Points of Inflection and Infection: On the authenticity of Reform Judaism and its use in responding to our current crisis
What does Reform Judaism have to offer to us as we confront the current historic moment? I don’t mean “what does our “Movement” have to offer?,” rich as it is with individuals, congregations, and organizations mobilizing to meet the spiritual and material needs of our times. The question I mean to pose is a philosophical one: what can Reform Judaism as a philosophy offer to help us make sense of our current situation?
I have invited the faculty of Hebrew Union College—Jewish Institute of Religion to reflect on that question. I have asked them to address their answers to an educated and thoughtful audience.
Their answers in the aggregate demonstrate the usefulness of religiously progressive Judaism, Reform Judaism, to bring meaning and purpose to our current challenges: the uncertainty of the future; the seeming arbitrariness of death and disease; the persistence of injustice, bias and hate; the role of the individual in a community when cooperation and self-sacrifice are required for the good of all; the need for religious and institutional innovation in the absence of physical congregation; and the social justice dimensions of a pandemic whose victims are once again the most socially and economically vulnerable.
The goal of this collection is to confront this historic moment through personal, historical, sociological, literary, and philosophical reflection, grounded primarily, if not exclusively, in religiously progressive Judaism reflecting the primary, but not exclusive, religious commitments of the faculty of HUC. It is my hope that the collection can draw us together as a community, to find some hope in these most troubling of times.
The overall aims of this project are practical and topical. Yet the essays depend on having a shared understanding of what religiously progressive, Reform Judaism is as a philosophy or ideology. In this introductory essay I offer my own, admittedly partial and incomplete summary of the philosophical basis of Reform Judaism in order to provide a common point of reference. This essay articulates a Judaism from which to develop a response.
While books have been written (and platforms have been voted on) defining specific views of “Reform Judaism,” I believe that as practiced in our communities, Reform Judaism is facing a crisis of authenticity. The crisis can be seen as Jews identify themselves as Reform but do not usually have a particularly well-developed view of what Reform Judaism as a religious philosophy or ideology requires of them.
In my own experience, Reform Jews tend to identify themselves and their Judaism by reference to a set of important practices they engage in or other practices that they reject. The practices they affirm include “a commitment to dynamic change” that understands our tradition as constantly in flux, responsive and innovative, and the important practice of “audacious hospitality,” emphasizing the value of opening our tent flaps wide to allow outsiders in. In addition, the practice of tikkun olam understands our Judaism in terms of the social justice practices that we pursue.
All of these affirmative practices are important, and I believe they are ethically required. But they do not define Reform Judaism, they emerge from it. Similarly, the rejection of ritual practices (like Jewish dietary laws or Sabbath observance) cannot define Reform Judaism; Reform Judaism explains why it is permissible that they be rejected, but not demanding so.
The embrace of inclusion and hospitality as defining values and practices of the Reform Movement presents a clear illustration of the crisis of authenticity we are facing. The beautiful and inspiring image of the ever-enlarging tent with flaps opened wider and wider leaves unanswered the core question: what is inside the tent, why is it of value, and why does it lead us to (rightly) welcome the stranger?
What is it we are welcoming the stranger to take on and be part of with us when they get inside?
Grounding our identity on second-order practices without understanding the basis on which they are recommended leads to a crisis of authenticity as the Reform Jew may often not be able to express the reasons for the practices they choose to take on or do not take on. And this sense of inauthenticity may also arise from the feeling of some Reform Jews that Reform Judaism releases them from obligations to study, practice, or act with a specific responsibility towards their own people.
As I hope to demonstrate, a commitment to Reform Judaism requires an individual to take on very real obligations, the basis of which I believe will form a richer and more stable foundation of authenticity to the practitioner and, in turn, to our communities.
“...a commitment to Reform Judaism requires an individual to take on very real obligations...”
Thus, we return to our first question: from what view of Reform Judaism do these practices emerge, and what other obligations do they entail that we should accept? Grounding ourselves in the philosophical foundation of Reform Judaism provides not merely an answer to that question, it strengthens our claim and justification to be engaging in an authentic form of Judaism.
Consider by contrast why issues of authenticity do not tend to arise for Orthodox Jews.
