Model of civil, respectful dialogue

I remember an early lesson from my father.

Every time my brothers or I said "shut up" to each other, Dad fined us a dime. But if we told on each other, he instead charged a 20-cent tattler's fee.

Though we could not have expressed it then, we came to understand the value he placed on respectful dialogue and working together to resolve our differences. It was an early lesson in the legacy he would leave us.

My father, Bernard Wolfman, was a scholar of legal ethics and tax law. He worked for justice and civil liberties and believed that we could best achieve these through open, civil discourse that allows for mutual learning and understanding.

Learning was the linchpin. And learning could happen only with full, respectful dialogue.

Perhaps the law suited him so well because it offered the opportunity to combine the exchange of ideas with the pursuit of justice.

As a volunteer with the American Civil Liberties Union, Dad worked on the landmark school-prayer case Abington School District v. Schempp (1963), one of the cases that led to the Supreme Court's prohibition of state-sponsored school prayer. He also coauthored a brief to the U.S. Supreme Court opposing the granting of tax exemptions to racially segregated schools. And he was a resolute critic of a tax system packed with loopholes that favored the rich.

On the law faculty at the University of Pennsylvania and later Harvard, he was considered a tough teacher who pushed his students to think ever more critically, yet he did this without incivility, and in fact with deep caring for his students, the law, and the academic institution.

As one of his former students said to me just after Dad died, "He was a master of the Socratic method, yet we all knew he was also the nicest guy in the building."

Dad taught us that well-meaning people can have divergent and reasoned opinions - about the economy, health care, the environment, religion, or, back when we were paying 10 cents for our indiscretions, which sibling deserved the last serving of dessert. I learned that there is no cause for name-calling. There is no value in disparaging or despising members of my family, community, or society merely because we disagree. Such negative behavior would be a lost chance to learn, to expand our knowledge, and thus to take meaningful action.

And action counts.

Most of the world's major, mainstream religions share a tradition of activism. They may differ in their positions on issues, but they all teach their members to try to change the world for the better.

My father's Jewish upbringing helped form the foundation for his life dedicated to social justice and ethics. And with pride that his father served as chief clerk of Philadelphia City Council, he also learned the value of civic engagement. As a Jew and as an invested citizen, he carried a legacy of lifelong learning and action, which he passed down to me and my brothers.

I believe in the 10-cent lesson from my childhood: We must engage with each other, however much we may disagree, in civil discourse.

I believe in the example my father set as an educator: We must seize upon opportunities to learn.

And I believe in what my father modeled as an activist: We must take action to make an impact.

As I watched the political conversation in this country grow more heated, Dad's early and ongoing lessons in civility and his death in 2011 prompted me to create an antidote in his memory: the Bernard Wolfman Civil Discourse Project.

The project - based at the synagogue in which he raised us, Beth Sholom Congregation in Elkins Park - models civil discourse through an annual, free event featuring two experts from opposing sides of a burning topic of public policy. Last year we inaugurated this program with a discussion about national health-care policy, and this year we focus on hydraulic fracturing, commonly called "fracking."

The issues are important. So is the way we address them.

Survey responses from the 500 people who attended last year say that they agree. One commented on the project's Facebook page:

"I was part of an extraordinary conversation about health-care reform. The spirit of the evening was that health-care reform is neither a liberal nor a conservative, Democratic nor Republican, matter anymore. We all are in it and we must shape it to benefit all Americans. So let's check our labels at the door of an ongoing conversation."

The event, which models freedom of speech, activism, and respectful dialogue, takes place during the Jewish festival of Passover, when we come together to celebrate our common humanity while recalling the Israelites' action against oppression and exodus from slavery to freedom. It was, not surprisingly, Dad's favorite holiday.