April 10th: Shemini
THIS WEEK IN THE TORAH
Rabbi David E. Ostrich
A common mistake is referring to Reform Judaism as “Reformed Judaism.” We do not see our approach as a fixed reformation of traditional Judaism, but as a mindful and pious continuation of Judaism’s development. As Leonard Fein put it in a 1972 book title, “Reform is a Verb.”
A case in point is the way that Reform has “gotten more traditional” over the last several decades. From around 1900 to 1980, most Reform congregations followed an approach known as Classical Reform. Men did not wear yarmulkes, Hebrew was kept to a minimum, and music was provided by an organ and choir. This style was motivated by a number of factors, but high on the list was the desire of Jews in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries to appear “normal” and “American” in the eyes of their non-Jewish neighbors. Though proudly and piously Jewish, Classical Reform Jews reveled in their ability to be both Jewish and American.
This style of Judaism was in marked distinction to the more traditional and ethnically-oriented religion of Orthodox and Conservative Jews—many of whom felt that they were more Jewish than their Reform friends and relatives. Some of these emotions are still present today.
As for Reform’s swing back to Tradition, there are a number of factors. First was a renewed sense of Jewish Peoplehood that came with the rise of Zionism, the horrors of European anti-Semitism, and the flowering of Israel’s Jewish multiculturalism. Second was the growing comfort of third and fourth generation American Jews who were secure enough in their Americanness to reclaim their ethnic heritage and older religious forms. Third were the many Conservative Jews who moved to Reform Temples but still clung to some traditional customs.
This growing sense of Jewish Peoplehood can be found in the decision by the staunchly Reform Hebrew Union College to turn its archeological substation in Jerusalem into a required part of Rabbinical studies. Beginning in the 1970s, all Rabbinical students were required to spend the first of their five-year program in Israel. Immersed in the Hebrew language and Israel’s religious and cultural milieu, many came back “more traditional” than they had been before they left.
When these students returned—to their families, summer camps, and congregations, they brought back this “return to tradition,” and some of their changes were less welcome than others. For example, when one student rabbi wanted to wear a yarmulke to lead services in a tiny synagogue, a prominent family threatened to quit. In another congregation, the student rabbi‘s beard inspired an angry letter to the seminary. And more than one hostess, pious and active members of their small congregations, bemoaned the fact that the student rabbis would no longer eat their prized pork roasts. Even though Reform is philosophically designed to continue reforming, some “traditions” were jarring to what many Jews knew as their Judaism.
I mention all of this because our Torah portion provides one of the “battlegrounds” for these changes. Leviticus 11 gives us the early laws of Kashrut: “which creatures you may eat…and which shall not be eaten.” Mammals must have split hooves and chew the cud. Fish must have both fins and scales. There are no characteristics set for birds, but there is a list of those that “you shall abominate.” And, though most insects “shall be an abomination to you,” certain locusts “that have, above their feet, jointed legs to leap with on the ground” are permitted.
While Kashrut has been a time-established standard in Jewish life since Talmudic times, many Jews who came to America abandoned it. As early as the mid-19th Century, foods such as shrimp, crab, and oysters—and even bacon and ham—were normal parts of the meals eaten by American Jews. In fact, when accosted by more traditional Jews who kept Kosher, the general attitude was that these “old” laws were no longer obligatory—that we had been freed from outmoded and unnecessary parts of Judaism. Many proud, active, and pious Jews felt that God had released us from the captivity of medieval and superstitious practices.
This meant that the Rabbinical students exploring newly found traditions found themselves in an interesting dynamic. While many felt that traditions like keeping Kosher enhanced their feelings of connection to their ancestors, others realized that the reforms of Reform were also part of their history. In one memorable reflection, one student observed that, for the five generations of her family who had lived in Louisiana and Mississippi, taking part in the local culture and enjoying shrimp, crabs, and bacon was their/her Jewish tradition. Indeed many Jews thanked God for the blessings of freedom and acceptance.
The 1885 Pittsburgh Platform, a founding document of Reform Judaism, approaches “Tradition” in two of its planks:
(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.
This is the rationale both for Reform’s rejection of many traditional elements AND for its re-embrace of religious practices some now find “elevating and sanctifying.”
While the Pittsburgh Platform provides a philosophical statement about changes in Jewish observance, the fact is that individual Jews have been making such choices for some two hundred years. When we find that a traditional religious practice gives us spiritual elevation, we choose to incorporate it into our lives. When we find that an observance is not meaningful, we choose to live our Jewish lives without it. This means that, in practical terms, each of us defines our own Jewishness. While Jews who identify as Conservative or Orthodox also make these kinds of decisions, Reform Judaism is conscious about the process and considers our religious autonomy a blessing and a gift. We study Jewish Tradition and learn which elements “elevate and sanctify our lives,” and these are the Jewish observances we choose.