Galilee Diary #456, September 9, 2009 Marc Rosenstein
Since its earliest
days, Reform Judaism has asserted that a Judaism frozen in time is an heirloom,
not a living fountain. Changes must be thoughtful, of course, and must be rooted
in the history and traditions of our people. But we assert Judaism's innovative
character, and we assert, too, that a stubborn failure to change will make
Judaism an irrelevance. -Rabbi Eric Yoffie
When we first moved to Israel, our
10th grade son came back from an overnight at a new friend's home - a family who
explicitly defined themselves as "secular," and reported incredulously that the
friend's father put on tefillin every morning. Over the years I've learned not
to be surprised by such inconsistencies - our neighbor who never attends
synagogue but will not cook on Saturday, the vast majority of the "secular"
population who fast on Yom Kippur, light Chanukah candles, and attend a Passover
seder, the thousands of Israelis who, over the past 15 years, have joined
non-denominational Torah study groups, or who attend neo-chassidic and/or
new-agey Kabbalat Shabbat services in community centers, private homes - even on
the boardwalk in Tel Aviv. There are many families who light candles and recite
Kiddush on Friday nights but see no inconsistency in going to the mall or a
soccer game on Saturday morning. There are a thousand variations - but one thing
most of these people have in common is that if you asked them if they were
Reform Jews they would emphatically deny it.
I have the impression that for many Diaspora Jews, the image of
Israel that I grew up with still holds: a militantly secular, atheistic majority
who see Judaism as a purely secular national identity, held hostage by an
Orthodox minority who insist on enforcing their narrow view of Judaism on
everybody else at all costs. And in this polarized environment it seems that
liberal Judaism is rejected by all parties, which makes us liberal Jews feel
unwanted in - and perhaps alienated from - Israel.
However, I don't
think that this picture was ever accurate. There was always a wide range of
views of the place of the tradition in the state, from the secular socialist
"religion is the opiate of the masses," to the dominant view of Judaism as a
culture as expounded by Ahad Ha'am, to a cacophony of different voices within
the Orthodox world. There were liberal, western-educated Jews like Henrietta
Szold (founder of Hadassah) who believed that the return to Israel would lead to
a renewal and revitalization of the Jewish religion - and there were Orthodox
leaders like the first minister of religion, Rabbi Judah Maimon, who believed
that the rise of a Jewish state would lead to the re-establishment of a
universally accepted Sanhedrin - and a reunification and renewal of Judaism
world-wide. And since the assassination of Yitzchak Rabin this conversation has
only gotten richer and more interesting.
When I was an assistant rabbi
in Port Washington, New York, the senior rabbi, Martin Rozenberg, tried to
upgrade the religious school from four hours a week to six. Parents responded,
"if we'd wanted six hours, we would have joined the Conservative synagogue!" But
here in Israel, everyone goes to Jewish public school all day, speaks Hebrew,
and takes off for the Jewish holidays. And many "secular" Israelis see it as a
Jewish obligation to fight for civil rights and social justice here. Thus, many
of the defining characteristics of Reform Jews in North America are irrelevant
here. It seems that the fuzzy lines between culture and religion in the Jewish
state make defining who is a Reform Jew into an interesting challenge. If you
act and think like a Reform Jew - choosing from the variegated palette of the
Jewish tradition those customs and commandments that uplift your spirit and
strengthen your roots and give meaning to your life, while rejecting those that
don't - are you a Reform Jew even if you deny it? Can only card-carrying members
of the Reform movement be classified as Reform Jews? I don't know the answers to
these questions, but I am pretty sure that the future of the Judaism in the
state lies somewhere in the interface of tradition and autonomy that seems to me
to define Reform Judaism.
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