At an Ethics and Public Policy Center seminar on June 25, 1999, the subject was the “Statement of Principles for Reform Judaism” adopted a month earlier in Pittsburgh by the Central Conference of American Rabbis. The following is a lightly edited version of remarks by three leading rabbis and the ensuing conversation, moderated by Center president Elliot Abrams.

Elliott Abrams: As you know, on May 26 an overwhelming majority of American Reform rabbis adopted a new “Statement of Principles,” which quickly became known as the “Pittsburgh Principles.” The secular press greeted the statement as a “turn” or “return” to ritual by the Reform movement, and a Jewish newspaper in New York carried the headline, “New Principles Rankle Old Reform Rank and File.” Our discussion is about those principles: what do they say, and what do they mean? Rabbi Jack Luxemburg (Reform), of Temple Beth Ami in Rockville, Maryland, will speak first. He will be followed by Rabbi David Novak (Traditional), director of the Jewish Studies Program at the University of Toronto, and Rabbi Joshua Haberman (Reform), president of the Foundation for Jewish Studies, Bethesda, Maryland.

 
RABBI JACK LUXEMBURG

I find it challenging indeed to attempt an analysis of the “Pittsburgh Principles”—to try to measure their impact upon the Reform movement, discern what they mean to the larger Jewish community, and also suggest their significance within the context of our national culture of faiths, an area in which the Ethics and Public Policy Center works so effectively and wisely. Depending on whom you speak with, the “Pittsburgh Principles” constitute either a statement of historic significance (as suggested by Hanna Rosin in the Washington Post) or just so much rabbinic hocking and shrei-ing, full of “sound and fury” but ultimately signifying nothing. To supporters, the statement gives definition and direction to Reform Judaism. Opponents decry it as divisive and confusing. Some view the document as describing a Reform Judaism entering the twenty-first century with greater spiritual heft, giving balance to a movement heavy on philosophical rationalism and prophetic activism. But others bemoan the text as a retreat from the ideals of autonomy and social justice that gave Reform Judaism its distinctive character. While many applaud the statement’s affirmation of mitzvot, ritual, and tradition as a valid—perhaps even a necessary—path for Reform Jews to follow, others dismiss it as a road map that leads to “Conservative Judaism lite.”

To appreciate the “Pittsburgh Principles,” I think we must view them as part of a process that has been going on in Reform Judaism in America for over a century. In November 1885, responding to the call of Kaufmann Kohler, Reform rabbis from around the country gathered in Pittsburgh for a three-day meeting that was declared to be the continuation of an 1869 conference held in Philadelphia. This long period of incubation resulted in what is called the “Pittsburgh Platform.” Though never adopted as an official statement, it was the definitive declaration of a new movement seeking to establish itself on American soil, its tone and tenor distinctly “new world” and boldly differentiated from European traditionalism. It is instructive to hear the words of the most characteristic of its eight paragraphs:

3. We recognize in the Mosaic legislation a system of training the Jewish people for its mission during its national life in Palestine, and today we accept as binding only its moral laws, and maintain only such ceremonies as elevate and sanctify our lives, but reject all such as are not adapted to the views and habits of modern civilization.

4. We hold that all such Mosaic and rabbinical laws as regulate diet, priestly purity, and dress originated in ages and under the influence of ideas entirely foreign to our present mental and spiritual state. They fail to impress the modern Jew with a spirit of priestly holiness; their observance in our days is apt rather to obstruct than to further modern spiritual elevation.

5. We recognize, in the modern era of universal culture of heart and intellect, the approaching of the realization of Israel’s great Messianic hope for the establishment of the kingdom of truth, justice, and peace among all men. We consider ourselves no longer a nation, but a religious community, and therefore expect neither a return to Palestine, nor a sacrificial worship under the sons of Aaron, nor the restoration of any of the laws concerning the Jewish state.

Powerful stuff. And seen beside that, the recent document seems like a dramatic, even radical revision of Reform Judaism’s basic tenets. However, such a conclusion—so frequently offered in the press—overlooks most of what has transpired in the movement during the 114 years that separate the two Pittsburgh documents.