Orthodox Jews do not tend to define themselves exclusively by what they do and don’t do. They don’t tend to explain, “I am an Orthodox Jew because I don’t eat treif (nonkosher foods) or because I follow halacha (religious law).” Instead, these practices are based on an embrace of the first principle from which these practices emerge. The Jews who identify as Orthodox in any of its varieties are likely to ground their identity and practice in this formula: it is because I have faith that God gave Torah to Moses and the People Israel at Sinai. All the rest is (important) commentary. And this commentary is arguably what distinguishes the many varieties of orthopraxy– including halachically observant forms of Conservative Judaism—from one another.
Because Reform Judaism embraces the story of Sinai as myth and rejects it as an historical event, our commitments to Jewish learning, practice, and community must be derived from a different source. That source must cause us to embrace the myth as helpful, rather than true.
As I understand it, Reform Judaism is a modern Jewish expression of meaning consistent with Enlightenment principles of reason, moral equality, and universal ideals. It is a Judaism that is consistent with rationality and science with no exceptions, not even for Sinai. It is a Judaism that invests moral and religious authority in the individual.
And it is a Judaism that obliges us to commit to Jewish study and practice, engage with our community, and execute our responsibility to our people, because we understand that by grounding ourselves in a particular tradition that resonates deeply with us, we are better able to achieve our ultimate universal aims: the Good or the Sacred, the Right and the Just.
So, let’s turn to some details.
I described our crisis of authenticity as stemming from an insufficient philosophical or ideological understanding of Reform Judaism. Others might call this a theological challenge, which I would accept framed in this way:
Theology is a philosophical reflection on the totality of existence that helps bring meaning and purpose to our place within the cosmos. Theology will explain the basis of faith in something beyond the material, the sources of moral and religious authority, and the basis by which we accept obligations to follow a set of practices (usually of study, reflection, ethical dictates, and ritual) that bind us to a specific community or people.
“Theology” as I use it here can be understood as a philosophical practice of meaning-making that identifies three realms of human experience: faith, authority, and obligation.
What then does “Reform Judaism” as a theology entail of those who embrace it in terms of faith, authority, and obligation?
There is, of course no one version of “Reform Judaism.” It would indeed be more appropriate to say that there are a family of related ideas that share certain similarities. The understanding of Reform Judaism I present here is a post-Enlightenment expression of religious yearnings that incorporate three key Enlightenment values: the primacy of Reason, the moral equality of the individual, and the instrumental importance of embracing a particular community (or nation) in order to achieve the greater good. (What follows draws on major works of Spinoza, Mendelssohn, Kant, and Hermann Cohen, and essays by Martha Nussbaum and Arnold Jacob Wolf, among many others. It may be read as my own articulation of this well-developed theology.)
Reform Judaism as a theology can be expressed through its approach to faith, authority, and obligation:
Faith
Reform Judaism posits the existence of a Source of all Being, fundamentally unknowable, from which our moral and material universe was created, but yet is different and possibly separate from that material universe. Within that universe, humans as distinctively rational creatures are b’tzelem Elohim, made in the image of God. We understand and value the intellect as the capacity through which we must come to understand the physical and moral world, using reason and evidence to justify our beliefs about what is true.
As imperfect as it is, we accept the method of science and logical reasoning that tests, challenges, and attempts to falsify our presumptions through carefully designed observations and arguments. By grounding the justification of what we believe to be true in the way the world actually is, faith is what gives this knowledge of our world meaning and purpose. As Reform Jews we would not allow faith to provide justifications for claims about the material nature of our universe that only science and reason can support. Faith allows us to give meaning and purpose to the discoveries of science and reasoned argument, perhaps as providing evidence of the majesty of God’s creation, where “God” here is recognized as the “Source of all Being,” whatever God’s nature should ultimately be.
A religiously progressive Reform Jew thus treats faith as a set of speculative, influential ideas that concern the meaning of human life, the nature and existence of the Divine, and the purpose of existence.
