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HUC’s (Hebrew Union College’s) [Non-]Decision
My alma mater rabbinical school – Hebrew Union College – has been struggling for months about what to do with a large deficit looming. As a refresher: the school has four campuses (Jerusalem, Cincinnati, New York, and Los Angeles) – and only a few hundred students ( I believe). It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that that is a difficult business model.
HUC’s Board of Governors’ had/has some very difficult decisions to make – and I don’t envy being in that position. There are wonderful things about each of HUC’s campuses – and reasons to keep them all open. However, such a model does not seem fiscally responsible.
HUC has threatened seriously to close its Cincinnati campus (but backed down from that plan when there was a revolt). HUC has threatened seriously to close its Los Angeles campus (but backed down from that plan when there was a revolt). HUC hasn’t seriously threatened to close its New York campus – which may say something about where the majority of their large donors and board members come from.
So, we were all waiting for June 23rd – the day HUC would make a major decision and present a plan for the future. Except… we heard through the rabbi-grapevine (yes, there certainly is such a thing!) that there wouldn’t really be a decision until the October board meeting. I’m not holding my breath for that. HUC’s official statement about the board meeting is here.
So, my guess (just a guess, people!) is that HUC will keep four campuses open for as long as it can – and that in the meantime it will attempt to save millions of dollars by laying off many wonderful professors, administrators, and other staff members. It will cut corners. It will do its best. And I hope that it succeeds and flourishes.
I am worried though – worried that by continually not making decisions – HUC has made a (passive) decision. And that is scary. I prefer being proactive; I prefer being forward-thinking; and while it is hard, I think there is a time for bold decisions. While I recognize that all of that is easy for me to say because I am not in the terribly difficult position of President Ellenson and HUC’s Board of Governors, I have to ask the rabbinic question: If not now, when?
Ridiculousness: Anti-Israel Protesters say Don’t Shop at Trader Joe’s
I don’t just like Trader Joe’s. I LOVE Trader Joe’s. In fact, I’m not sure that I could ever move to a city that doesn’t have one. It would mean major withdrawal.
I just got an email from a friend about a misguided group of people which was planning on boycotting Trader Joe’s and protesting there today – because they sell Israeli products. There’s a good and thoughtful overview in this Nashville Scene blog… (Apparently, I am out of the loop since I just heard about this.)
Bottom line? Even if I didn’t love Trader Joe’s, I would still not be able to comprehend these anti-Israel protesters. They claim Israel has an economy fueled by apartheid. I think not. Have the protesters studied their history and political science? I think not.
I am not going to make it to Trader Joe’s tonight, but supporters of Israel are proposing that we buy Israeli products from Trader Joe’s and encourage them to continue selling Israeli products. Sounds good to me. Some people even went to the stores today to buy all of the Israeli items so that the protesters couldn’t do any damage to the products. Well done! Now the Israel supporters have to figure out what to do with all of that couscous. The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg has a very funny comment on this. Goldberg wrote: ” …I hear the Israeli couscous goes well with grilled scapegoat…“
For the record, Trader Joe’s has issued a statement that they will not be removing the Israeli items from their stores – and they trust their customers to decide what they want to purchase. Good for them.
Were any of you at Trader Joe’s today? Did you see any of this craziness going on?
Snack time – let’s see what I can find in my pantry from Trader Joe’s! Couscous anyone?
“Foundations of a Judaism for Our Time” by Sanford Ragins
This paper is reprinted with permission of the author and was delivered at Temple Israel, New York on May 1, 2000.
Of late, every other year in July, I have been going to Berlin to teach in a program for Christian theology students. These young German men and women give up part of their summer vacation to study Judaism with Jewish teachers from the United States, Great Britain and Israel. On one of my recent visits I was lodged in Bonhoeffer Haus, a hostel run by the Evangelical Church, a pleasant but modest accommodation on a side-street near the university. This place is literally around the corner from the building which once housed the Lehranstalt für die Wissenschaft des Judentums, the Institute for the Scientific Study of Judaism, where Rabbi Leo Baeck taught until all Jewish education institutions were closed in July, 1942. At the end there were about a dozen students. Six months later Baeck was arrested by the Gestapo and taken to Theresienstadt.
It does not look like much today: an abandoned office building several stories high, most unprepossessing, drab and shabby like many pre-war buildings in East Berlin. The first woman rabbi in Jewish history once studied there and so did Franz Kafka. When I returned to my room late in the afternoon after my classes, my route took me past the doorway through which Leo Baeck walked on his way to teach Judaism to the last generation of rabbis in Germany. Every day, I paused to meditate for a moment on the strange turning of history which had brought me, a rabbi in an American synagogue dedicated to his memory, to teach in his city, indeed in his old neighborhood.
Today the facade of the building is undecorated, but I learned that one time it bore a Hebrew inscription: l’hochmah v’layirah, for wisdom and for awe, or possibly toward wisdom and awe. I find that a rather remarkable motto, most fitting for a place where modern men and women came to confront the teachings of our ancient tradition in a new way and out of that confrontation to accept the challenge, much like our own, of defining a new Judaism worthy of affirmation and practice. L’hochmah v=layirah, for/toward wisdom and awe, I submit, is also a suggestive paradigm for American Reform Judaism at the beginning of the new millennium. This phrase constitutes the text for my remarks today.
First, hochmah.
Hochmah is an ancient Hebrew word, usually translated as wisdom. I sense the leaders of the Lehranstalt chose it to embellish the doorway of their institute in order to articulate the nature of what was to occur in that building and also to say something about the people who came to study and teach there. It was a declaration of self-definition, a conscious expression OF who they were and who they were not. The Lehranstalt was not in any sense a yeshivah, but a modern academic institution devoted to Wissenschaft des Judentums, the scientific study of Judaism. It was a place where the texts and traditions of the Jewish past were seen through the lens of contemporary scholarly research. In its classrooms rational, critical inquiry was not only accepted but central. By using a old Biblical word, they affirmed their connection to Jewish tradition, and, at the same moment, their acceptance of modernity.
By the beginning of the twentieth century a rather considerable body of learning had been created. The academic study of tradition, the sifting and the scrutiny of texts using the latest tools of analysis, and the historical reconstructions which were attempted showed a new way of understanding the Jewish past. In retrospect we can see that these efforts were not as scientific as they pretended to be, if by scientific you mean objective and utterly free of bias. That scholarship, like ours, was shaped and limited by the blind spots that infect all human endeavors.