Three intervening statements, from 1937, 1976, and 1997, merit mention. (1) The 1937 “Columbus Platform” reflected the influence of a growing number of Eastern European Jews who had found a place for themselves in a movement that had previously been almost exclusively the domain of a German-American Jewry. Already there was sounded a greater concern for tradition and ritual, a more open attitude toward the aspirations of Jewish nationalism, and a profound awareness that the rise of Hitler’s Germany was a threat to the destiny of all Jewry, everywhere. (2) Four decades later, in 1976, the Central Conference of American Rabbis, meeting in San Francisco, adopted the “Centenary Perspective.” This very thoughtful overview of Reform Judaism gave great emphasis to personal observance while reinforcing and extending the trends defined in the “Columbus Platform.” It also embodied responses to the Holocaust and to the establishment of the State of Israel. (3) And not to be overlooked, I think, is the statement ratified in 1997, the centennial anniversary of the first World Zionist Conference. In that year, the Central Conference, meeting in Miami, overwhelmingly endorsed a statement that was clear and unequivocal in its embrace of modern Zionism. This commitment was expressed in traditional religious language and given a distinct spiritual context. In light of the significant departure from the 1885 “Pittsburgh Platform” that the documents of Columbus, San Francisco, and Miami represent, I think it is fair to say that the current “Pittsburgh Principles” further indicate how far the Reform movement has moved.

This, I think, is important: Reform Judaism is a movement that has moved and continues to move. And it does so in the way in which evolution in Jewish religious life has historically proceeded—from the grass roots of community experience or need, through a process of rabbinic deliberation, and into a textual form that itself becomes the subject of interpretation and commentary as it returns to the community for integration and application.

A relevant question to pose might be: What experience or need affecting the mainstream of the Reform movement gave impetus to the process that culminated in the “Pittsburgh Principles”? Let me venture a reply. One experience that seems to be shared among serious and thoughtful Reform Jews is the pervasive recognition that Judaism has stood the test of Wissenschaft, the critical, scientific, rationalist approach to Judaism favored by the founders of Reform Judaism. This approach has not diminished our tradition but rather enhanced and enriched it. More than a century of investigation into the historical, cultural, anthropological, archeological, and sociological dimensions of Jewish experience has impressed us with the fact that our Judaism, like any living thing, is somehow greater than the sum of its parts. At its core is an animating truth, mysterious and miraculous, defying definition, measurement, or description. And the more we come to comprehend and appreciate the genius of our Judaism, the more we understand that it need not be compromised by modernity, nor must we moderns compromise our intellectual, spiritual, or aesthetic integrity in order to embrace it.

But how can we be entirely modern, yet true to our tradition? Simply by asking the question “how?” Reform Judaism today preserves the spirit of the 1885 “Pittsburgh Platform,” which insisted on the right to “maintain only such ceremonies as elevate and sanctify our lives” and to “reject all such as are not adapted to the views and habits of modern civilization.” The new “Pittsburgh Principles” still hold to the assertion, central to the philosophy of Reform Judaism, that individuals and congregational communities may decide what is elevating and sanctifying; they may determine what of our rich tradition and heritage can be or should be adapted to the views and sensibilities of modern civilization. As long as each Reform Jew and each Reform congregation is making that determination—rather than relying exclusively on the body of rabbinic law and lore, the halakhah—then the essential spirit of autonomy remains present, and our Judaism remains distinctly Reform in its philosophy, if not necessarily in its practice.

This is a positive development. We Reform Jews are secure enough in our philosophy and its distinctive approach to Jewish life that we can be free to incorporate whatever elements of Jewish custom and ritual we wish. What we don’t do should no longer be the factor that distinguishes us from other religious Jews. Rather, the “Principles” assert—in language somewhat less compelling than what was in earlier drafts of the statement—that participation in Reform Judaism necessarily leads us to some form of participation in the rituals and customs, the sacred times and seasons of Jewish life. The “Principles” affirm that meaningful Jewish living—and a Reform Judaism that is meaningful—calls for taking part in the personal and collective expressions and experiences of Judaism that establish our spiritual covenant with God and our historical covenant with other Jews.

Viewed from this perspective, I would suggest, the “Pittsburgh Platform” of 1885 was prescriptive—defining what the newly emerging Reform Judaism would be—while the “Pittsburgh Principles” of 1999 are descriptive. The new statement recognizes tendencies and directions already evident throughout the Reform movement and, by giving them a textual formulation, adds to their momentum through rabbinic endorsement.

For some in the Reform movement this is a major source of discomfort. For lay people and rabbis who value the style and spirit of classical Reform Judaism, the tendency to embrace more traditional practices is already disconcerting; to have a formal, public declaration of the Reform rabbinate give impetus to this trend puts them on the defensive. Our publications and our web sites are full of complaint and criticism, faulting the proponents of the “Principles” for destroying a mode of Jewish life that these devoted members of our movement find to be satisfying, enriching, and well understood. Even some who are sympathetic to the perspectives of the “Principles” wonder about the need to promulgate what is sure to be interpreted—albeit incorrectly—as an edict. They worry that the declaration might become a Reform halakhah—defining Reform Judaism and its practice in such a way as to exclude those who do not comply. They question the need for such a statement when the direction of the movement is already clear and enjoys a natural momentum.

