William Berkson writes:

I think that the founding of the Society for Classical Reform Judaism, which Rabbi Berman has written about here is one sign of that lack of direction, and lack of a compelling vision.

Without denying the absence in Reform of a single compelling vision, let's not attribute more to the founding of the SCRJ than it actually entails.

Prior to January of 2008, the voice of Classical Reform Judaism for some sixty years was the American Council for Judaism. In the fall of 2007, the ACJ hired as its Executive Director Rabbi Howard Berman. Some ninety days after Rabbi Berman came aboard, the ACJ split itself in two as Rabbi Berman and others formed the SCRJ to focus on religious issues, with the ACJ committed to its OTHER historic focus, political issues. (For "political issues," read anti-Zionism.) This recent history is ignored on the SCRJ website, unless I haven't probed deeply enough, but is clearly laid out on the ACJ website, www.acjus.org.

Rabbi Berman has made clear on this blog and on the SCRJ website (www.renewreform.org) that the Society is not separatist but the expression of a particular viewpoint within the panoply of Reform viewpoints. Ergo, suggesting it is a reaction to Reform disarray doesn't seem reasonable. While its vision may be compelling to some, the congregational listing on the SCRJ website makes clear that the some are few -- four congregations directly identified with the organization and two more identified as influenced by its values.

I'll post separately to comment on some of the other issues raised in Strengthening Reform 14, including my own reservations about "the idol of autonomy."

Larry, thanks, I did not know that interesting history. From what you report other forces are at work as well. But I can't help but think that Rabbi Berman's taking this old movement in a new direction does reflect the times; it seems he wants to revive Classical Judaism by jettisoning the anti-Zionist component, and keeping everything else.

David, thanks, I'm trying! After one more critical post I'll go positive. If you're going to renovate usually you have to take out a few walls first :)

Larry, your history of Reform banning kippot makes me think that the devotion to autonomy--or the excuse of autonomy, as you may rightly put it--may be relatively recent. It is in Borowitz, and in recent other discussions, but I don't know if it's earlier.

I'm not yet up on this history, so maybe you can tell me. It looks to me from your story that Classical Reform knew which rituals they didn't want, and were out to quash them. It wasn't a matter of individual choice, though of course they needed to win support of their congregations.

I agree with you that it is unrealistic to expect uniformity in Reform practice, and not even desirable. But what is needed is a framework for discussion, and than that discussion. Not the fiction that it is all up to individuals getting their personal inspiration of what mitzvot to follow.

I am wanting a rational process based on study of tradition. This already exists to some extent in the tradition of Reform responsa, which is completely different in spirit and philosophy from the Romantic individualism in other Reform works. However, this discussion has only taken place rather narrowly, among a small group of people, if I understand it rightly.

BZ, I see I wasn't clear enough, and you've interpreted what I wrote that in a way contrary to what I intended.

I don't think that Rabbis alone should decide for the laity. In fact I think this has in practice been too much the rule in Reform.

I think the process should be more democratic, as Mordecai Kaplan urged. Kaplan, as I understand it, criticized the traditional doctrine of "mara d'atra", which says that the local Rabbi is decisor and authority for his community.

Kaplan wanted the decisions in to be made by a process of discussion and debate in the synagogue.

I would like to see such discussions and opinions issues on the synagogue level, but also on the level of the whole movement, and by whatever groups will be involved. The decision of what to adopt will be by individual synagogues and individual people--for these determine actual practice. What will win out for most congregations and individuals will be seen over the passage of generations, not as the result of an effort to impose authority.

Also I do believe in individual choice, which is what I think you mean when you write of "autonomy." Autonomy is a much stronger concept than respecting individual choice, and it is that stronger concept of each person as a law to himself or herself that I think is misleading and damaging.

Decisions both on a group and individual level involve a group process. I want that group process to be vigorous, well informed, guided by reason, and throughout both the clergy and laity.

No, BZ, it's not a straw man. Rabbi Borowitz, the leading Reform theologian for the past what--50 years?--discusses it extensively. He tries to figure out how to have a distinctive Jewish identity while keeping that autonomy.

It is also regularly discussed in Duties of the Soul: The Role of Commandments in Liberal Judaism.

The important thing is not so much that they clearly advocate a Kantian autonomy, which they don't, but rather that the leaders of Reform have been so hamstrung by the notion that they are not clear about what is a mitzvah. At least that's what I'll argue in my next post.

Lots of provocative questions posed above to which I would like to propose answers.

Q. What should Reform congregations do by way of studies for children, for adults?

A. Whatever else the Reform movement has done or failed to do in the past decade, it cannot be faulted for its commitment to or achievements in the realm of Talmud Torah. The explosion in adult studies speaks for itself. This very blog is lay driven, and exhibits the repository of Jewish learning that the movement has delivered to non-clergy.

The Chai curriculum is being accepted and utilized by religious schools across the country, and enthusiastically endorsed by the teachers who are on the front lines of its implementation. While we can’t say that day schools have become ubiquitous, they have certainly moved out of the realm of controversy and are recognized as a valid option for preparing Jewish children to become affirmative educated Jews while living in the mainstream of American society.