Reform Judaism differs from varieties of Orthodox Judaism in those places where faith would trump science in the understanding of the world as it actually is, whether accepting the Talmudic story that the moon was once a sun dimmed by God to ensure there would only be one master in the sky, or treating the Sinatic story—that God gave Torah to Moses and the People Israel at Sinai—as an historic fact. Reform Judaism treats these accounts as myths, since there is no scientific evidence to support these beliefs. Our sacred texts must instead be seen as sources of stories, poetry, ethical ideas, and ritual from which we can derive meaning and purpose for our lives, binding us to our community and our past, and building discipline while cultivating a sense of wonder, awe, and appreciation for all that surrounds us.
Authority in the Individual
Reform Judaism takes the seat of religious and moral authority to be located in each individual because we accept that each human being is morally equal. Accepting individual authority means accepting that each one of us is individually responsible for the decisions we make about what is morally right or wrong, religiously appropriate or inappropriate. And that authority extends to acting in the manner dictated by those decisions.
The consequence of such a view is that Reform Judaism demands that each of us develops an intentional routine practice of reflection and ritual that transforms our lives through the development of habits. (This fundamental idea drawn by Maimonides from Aristotle emphasizes the cultivation of habits as key to moral behavior, human flourishing, and happiness.) These reflective practices may include prayer or meditation, reading and writing, or physical activity like running, yoga, or other movement, practices that allow our minds to reflect on our most important moral commitments. And, as we will see, this practice is ideally done in community with others.
We must do more than reflect: we must accept the responsibility to act as autonomous individuals. In this way, we as Reform Jews express our ongoing commitment to understanding, exploring, and performing g’milut chasadim (acts of lovingkindness), along with learning and ritual that help reinforce our actions.
All varieties of Judaism emphasize the importance of moral action. Religiously progressive Reform Judaism differs from varieties of Jewish Orthodoxy in how we treat religious authority in that it locates the source of moral judgment and responsibility to act in the individual alone.
“Religiously progressive Reform Judaism differs from varieties of Jewish Orthodoxy in how we treat religious authority in that it locates the source of moral judgement and responsibility to act in the individual alone.”
Reform Judaism encourages individuals to seek guidance and pastoral support from religious and moral figures like our klei kodesh (rabbis, cantors, and educators), stopping short of turning our decisions over to them. Reform Judaism also differs from Reconstructionism in the latter’s elevation of communal norms. Religiously liberal, Reform Jews accept that it is our responsibility alone to decide and to act morally. Community matters. Tradition matters. But it is our responsibility to decide how they matter and how they give expression to our lives.
We are now at something of a crisis for the Reform Jew, for neither our faith nor our conception of authority leads to anything that is identifiably Jewish. Indeed, the basis of faith and authority for the Reform Jew will hardly differentiate Reform Judaism from any other religious individual committed to humanistic ideals, no matter their religious tradition. So, the burden for Reform Judaism is to explain how it is a form of Judaism at all, that is, how obligations to take on Jewish practices arise—practices of study, ritual, and community.
Or more simply, given our conception of faith and authority, why be Jewish at all?
How different this is from all varieties of Orthodoxy, where faith that Sinai was a real event and the role of the rabbi as the locus of religious and moral authority created rich Jewish texture at the core of orthodox theology. From these principles of faith and authority Orthodox Jews are led directly to a set of obligations to follow Jewish practices like kashrut (Jewish dietary laws), Sabbath observance, and other religious commandments. They do these things because they have faith in Sinai and follow the religious authority of a set of rabbis from whom the specific obligations derive.
The liberal Jew cannot follow this same path to obligation. Limiting the scope of their faith, they cannot accept the Torah as the word of God, or as any truer (or more mistaken) than other important texts that have stood the test of time. Accepting the burden of individual moral authority, faith alone does not lead them to accept Jewish clergy as their guides versus a wise neighbor, caring friend, or even another religious authority. The Reform Jew has thus given up the historical foundation for taking on Jewish obligations to know, to do, and to be Jewish that, philosophically, had grounded pre-Enlightenment Jews and continues to ground all varieties of Orthodox Judaism.
And so we arrive at our current crisis of authenticity: the religiously progressive Jew must come to the question of “why be Jewish” without the scaffolding of Sinai or the reliance on a rabbi as the traditional sources of authority. Without that philosophical grounding, the sense that Reform Judaism is not authentic deepens and grows.
