Edie Joseph on Reform Judaism
June 27, 2008
Community | Jewish Living
(1 comments)
By David A.M. Wilensky
As readers of Reform Judaism magazine will recall, the RJ magazine's summer 2008 issue included a series of important questions regarding the Reform Movement and their answers as given by 30 adult members of the Reform Movement.
I'm currently at the URJ Kutz Camp with a group of people who will be the future lay and professional leadership of the Reform movement in North America. I'll be using many of them as well as many of the younger Kutz staff members this summer in a series of posts here on the RJ.org blog, in which I will be asking Reform high school and college students (and perhaps a few 20-somethings) for their take on Reform Judaism via questions similar to those used in the magazine.
Edie Joseph currently lives in Gainesville, Florida. She grew up at URJ Camp Harlam, attended Kutz in 2005, and in 2007 received a Bronfman Youth Fellowship in Israel. She will be attending Yale University as a freshman in the fall.
Why are you a Reform Jew? "Because my parents are" is a valid answer. If it is because your parents Reform, what has kept you involved in Reform Judaism?
I initially considered myself a Reform Jew because of my parents; my dad is a Reform rabbi and I grew up very engrained in Reform Judaism. As I have had more and more experience living and praying in pluralistic Jewish communities, however, I have come to define myself as a Reform Jew because of the movement's ability to be all-encompassing in terms of religious observance and commitment.
Jewishly, I want to try new things, to learn new things, and perhaps one day to live a religiously observant lifestyle not commonly chosen among Reform Jews. But because I am a Reform Jew, whatever lifestyle I choose will be because of an educated personal choice, not because of a forced indoctrination or sense of external obligation. Being a Reform Jew means that every religious choice is my own, which makes every choice, in my mind, much holier and more meaningful.
Do you believe God hears our prayers?
My view of prayer has been most shaped by a passage present in Reform siddurim: "Prayer invites God's presence to suffuse our spirits, God's will to prevail in our lives. Prayer might not bring water to parched fields, nor mend a broken bridge, nor rebuild a ruined city. But prayer can water an arid soul, mend a broken heart, rebuild a weakened will." I do not believe that God can hear our prayers in the sense of listening and choosing to intervene in human life. But I do believe that the more selflessly we appeal to a higher power, admit our weaknesses, and open ourselves up to help, the stronger we will become, whether God hears us or not.
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I grew up in the 50's in what is now called Classical Reform tradition because that is where my parents chose to worship. As I grew older, I became more convinced that Reform was the way to go because I did not like the constrictions or attitudes of my more orthodox and conservative friends had or the general teachings the non-reform; however, I think I was given a one-sided view from my Reform education of what it meant to be Jewish and a Reform Jew.
After I married a man brought up in conservadox tradition, but who was at the time more Reform in his views, and after we had children, I realized that I was never educated enough in Judaism from a more universal point of view, and as the Reform movement started opening up to more traditional choices and more education in the entire scope of Judaism,I shifted a bit in my thinking. I had an adult group bat mitzvah and learned to read Hebrew. I was--am still--involved musically. I disagreed and still do in the more orthodox belief of kol isha, which is one reason I continue to be Reform now. I do not always agree in the political or religious decisions of the Reform Movement as an organization, and I often prefer to consider myself just Jewish rather than a Reform Jew. (I don't care for the term Reform anyway. I like Progressive better as it is called across the ocean.)
I like the association with the Jewish Community at large. I believe there is a spiritual side to us as human beings, and I espeically feel spiritual when I am singing, but that spirituality is not necessarily attached to a firm belief in God.
My children seem to be caught up in the secular attitude of our society these days, but somewhere in their hearts I know they identify with Judaism. My one son, the scientist, is convinced that it is all about science and genetics, not God. We did keep a modified Jewish home for them, but I don't know that we were disciplined enough in our practice in our daily lives compared to our more conservative friends. My children are still young, so it is difficult to say in what direction they will go. Where I thought it was essential to marry another Jew, they don't necessarily feel that way and so far none are married, and we have no grandchildren;One prefers not to date Jewish girls, one actually has a Jewish boyfriend, one is living with a non jewish girl, and the other two are silent although I know they are not concerned with religion. I am not sure they see a Jewish lifestyle and having Jewish children as essential in carrying on the Jewish tradition as I do.
I am a cantorial soloist in Fairport, NY