's it's bringing a young man or young woman into a tradition that they already belong to, but giving them the agency and the vitality and the consciousness to inhabit that in a freely ch chosen fashion. Yeah. And so I think the modern world struggles with this. Um it's I wouldn't just tag Dewey with with the with the the villain role here, but so much of our education, and especially in Jewish schools, I find that Jewish schools forget when it comes to their Jewish education, they're pretty good. But when it comes to their humanistic and sci- you know, human humanities and sciences, the liberal arts, they tend to adopt whatever fashion or fad that is currently it holding sway in the broader educational world, which is often just the progressive educational world. Trevor Burrus, Jr.: iPads for everyone and and technology as king, um without really using the tools of tradition, the tools of the past to to ascertain what value could can these things have, what should what role should they play? So it it's a forgetting. Um it's a forgetting of one's past, a forgetting of one's identity. And and this is a work of recovery. The work that we're doing at Tikfah, the work that we're now doing at the Adelson School is one of recovery, recovering uh one's identity through a robust embrace, proudly Jewish, proudly, in in our case, proudly American, proudly Zionist, and proudly classical, to try to see those classical roots as as really something that has always been a part of the Jewish educational tradition, applied to Jewish texts, but now applied to the full range of of what the human person wants to engage with.

SPEAKER_01 10:00

Thank you. The term classical education is is not always understood. I I I have met many people who think we're talking about only a deep dive into the past, as though there's a fixation on old ideas. And um the contrast in in their mind is to having somebody who's who's ready for innovation, ready for an entrepreneurial spirit, ready for pushing Western civilization forward in ways that are really productive and fruitful. Um and maybe that's, you know, Dewey's obviously not the only villain, but um I think when it comes to the education, particularly of the young, but I also see this on the college level, there's just been this idea that you want to get through as quickly as possible so that you're you're in a position that you can um live a productive life. And and that tends to mean specialization. The the foundation that that really roots you in a narrative, which we can all share as Americans. You're Jewish, I'm Catholic. Um and yet there's there's a shared narrative that that is our our inheritance as Americans, as products of the West in one way or another, rooted in Athens and Jerusalem. And um, Rome plays a more prominent role in the Catholic uh tradition. Um but this this is a shared understanding that that is narrative in form. And the goal, as I see it, is to add to the story in ways that are fruitful, that promote the common good, that promote justice, that promote a um uh embrace of institutions that are worthy of our efforts so that they can mediate the virtues for the next generation. And first and foremost, the institution of the family, right? We we want our graduates to see the good of um the family and and whether they get married or not to promote its well-being and building up from there schools and universities and synagogues and churches and and the the fabric of our of our culture needs shoring up in a significant way. Aaron Ross Powell So I mean, do you do you meet this with um parents who might be unfamiliar with this notion of a classical or even liberal arts education, um uh uh a fear that if if you go this route, you'll sometime somehow have like future possibilities that are closed off to the A. Limited, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:45

Oh absolutely. There's a lot of education, at least in my community, that needs to take place around simply what is a classical education. So in our earlier exchange, you we focus on the first plank of classical education, which is this acculturation, bringing someone into a tradition, into a living tradition. It's not it's not traditionalism, right? Traditionalism is the dead faith of the living, and tradition is the living faith of the dead. Yeah. And I think that distinction is important. So we always have to present classical as as tradition, as a living tradition. But I think the second plank of classical education addresses the concerns of parents even more directly, and that is classical wants to address the whole person. So intellect, will, emotions, so that it can respond to the virtues of the true and the good and the beautiful, the ideas of the true and the good and the beautiful, but in a virtuous character-driven life. With that focus, I think we can see that classical can be taken forward to you know, cultivate character and cultivate a certain personality, certain persona that can address the living questions of today and and the future, but from a grounding, from a place of strength, not weakness, from a place, if not certainty, a place of more confidence than a place of anxiety, right. Which is so characteristic of our age, this anxious age that we that we live in, Jonathan Heidt speaks about the anxious generation. Right. And the more we can give our students and parents a sense that classical creates confidence and creates uh an over an overwhelming or overflowing sense of ideas, overflowing sense of personality and virtue, I think we can demonstrate that classical is is not something to be tucked away or seen as a quaint, you know, Luddite like you know, exploration or or uh journey, but something that speaks to the modern world in in powerful ways. Aaron Ross Powell Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:57

And in fact, you know, our our greatest um poets, artists, CEOs, and others are deeply formed in the liberal arts. The inventors. Um I I saw a statistic. The vast majority of CEOs are liberally educated, which makes sense.

