Muslims prostrate themselves daily in their worship and wear kipas. Some old Catholic practices included prostration. Reform Jews decided prostration is archaic, like the kipas the Muslims and Orthodox wear, and detracts from worship. We and a number of Protestant denominations dropped the practice of routinely kneeling in church like the Catholics and Russian Orthodox do.

Prostration. Talk about something that is seen as offensive or silly to most educated people in Western culture!

Another cast off practice which some have tried to introduce into Reform temples recently is the Torah parade around the sanctuary, during which people who cannot actually read the Torah fondle and kiss the cover or kiss something which they touch the cover with. That is way too close to idolatry to me! The Torah is a sacred book which is meant to be read and studied and discussed and followed by all. It is the message, not the form, which is sacred to Jews. Today, we reprint the Torah including translations in all the languages which Jews speak around the world so that it can be read and understood directly. In medieval times, a book was worth about the same amount as a farm. Now, the Torah can be reproduced for a couple of bucks on paper or downloaded for nothing on your computer. We can highlight it, underline it, annotate it, footnote it, and cut and paste it to help understand it. But we should never turn it into an idol to be paraded around and worshiped.

Larry, insightful as always. I don't recall what Steve had on his feet, unfortunately.

M.B., I don't know where this complaint about the Sefer Torah came from, but although I have some reservations about the practice of doing a hakafah, I'm generally okay with it. There's a difference between extreme reverence and worship and we certainly don't worship the Sefer Torah.

You said, "Reform Jews decided prostration is archaic, like the kipas the Muslims and Orthodox wear, and detracts from worship." Did we? All of us? I'm a Reform Jew and I don't recall being consulted on this one.

The thrust of my rhetorical questions here is to point out the absurdity of your claim that we've come to any complete conclusions about ritual in our movement.

As a Classical Reform Jew, you of all people should be zealous for the seperation between ethics and rituals. And under Classical Reform, ritual choices are autonomous decisions to be made by individual Reformers. Therefore, I'd appreciate it if you'd quite telling us what Reform Jews all do, ritually speaking.

But really boils my blood in your comment on this post, M.B., is the following: "Prostration. Talk about something that is seen as offensive or silly to most educated people in Western culture!"

Wrong you are. I don't see how it can be seen as offensive, first of all, unless you're referring to how Islamic it looks and find offense in that appearance.

In fact, I would argue that to modern, educated, western people, things that appear foreign or "ethnic" do not appear offensive or silly. I hate to throw around grandiose declarations, but that's the type of Western superiority thinking that leads to the destruction of indigenous cultures!

And anyway, I'm both western and educated and I don't find prostration silly or offensive. I find it fascinating and powerful.

I'm certain this was not your intent in this comment, M.B., but you come across as a bigot here.