By Larry Kaufman
You all know about the man from Mars who finds himself on Earth in front a deli, wanders in and begins scrutinizing the display case.  "What's that?" he asks the counterman, pointing to a ring of dough with a hole in the center.  "We call that a bagel," the counterman replies.  "And that?" pointing to an orange slab.  "That's smoked salmon, colloquially known as lox."  "You know what," the Martian says, "I'm going to try some of that lox on a bagel, and why don't you add a shmear of cream cheese."

So what would the man from Mars make of Reform Judaism if he should happen to land on this blog?  He would find a chorus singing, "Give me that old-time religion - it was good enough for Einhorn and good enough for Kohler, and it's good enough for me, and should be good enough for you, too - universalistic, minimal Hebrew mumbo-jumbo, no middle-Eastern aspirations, no shtetl accoutrements around our shoulders or coverings on our head," or, as my cousin Miriam used to say, "Ve are vun-hundred pehrcehnt Omericans." 

And he would find the counterpoint of the glee club harmonizing a medley of songs of praise for tzitzit, kashrut, Hebrew literacy and liturgy, and "doing Jewish."

Mirabile dictu (amazingly), he would find similar ranges of opinion and practice if he happened to land on a Conservative blog or an Orthodox blog. Why do you suppose there are so many competing Kosher certifying organizations? I was amused the other night to hear an Orthodox woman decry the unreasonable elements in her own world who wouldn't countenance the Orthodox summer camp that allowed boys and girls to swim in the same lake. And I have always delighted in the statement of the prominent Haredi non-Chasidic rabbi who called for tolerance towards Lubovitch Chasidism, because it is the closest religion to Judaism.

Yes, the man from Mars would diagnose us as an opinionated, argumentative, fractious people, with a variety of opinions about what God wants from us, and what we want from God. One of the glories of what I think of as mainstream Reform is that my being right doesn't make you wrong. I think of the Shaker hymn, Simple Gifts:

Tis the gift to be simple, 'tis the gift to be free,
'Tis the gift to come down where we ought to be,
And when we find ourselves in the place just right,
'Twill be in the valley of love and delight.

How nice to know "where we ought to be," how nice to find ourselves in "the place just right."  Are we talking about your place or my place?

I have found a tendency on this blog, more in the comments than in the posts, for "the place just right" to be the place the commentator came from or is at - which may or may not be the same.   Or, among the super-tolerant, "We all worship God in our own way - you in your way, I in His."

I had the good fortune to grow up in a household with three Jewish role models, my mother, my father, and my grandmother.  My grandmother expressed her Judaism the Modern Orthodox way of the first half of the twentieth century.  We ate kosher in our home, although she knew her children and grandchildren ate "treyf" outside; she observed Shabbos strictly, but did not demand that we do the same; and she honored the Jewish choices of her daughter and son-in-law.

My father involved himself in the local community - active in the anti-anti-Semitism organizations like ADL and American Jewish Congress, passionate about the Jewish Big Brothers.  My mother was an ardent and active Labor Zionist, who decided at age 70 that it was time to practice what she had been preaching for forty years and made aliyah (moved to Tel Aviv). 
From childhood, I observed three different ways of "being a good Jew," with the important sub-text that each of my models honored the others' choices.
Having come down where I ought to be, and having found my own valley of love and delight (different from that of my forebears), I have to beware the temptation to scorn those whose place just right is different from mine, whether elsewhere in the spectrum or Reform, or the broader spectrum of Judaism.

But I think I know where my threshold of impatience begins.  I'll accept your place just right as a valid way of being a good Jew, as long as, and only if, you extend the same courtesy to me.

Then we can both sit down together and tell our guest from Mars that it's just not Jewish to have his corned beef on whole wheat with mayo!

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dcc said: Reform Judaism allows for debate, note your comment posted here. It permits thinking and engagement with text and tradition. So if you consider Chabad -- with its indoctrination, lack of choice, shtetl mentality -- to be authentic, gay gazunt! But I will take my modernity, this blog and its open conversation, progress, political engagement with my values, equality of genders, and my Reform Judaism as my authentic Judaism. But thanks for stopping by RJ.org. July 22, 2008 1:53 PM

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