But the genie was now out of the bottle. The students and teachers in the Lehranstalt knew that it was not possible for Jews engaged with modernity to ignore what had now been learned about the Bible and the Talmud, the Midrash and the philosophical and mystical cultures of the Middle Ages. To be sure, out of academic study alone one could not create a new Judaism. But henceforth, for moderns to ignore the methods and understandings of Wissenschaft would be a sign of obscurantism. As Leon Wieseltier has noted: “The perdurability of the Jews has been owed to their absolute refusal ever to stop thinking, to the romance of brains.”1
There is a strong and invaluable connection between Wissenschaft des Judentums and Reform Judaism. From the academic study of the past, we have drawn five fundamental understandings which make it possible for our movement to be dynamic, creative, and thoughtfully responsive to the changing needs of our people. They are, briefly, the following:
1. The understanding that over time there have been not one but several distinct Judaisms, each unique, each created out of the special circumstances Jews faced at a particular time. Yes, there are important continuities, and, some would argue, certain constants, but ultimately when seen through history Judaism is pluralistic and multifarious, not monistic or unitary.
2. Related to the first, the understanding that Judaism is not immutable but always has been subject to change, development and transformation, indeed radical transformation. The Israeli scholar Efraim Shmueli has argued that the various cultures of Judaism each “tried to redefine [the tradition] in order to create a rationale for Jewish living that would respond to contemporary needs. This process was ever the result of a vociferous dissatisfaction with the attempts of previous cultures.”2 To be sure, “every one of Israel’s [historic] cultures luxuriates in its past: it gathers, preserves and remembers. But it also scatters, forgets. And buries.”3 “Jewish creativity [he noted] consists of a remarkable ability to embrace new elements.”4 He concluded that we owe our survival to this capacity “to both eradicate and revitalize [our] past”5 through the creation of “innovative terminology, new images, and reinvigorated symbols.”6
3. When Judaism, or more accurately, the various Judaisms of the past, is understood in this way, the result is a clear warrant for moderns to do what is necessary to reinvigorate a Judaism for our generation. If we add or subtract, innovate or conserve, prune dead wood so that new buds may grow or graft new branches into the trunk, we are doing exactly what our ancestors have done, again and again, although we may be more conscious of these transformations than they were.
4. When the traditions and texts of our heritage are understood in this way, we learn that the adjective “authentic” ought to be used with great care, if at all. Indeed, I would argue it should be dismissed from our discourse because it is likely to obfuscate rather than enlighten, and because it is sometimes invoked, I sense, when one party wishes to impose its own particular belief or practice on dissenters.
5. From the forgoing we learn not to be arrogant about the Judaism we create and affirm. If our ancestors were human and flawed, so are we; and if, in retrospect, we understand the limitations of what they taught as absolute or divine truth, we too must be restrained in making truth claims and modest in our assertions. The Judaism we create does not come from Sinai but from our hearts and our heads. It represents not the mind of God but what we think Jews of this time and culture can know and believe. And it is, just like every other Judaism ever created, fully authentic in the same way that these Judaisms were authentic: it represents the best of our thinking and our understanding, our aspirations and our dreams.
With these thoughts in mind, I now want to make several comments about Pittsburgh II: about the process that was followed; about the form that emerged; and about its content. I will add another comment, also about content, a bit later.
Process
A little over two years ago, the famous architect Philip Johnson, was interviewed by a reporter from the Los Angeles Times7 and asked to characterize the state of architecture at the end of the century. He answered: “I just don’t think we can categorize where architecture is at the end of the millennium. I think you just have to say it is a wonderful, total absolute chaos.” He was then asked what broke things apart and created a condition that is so open. He said: “I think the times change, and we change, from certainty to uncertainty.”
I think that insight applies not just to architecture but perhaps to the condition of our culture today. We live in a culture where the canons of virtually every field of human endeavor are unclear. Uncertainty and ambiguity are rampant, and technology subjects us to incessant, destabilizing, and disorienting transformations. To articulate a vision of Judaism that is consonant with this culture, without affirming every aspect of it, is no easy task. It requires careful thought and ought not be done precipitously.
Chaos is uncomfortable, and uncertainty breeds anxiety. But they also may indicate that something new is aborning. The tension and uneasiness we experience may be birth pangs. In that case, any hasty attempt quickly to bring order to the chaos may be unwise. Untimely closure — and I believe that is what happened in Pittsburgh — threatens to abort the painful process of bringing into existence something new and durable. To continue the metaphor, even if protracted and intense, the labor pains ought be endured, at least for a time.
Form
I found the form of Pittsburgh II, which is so manifestly a conscious rejection of the Platform of 1885, most revealing. Although Pittsburgh II eschews the term, it too is clearly a “platform.”
Consider that term for a moment. The word “platform” evokes memories of the railroad age. Indeed when Pittsburgh I was formulated, the most modern form of communication at the time connected with the rail network that was expanding dramatically across the continent was the telegraph which relied upon Morse code. As I learned long ago when I was a Boy Scout, Morse code is utterly linear in its operation. Through a system of dots and dashes, one letter at a time is transmitted in a fixed sequence over a line. Well, if the medium is the message, then we should not be surprised that when the rabbis traveled to Pittsburgh in 1885, presumably by railroad, their formulation of Judaism was a linear platform, which listed, one at a time, their affirmations and denials.
When Reform Judaism attempted a new statement of principles, in Columbus, Ohio in 1937, the radio age had begun, and linearity had been transcended. Although you could not access them simultaneously, numerous stations were broadcasting, all at the same time, not over wires but through the ether in every direction. And, interestingly, the Columbus Platform was longer than Pittsburgh I and more nuanced in what it had to say.