In the midst of all this internal debate, the external reaction to the “Pittsburgh Principles” also merits comment. One thing is clear: those who write about religious affairs, even in major newspapers, have little understanding of the dynamics of the Jewish community. As I suggested earlier, the hyperbole that declares this statement a “sea change” or a “watershed” ignores the developmental history behind it, as if nothing had happened in the Reform movement since 1885. Further, those who suggest that this statement was issued with the imprimatur and authority that accompany a papal edict or a declaration of an authoritative synod show they are unfamiliar with the process of change within our community. For those of us who care about how Jews, Judaism, and the Jewish community—our character and our concerns—are reported or portrayed in the press, this is an indication that we still have a lot of educating to do.

Yet many within the Jewish community are not sure what these “Principles” mean. The words and the concepts are clear enough for a document of this type; it is the ramifications that are confusing. In what way will Reform congregations change, if at all? Will our services look or sound different? Will our teaching and preaching change? Will we retreat from our commitment to social justice in order to cultivate a deeper spirituality? How will the typical Jew be able to distinguish between new-traditional Reform Judaism and Conservative Judaism? Do we wish to encourage—or contest—the perception that the non-Orthodox streams of religious Judaism are merging? And what does that perception mean for synagogue affiliation, ideological commitment, institutional loyalties, and patterns of personal Jewish identification?

In an era in which the religious culture of our nation is characterized by a pursuit of “spirituality,” it should not come as a surprise that the stream of religious Judaism most responsive to cultural influences is grappling with the same concern. What is interesting is that the Reform movement formulates its response in terms that resonate more with timeless Jewish tradition than with the contemporary trends of the Jewish Renewal movement or other expressions of “New Age” Jewish spirituality. It is not that the Reform movement and its institutions are unfamiliar with or unwelcoming of these trends. Rather, it seems that the inclination towards tradition includes language and terminology as well.

Another point of interest is that at a time when important thinkers in the Reform movement—and others, some of them present in this room—have written persuasively about the failure of ethnicity to sustain Jewish identity and commitment, thus emphasizing the importance of Judaism itself as the vehicle for Jewish survival, the “Principles” nonetheless give significant weight to Jewish peoplehood. This might suggest that the Jewish community in America senses a need for both a renewed spiritual energy and a revised, reinforced understanding of our peoplehood. The “Principles” imply that both remain indispensable elements of a complete Jewish identity, whether individual or communal.

A final observation: These “Pittsburgh Principles” could just as easily have been termed the “Internet Edicts,” or some such. The broad participation of both rabbis and lay people in the debate that led up to the CCAR convention in Pittsburgh was an unprecedented experience in the Jewish community. The debate went on continuously for nearly two years, and much of it took place online. Anyone could take part. The openness and accessibility of the process has set a standard with implications for future developments within and beyond the Reform movement. Every faith community will be challenged to enable all clergy and lay persons who have access to the Internet to participate in critical decisions. How many faith communities are ready for that level of involvement? How will it affect important debates? How will it redefine patterns of authority?

So what do we have here? When confronted with controversies beyond their ken to resolve, our rabbinic ancestors would declare tay-ku, an acronym for the Hebrew phrase Tishbi yikarey kushiot u’ba’ayot, meaning that Tishbi, or Elijah the prophet, will resolve all
conundrums and puzzles. They were comfortable leaving matters of profound difficulty to be resolved in that moment of transcendent clarity that would occur when Elijah came to announce the imminent arrival of the Messiah and the dawn of universal redemption. Well, I am no Elijah. And to our sorrow—as Jews and as religious people—there appears to be no redemption dawning today. But what we do have before us is this: a text that represents the sincere efforts of a segment of religious Jewry to renew and reinvigorate its portion of the dialogue initiated at Sinai long ago, which continues to engage all Jews; a declaration that reaffirms a devotion to the spiritual legacy and historical destiny in which all Jews share; and a guide that describes how Jews who choose to participate can draw closer to the God who initiated that dialogue and who guides that sacred destiny, by way of those expressions and experiences that continue to define us as Jews, as both folk and faith.

Permit me to begin with just a bit of autobiography. My earliest introduction to Judaism was in Reform Judaism. I have a long Reform lineage; my sister and brother-in-law are very active leaders in the Reform movement; one of my prized possessions is the copy of the Union Prayer Book with which my maternal grandmother davened. At the age of thirteen, I celebrated my bar mitzvah in a leading Reform congregation in Chicago, at that time led by one of the most prominent Reform rabbis, the late Rabbi Louis Binstock. But immediately after that I visited Rabbi Binstock and told him I no longer wanted to be a Reform Jew. He replied that while he was sorry to hear that, he himself had come from an Orthodox background and so he could not very well question my desire to become a different sort of Jew. Far more important to him was that I wanted to become another kind of Jew, rather than no Jew at all.