SPEAKER_00 15:20

Trevor Burrus, Jr. It does make sense because they're creative. Trevor Burrus, Jr.: You want to you could be specialize in a field, you're a philosopher, I I dabble in philosophy, but to have the breadth of one's humanity, to be a modern-day statesman, even if that statesmanship is relegated to the family and to the school and not the world stage, these are things that a broad education, a broad liberal arts education can do like no no other form of education, certainly not vocational, but not the specialized training that we get in graduate schools today for the most part. Right, right.

SPEAKER_01 15:57

Yeah, so uh what's what what's winning in in this in this endeavor for you?

SPEAKER_00 16:05

I think what's winning is the pride that comes from a classical education, the sense pride not triumphalism. Sure. Pride, not a sense of absolute certainty. You know, each of our faiths do speak in in confident and sometimes certain terms about the way the world works and and what are the deepest principles of of man, world, God. Of course. But what I found that speaks to m most of the families that we work is a sense that there's direction, there's purpose, there is a s a sense of of conviction. These are moral qualities of of personality that that are even more important than the specific metaphysical or ontological claims. Those are the first in the order of being in some sense, but later in in the order of knowing and experiencing. Right. And so I think those earlier achievements of confidence, clarity, a sense of pride in in in your tradition, in your faith, in your patriotism, again, a word that is verboten in some circles. It really is a virtue. Trevor Burrus, Jr. It is a virtue. McIntyre has a great article on that. I don't know if you ever the the the piece that um Martha Nisbaum had collected from the Boston Trevor Burrus That's right. You know, for I forget the blow- it wasn't the globe, but yeah, ancient philosophy colloquium or something like that.

SPEAKER_01 17:38

Yeah. Yeah. And and th thank you for that. It's it's that is winning, right? I mean, that's that that's what we're ultimately striving to achieve. We sometimes get caught up in thinking about um, you know, the the numbers of people who are not engaged in precisely those kinds of uh endeavors. Um but you know, to draw a a um uh a theme from my own f faith tradition, there were just 12 apostles, right? And uh they did a lot of a lot of good work. And look, covered a lot of ground. Covered a lot of ground, right? So so uh taking a kind of uh Jedi school approach, right? These these these are the these are the the the Jedi's who are going to plant the seeds and and defend Western civilization, defend the faith and and um help bring others into into this work, right? And and taking a lot of time and effort with with um uh students in in what needs to be a smaller classroom uh with a lot of engagement with with the teacher, um that's gonna pay dividends. I'm curious, uh I don't want to get too philosophical here, um, but um within classical education or liberal arts education, there's often um talk of uh this is a a formation and and moral virtue, right? So we're we're we're certainly trying to cultivate the intellectual virtues, and you do that through instruction. The moral virtues, you know, you you you need a lot of practice. And it's not like you can just um I think Socrates is wrong on this, right? You can't just really understand what piety is, and then you're pious, right? It's it's it uh it's a matter of habituation. So so how how do you uh come at those, you know, those those two fundamental sets of virtues, the the intellectual and and the moral when it comes to the kind of formation that you're providing your students?

SPEAKER_00 19:36

I think habituation is actually the key to both the intellectual virtues and the moral virtues. In in Maimonides work, the idea of her gel, which is a form of practice, praxis, habituation, very much drawing on Aristotle's ethical theory in the Nicomachian ethics, that there are dispositions of mind and then there are practices of the body, and both are benefited from by a a kind of healthy cyclical repetition, engagement, learning from maybe making mistakes, learning from those mistakes, putting that back into your repertoire of behaviors. Uh I think Jewish schools tend to do this well and the Jewish faith because it's so based on praxis and and the law, in the sense of we pray three times a day, and we ha have to, you know, ideally pray in a synagogue, and there are norms and and practices and conventions that govern our our lives in a very rich way, from the moment we wake up to the moment we go to sleep. And so there is a a regimen that needs to be infused by intentionality. And you know, it's never just practice, it's practice what phronesis is, is is practice with an intentionality, with a reasoning, with an understanding. And that's what I think the Jewish law does so well. It it surrounds our lives with practices, habits of being, dispositions that we enact every day, but they can't just be mechanistic. They can't just be wrote and juridic and legal. They have to be infused with meaning, and that's the study of Torah. That's what the study of the of the Torah does, the study of our laws, of our traditions, of our theology that infuses the practices with that sense of purpose, with that sense of intentionality. And I think schools are good places for this kind of education because you can have rituals of the town hall meeting. We have something called Kabbalah Shabbat. Every Friday, the students gather in a town hall assembly and we do the prayers over the wine and the candles and the bread. It's a very ritualized, but yet very informed by meaning. And the students, it's so familiar that they don't have to think about like where I am. What they have to think about is what I'm doing. Yeah. What what's the action that I'm doing. Right. But getting there is, well, that's what we do. That's what the community does. Right. So I think it it's it's a delicate playing off of the behaviors and those habits of action with the habits of mind, introspection, deliberation, reflection that really create this synthesis of intentional, deliberate behavior. Trevor Burrus, Jr. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:40