When it came time to adopt the next expression of our movement in 1973, the so-called Centenary Perspective (it is interesting to note that the term platform had now been abandoned), we were well into the era of television. Indeed the age of cable and satellites had begun. These make possible concurrent, instantaneous transmission of dozens, even hundreds, of different channels allowing the viewer enormous freedom of choice. No wonder that the Centenary Perspective, largely the work of one highly respected rabbi, Eugene Borowitz, was, in a sense, itself an exercise in narrow-casting. Borowitz argued that he was giving voice to a broad consensus (a debatable assertion). But he also conceded that his formulation “certainly allows for variety and development in Jewish faith in ways that go far beyond what our tradition knew.”8
In light of this pattern, one would have expected any articulation of Judaism at the end of the twentieth century to reflect in some subtle or overt way the existence of our increasingly dominant method of discourse, the Internet. In cyberspace communication is not only rapid, but intricate, convoluted, somewhat chaotic and internally complex. Hypertext and suggestive links lead the browsing net-surfer to unexpected connections, imaginative associations, puzzling paradoxes, and profound contradictions.
Yet Pittsburgh II, which self-consciously attempts to turn back the clock, does so, perhaps unintentionally, most effectively. It reads not like a web-page, which might reaffirm the autonomy long at the heart of our movement, but like an old-fashioned platform. Rather than being post-modern, it is pre-modern. Its form is thus curiously archaic and out of touch with the world in which we live.
Content: Theology
I also find Pittsburgh II lacking in the theology which is invoked to sustain its assertions. Our generation has been fated to live “after Auschwitz.” The Holocaust is strongly part of our collective and individual consciousness. How could it not be so? The magnitude of the horror, what it reveals about the capacity of our species for violence, about the danger of modern technology divorced from ethical considerations, and about the vulnerability of our people, and all people, under certain circumstances — all these issues rightly demand somber attention and careful study as we try to learn what we can from this brutal episode.
For modern religious Jews one of the most important issues is theological. Reflection on the Holocaust inexorably raises anew with great power an ancient question: how could an all-knowing, powerful and beneficent God allow the deaths of so many innocents? This question of theodicy is vexatious. Virtually every important Jewish thinker of the last half-century has addressed it. The range of responses has been broad, from the boldly revisionist conclusions offered by Richard Rubenstein, Hans Jonas, and Emil Fackenheim to more conservative answers by neo-traditionalists like Michael Wyschograd and Eliezer Berkowitz. Some have suggested stunned silence or, like Job, a confession that human understanding is not adequate to this question. Martin Buber invoked the Biblical metaphor hester panim, the hiding of the divine face, what Buber called the “eclipse of God.”
But perhaps the most haunting comment was made by the modern Orthodox theologian Yitzchak Greenberg who argued that “after Auschwitz, one must beware of easy hope.”9 He proposed this working principle for post-Holocaust thinking about Judaism: “No statement, theological or otherwise, should be made that would not be credible in the presence of the burning children.”10
Yet in none of its many drafts did Pittsburgh II consider this matter or even betray the slightest awareness that there is a serious theological question that must be addressed. The first draft dealt expansively with mitzvot, kedushah, mikvah, tallit, tefillin, kashrut, and aliyah, but only alluded to the Holocaust parenthetically in a reference to Athe awful consequences of modernity.” The fourth draft had only this sunny sentence: “We are cheered that a half century after the Shoah, Jewish life has been reborn across Europe.” But in the next draft even this statement vanished. The version ultimately adopted touches on the Holocaust only in passing, almost as an after-thought, in these words: “We continue to have faith that, in spite of the unspeakable evils committed against our people and the sufferings endured by others, the partnership of God and humanity will ultimately prevail.” I find this pale statement suffused with “easy hope” and curiously reminiscent of Classical Reform Judaism.
The Classical Reformers are often criticized for their naïve progressivism. From our vantage point one can see their confidence in a beneficent Deity and in inexorable progress was unwarranted. They ignored what we have learned to our woe, namely, the tragic dimension of history. Now I am willing to be generous and non-judgmental toward the early Reformers for the simple reason that the generations before World War I and II did not have a crystal ball (and neither do we). An empathic observer ought to understand how they might have missed the darker side of human nature.
But what can be said in defense of Pittsburgh II in this matter? We live in the shadow of the slaughterhouse that was the twentieth century. Everyone knows that the dismal emblems of that century, Auschwitz and Hiroshima, were created out of modernity. We know now that the Messianic Era is not just around the corner. In the words of Amos Funkenstein, the Holocaust was “an eminently human event in that it demonstrated those extremes which only man and his society are capable of doing or suffering.”11 In short, we have learned something frightening about the demonic in human nature. A credible declaration of Jewish faith today must reflect and confront that dismal reality.
Yes, there is a surfeit of Holocaust consciousness in our community, and it is regrettable that what has come to be known as the Shoah has received far too much emphasis of late. The proliferation of memorials and museums, of books, memoirs, and university courses has fostered an unfortunate image of the Jew as victim, an image that is not worthy of us or our children. Yet, without succumbing to this excess, one can rightly demand that a statement of Jewish principles must be consonant with the historical and theological realities of the times in which we live. It also ought not be so glib, so relentlessly optimistic, so disconcertingly upbeat and buoyant, so lacking in theological courage, so oblivious to the warning: “beware of easy hope.” I find Pittsburgh II out of touch with the difficulties inherent in the quest for faith today.
The quest for faith. Faith as a task, rather than a given. That is what I witness as a synagogue rabbi in the souls of most of my congregants and in my own. Are the majority of the members of the CCAR clear and firm in their beliefs and free from religious doubt? I suspect that is not the case, despite the current pulpit fashion of speaking often and easily about God and what God wants us to do. I believe it is also not true of most of our people. In our community achieving religious faith is an arduous struggle, one we would face even if there had been no Holocaust.
Consider this. In the seventeenth century, at the dawn of our era, the French mathematician Pascal foresaw how modernity would ravage the spiritual life. “When I see the blind and wretched state of men, [he wrote] when I survey the whole universe in its deadness and man left to himself with no light, as though lost in this corner of the universe without knowing who put him there, what he has to do, what will become of him when he dies, incapable of knowing anything, I am moved to terror, like a man transported in his sleep to some terrifying desert island, who wakes up quite lost with no means of escape. Then I marvel that so wretched a state does not drive people to despair.”12
Yirah
And that brings me, to the second part of that inscription over the doorway of the Lehranstalt in Berlin. Hochmah, reason and especially Wissenschaft des Judentums were the foundation and method, but that methodology was linked to another powerful Biblical word: yirah. In the Bible yirah means “fear,” or “terror” and by extension, in some contexts, “reverence, piety, awe.” An interesting and complex term: yirah. Fear and terror there have been aplenty in modern times, not to mention Angst. But reverence and piety and especially awe have been harder to come by. Perhaps that is what the founders of the Lehranstalt sought to express by inscribing over their portal the watchword l’hochmah v’layira — which might be translated: for wisdom and toward reverence, as if to say “in these times we will use our minds and our knowledge to move toward religious faith.”