So that is my connection with the Reform movement, and I am eternally grateful to Reform Judaism for having initiated me into the vocabulary of the Jewish tradition. For that reason, it is somewhat difficult for me to speak with a critical objectivity.

That being said, I find the “Pittsburgh Principles” a very interesting and very important statement. If it is a departure from what was considered classical Reform Judaism, then I prefer classical Reform Judaism as an adversary. The statement that I think indicates the essence of the whole document is, “We embrace religious and cultural pluralism.” Now, what does that mean? The classical Reform Judaism that I chose to leave was pluralistic only in the sense that I think it advocated, for very sound political reasons, that discussion in the Jewish community should be open and not censored—that everybody should be a part of the conversation. But that is where the pluralism ended. The classical Reform Judaism that I knew was a non-pluralistic expression of Judaism. Convinced that it was the truth, its proponents intended to convince all other Jews—if not all other people—that this was the most intelligent, rational, even valid approach to being a Jew in the modern world. And that was a notion that supported tremendous self-confidence. It was modernism, to be sure, but at least in my philosophical life I much prefer to deal with modernist rationalists, rather than postmodernist pluralists. You knew where Reform stood. But now the rhetoric has changed, and what is said here is no different from what a Conservative Jew could have said.

When Reform Judaism is attacked, especially by some in the Orthodox world—who view it as an illegitimate form of Judaism, or “not Judaism at all,” in the famous words of the Orthodox Agudas ha-Rabbonim—it seems to me that classical Reform Jews would have said, “Of course we are practicing Judaism, and we would like to persuade you to practice our form, to believe as we do. It’s not that you’re right and we’re right too; we’re right, and you’re wrong.” But the attitude now is simply, “Well, you can have your form of Judaism and we can have ours, and all we ask is that you refrain from being intolerant.” That seems to be a poor way of conducting discourse if a religious community is truly self-confident.

On the question of autonomy, a very important point that Rabbi Luxemburg brought out, classical Reform Judaism and contemporary Reform Judaism also diverge. Classical Reform Judaism, thought out at its highest levels by such people as Hermann Cohen and Leo Baeck, affirms what we could call a Kantian autonomy—that is, that I accept only those rules that I could rationally legislate for myself, but also for any other person under the same circumstances. So Reform Judaism believed it had a universal moral message.

Today, the autonomy advocated by Reform and Conservative Judaism (between which I see little difference) is what we call a liberal autonomy, the autonomy of someone like John Rawls. Rather than a universal moral law with a religious underpinning, we have certain basic guidelines needed to maintain civility; beyond that, you do your thing and I’ll do mine. That is the extent of it: just leave me alone, to do anything I so choose. It’s a pluralism that is more than just political—it’s moral, even epistemological or ontological. And it’s not the Kantian autonomy of classical Reform Judaism; it’s the liberal autonomy of some contemporary philosophers.

I think the new Pittsburgh statement signifies an internal identity crisis for the Reform Jewish community. I nevertheless welcome it, because it says to me that Reform thinkers realize that they have separated themselves from speaking and acting out of the Jewish tradition much more than was necessary or healthy. It is a conscious attempt to get back into the world of traditional Jewish discourse, using traditional Jewish terms. Its contradictions are conceptual contradictions, but we learn to speak a vocabulary before we learn to conceptualize properly in that vocabulary. Getting the right vocabulary is a very important step.

The divide in the religious Jewish community in North America is between those Jews who accept the full authority of the halakhah and those who do not. This means all those who call themselves Orthodox or Haredi or traditional are on one side, and those who call themselves Reform or Conservative or Reconstructionist are on the other. But I think those in the Orthodox community who have condemned Reform Judaism as being “not Judaism” are wrong. They’re wrong because Reform Jews are accessing the Jewish tradition in their own way, however much we may disagree with it. What these critics should now be saying is, “We think it’s wonderful that you’re adopting more of the vocabulary of the Jewish tradition, because the very use of that vocabulary is going to get you deeper into the Jewish tradition and its literary legacy—Bible, Talmud, codes, responsa, and so forth.” So I hope it doesn’t sound condescending for me to say, after being quite critical of the “Pittsburgh Principles,” that I think it is a powerful statement, and a welcome sign of a greater participation of Reform Jews in the classical discourse of what has become the large majority of the Jewish people who have retained a religious identity.

The task for those of us on the right is to engage this in very careful dialogue, and to encourage our Reform brothers and sisters not only to use this vocabulary but to justify it, to make coherent arguments, and to be self-confident enough to want to persuade all Jews to be Reform Jews.

I agree with my colleague Jack Luxemburg that this document is not a radical departure at all. Those who compare the “Pittsburgh Principles” with the “Centenary Perspective” of 1976 would hardly notice a significant change. The basic content is about the same, except that the new statement says it better, in a more organized and more concise way. In my opinion it was the “Columbus Platform” of 1937 that really represented the major change, if you compare it to the “Pittsburgh Platform” of 1885.