Thank you. I want to talk a little bit about the partnership, that's not quite the right word, deep collaboration that's that we're engaged in, that um Catholics are supposed to be engaged in. But I want to hear it from the Jewish perspective. Nostaratate, a magisterial document. So part of the teaching authority of the church has made it very clear that as Catholics, we are to engage in deep dialogue and collaboration with the Jewish people. We share a common testament. We've got that testament and another. And of course there are fundamental there's a really big difference, right? I am absolutely convinced that uh Jesus is the Christ and and um you are not. Trevor Burrus, Jr. You should be if you're the University of Dallas, JJ.

SPEAKER_00 23:48

That's you know not up for question.

SPEAKER_01 23:50

Trevor Burrus, Jr.: And it makes it makes all of the difference, right? Um in in in so many ways. Um and yet they're there uh Paul VI made very clear that that um uh the common elements need to be built on, the differences need to be acknowledged and explored in fruitful ways. This is not a matter of like watering down and pretending that we don't have really fundamental uh disagreements as well. Um and then John Paul II was was um the the greatest implementer of of this teaching and and uh uh called our Jews our elder brothers in the faith, right? And and so um there's a there's a familial relationship and bond, and strongly encouraged us not just to dwell upon um uh what we share in common, but to work collaboratively towards justice and peace and and and other goods. So that's how we come at this as Catholics, and I'm I'm curious to hear how how you come at the the the Catholic side of that of that familial relationship.

SPEAKER_00 24:58

Sure. Well that that's a powerful observation, and and the question of where the Jews come at this from is is a complicated one. I think sociologically and historically, you know, Jews were often the victims of Christendom, sadly, but true. Jews can either with memory and integrity acknowledge that, but move forward in the sense that Christianity has done so much good in in my mind for civilizing man, for bringing the word of God to the world. Uh the Jewish people we we punch above our weight as as a nation, right? We're small people still. But it took Christianity to bring the Word of God to the wider world, first in the ancient Mediterranean basin, and then throughout Europe and east and west. So I have a lot of gratitude for what Christianity has done to bring man closer to to a godly vision, to a a vision of of God as as both master of nature and master of history. And so even out of a simple gesture of friendship, if you're asking the question about what should the church see the Jew as in the in the 20th and 21st century, I think it it it behooves me, if I'm interested in humanity, if I'm interested in in history and and this world that is God's creation, I need to ask the question, what does Christianity have to do with Judaism? And that's a deeply theological question. That that is requiring a Jewish theology of Christianity. What is Christians always had a theology of of Judaism, and again, as I mentioned yesterday, some of that Jews might not like very much, you know? But since Nostraitate, I think Jews should feel at least more comfortable about the kinds of questions that are being posed from the Catholic or Christian end about what Jews are, what what Jews function and in the divine economy of the world. I think Jews should ask that same question through our own tradition, through our own resources, not not in a way that is syncretistic or relativistic or or is mealy-mouthed in any way, some somehow some meet in the middle. That's not what I'm interested in, and I know that's not what you're interested in. But I see Catholics and Christians more broadly as brothers in arms in a civilizational struggle for the heart and soul of the West. Yes. And so I'm I'm particularly animated by the theological questions. Like what what does a Jew see in the person of Jesus? What what does the Jew make of the rapid conversion of the West to Christianity? But you don't have to take that path. That's my particular, maybe idiosyncratic path. I think the more the more general path that I think more Jews should take is how can we see our Christian brothers and sisters as allies in the fight for culture, in the fight for meaning and purpose in the modern world. And I think that is very rife with possibilities. Even if you want to you know bracket off or box away the deeply theological questions, and and many people are just not comfortable with those deeper theological questions. I think the Christian approach has always been more theological on these questions, so there's you guys have more practice at this. And and certainly with changes like nostra tete, there's there's more openness. And Jews, you know, we're we're simple people. We're we're people of of of mitzvot, of actions, of commandments, and the theological, you know, maybe more reserved for uh the the sages amongst us, not the not the the common man or woman. And so we we just haven't thought, we don't have the vocabulary um or tradition just yet of these very deep theological inquiries. We have a very rich halafic juridic legal tradition that addresses questions of of other faiths. But the theological question is is an important one because it really is the beginning of that opportunity for fraternity and for friendship. Right. And if you can't get over the hurdle with that, it's gonna be hardgo, tough going to make that common cause that I think is so vital in today's world.