How do we do that today, in our times? Efraim Shmueli wrote that “the secret of [the Jewish people’s] endurance lies in its faith in redemption, and its belief that history is not haplessly abandoned to the powers of evil.” But he added: “History unfolds within a sphere plagued by all the afflictions entailed in man’s mortality, a host of evils, foremost of which is the Angel of Death. Man journeys toward his end, to a place of worms and decay: all the benefits history brings with it are outweighed by the great calamity of man=s subjection to contingency and extinction.”14
The reality of death. Our finitude and frailty. The human condition. Here every religion, including ours, meets its greatest challenge. When the malach ha-mavet, the Angel of Death, stands before us – and sooner or later, he will — we need a Judaism that will speak to us with coherence and power, that will assuage our suffering and give meaning to our vulnerability, which will bring consolation and comfort on the darkest of nights and hope in the hour of despair.
Content: The Human Condition
Herewith is my greatest uneasiness with Pittsburgh II. You may recall that the first version of the principles came to us in an issue of Reform Judaism,15 the publication of our movement, which also featured a rather striking photo of Rabbi Richard N. Levy. That magazine arrived just as I was preparing for one of the most difficult funerals I have ever had to conduct. A forty-nine year old woman, an attorney, happily married, the mother of two young children, had just died of a virulent lung cancer after a few agonizing months of suffering. As I struggled to find words that might bring some comfort to these mourners, I read the proposed principles for the first time and found they had nothing to say, not to me nor to this shattered family.
Since the dawn of civilization, perhaps even earlier, the task of religion has been to transmute terror into awe; to hold out the hope of transcendence and redemption; to help us deal with these agonizingly difficult questions which religious seekers have always asked: “Who am I? Where am I going? What is expected of me? Why do I suffer? Why is it so that in a universe of such astonishing loveliness and majestic grandeur we are subject to dreadful forces we cannot understand or control? Why am I and all those I love and need destined to die? How must I live in this small hour granted to me, this ‘brief crack of light between two eternities of darkness.’”16
But the principles, as I read them, have nothing to say about these questions. They are saturated with traditional terminology. They purport to elucidate the meaning of God, Torah and Israel for moderns. But when it comes to helping Jews of this time and place confront the deepest issues of personal, religious life in the real world, once again Pittsburgh II is mute.
____________________________________________________________________________________
Now I become even more sermonic. I conclude my remarks with a brief description of what I believe a Reform Judaism worthy of our times ought to be.
It will be a Judaism which recognizes the limitations of reason, but refuses to join in the chorus of mindless irrationality;
– a Judaism which knows it is possible to cultivate emotional richness without anesthetizing our critical faculties, which venerates the teachings of our heritage not because they are the word of God, but because they contain the deeply human wisdom of our ancestors whose amazing visions brought brilliant fire into a dark world;
– a Judaism which accepts our peoplehood as a given, but knows the dangers of untempered ethnic passion; which believes Israel must have security, the Palestinians must have a homeland and that Jerusalem is big enough to be the capital for both;
– a Judaism for Jews who never forget that we were slaves in Egypt, who have empathy for all who are deprived, whose affluence does not blind us to the iniquity and the misery and the danger which result when the chasm between haves and have-nots becomes as enormous as it is in every city in America right now;
– a Judaism which embraces the intermarried and welcomes them and their children, which recognizes gays and lesbians as fully part of our community and is color-blind and utterly egalitarian, post-patriarchal in every way;
– a Judaism which loves the tradition but is unafraid to say, when necessary, that our ancestors were fallible or limited by their times or just plain wrong;
– a Judaism rich in symbolism and metaphor and myth, which relishes the power of ritual to move our spirits, but continues the romance of brains and never forgets that the essence is the moral life;
– a Judaism which understands that for many today belief is difficult, which takes honest doubt seriously, and accepts the hard fact that we live at a time when the search for religious truth means to ask questions which cannot be answered easily or clearly or perhaps not at all;
– a Judaism which knows the role of religion is not to make people feel good or be happy, but to expand our vision and sharpen our ethical sensitivities, to bring hope when tragedy strikes, consolation and comfort in a time of despair;
– a Judaism which evokes in us awe and wonder before the mystery of existence, awe and wonder in the presence of the Infinite One, Unnamed and Unknowable, as we slowly make our make our way “between two eternities of darkness.”
_______________________________________
1 The New Republic, 5/25/98.
2 From the dust jacket of Seven Jewish Cultures, translated from the Hebrew by Gila Shmueli (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990).
3 Ibid., p. 30.
4 Ibid., p. 7.
5 Ibid., p. 25.
6 Ibid,, p. 5.
7 January 4, 1999.
8 Reform Judaism Today, II, pp.6f. (New York; Behrman House, 1983)
9 “Cloud of Smoke, Pillar of Fire: Judaism, Christianity and Modernity after the Holocaust,” in Eva Fleischner (ed.), Auschwitz: Beginning of a New Era?, p. 55. (New York, Ktav Publishing Company, 1977)
10 Ibid., p. 23.
11 “Theological Interpretations of the Holocaust,” in Francois Furet (ed.), Nazi Germany and the Genocide of the Jews, p. 302. (New York, Schocken Books, 1989)
12 Cited by Karen Armstrong, The Battle for God, p. 72 (New York, Knopf, 2000)
13 op. cit., p. 21
14 ibid., p. 144
15 Winter, 1998
16 the phrase is from Vladimir Nabokov, Speak Memory, p. 19 (New York, Vintage, ?)
“Toward a Post-Ideological, Therefore a Post-Denominational Liberal Judaism?” by Robert M. Seltzer
Robert M. Seltzer’s response to Rabbi Bernard M. Zlotowitz’s questionnaire on the future of movements and denominations in the Jewish world.
1. Introduction
Being an academician affects my answers to Rabbi Zlotowitz’s questions in several regards, so that I’ll start by raising a terminological quibble.