That earlier “Pittsburgh Platform” has a clear position. I appreciate its theological clarity. The paragraph that Jack Luxemburg quoted—“we recognize in the Mosaic legislation a system of training the Jewish people for its mission during its national life in Palestine, and today we accept as binding only its moral laws, and maintain only such ceremonies as elevate and sanctify our lives, but reject all such as are not adapted to the views and habits of modern civilization”—came out of a clearly developed theology. It is the theology of Abraham Geiger, based upon the Hegelian principle of historic evolution and change of ideas, which he developed in his writings as the intellectual leader of Reform Judaism. What Geiger got across was that the earliest phase of the Jewish experience in Palestine was, as he put it, an “incubation period,” and that Jewish history is moving along in the direction of the ultimate development of the Absolute Idea, identifiable with God. This would mean a gradual dropping off of the shell of national particularism, such as the land, the territory, the particular constitution, even the ceremonial system. What emerges is the pure moral idea, the spiritual idea of God, to be expressed in Judaism as a religion of spirituality. That was the Geigerian concept. The rabbis who met in Pittsburgh in 1885 felt they had gotten to the point where they could disavow the national life in Palestine, and observe only the moral laws and only the ceremonies that they thought elevated and sanctified their lives.

But then comes the weak point: “. . . but reject all such as are not adapted to the views and habits of modern civilization.” Who is going to decide what is not adapted to modern thought? The statement left the question of authority open, and it meant that this rabbi or that rabbi, or this or that conference, could decide to jettison whatever it wanted to. So here you have the wide open door of autonomy. The 1885 “Pittsburgh Platform” did not yet assert individual autonomy, but supported what we might call the collective judgment of the rabbinate.

Now, the new “Pittsburgh Principles” show high regard for tradition, and the very ceremonies and practices that the document of 1885 rejected are now affirmed. But listen carefully to the wording: “We respond to God daily: through public and private prayer, through study and through the performance of other mitzvot, sacred obligations”—not commandments, God forbid, but sacred obligations. And now comes the clincher: “We are committed to the ongoing study of the whole array of mitzvot, and to the fulfillment of those that address us as individuals and as a community” (emphasis added). You can pick and choose. Some mitzvot address us, some don’t. The language is strictly Buberian, of course. That was Buber’s response to the tradition. That which addressed him personally was valid for him, and what didn’t address him wasn’t valid.

What is lacking here is anchorage in a clear theological position. I’d like to conclude with that point in regard to Israel. The “Pittsburgh Platform” of 1885 rejected Zionism out of a clear theological position. It saw nationalism as an earlier stage that modern Judaism has gone far beyond. While nationalism served its purpose for the incubation of the Jewish people, it was no longer valid. This rejection of Zionism was theological. It was also motivated by political aspirations, by emancipation, and so on, but it had a theological anchorage. When you read the 1937 “Columbus Platform” and the 1976 “Centenary Perspective,” and now the “Pittsburgh Principles,” what you find are declarations of sympathy: we appreciate what Israel is doing. But on what basis? There’s no clear statement as to why Reform Jews should make this commitment.

I’ll conclude with one more quotation. “We are committed to Medinat Yisrael, the State of Israel, and rejoice in its accomplishments. We affirm the unique qualities of living in Eretz Yisrael, the land of Israel, and encourage aliyah, immigration to Israel.” In other words, Israel makes us happy. It’s a good thing, but it does not necessarily fit into a theological system. When Hermann Cohen was asked about Zionism, his answer was very simple. He said, “Those rascals want to be happy.”

 
DISCUSSION

Elliott Abrams: Some of the most recent sociological surveys about American Jews have pointed to a turn from public to private Judaism, a conclusion on the part of many Jews that what they need most, or what satisfies them most, is a Judaism that happens in their private lives, in their families, in the home rather than in the public square. Rabbi Luxemburg, is it fair to interpret the “Pittsburgh Principles” as, in a sense, a reflection of that: a turn from a public to a more private agenda?

Jack Luxemburg: If by public agenda you mean social action, the commitment to social justice, then I would say that part of what is transpiring here is the response of a generation that has been raised on the doing of social justice but remains unfamiliar with its motivations. In “prophetic Judaism,” prophetic is the adjective but Judaism is the essence. I sense that people wish to be reconnected with these root understandings and motivations, because that's what gives our action in the public square its prophetic character. Otherwise, we are out there with other people of good faith from whom we cannot distinguish ourselves.

