Davis lecture

I was looking forward to Professor Davis' lecture. Being that Iam a human services major with a jewish studies minor, this topic fit perfectly into my interests I also did an independent study with the Rabbi on Jewish identity and family. This is a topic that i have a decent amount of knowledge in and a general interest for. I was disappointed by the lack of depth and information that could have been relayed in class. This topic is one that applies to many people. With our ever changing society and issues of the 21st Century, the contruct of marriage and religion has had to adapt. Yet I found Davis' points to be somewhat empty and hypothetical. A lot of what she said were projections and assumptions. I have a great deal of interest in counseling. I want to get my MSW and become liscensed and one day be a therapist. With the issues of counseling, marriage and religion brought up, I anticipated a deeper discussion filled with development and substance. I feel as though all I got was a one dimensional history of reform Rabbis and the instituion of marriage.
The idea of psychology and religion was an interesting point to me although it was not as developed as i would have hoped for. I found it interesting as well that the most important thing in rabbincal marriage counseling was to preserve the integrity of the community. The idea of working on the Jewish identity outside of the Jewish institution is something that we ourselves are doing in college. It is fascinating to see how we as students of jewish studies relate to all different facets of Jewish history.