I’m not sure if Reform, Conservative, Orthodox, and other contemporary forms of Judaism should be called denominations, a term borrowed from Protestantism, or even whether they are social movements in the sense that sociologists and historians use the term. They are tendencies or segments of the organized religious continuum of American Judaism. Specifically, they are conglomerates each comprised of a rabbinic school, a federation of legally autonomous congregations, a union of rabbis, and associations for youth, women (sisterhoods), and men (brotherhoods).
Moreover, how these denominations (it’s impossible to avoid the term completely) emerged in the past can be contrasted with their orientation at present. Jewish pluralism surfaced in periods when the overall situation of a branch of the diaspora was in great flux, yet being Jewish was a high priority. Older definitions of Judaism had become problematic or even unattractive, leading to the emergence of new ideologies. Once new tendencies establish a solid membership they can evolve in ways quite different from the original impetus. Recall the Karaites, Kabbalah, or Beshtian Hasidism, whose status in Jewish history was drastically transformed in the course of time.
2. Do I identify with a particular denomination or movement?
I identify with Reform Judaism. A bit of autobiography may be in order.
I was sent to “Sunday School” (that’s what it was called) at a rather stodgy Classical Reform synagogue in St. Louis. My grandfather arranged that I become bar mitzvah in a Conservative synagogue. I was pushed through the drill by rote. My main involvement as a teenager was in the Reform youth movement, initially as a member of a new Temple youth group created by a charismatic, recently ordained rabbi (Eugene B. Borowitz who later became an eminent Reform theologian). Participation in the Missouri Valley Federation of Temple Youth (whose parameters at that time stretched from Illinois to Colorado) led to involvement in the National Federation of Temple Youth. Rabbi Samuel Cook, the director of NiFTY, brought together young creative rabbis to be the staff of its summer “camp institutes.” This ambiance made a tremendous impression on my cohort of Reform Jewish teenagers, leading some of us to the rabbinate.
At that time the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion had an intellectually diverse faculty many of whom were at the height of their scholarly vigor. The students were thoroughly committed to Jewish survival and interested in liberal religion, but few of us were particularly observant or pious. At that point HUC did not require study in Israel, but some of us went there on our own to attend an ulpan and take courses at the Hebrew University. During my time at HUC years I was drawn to the study of Jewish history and a possible career in teaching. After ordination I entered Columbia University to study for a PhD in Russian and Jewish history, just as positions in Jewish studies began to open up in secular colleges and universities. Immediately after my dissertation was accepted, I became a member of the History Department of Hunter College of The City University of New York, where I have remained ever since. Besides all periods of Jewish history, I offer courses in world and modern intellectual history. Although I have been a member of several Reform synagogues, the board of the Central Conference of American Rabbis, and its Rabbinic Ethics Committee, my primary professional involvement has been through the Association for Jewish Studies.
The AJS is one of the most successful ecumenical Jewish organizations in North America, bringing together Judaic scholars of every orientation. Among other reasons, Jewish studies is thriving in North America and elsewhere because it transcends the denominations. In my professional capacity as professor of history and director of the Hunter Jewish Social Studies Program, I am committed to a presentation of Judaism that is outside any particular religious commitment. I have Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, and totally secular students. Very few colleagues and students realize that I am also a Reform rabbi.
3. On the current transformation of Reform Judaism
“Classical Reform” was the cutting edge in Germany and America until the last quarter of the nineteenth century, seeking to win recognition for Judaism as a respectable and thoroughly modern religious option in an age of emancipation. It experimented with changes in Jewish beliefs and practices, some of which turned out to be viable and others not.
The membership of movements range from a leadership that takes the ideas and program seriously indeed to followers whose identification is basically social and casual. On the one hand, some of the most important exemplars of modern Judaism have been associated with Reform Judaism: Abraham Geiger, Hermann Cohen, Leo Baeck, Stephen Wise, Judah L. Magnes, Abba Hillel Silver, Emil Fackenheim, Henry Slonimsky, Samuel Atlas, Jacob Rader Marcus. Jacob Petuchowski, Gunther Plaut, Eugene Borowitz, Rachel Adler — to mention only a few. On the other hand, a high percent of the membership are Reform because it is, in one way or another, convenient. The ideology of Classical Reform articulated in the Pittsburgh Platform was based on Wissenschaftlich rationalism, anti-particularistic universalism, progressivist optimism. The Reform Judaism in which I was brought up was epitomized by the Columbus Platform, which was far more positive about Zionism and other elements of Judaism that the earlier leadership had though obsolete. In the post World War II era the membership of Reform Jewish synagogues shifted to include those whose family roots had been in East Europe. Some of the leaders had been brought here from Germany in the late 1930s. (Not long ago the presidents of HUC, the CCAR, and the UAHC were all born in Germany.) The Union of American Hebrew Congregations (now the Union of Reform Judaism) moved its headquarters to Manhattan, was positive to Jewish ethnicity, supports Israel enthusiastically, and as become increasingly appreciative of aspects of the tradition that had previously been jettisoned, from bar/bar mitzvahs to wearing of kippot during prayer to increasing use of Hebrew in worship. The dreary aesthetic ambiance of “God is in his holy temple, earthly thoughts be silent now” gave way to lively new, sometimes traditionalistic melodies. The role of the Reform rabbi shifted from focusing on being a civic leader and orator to a far greater involvement in pastoral advice, ritual concerns, and explicating Judaism.
This tendency toward “neo-traditionalism” represents a strengthened sense of belong to klal Yisrael and a positive connection to the Jewish past on the part of Reform, a trajectory leading to turnarounds such as Reform tashlikh ceremonies and talk about Reform kashrut and restoring tehiyat ha-metim in the new prayer book. At the same time, there has been an transformation of gender roles in Jewish leadership, masculine identifiers for God, and inclusion of gays and lesbians. The question arises then, what makes Reform Judaism still distinctive, other than its organizational structure?
In my opinion, the strength of Reform Judaism has been its intellectual honesty vis-à-vis the ideals of the Enlightenment, Wissenschaft des Judentums, and their later manifestations. It acknowledged that there were outdated aspects of the Jewish heritage that must be dropped if Judaism is to remain a living, progressive faith. When, however, does critical change becomes loss of continuity and coherence? In theory “nothing Jewish should be alien to a Reform Jew” (especially to a Reform rabbi), so there is always the possibility of filling old bottles with new wine. Are there parameters without which Reform loses its identity and becomes “Conservative Light” (this phrase is my only sound bite ever)? To be sure, Conservative, Reconstructionist, and even Orthodox Judaism face that issue in their own way.