Without a grounding in faith or traditional authority, the Reform Jew is left without a reason to accept for themselves the practices of Jewish life—the knowing, doing, and being Jewish—as obligations for themselves. And there is a further resistance to taking on any obligations to action or belonging that separates themselves from the rest of the world, for the Reform Jew, as an Enlightenment individual, is committed to the idea that our ultimate moral values (the Good or the Sacred, the Right and the Just) are universal values.
Endorsing universalism, the Reform Jew will be cautious, even resistant, to accepting binding obligations that separate themselves from others, that seem to treat their fate as “better” than others. Some have gone so far as to explicitly reject the idea that God has chosen Jews to fulfill the universal destiny of all humanity. In its place they have reformed that verb: the Jews are a choosing people, ones who choose to accept the burdens of Jewish obligation in order to realize our universal aims.
It is that insight, that idea that there is something about our actively choosing to be Jewish in order to help realize the Good or the Sacred, the Right and the Just that lies at the heart of how a religiously progressive approach to faith and authority can lead Reform Judaism to take on significant Jewish obligations—to study, to practice, and to develop specific ties to our communities and our People Israel.
Obligation to Particularistic-Universalism
Without the pre-scientific faith that God gave us law at Sinai, and without the comfort of religious authorities imposing law upon us, Reform Jews must now explain why they take on particularistic obligations to Judaism and our people without giving up our ultimate universal aims.
Let us refer to the idea that choosing particularistic obligations can lead to the realization of universal ideals as “particularistic-universalism.” Particularistic-universalism is based on the simple idea that by embedding ourselves in a specific cultural-moral-religious community we are significantly more likely to achieve universal aims.
Joining a community ties ourselves to the lived experience of others whom we do not know. It helps us develop the capacity for empathy and concern for others, even when they are far away, because we come to identify them as one of us. Affiliating with a particular community or congregation helps us move our commitments beyond the exclusiveness of ourselves and our families to those whom we do not yet know. We build spheres of influence outward, from ourselves to our family, to our friends, congregation, and community, and ultimately, to our people, our nation, and our world.
This path enables justice to emerge by grounding it upon our inherent human limitations and tendency to favor ourselves. In poetic, metaphorical terms, God may be able to love the whole world at once, but we must first come to love our “neighbor” as ourselves, a recognition in our own tradition that the highest moral ideal of looking after others begins with those nearby—even our own. By binding ourselves to a particular community of shared practices, we deepen our own lived experience of the moral and aesthetic world and situate ourselves to care for each other and effectively mobilize for justice in our world.
But not any community will do. Only when we engage with communities that resonate with us can we achieve the universal benefits of particularism, for that resonance keeps us engaged and deepens our commitment to one another. Thus, if we have a first-order obligation to join any particular community, we have a second-order obligation to join a community that resonates with us.
What is this resonance based on? For many, Judaism resonates because of a complex set of emotional and psychological reasons tied to how we were raised, memories of a family around the Shabbat dinner table, or going to synagogue with our parents. Resonance may also come from the liturgy and rituals that cause us to recognize the beauty and wonder in our world, feel gratitude for creation and our bounty, and reinforce our commitment to helping those in need—whether those suffering from ill health, grieving the loss of a parent or, suffering from the injustices of racism, homophobia, or poverty. For some, it may be the sublimity of musical tropes or a literary tradition that causes us to reflect on the meaning and purpose of life. And for others, the powerful poetry of liturgy moves us in the same way.
It does not stop there. The lessons contained within our sacred texts, including but not limited to the Torah or entering a conversation across centuries about how best to regulate communal and individual life in the Talmud, may resonate deeply. We may be inspired by the attempts of Philo, Maimonides, or Buber to incorporate the wisdom of other philosophic traditions into Judaism itself. Or we may be moved by the wisdom contained in modern thinkers like Hannah Arendt or Rachel Adler, whose Jewish nature may have come as much from their encounter with the secular world and our history as from anywhere else.