SPEAKER_01 30:07

Aaron Ross Powell Well, I I love the way that you have framed the common cause. The the objectives on a on a uh broad scale seem pretty clear. We've got to defend the sanctity of life.

SPEAKER_00 30:20

We we want to see our civilization have a fundamental posture of worship towards God, the Creator, reverence for creation, for the God of creation, an acknowledgement of God in history, that this is not some wind-up watch deism or some the God of the scientists. Trevor Burrus, Jr. Right.

SPEAKER_01 30:45

And you know the law matters for us on a fundamental level, right?

SPEAKER_00 30:49

So there's the the No Hide covenant, but but there's there's ever seeno's piece, Learning to Love the Law.

SPEAKER_01 30:56

I don't know that I've read that.

SPEAKER_00 30:57

Was it in first place? Learning to love the law.

SPEAKER_01 31:00

Trevor Burrus, Well then I must have I I read that faithfully.

SPEAKER_00 31:04

But that the law I think the law is something that Jews have contributed, that something we can learn a lot on theology. I think we can learn Christians a lot on the law. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_01 31:13

Yeah, and and and those and those practices, right? Trevor Burrus, Jr. That framing. Trevor Burrus, Jr.: We actually are engaged in in um working with I don't know if you know Kevin Majors, he's on the uh medical faculty at Harvard, and he put uh something together called optimal work, which is a way to approach your day with the plan of the day. It's it's for uh it's it's not religiously based, but it's it's it's got a um the purpose and meaning.

SPEAKER_00 31:43

Deliberate agency and intentionality. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_01 31:46

Yeah. That has become really powerful for many of our students to organize their time, to be free from distractions, to make time to pray, to make time to put on the child list.

SPEAKER_00 31:57

You know, that's right. Making lists. That's right. So that's what Jews are very good at. We're good at sort of making lists that shape our day, shape our week, shape our year, shape our relationships, our home life. And it's it has often been the object of critique, especially especially sometimes from Christian circles, the spherism. Right, right. But it's it's actually the difference between an intentional life and a life that can just mix out into the mundane without Yeah, like keeping the Sabbath, right?

SPEAKER_01 32:30

So it's a new book. Trevor Burrus, Jr. Yeah. But there were there were times in my life where um I wanted to work all of the time, and I was not faithful. I I would go to Mass, but I didn't really keep the Sabbath. And and um my wife Rebecca and I became much more intentional about that. It's transformed things. And and getting up at a certain time, uh, making my my own prayers, exercising, spending time with the family, working through um throughout the day in a in a very intentional way. Um these these are actually recipes for joy in your life. No matter how difficult the challenges that you might be facing are.

SPEAKER_00 33:12

You can root yourself in those practices in a way that shouldn't they shouldn't be seen as limitations or prohibitions. They should be seen as opportunities to shape and guide. And without that, we are mortal creatures. We're creatures of flesh and blood, very corporeal. We we need to get in touch with our body and the the physicality of who we are and how we respond to the world and making those fixed times, those designated times, those relational um duties are critical. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_01 33:43

Yeah. So between our theologizing your deep-seated um habituation, putting those together, well, we can we can save the world.

SPEAKER_00 33:56

I we hope and pray we always have to be humble in in our ambitions in this event, but we desperately need to do something. And and places like Dallas are on the cutting edge. And that's one of the reasons why I'm I'm so honored to be to be your friend, which transcends your role as president, but to be here and see the work that you're doing in putting putting to action these important theological and philosophical principles. It's it's a blessed thing to see and to be a part of.

SPEAKER_01 34:30

Well, thank you. And I cherish our friendship and thank you for the the great work that that you are engaged in. And um, thank you for sitting down with me. My pleasure. Okay. Thank you. Thank you.