For me, the lynchpin is not only to render it compatible with this or that scientific, historical, or psychological finding but to take modern historiography seriously, as I will explain below.
4. What do you thing are the positives of identification with a movement?
We are shaped by the cultures and subcultures in which we are raised, even while we view them critically (and liberal Jews are highly critical people). Isolated individuals have great difficulty in making an impact in the community by themselves. Just being “just Jewish” “doesn’t do it.” Jewish survival requires settings that provide a framework for socialization, philanthropy, and study. Our version of “noblesse oblige” should involve an obligation to support institutions that further the creative survival of Judaism according to its highest values, paying back by contributing to the flourishing and improvement of the matrix from which an abiding core of our identity derives.
5. How would you describe the future of the current movements?
The future of the denominations depends to a great extent on the overall religious climate in the United States. Will Americans become, like Europeans, increasingly indifferent to organized religion? This quite possible considering the social and educational level of the vast majority of American Jews and their increasing integration into the mainstream, including through intermarriage. Reform and Conservative Judaism may shrink but for somewhat different reasons, such as trends in demography, migration, and even the economy (belonging to most synagogues is expensive). Conservative Judaism was to a great extent locked on a commitment carried over from immigrant parents or grandparents. Some of their children have either become more frum or, especially if they have intermarried, joined Reform synagogues. Nevertheless, the surge of Reform Judaism in recent decades, which made possible the claim that it is the biggest denomination, may turn out to be temporary. My friend and colleague Lance Sussman, rabbi of Reform Congregation Knesset Israel in Philadelphia, wonders if after the growth in the previous decade Reform has already entered a period of numerical decline, like Conservative Judaism. The smaller movements, Reconstructionism, Humanistic Judaism, Jewish Renewal, and groups less well known — all of which have passionately committed memberships — may continue to grow, but they form a small percent of American Jews who are “belongers.”
Reform, Conservative, and Orthodox Judaism are now umbrellas, each covering a range of positions. As I suggested earlier, they sustain and are sustained by panoply of institutions that require considerable funds for salaries, the upkeep of buildings, and other expenses. If the abiding division turns out to be the line between Orthodox and all forms of non-Orthodox Judaism, perhaps the liberal sector will be consolidated in order to cut down the total overhead. But given the vested interests involved, it’s hard to see how that will happen soon.
6. What challenges or changes to you foresee?
One of the main problems is the alienation of those who want more than what one of my friends calls “happy clappy Judaism” that relies mainly on nostalgia, sentimentality, emotionality. Many American Jews probably feel something is missing our society and culture — a dimension which they call “spiritual,” and are therefore open to being shown that modern Judaism renders the treasures of the past compatible with a modern scientific view of nature and history, including the history of religion.
The methodology and some of the findings of contemporary historiography run up against the traditional presentation of what Emil Fackenheim called the “root experiences” of Judaism. Modern historians evaluate evidence about the past skeptically. For example, the biblical image of the formative personalities and events of biblical history before the age of kings Omri and Ahab may have been to a large extent invented much later: the patriarchs and matriarchs, the Exodus, the covenant at Mount Sinai, the conquest of Canaan, the united kingdom of David and Solomon. Most biblical scholars now date the final redaction of the Pentateuch to post-exilic times, centuries after Moses (if there was a Moses). There is the problem of sifting through the multiple forms of Judaism that flourished during the late Second Temple period and when to date the inception of the Oral Torah. Modern historiography has analyzed the tensions that characterized the most creative medieval periods of Jewish history and the periodic reconfiguration of what it meant to be Jewish in modern times. There is no final version of the new Jewish history because novel approaches and fashions repeatedly surface in scholarship – it is built into modern scholarship that that happens. All this is grist for the mill of historians, but can be confusing for ordinary Jews.
In sum, history poses theoretical issues that all but the fundamentalist forms of Judaism have to face in justifying that they are legitimate continuations of the tradition. (I avoid the problematic term “authentic”). The bottom line is whether modern Jewish historiography is merely the “faith of fallen Jews” as Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi famously observed in Zahor: Jewish History and Jewish Memory — or is it integral to a thoroughly modern Jewishness? Zionism provides one answer. Can liberal diaspora Judaism continue to articulate its own convincing vision of an evolving heritage?
The viable meaning(s) of Jewish history overlap the denominations, blurring the difference between them. The sharpest dividing line may be between those who insist on observance of the halakhah as understood according to scholars using traditional religious methods and those who accept that halakhah, whatever its value in confirming kelal Yisrael, is mutable, adjustable, and conditional, so that ultimate affirmation of Judaism rests of other grounds.
7. What are and what will be effects of pluralistic developments?
The more choices there are for expressing one’s Jewishness, the more people will find a comfortable and meaningful home within the Jewish heritage. We live in an age of rampant individualism, so that a variety of options may provide more Jews with a Jewish grounding. Complicating the picture is that people can be “very Jewish” at a certain point in their lives and less so at other times, and that the most meaningful Jewish occasions may be life-cycle events such as birth, turning thirteen, marriage, death — and crisis-moments when they feel they need pastoral counseling.
Another factor that encourages pluralism is the new tier of rabbinic academies that have come to the fore: the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College, the American Jewish University, Boston Hebrew College, the Academy for Jewish Religion, and others. These don’t seem to be creating movements in their wake, but by breaking down boundaries may facilitate the amalgamation of a supra-denominational liberal Judaism.
All this blurs the parameters between the denominations and between Judaism and the world, with negative but also with positive effects for the survival of the Jewish heritage as a living faith that applies to life as it is lived.
Reprinted, with permission of the author from: G’vanim, the Journal of the Academy of Jewish Religion, NY, Vol. 5, Num. 1 (May 2009). Pp. 85-89.
Speaking of Foreskin…
Speaking of foreskin (that’s not something I get to say often! – but see my previous blog entry), have you read Foreskin’s Lament
The book provides snippets of his life – from childhood and adulthood, including his wife’s pregnancy and his fears around that. While the book is entertaining, anger is a central theme. Auslander coins the term “theological abuse: It involves adults, known or unknown to the underage victim, telling them a Lunatic runs the word, that He’s spying on them, and that He’s waiting for them to break a rule. God is here. God is there. God is truly everywhere! So watch it, kid…” (page 112).