So what should congregations do? Use the materials the movement makes available; establish and enforce standards of attendance and accomplishment before bestowing the “rewards” of bar mitzvah and confirmation; encourage and subsidize attendance at Union camps; make sure every teenager has a chance to go on a peer trip to Israel

Q. What personal ethics should they espouse? What social reforms should they advocate?

A. I don’t see the matter of personal ethics as a muddled area in Reform. This is not to say that every Reform Jew behaves as our Prophets or our tradition would espouse – nor does the failure to meet ethical standards result in ostracism or even public criticism (despite our being enjoined in the parasha we will read again on Yom Kippur to deal as a community with overt misbehavior).

Whatever else may need fixing, surely the Prophets themselves would give us a gold star for our advocacy of social reforms. Yes, there are pockets of protest when we step out in front on social issues – typically framed not in opposition to the stance we have adopted but to our having entered that particular “non-religious” arena. As often as not, the debates at Biennials or Union Board meetings on issues of social reform are not on the substance, but on the pilpul (nit-picking) of the language. It is rare for a social reform advocacy resolution presented to the URJ Board not to pass unanimously.

So – it’s not broke, and thus we don’t have to fix it.

Q. What rituals, celebrations, and memorials should they practice? What home rituals should they encourage?

Okay, now we’re getting into an area where the terrain might be rougher. And certainly this is the area where the movement has seen the greatest change in the past quarter century. Examples of change are the observance of Selichot, second day Rosh HaShanah, Tashlich (casting our” sins” in the form of bread crumbs into the lake or river), hakafah (marching around the sanctuary with the Torah scroll), kipot and tallitot as commonplace. I suspect that most of these have been initiated by clergy, but have continued because they resonated with an adequate number of congregants. (Per “Kaufman’s Law” an adequate number for most synagogue functions is ten – a minyan.)

When it comes to home rituals, we are on weaker ground. We’ve probably got good market penetration for Chanukah candles and Passover seders. I get upset when I see Reform families going “Orthodox” for shiva – covering the mirrors and sending the women out of the room when they daven….that’s something to discourage.

How about encouraging:
Motzi at home – it’s taken for granted at congregational meals
Birkat HaMazon at home
Shabbat – candles, Kiddush, blessing the children
Abstaining from chometz throughout Passover
Attending services on the Festivals

Q. What should (be) the content of the prayer book? I recently heard that several older Reform rabbis feel that the new Mishkan T’filah lacks a viewpoint and coherent vision of what Reform should be. I think the new Siddur is an improvement on Gates of Prayer in a number of ways, but I have to agree. Instead of a vision, we have a cafeteria of choices, with little guidance.

A. Mishkan T’filah could have had a single viewpoint ,if the CCAR had empowered Rabbi Frishman as Rabbis Einhorn and Wise empowered themselves. But its desire was to have a Movement prayer book, and to encompass the spectrum of ideological and liturgical preferences that are characteristic of the movement. I find MT’s presentation of Reform liturgy more coherent and more accessible than was Gates of Prayer, but it shares with GOP the need to reflect the tastes and preferences and ideologies of a disparate crew. Isn’t there enough coherence in accepting Eilu v’eilu divrei Elohim chayim – these and these are the words of the living God? The cafeteria of choices is as it should be; the rabbi’s own erudition should provide the necessary guidance; and it’s inherent in the schema that worshipers be empowered to find their own way into the liturgy -- using the alternative readings to find their own spiritual path where the rabbi’s vision doesn’t coincide with that of the individual worshipper.

The saying goes that for every human action, there’s a good reason and a real reason. Can it be that the plaint you cite of the several older Reform rabbis translates as, This is not what I’m used to, or Why didn’t they consult me the way they did when they assembled Gates of Prayer?

Q. And who should make these decisions? The rabbis in each congregation? The Union for Reform Judaism? The Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion? The congregation members? A mixture? In what way?

A. Conspicuous by its absence from the list of potential decisors is the body that will ultimately weigh in on any or all of the issues discussed above – the Central Conference of American Rabbis, and its Responsa Committee (which I believe is chaired by a HUC-JIR professor).

And that is as it should be. It’s not realistic to expect even knowledgeable lay people (like the participants in this discussion) to have the depth of scholarship and knowledge of precedent of the people we train (and pay) to acquire it and disseminate it.

But here is where the autonomy issue comes into play, more strongly than perhaps it ought. Neither the CCAR nor the College-Institute nor the Union has the power to enforce the recommendations that they individually or collectively hand down. Vox populi vox dei – the voice of the people is the voice of God. The saying goes back to Roman times – religious disobedience goes back to the Garden of Eden.

As a Union Board member, I understand the Union’s mission to be serving the needs of congregations, so the Union’s role should be to develop and distribute materials that support a collective and consensus vision formulated in concert with the Conference and the College.

The rabbis in each congregation will determine what they will teach and what they will preach. The congregants as a community and as individuals will determine what they will do and what they will listen to (na’aseh v’nishmah). So yes, it’s a mixture, and it happens organically rather than through a formal process. Conservative Judaism vests authority in the local rabbi; Reconstructionist Judaism vests authority in the community; Reform Judaism recognizes that authority is inherently vested in the individual – because we lack the power to enforce anything else – and that’s what leads us to “the idol of autonomy.”