We thus choose to be Jewish because Jewish community and practice resonate with us, for deeply personal reasons. In binding ourselves to a community of fellow travelers we are more effectively able to engage in collective action to pursue justice for all.
The obligations of Jewish particularistic-universalism can be named by reference to three categories of Jewish commitment: to Torah, Avodah, and Klal Yisrael—study, ritual practice, and Jewish community or peoplehood.
“The obligations of Jewish particularistic-universalism can be named with by reference to three categories of Jewish commitment: to Torah, Avodah and Yisrael—study, ritual practice, and community or peoplehood.”
Reform Judaism requires the continual serious study of Torah (our historic literature), the regular engagement in Avodah (our distinctive ritual and moral practices), and a commitment to Klal Yisrael (our specific Jewish community and the Jewish people as a whole). We do so to embed ourselves in a rich and meaningful, “thick” community of shared values and practices, and thus must be sensitive to comporting to shared practices as well. We understand that such activities have intrinsic value—they are good in and of themselves. But it is through them that we appreciate the majesty and beauty of our world, cultivate discipline and compassion for others, and mobilize ourselves as sacred communities to achieve justice for all.
Reform Judaism embraces without prejudice other intrinsically valuable religious traditions and practices that also ground their adherents in a particular community as a path to our shared universal aims. The great challenge is to commit ourselves to our particular tradition and people without losing sight of the universalism towards which that particularism must lead. For when we begin to value study, ritual, and community—or in our terms, Torah, Avodah and Klal Yisrael—merely for their own sake, we risk the perniciousness excesses of religious life itself, its xenophobic, nationalistic prejudicial excesses that can lead to grave harm in our world.
And finally, our obligations extend to future generations. By grounding our next generation in a particular religious tradition and community, we cultivate in them a sense of resonance that will allow them more easily to form communal attachments as adults and execute their responsibilities to all.
Practices we perform.
By taking on the obligations to study, ritual practices, and our community and people, we inspire the best in ourselves, expand our sense of responsibility for others, and far more effectively achieve the universal ideas of the Good or the Sacred, the Right and the Just towards which we aspire. The authenticity of Reform Judaism is realized only when we accept these obligations to Jewish life as real and potent. These obligations explain what it is we are inviting the outsider to join when we welcome them with tent flaps open to come inside.
Because Reform Judaism does not ground its obligation in Jewish life from a position of Faith and Authority, there will exist a greater variety of practices of Reform Jews—congregation by congregation, and over time. Practices will be more responsive and pliable, and variation will thus be more extensive. Thus, the dynamism and ability to innovate that are the hallmark of our movement’s history are an outgrowth of our theology, not a defining feature of it.
Our commitment to tikkun olam is a commitment to ground our pursuit of universal aims in the particularism of our tradition so that we will more likely feel compelled to act for the betterment of our world. The consequence of this instrumentalist view of Reform Judaism is that we are not motivated to pursue universal ideals because they are distinctively Jewish. Rather, we choose to engage Jewishly because it is meaningful for us, because its stories, teachings, practices, and community resonate with us, and thus they become an effective means for us to work with others to achieve our universal aims. Tikkun olam can thus be one’s very principle of a dedicated Jewish life, but only if it is understood on the basis of a commitment to Jewish life and community.
If we have first-order obligations to join any community by virtue of the fact that we are human, it is our second-order obligation to enter communities that resonate with us because doing so will facilitate our achievement of our universal ideals. As religiously progressive Reform Jews, this second-order obligation connects us to others similarly situated in a web of meaning and purpose through a shared commitment to the study of Torah, engagement with Avodah and g’milut chasadim (ritual and ethical practices), and commitment to Klal Yisrael, our congregations, community, and the Jewish People in its entirety.
The authors whose essays follow have views that may be very different and perhaps in disagreement with what I have just laid out. As I said, the purpose here is not to develop a single view of what Reform theology or philosophy is or must be. Rather, the purpose is to demonstrate the depth of Reform Judaism as a religious ideal to help each of us struggle with this moment of historic world crisis to bring meaning, comfort, and hope even to these troubled times.
And it is with that intent that I hope that many of these essays will indeed resonate with you and demonstrate the continued substantive vitality of Reform Judaism to face our current crises.