As for circumcision, Auslander writes that he feels God has spited him by giving him a son. He (being quite the cynic) would have prayed for a girl, but he assumed God would not listen. So, instead, Auslander thought about using reverse psychology – but then he figured God would really “screw him” and give him twins. At one point, Auslander even compares himself to foreskin: singled out, cut off, and cast forth.
Auslander explores his relationship not just with Jewish traditions, but with God. Orthodox teachers have tried to drill into his head what he should believe. This picture of God is “an abusive, belligerent god, a god who awoke millennia ago on the wrong side of the firmament and still hasn’t cheered up.” Auslander spends most of his life worried God is going to kill him; when he sees a truck with “G.O.D.” written on it, he of course assumes it’s God out to get him – rather than realizing it stands for “Guaranteed Overnight Delivery.”
Auslander hates that “man plans and God laughs” and would prefer a religion in which “man plans and God does His best to bring those plans to successful fruition.” Sounds nice.
In some ways I can’t relate to Auslander at all – we come from very different backgrounds. Also, he argues that theologically he has more in common with a Christian than with a Reform Jew. I don’t know about that. But, what I do know is that although we come from very different places, what defines Auslander’s life and is a big part of mine is struggle (in a good way). Struggling, asking questions, grappling with big issues, changing your mind. Now, that is fun!
To Circumcise Or Not: That is (sort of) the Question
In last week’s issue of the “Forward” (yup, it sat on my desk for a week before I got around to reading it), Rabbi Deborah Wechsler wrote an article called “Reluctant Mitzvah,” a thought-provoking piece about her struggle with her son’s circumcision.
She jokes about her first child being a girl – and her happiness that she did not have to plan a circumcision. Her second child, though, was a boy, and Rabbi Wechsler wrote that after she had cared for her unborn child for nine months, “then on the eighth day, you hand him over to the men to chop him to pieces” (which she admits is a slight exaggeration!).
Rabbi Wechsler writes that like keeping kosher or keeping Shabbat, circumcising her son is a mitzvah (obligation). As a Jew who does not follow so-called obligations for their own sake, I always ask questions about the value of the “obligation.” Does it have meaning for me and does it make sense given modernity?
I’m going to avoid the issue of cutting foreskin, ‘cause hey, it’s not my expertise. I’ll leave that to the folk at the American Academy of Pediatrics. In 1999 they basically said the following: “there are medical benefits…yet the procedure is not essential…parents should determine what is in the best interest of the child.”
Certainly, it is the parents’ personal decision and for many the circumcision is a powerful way to publicly affirm that their child is a new member of the Jewish community. That makes a lot of sense to me. Still, having watched many of my friends who are new parents struggle with what to do, it strikes me that this is not clear-cut (no pun intended).
Leaving aside the physical cutting, there are two things about ceremony that strike me. First, though, let’s review the terms: it’s called brit milah (covenant of circumcision) or more often referred to just as a bris.
Okay, back to the two issues. One: it’s a public surgery! Often, families invite their friends and family over for some snacks and then to watch the cutting of their son’s penis. I get it that it’s a mitzvah but sometimes I wonder if a bit more privacy might be appropriate.
The other issue for me is that welcoming a newborn – whether male or female – into the Jewish community should have equal significance. Too often, I think the bris takes on an entirely different level of meaning/respect than does the naming of a baby girl – implying (even if subtly) that the boy is more important. That makes no sense.
A model I’ve seen recently is that people opt for private circumcisions (sometimes on the 8th day and sometimes not). Then they do a public naming at a later date – a ceremony that they have regardless of their child’s gender. I like this plan.
Many new parents are finding thoughtful ways to welcome their children into the Jewish tradition. What is essential for me is that we rejoice in all of our children for they are our future. The rest is commentary.
“Feeling the Hate in Jersualem on the Eve of Obama’s Speech in Cairo” Video Reactions
Have you guys seen the horrible video on YouTube of a bunch of drunken American college students in Israel who say some awful things about President Obama? Given their word choices, I won’t have an easy time quoting them here. And, I’m not willing to embed the video into our site, but you can watch it here if you are at least 18 years of age (and ready to be appalled).
A few thoughts:
How representative are the views of these young Jewish Americans in Israel? Joseph Dana, a co-creator of the video writes, “As a resident of Jerusalem, I can say that the people represented in this video are not members of a fringe group or simply drunk college kids. These people reflect the sentiments shared by many people in this country and this city.” That wasn’t my experience when I lived in Jerusalem in 2003-4, but I admit I lived in a bit of a Hebrew Union College student bubble, so I’m not sure. I hope Dana is wrong though.
Naturally, I am not willing to say that these students represent a significant number or a majority – because I just don’t know. But, whatever their size, it’s disturbing. It almost sounds like they have been indoctrinated with these sentiments – or at the very least that they’ve learned that expressing such harsh viewpoints (against people like Obama and groups like Arabs) is “cool.” Where do they learn this? Not in the religious schools I’ve been in, or the public schools I’ve attended, or the universities I’ve been to, etc. So, where? And why?
Earlier in the week I blogged about a Chabad rabbi’s disturbing statement in Moment Magazine. I wondered then how representative his views are of Chabadniks in general, and now I have to wonder how representative these young folks are of young Jews in general. In both cases, I hope they are tiny minorities and not representative of anything larger.
Everyone is entitled to his/her opinion – and criticizing political decisions is fine (I’ve even been critical once or twice). But, what I don’t understand is why they make it personal – saying about Obama “he’s a *%^$&” or “he deserves to get shot.” Now, that’s horrible. Some of these kids are wearing yarmulkes (skullcaps) suggesting to me that they see themselves as Jewish. I don’t know of any Jewish/human value that would be inline with these students saying what they said.
They also don’t sound particularly educated. One girl is a poli sci major who claims to know her stuff, but she doesn’t know who Benjamin Netanyahu is; when asked about him she says “I don’t know who he is. Who is Benjamin Yahoo?” It seems to me that if you are going to express strong opinions, you should educate yourself first.