In that sense, perhaps what we seek here is a recognition in our movement about mission being ahm segulah, about being separate and distinctive, and having a definitive identity, which gives meaning and purpose in a spiritual sense: personal spiritual satisfaction and fulfillment about that which we do in a public place. I think it was Israel Salanter, the rabbi who founded the Musar movement, who instructed his people about this public-private dichotomy when he said that the material well-being of another person is your spiritual concern—meaning, I think, that the response to those material needs arose out of the spiritual sense of mitzvot and gemilut hasidim, whatever categories we choose to identify. But they were personal, they were mitzvot. They were the response of the individual—whether we call it a commandment or a compelling obligation—that made private and personal conviction of the covenant a motivation for public action.

David Dalin: I'd like to comment not on what the new Pittsburgh statement says about the future direction of Reform Judaism, which seems to be moving toward traditionalism, but on what it says about the emerging convergence of Reform and Conservative Judaism, which David Novak alluded to. I think that if you were to give this statement to the vast majority of congregants in Conservative synagogues, or to a large number of Conservative rabbis, not telling them of its origin, they would find little to differ with. Much of the Conservative leadership would be genuinely comfortable with this, though they might be a little shocked to discover its origin. This says something rather interesting about a kind of end of ideology in the non-Orthodox world, or a converging of non-Orthodox denominations.

I remember being privy to a big debate at the Jewish Theological Seminary a few years back on the topic of patrilineal descent. Someone who is very high up at JTS spoke out against it, not because it was right or wrong, but because it is one of the few things that distinguish Conservative Judaism from Reform Judaism as a movement: if we embrace patrilineal descent, why not be Reform Jews?

Historically, the Conservative movement has been very uncomfortable with trying to develop ideal statements of principles like this, and I think this speaks to a further emerging convergence of the two movements.

David Novak: This convergence of Reform and Conservative—which basically means that Conservatives are becoming Reform Jews—is very apparent. You see at it Hillel. When my daughter was a law student at Washington University in St. Louis, Hillel had two services on shabbat, one liberal and one conservative, except for the high holidays, when they had Reform, Conservative, and Orthodox. It was clear that there were two kinds of Jews there: liberal Jews and Orthodox Jews. At 90 per cent of Hillels you're going to have an Orthodox service and a non-Orthodox service.

Now, the challenge for non-Orthodox, or liberal, Jews—that is, Reform and Conservative Jews—is: Is it possible to present a coherent understanding of Judaism that both rationally persuades its members and could be used to persuade other Jews? There are some in the Orthodox community who, while fully convinced that Orthodox Judaism is right for all Jews, avoid issuing condemnations of other Jews. Instead they simply persuade other Jews to become Orthodox. This is a much better strategy, one that will attract many more people, because the Orthodox do have a coherent view of Judaism, one that is internally consistent, as much as any human theory can be internally consistent. Developing a coherent theory is the real task, but it is precisely what I do not see in the “Pittsburgh Principles.” The view there is that you can approach Judaism this way if you like or that way if you prefer. And that's precisely why I prefer the “Pittsburgh Platform”; Kaufmann Kohler knew exactly where he was coming from. So did Hermann Cohen. So did Leo Baeck, representing a kind of European Liberales Judentum. Certainly none of those people advocated a kind of “Judaism if it's meaningful for you as an individual.”

The one key Jewish notion that is missing in the recent statement is behirat Yisrael, the election of the Jewish people. The classical Jewish tradition—and classical Reform had its own interpretation of this—is that God has elected the Jewish people. Now what God elected them for, and how that plays out, is the subject of another discussion. But there is no statement here of election, even in the classical Reform sense, and I think that's a glaring omission.

Amy Schwartz: I was struck by Rabbi Haberman's discussion of the difference between theological clarity and theological murkiness. What occurred to me, though, was that at times muddle can be a very useful thing, and it may be that the state of non-Orthodox movements—perhaps even all Judaism—at this point really demands muddle. The Conservative movement has been characterized as an Orthodox clergy in charge of a Reform laity. It sounds to me as if the Reform movement is doing a good deal to keep from being in the opposite situation. The fact of the matter is that the laity is becoming more ritual-oriented, which may be to say that the Reform movement is becoming more Conservative. Or some would say that the Conservative movement has for a while been inching over toward what looks more like Orthodoxy, and that the Orthodox are very keen to tend the boundaries between themselves and certain kinds of traditionalist Conservative congregations. So I wonder whether anyone on the panel agrees that acknowledging a certain amount of give, and a certain amount of muddle, based on the psychological fact that people who are in religious transition will in fact take up “those mitzvot which speak to them personally,” is perhaps just a way of being honest about the present situation.

Jack Luxemburg: The term I might use rather than “muddle” is “creative ambiguity,” a condition that I think was probably quite purposeful. I would also add to your observation about the juxtaposition of rabbinates and laities what a fellow named Lenn found in a survey he did in the seventies of the American Jewish community: the greatest congruence between belief and practice was to be seen among Reform rabbis and Conservative laity.

