Rabbi Eliyahu Stern: February 2006 Archives

You know something is happening to Jewish denominations when Orthodox Jews (who pray in gender-segregated prayer services) are calling women up to the Torah for honors (aliyot), while many Conservative congregations that have mixed seating still prohibit women from being called up to the Torah. But the crisis in Jewish denominational life extends well beyond ritual. What does it mean that the most recognizable Jewish face in America at-large is not a Reform rabbi but a man wearing a pointy hat and a scraggly beard exclaiming, “We want Moshaich now"?

The truth of the matter is the greatest divide between Jews is no longer Reform, Conservative, Orthodox. Rather, it’s Engaged versus Disengaged.

The denominations were founded around the fear of heresy and deviancy and the belief in certain dogmas. Orthodox Jews followed ortho-doxa--correct beliefs. Many attended Orthodox synagogues not because they kept kosher or even Shabbat but because they believed in the tenets and principles of the movement. Reform Jews believed in ethical monotheism. The average Reform and Conservative Jew differed more in ideology and sentiment than in practice (neither went to synagogue much).

For a variety of reasons, dogma and ideology no longer determine synagogue affiliation. People want to be serviced. For many it does not really matter if that service is being offered by a 30-something woman who thinks that feminism is the new messiah or by someone who thinks the Messiah is coming tomorrow.

Today, those Jews who belong to a congregation do so more based on location, lifestyle, and attention than anything else. As a congregant of mine once said, “all I care about is that I feel people care about me and that they are there for me, that is what matters most.”

Simply put, in an age of Jewish apathy, heresy is just not that important. The big question today is not so much which synagogue you attend but whether you attend at all. Some have been attracted to other forms of Jewish experience, such as the revolution and renaissance happening in the world of Jewish learning. For example, the Me'ah adult learning program at the Hebrew College in Newton Centre, Massachusetts, and The Skirball Center for Adult Jewish Learning in New York both offer strong adult-education programs, with teachers and students ranging from across the denominational spectrum. These initiatives are part of what many claim is the emergence of a post-denominational learning movement.

Nonetheless, denominations still have great currency for Jews. Like all human beings, Jews constantly find a need to define themselves. In doing so they will use different labels to express old ideas and employ old labels to express new ideas.

“The Big Three” denominations will continue to exist as long as they service a critical mass of Jews. If they fail to meet that need, they will be replaced or supplemented by other groups or movements that better express what people are doing or thinking. A good example of this is the Reconstructionist movement, which arose because its founders felt that “The Big Three” did not speak to American Jews' needs.

Yes, people are less intoxicated by religious labels than they were 50 years ago, but the need for community and a place that one can call home are still part of the human condition.

Contrary to popular belief, Moses was not a Conservative, Reform, or Orthodox Jew. In their current form, the three major denominations are only 150 years old. Each of these movements will have to revamp itself; otherwise, new ones will emerge and one day we will be debating whether or not they have outlived their lifespan.

Should Judaism proselytize? No. Should it be more welcoming? Yes.

For years most rabbis instinctly followed the Talmudic norm that one should push away converts warning them about the difficulties of becoming Jewish. God knows how many conversions stopped with a rabbi explaining to a potential convert, "Do you know how hard this is going to be?" For 2,000 years, this approach was adopted by Jews across the spectrum.

Of course, there were some at the margins of Jewish life who said otherwise, but for the most part that was the general approach adopted by leaders in the Jewish world. Then came the realization that the Jewish community was doing such a good job at pushing people away from converting (while at the same time being super-welcoming) that many congregations had more non-Jews in their pews on Shabbat morning than Jews. So recently, Rabbi Eric Yoffie (Reform) and Rabbi Jerome Epstein (Conservative) each independently called on his respective movement to stop being so welcoming and start doing more converting. Talk about making a theological 360!!

Epstein’s and Yoffie’s words have generated a great deal of discussion and have highlighted the shifting boundaries of identity politics in Jewish life. Many, including my teacher Dr. Steven Bayme, director of the Contemporary Jewish Life Department of the American Jewish Committee and of the Institute on American Jewish-Israeli Relations, and Dr. Jack Wertheimer, provost of the Jewish Theological Seminary, have hailed the initiative as “constructive” and “courageous.”

On the other hand, there have been those on the left and on the right who have criticized the shift toward conversion. Blogger Steven I. Weiss has pointed out some of the seeming contradictions and problems with Yoffie’s approach, including the irony of those who lambaste Christian evangelicals promoting conversion for non-Jews. Likewise, Rabbi Yehuda Sarna of NYU Hillel has expressed fear that such proselytizing will trickle down to the college campus, making pluralisitic Hillel houses into conversion centers.

For Orthodox Jews, the issue is of a different nature but one no less pressing. Sadly, those who are being converted by Reform and Conservative rabbis will one day come in front of an Orthodox Jew who will question their conversion.

With an intermarriage rate hovering around 50 percent, such situations will only become more common and create more of a divide between the different denominations. Nonetheless, it would seem that Yoffie and Epstein are correct: As Bayme has documented, in the long run those who take “the plunge” into Judaism breed stronger and more vibrant Jewish families. And isn’t that what’s most important?

The behavior of Muslims rioting in Damascus over cartoons depicting Muhammad as a terrorist only reinforces the public perception that radical Islam is a danger to humanity. Moreover, sadly, it makes Muslims literally into caricatures of themselves.

The rioters' actions are nothing less than what the Bible describes as Avodah Zarah, a strange and bizarre worship of God. The Bible saves it strongest condemnation not for hedonism, heresy, or atheism, but rather for those who worship an absolute in a strange and bizarre way.

More dangerous than anything else is not a denial of God but a perverse use of God’s name. Regarding such worship, the Bible and Talmud are clear; it must be uprooted, criticized, and denounced (Babylonian Talmud, Avodah Zarah, 45b).

God, when employed in an absolutist manner, becomes the enemy of religion. If burning effigies of Jesus and killing innocent human beings while simultaneously denouncing a caricature of Muhammad does not constitute a strange and bizarre worship of an absolute, then what does?