That this video has been viewed over 350,000 times shows the power of social media (it also says you should be careful what you say on camera!). Social media has the power for good (for example when you spread our videos from OurJewishCommunity.org) but it can also spread terrible snapshots (like this video). I guess in a way, though, if these people really do exist, I’m glad to know it. That way I can continue to educate myself on issues so that I can speak with a louder voice – and I will continue to surround myself with people who are open-minded and thoughtful.
Does Reform Judaism Still Matter?
Last month, I attended Hebrew Union College’s ordination in Los Angeles. Having been ordained in Cincinnati, it was cool to see how ordination goes on a different campus. In any case, I won’t bore you with my list of advantages and disadvantages of being ordained on each campus. At least not right now.
Rabbi Richard Levy gave the ordination address entitled “Does Reform Judaism Still Matter?” It’s pretty astounding to me that that question needs to be asked— for I would hope that Reform Judaism does still matter. And yet, given where we are in the (Jewish) world, I think Rabbi Levy was right on in asking that question. As the Union for Reform Judaism has scaled back, Hebrew Union College is trying to figure out how to scale back, and many congregations (not just in the Reform movement) are struggling, it is a pivotal moment in Jewish history.
Among Levy’s words to the ordination class of 2009 were “whether Reform Judaism will still matter in 10 years, in 25 years, to a great extent will depend on you.” He’s right. And as a recent ordainee (one year out, woohoo!), there are questions I ask myself daily:
• How is the Jewish world changing?
• How is the world changing?
• How has Judaism evolved throughout history and how will we continue to embrace its evolution?
• What is distinct about liberal Judaism?
• What is compelling about Judaism to modern Jews?
• How will we adapt our vision of Jewish communal life and build models that speak to a contemporary Jewish experience?
• How can we create a Jewish experience that does not make people feel badly about what they do not know – but instead makes them feel good about what they do know?
I do not think that Rabbi Levy answered the question of whether Reform Judaism still matters. But I gather that what he was saying is that it’s not his question to answer (as he winds down his career). It is ours to answer. I would add that it’s not just a question for us rabbis, but for all of us. Which is precisely why we are building an online Jewish community that engages people in new ways – and why we want to hear from you about how Judaism matters (or doesn’t) to you.
Join the conversation. Ask your own questions. Come up with answers. Be willing to change your answers though – because Judaism is an evolving religion. And then come up with more questions – for they are the essence of the Jewish experience.
Congratulations to our Raffle Winner!
Congratulations to Deborah who won a $25 iTunes gift card in our raffle! Everyone who took the survey and sent in an email address was included in the drawing. FYI: I used a random number generator online (what isn’t online?!) and came up with #52 – which was Deborah’s spot on the list.
Deborah was kind enough to share the following information about herself:
How she discovered our online synagogue: In an article in the Forward.
Why she was interested: She felt she could fit in.
How old she is: 61
Deborah wrote, “As I get older I feel the lack of a Jewish upbringing
and community more and more. My family was not observant but maintained a
strong Jewish identity (red diaper baby). I learned more about Jewish
history and religious practice from reading than from home, but always
knew I was a Jewish person. I got a different slant on Jewish identity
from Hashomer Hatzair in the mid-60s. I grew up in New York, but
have lived in California since 1969. I’m married to a non-observant,
unbelieving, once-Christian.”
I have to say, I loved reading a brief chapter from Deborah’s story. One of the great privileges of being a rabbi is meeting and knowing a variety of people. Working at Congregation Beth Adam, I get to interact with a relatively small group of people face-to-face. It is wonderful. Working at OurJewishCommunity.org, I interact with thousands of people from around the world; I am fortunate to meet such diverse individuals through the wonders of technology. It is also wonderful. The web has an amazing way of making the world feel smaller at times.
So, thanks Deborah for sharing your story, and congrats on winning the raffle. For the rest of you out there – thanks for participating in our Jewish community. Please share your stories with us as well. And stay tuned for future surveys and raffles.
Shabbat Shalom!
Chabad Rabbi’s Frightening Comments… and my Thoughts on Treating Neighbors
The May/June issue of “Moment Magazine” asks several rabbis how Jews should treat their Arab neighbors. Rabbis from different streams of Judaism respond and you can read their answers. I’ll just share with you the final and incredibly disturbing response.
Rabbi Manis Friedman wrote the following:
“I don’t believe in western morality, i.e. don’t kill civilians or children, don’t destroy holy sites, don’t fight during holiday seasons, don’t bomb cemeteries, don’t shoot until they shoot first because it is immoral.
The only way to fight a moral war is the Jewish way: Destroy their holy sites. Kill men, women and children (and cattle).”
You can read his full answer here, but the part I quoted is enough for me. And, by “enough” I mean enough to make me shocked, angry, and frightened.
I don’t know if Rabbi Friedman’s beliefs characterize other Chabad rabbis – I can only hope they do not. These beliefs certainly do not come from the Judaism I celebrate.
His comments are disturbing, scary, and a reminder that there are religious extremists in every religion. May our voice be louder than theirs.
Of course I’m not just going to criticize his words. In thinking about my opinion about how Jews should treat their Arab neighbors, I find my beliefs are much more in line with President Obama’s than with Rabbi Friedman’s. Shocking, I know.
Did you hear Obama’s speech in Egypt? It was fabulous, and I hope it truly is a “new beginning” that will start a peaceful chapter in world history.
I am comforted by Obama’s promise to “relentlessly confront violent extremists who pose a grave risk to our security.” He continued, saying it’s “because we reject the same thing that people of all faiths reject: the killing of innocent men, women, and children.” Apparently what he should have said was: people of all faiths— except for Rabbi Friedman— reject this.
Back to me. Here’s my answer on one foot for how we should treat any neighbors. With respect! Naturally, when necessary we must defend ourselves while keeping the human rights of innocent people at the forefront.
Yes, for me this means sometimes standing up for Palestinians when it comes to issues around Israel. I believe a two-state solution makes sense, and I am glad that President Obama is staying strong in rejecting Israeli settlements in Palestine.
I am not a politician or an expert on the Middle East, so I am happy to leave these decisions in the good hands of President Obama and our other public servants. What I do know, though, is that I believe in protecting life – and in being fair to people regardless of their religion or color – unless of course they are violent extremists. In the words of President Obama, “it is a sign neither of courage nor power to shoot rockets at sleeping children, or to blow up old women on a bus.” Amen.
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