On March 22, Pardes and Georgetown Law hosted a brilliant cast of rabbis, PhDs, attorneys, and judges for “The Moral Economy: A Conference on Law, Economics & Religion.”
The day began with the Honorable Eugene Wedoff, a recently retired and highly respected US Bankruptcy Judge from Chicago who wove together a beautiful introduction to the field through the lens of Shakespeare, a creative and colorful keynote that set the tone for our day. The first panel, moderated by Pardes faculty member Rabbi Dr. Levi Cooper, dealt with the economics of privacy and intellectual property. The second panel was entitled “Marriage: An Economic Enterprise?” and was moderated by Pardes faculty member Rabba Yaffa Epstein. Yaffa also introduced the diverse audience to havruta learning during a lunchtime shiur which temporarily transformed the academic conference into a beit midrash. The third panel, moderated by Pardes board member and bankruptcy attorney David Kuney, dealt with theories of debt forgiveness and debt restructuring and included Judge Shelley Chapman (U.S. Bankruptcy Court for Southern District of New York, who is overseeing the Lehman Brothers’ massive Chapter 11 case), Mr. Irvin B. Nathan (Board Chair, Tzedek DC and former attorney general of DC) and others. The concluding panel dealt with the economics of the death penalty and issues of human dignity and ethics and was moderated by Pardes alumna Dr. Deborah Barer.
Watch and listen to all of the day’s sessions at www.elmad.pardes.org/topic/the-moral-economy/.