BB,
That's an incredibly good article. Thank you for posting it. I can totally relate to this part:
More recently, Reform Jews have allowed their denomination to be painted as an inferior brand of Judaism — a set of compromises of convenience. Reform Judaism needs to stop apologizing for itself. Instead, it must revert to the clarity and courage — if not to the details — of the Pittsburgh Platform and reassert in the face of contempt the right and duty of Reform. (“Reform,” as Leonard Fein noted a generation ago, is properly understood as a verb and not a noun.)
Reform Judaism has made it into the front rank of contemporary Judaisms, so it must be saying something that is true to the experience of its vast constituency. Specify what that is and build on it. I would suggest that a platform for a 21st-century Reform Judaism should have three essential planks.
The first plank would be to reaffirm the tradition of reason and criticism that has characterized Reform Judaism from its inception. Reform Judaism founded modern learning in Judaism. Its Scripture was not dictated word for word by a supernatural being from outer space. Its theology does not promise pie in the sky when you die. The power of Reform Judaism from its 19th-century origins has been its courage to say it stands for the Judaism of today.
Getting back to my own Reform roots: My first spiritual teacher was my confirmation class teacher, a 22-year old rabbinical student named Bernard King. As a Reform rabbi Bernie has achieved tremendous respect in the SoCal Reform community--all of it totally deserved, I'm happy to say. I still think of him as Bernie, though. I have always called them by their first names: Bernie, Stephan, Jonathan. No titles are necessary because I know what they mean to me.
In 1984 during my "re-entry" period (referring to my PMs), my husband and I caught up with Bernie by visiting his Orange County synagogue for a Shabbat service. He really surprised us by talking in his sermon about laying tefillin, a practice he had recently adopted. Lately I understand he's come under fire from his former constituents (he's now rabbi emeritus) and others in the Reform community because of his interest in Kabbalah. From what I know about him, I suspect this is a longtime interest that he has only made public fairly recently.
My point here? I don't think it's the degree of observance that makes a person Reform or traditional. I think it's your motive--WHY you're doing whatever it is you're doing that is the line of demarcation. I can visualize a Reform Jew keeping kosher, laying tefillin and in most ways living a lifestyle almost indisguishable from an Orthodox Jew. There are some practices they will never observe, like the mechitza (good riddance!) or the "separatist" style of Hasidic dress, but in most other ways he or she could very well observe the commandments in a manner almost indisguishable from Orthodoxy. I suspect there are many who do just that but keep a low profile about it.
BUT they will never adopt these practices arbitrarily, because they were commanded "by a supernatural being from outer space." They will adopt them to the degree they find them personally meaningful, and ONLY to the degree they find them personally meaningful. Traditionalists actually pride themselves on the fact that they observe the commandments even when they seem arbitrary and illogical, because "God commanded it." You aren't supposed to say for example that you don't eat pork and lobster because you don't like pork and lobster--
not even if it's true! "God commanded it" is supposed to be the only valid reason for observance. That approach will never fly in Reform Judaism, just by the nature of Reform Judaism.
Over the last few decades I've seen the standard of observance become much more traditional compared with what it was when I was in my teens. I can remember when only the older men wore kipot in the sanctuary, and you almost never saw a talit except on the rabbi and cantor and the bar mitzvah boy, if there happened to be a bar mitzvah that week. It was
never a bat mitzvah in those days either! Now you see them all the time...including on the girls and women.
Any new Pittsburgh Platform should just state that right upfront, and not attempt to define some particular degree of observance for the whole Reform movement. It should state right upfront that observance of the commandments depends upon the needs and desires of the individual or the individual congregation. And most important of all, that it is NOT dependent on "God's will" as perceived by traditionalists or anyone else. That should be stated explicitly and without apology.
B'shalom,
Linda