Maybe what we're seeing is the validation of the tenet of Reconstructionist Judaism, the emergence of minhag America. All of us on the left of Rabbi Novak's divide are, to some degree, closet Reconstructionists, because we buy into the

tenet that, if we're going to have the great flowering of American Jewry, we need a minhag America. We may be seeing, after our 200 plus years of experience in this society, the flowering of that minhag after many years of germination.

David Novak: I think you're right, but for the wrong reason. It is indeed clear that Mordecai Kaplan has won the day, even if his movement remains small and rather marginal. He has won the day in terms of his influence on non-Orthodox Jewry. I remember that I once said to the late Professor Jacob Petuchouski that I thought the most detrimental influence on both Reform and Conservative Jewry was the theology of Mordecai Kaplan, and Petuchouski said he fully agreed with me. Kaplan's “God” is so anemic as not to merit the term by anybody's definition. I think the theology of Cohen, of Baeck, of Geiger, of Kaufmann Kohler had a rational character and a persuasive quality that is not present in Kaplan's kind of sociological Judaism.

If you're going to change your point of view, aim for that rationality and persuasiveness. “Creative ambiguity” is not what we should be striving for. We should strive instead for clarity and coherence, realizing that we may never fully achieve it. Now, the Reform movement has taken a chance, because by using more traditional vocabulary, it has broken down some of the old conceptuality, without working out a new one to fit the vocabulary. But if that's the case, then regard this document as a kind of way station. And don't celebrate incoherence and muddle. The Jews need coherence; they need carefully thought out, persuasive philosophies of Judaism. That is what I hope will emerge from the new vocabulary.

Joshua Haberman: Muddle leads to sleaziness, and for sleaziness, a price has to be paid. We have to understand why we have this muddle now.

In 1885, the Reform movement saw itself as an avant-garde. It meant to be exclusive. It took a strong adversarial position against Orthodoxy and didn't mind excluding those who didn't believe in its principles. Reform Judaism today—and I think this is true of Conservative Judaism as well and someday may even be true of so-called Modern Orthodoxy—wants a bigger tent. During the discussion that preceded adoption of the “Pittsburgh Principles,” that was the key phrase. We want a big tent; we want to accommodate our whole constituency. Shared beliefs are the pegs that hold the tent of a religious community in place, and when these are loosened and pulled out of their theological soil, the tent will collapse. This will surely happen when, trying to be all things to all people, that religious community destroys the consensus of beliefs that holds it together.

Clifford Librach: I think Rabbi Novak essentially hit the nail on the head in terms of what we have in this document. This is a victory for sociological Judaism. It is sociology in action. You don't see philosophical clarity because you're asking the wrong question. This is not a piece of theology, and it is not responsive to a theologian's or a philosopher's question about where it stands. But it is responsive to the sociology of the American Jewish community. Although this document purports to describe something called Judaism, the word “marriage” does not appear once. You can't comprehensively describe Judaism and leave that out, but Reform rabbis had to leave it out, because in the politics of the American Jewish community that's a third-rail word. Suddenly marriage becomes a difficult matter to discuss, because it gets us into the question of “gay marriage,” and what do we call that, and is it marriage or is it not?

Rabbi Novak said that the one thing that was missing was behirat Yisrael, but what about kedushah? Though the word appears, I don't know that the value is there. Especially in its manifestation of kiddushin, it isn't addressed. So again, I don't know how you can describe Judaism at the end of the twentieth century, or at any time, and leave that out—except if you understand that this is a victory for sociology.

To Jack Luxemburg I would say, if this is nothing more than the pendulum swinging a different way, of autonomous Jews moving in another direction—it's fashionable to be frum, it's fashionable to wear a kippah, it's cool to keep kosher or to be into eco-kashrut or whatever the fad is this week—if it is in fact nothing but that, then I really think it's lamentable.

But to look on the positive side, there may be some corrective in play now, some grand corrective to the denuded, life-sucked-out-of-it Judaism that was Kohler's accomplishment. Kohler ultimately described a Judaism that was vacant, and so it failed. In the response to its failure may lie a first step in its correction. If there's going to be any non-Orthodox Judaism in North America a hundred years from now, it's going to be a consequence of the rejection of Kohler's antiseptic philosophy.

Mona Charen Parker: Rabbi Luxemburg, is this at all a response to the loss of Jews from the Reform movement? The statistics are all in Elliott's book [Elliott Abrams, Faith or Fear: How Jews Can Survive in a Christian America] suggesting that of the three denominations, Reform Jews have the biggest problem with continuity, through intermarriage and through their children's assimilating in large numbers. Is this document at all a response to that? Is there a sense that without some spiritual return, Jews will cease to be Jews?

