Confronting the Big Issues
July 2, 2008
The Future
(4 comments)
By Larry Kaufman
Those of us who are concerned about the condition of Reform Judaism today, and where it (we) may be headed in the future should read Professor Jack Wertheimer's article from a recent issue of Commentary Magazine.
The article has been the subject of discussion on the Union's iWorship list-serv, and was particularly well summarized there by Dr. Randi Thompson, based on discussion of the article by the Board of Congregation Albert in Albuquerque, led by Rabbi Joe Black. Here's the collective New Mexican take on what Wertheimer said:
Reform Judaism has avoided the decline that Mainline Protestants have experienced by being welcoming to the intermarried and to the GLBT community, inclusive of women, and liturgically diverse.
However, the movement does an abysmal job of educating its members and raising its kids into involved Jews, and has only maintained its numbers because of so many defections from Conservative synagogues. There might be a vast gap between Reform's professed values and the religious desires of its (declining number of) male adherents. Furthermore, the stress on individual choice has a negative effect on commitment to Jewish community. In fact, Reform really stands for nothing besides inclusiveness. It's members will continue to become less and less Jewishly literate and identified, and then will come the decline the Mainline Christians have already experienced and that Reform has until now avoided.
Many of the points Wertheimer brings up have been discussed both here on the blog and also on the list-serv: the notion of obligation, and the focus of the individual over the communal. Dr. Thompson reports that her group thinks (and I agree) Wertheimer's kidding himself if he believes the same issues aren't happening in the Conservative movement. These issues are important in all of non-orthodox Judaism. In particular, I'd find it interesting to see more statistics showing the Conservative performance on measures for which Wertheimer worries about Reform (such as retention of young people post-bnai mitzvah, participation in adult education, percentage of members attending Shabbat services, etc).
It should be noted that Wertheimer has a lot of praise for the Reform movement's successes. When Wertheimer criticizes Reform -- or perhaps it would be more accurate to say, predicts dire results -- it's autonomy that he centers on, allowing adherents to choose what they will observe. This of course is not true in the Halachic Conservative movement, whose adherents are obligated to kashrut and to Shabbat observance, to name two yardsticks. Those readers of this blog who know Conservative-affiliated Jews are well aware that they are all kosher and shomer shabbos, and by the way, I have a bridge in Brooklyn I'll be pleased to sell you.
When I was first getting involved in the Reform movement some thirty-plus years ago (having grown up in Conservative Judaism), my rabbi used to say that if I wanted to know what the Conservative movement was going to do tomorrow, I should look at what the Reform movement did thirty years ago. When I repeated this one day to one of the rabbi's younger colleagues, he responded that his senior was behind the times -- the gap had shrunk from thirty to ten years. Calling women to the Torah, counting them for a minyan, ordaining and investing them -- need I say more?
This is not to say that we should not be concerned about the things Wertheimer says we should be concerned about (most of which are already on the Union's agenda). And I daresay he is already expending energy trying to get his own house in order. After all, while he worries about the dangers that lie ahead for Reform, Conservative Judaism is already racked by schism, plagued by attrition, and characterized by enormous observance gaps between the pulpit and the pew. But Randi Thompson posits on behalf of her colleagues that American Judaism, throughout the non-Orthodox streams, won't survive another generation just on a sense of ethnic heritage. We're going to have to wrestle with our ideas of God and chosen-ness and commanded-ness and obligation to normative Judaism. How we answer those Big Issues, she says, will in turn drive how our worship looks and sounds, and with whom we are worshipping.
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My thanks to Larry Kaufman for introducing the Wertheimer article to this Blog. It is an important scholarly contribution and one that will and should occasion both critique and internal discussion and debate.
Much of the subtext of the Wertheimer article and discussion on this Blog and the iWorship list-serve involves the extent to which we and our children identify (and are in turn identified) as Jews (minus the denominational modifier), members of the Jewish people - Klal Yisrael, and adherents of Judaism.
As a relatively recent participant in Reform Judaism via my membership in a Reform shul, it seems to me that Reform has historical roots and contemporary currents that both conflict with these goals (some elements of Classical Reform and of the Outreach movement) as well as strong drivers toward creation of an active, engaged Jewish identity and religious experience (the fabulous URJ camp program, leaders like Rabbi Yoffie and his focus on Shabbat, knowledgeable and spiritual clergy, and engaged members (many Jews by Choice), such as those with whom I lurk in iWorship, pray on Shabbat, and serve bagels to on Sunday).
Agree or disagree, the Wertheimer article deserves thoughtful and respectful review and reflection.