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| HUC graduates displayed during the 2020 COVID lockdown (JNS) |
The idea behind Reform Judaism is that in the assimilationist world of American culture, the only way Jews could thrive as a people – was to essentially abandon their Judaism. Of course their founding fathers didn’t put it that way. They just asserted that the essence of the Torah and its commandments was to live moral and ethical lives. And that in our day in western culture we did not need those ancient rituals to accomplish that.
Observing Mitzvos like Shabbos and Kashrus were near impossible in a world where succeeding meant looking like - and living the same way as your neighbor. The American way of life was therefore made possible by this new religious philosophy and given a blessing by its rabbis.
I may be oversimplifying. But I think that is essentially the original philosophy of Reform Judaism. One could be a Jew in the heart and a man in the street. A very attractive option to an American Jew looking to succeed in the melting pot American culture of the early 20th century .
The Hebrew Union College (HUC) in Cincinnati was established to produce rabbis that would promote this new assimilationist way of life ‘Kashering’ it for a Jewish public looking to do succeed without the encumbrances of Jewish restrictions.
They were pretty successful at it and became a huge movement having ‘ordained’ many Reform rabbis that encouraged their members to abandon the no longer relevant ancient rituals of their forefathers. Which those early members were all too eager to do.
But as has always been the case with wayward Jewish movements their popularity had more than waned by the late 20th century. Today Jews that might have once been attracted to this non obligational form of Judaism have come to realize that there is no need at all to identify as a Jew since there is no real difference between Jew and gentile. Why bother? Thus was born the secular Jew of today who could not care less about their Judaism and intermarrying freely at an over 70% rate! So that in about half of those cases their children will not even be Jewish - and they couldn’t care less about that either.
On the other hand, there have always been Reform Jews that do care about their Judaism and realized that they needed to have concrete ways of expressing it.
That realization on the part of many Reform leaders caused a dramatic change in their philosophy. Instead of discouraging the practice of any and all ritual, many Reform leaders were increasingly advising their members to perform as many rituals as they could. Not that it was mandatory. But that it was a good way of expressing their Judaism in the changed America of multiculturalism that promotes diversity. Reform rabbis that once considered wearing a Kipa to be a violation of their assimilationist philosophy, can now be seen wearing one themselves.
Encouraging Mitzvah observance was a good sign. But I think it added up to being too little too late. Especially now with that astoundingly high intermarriage rate.
The bitter fruit for Reform Judaism came when HUC closed down their rabbinic ordination program for a lack of enough applicants. This of course means they will not be producing anymore rabbis. Perpetuating a religious movement without religious leaders is nigh impossible. It is a prescription for extinction. I think it is this realization that prompted the following - as reported by JNS:
“It’s not a challenge. It’s a crisis,” Micah Greenstein, senior rabbi at Temple Israel in Memphis, Tenn., said of the struggle to replace retiring rabbis.
Attorney Andy Berger serves as chair for College for Contemporary Judaism, a nonprofit that has spent $89,000 investigating if it can open a new university for training and ordaining rabbis.
It will seek to “promote the academically rigorous study of the Jewish religion, history, texts and literature” and “train persons for the Jewish ministry, research and community service,”
I don’t know what this new seminary would do differently from what HUC did in the past - that will change its trajectory towards extinction. But it’s good to know that they care about the future of Judaism and interesting to see them try - even if they are going about it the wrong way.
Here is a radical idea. If Reform leaders like Rabbi Micah Greenstein really do care about the future of Judaism they might consider turning to their Orthodox brethren. There are rabbis among them that are involved in outreach and have been pretty successful at it.
They should take a page from the soul searching of the not too distant past that caused them to reverse course from abandoning ritual to embracing it... and take the next step. A deeper dive into the study of what has kept Judaism alive throughout history will reveal that it was our Torah based differences that kept us going. Not assimilation. The more loyal we were to tradition the more likely we would transmit it to our children. Thus perpetuating Judaism into the future.
That is what has sustained us as a people for over 2000 years. If there is a lesson to be learned in the study of Jewish history, it is that outlier movements thought to be best suited to perpetuate Judaism of their time have failed every time they were tried. .
I am not trying to sound triumphant. That is not my intent. I am just reading the cards. Cards that are all too easy to read considering the rush out of Judaism by so many Jews these days.
It is my personal opinion that by collaborating with Orthodox outreach groups that have proven track records these Reform rabbis would be a lot more successful in perpetuating Judaism than anything their new rabbinical seminary could produce.