Jack Luxemburg: I think that what we have witnessed—sociologically, if we want to stay in that realm for a moment—is that our identity and our way of life are increasingly less distinguishable from those of our non-Jewish neighbors. Then the question becomes, What is it about being Jewish that is such an integral part of my being that I can't imagine living without it? I forget what sociologist it was, maybe Arnie Eisen at Stanford, who wrote that one of the things most important to maintaining Jewish continuity is that we have implanted in our own hearts and in the hearts and souls of our children things connected to our Judaism that we can't imagine living without.

Well, maybe that is part of what's going on here. As Rabbi Librach suggested, maybe this is part of the grand corrective. I would certainly rather see it that way than as faddishness. I think I mentioned earlier that this document very thoughtfully avoids the vocabulary of what some may consider contemporary Jewish faddishness, such as the Renewal movement (though I think there are many in that movement who are deeply sincere about exploring Jewish spirituality with new modes of expression). I think it may seem muddled, to those who are the heirs of the clear and clarion but somehow empty Kaufmann Kohler Reform Judaism, because this is uncharted territory for us. I think it was S. I. Hayakawa who talked about language as being the map but not the territory. We've got the map; now we're seeking the territory.

Joshua Haberman: I want to make a brief comment so as not to be misunderstood. I don't lament this statement. I welcome it as a step in the right direction. But it doesn't go far enough; that's my problem with it. I think it clearly shows us that Reform Jews today are no longer afraid of being different. In 1885 Reform Jews were trembling at the thought that their Orientalism would turn into a very great handicap. Today they don't mind putting on their yarmulke and a tallit, and being kosher. Even young Jews totally ignorant of Judaism still want to be assertive and demonstrative in their Jewish identity. The ethnic factor is brought out here very strongly, but it needs ideas to sustain it.

Hillel Fradkin: I don't really understand David Novak's longing for Hermann Cohen, if it is stacked up against what Jack Luxemburg described as a genuine longing for something traditional. I was particularly struck by Rabbi Luxemburg's remark that liberalism, when Judaism is defined as such, is an untenable definition after a while. It seems to me that here is the beginning of a certain kind of clarity that you don't find in the founders of Reform. What would be the most reasonable way to encourage the development of this longing, both from within the community and from without?

Jack Luxemburg: I am reminded of a frequent response made by Rabbi Barry Freundel when he and I do the Reform-rabbi/Orthodox-rabbi dog-and-pony show in the community. Barry is fond of saying that, politically, there's a Republican perspective, a Democratic perspective, and a Jewish perspective. His big concern is to cultivate the Jewish voice in the public debate independent of those we might embrace in other contexts. I think this is one of the most important things we need to do: to show that Judaism is not to be equated with any particular thing other than itself. It is its own distinct and discrete voice, one that has a place and a relevance in the modern world. I think that's what our congregants are asking us for.

Reform Judaism is trying to find that voice. While we were just moving our lips, there were other voices—maybe some that in retrospect weren't credible—speaking through us. We allowed this to happen. But I think now, to go back to Rabbi Novak's framework, we are finding our vocabulary, we are finding our discrete voice, and that's enormously important. It is amazing what people will understand and incorporate into their lives if there is meaning. The mitzvot themselves are not the ends; they are the means. The rabbis warn us against turning our mitzvot into idols, confusing the ends with the means. People want to know that our Judaism is a means, or a path toward kedushah, toward sanctity in our lives, toward meaning and purposefulness.

Was it Rabbi Riskin who used to talk about people who would come to his synagogue and say, “Rabbi, I can't come to synagogue; I don't keep kosher,” and he'd say, “Don't put it that way. Say instead, 'I don't keep kosher yet.'” I admire that approach, because it leaves open the possibility for additional growth, for exploration, and it doesn't put anybody down. Maybe that's the type of inclusiveness we need: the inclusiveness that invites everybody to grow.

David Novak: Now we have a real difference, a real difference at the level of ideas. In liberal Judaism the mitzvot are means to other ends. In traditional Judaism the mitzvot are not means; they are ends. They are practiced in and of themselves, and then you try to derive their meaning, as best you can.

 
DISCUSSION PARTICIPANTS

Elliot Abrams, Ethics and Public Policy Center; Rabbi David Dalin, Catholic University of America; Hillel Fradkin, American Enterprise Institute; Rabbi Joshua Haberman, Foundation for Jewish Studies, Bethesda, MD; Rabbi Clifford Librach, Temple Sinai, Sharon, MA; Rabbi Jack Luxemburg, Temple Beth Ami, Rockville, MD; Rabbi David Novak, University of Toronto; Mona Charen Parker, syndicated columnist; Amy Schwartz, Washington Post.