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| Photo credit - the Forward |
I happen to know that this rabbi came through the ranks of
the Conservative movement. He was not one of those Orthodox ‘sellouts’ who took
a Conservative Shul for the money. He came from a committed Conservative home
and his primary Jewish education was through the Jewish Theological Seminary
(JTS) where he was ordained. His Shul is fairly large and I would guess
consists mostly of non observant (by Orthodox standards) Jews.
This got me to thinking about the origins of the Conservative
movement. I fully believe that the
founders’ intent was to ‘conserve’ Judaism… from the inroads of Reform that was
sweeping the country in those days. Those founders wanted to produce a rabbinate
that was in harmony with American values and American culture… in order to better
relate to the melting pot mentality of those days.
Although the movement has since undergone changes whereby
questionable theologies have become acceptable… I do not believe that was part
of the original equation and did not become so until the late Mordechai Kaplan
advanced his radical ideas about the nature of God and the Jewish people.
Although radical views are not required in Conservative Judaism, they are now accepted or at least tolerated.
I don’t know the theology of this rabbi. But it wouldn’t
surprise me if he believed in Torah MiSinai. In any case, I think one can
fairly say that Conservative rabbis like the one at the wedding are observant
and see themselves in many ways like Kiruv professionals for their members. Not
that they are able to get their members to observe Shabbos. But that they try
and get them to be as observant as possible without alienating them from the
Shul.
Oddly enough, this is the philosophy of Lubavitch. Although
their primary focus is on making as many Jews as possible religious
Lubavitchers, they do things one step at a time and often do not succeed beyond
merely making non observant Jews merely Lubavitivch friendly. They will say
that we all fall short of perfection and that we should all try and improve in
our observances… even those of us who are Shomer Shabbos!
I think the Conservative rabbi sees himself and his role in the
same way. I further believe that he would be overjoyed if any of his
congregants become Orthodox via Chabad or any other Orthodox Kiruv group.
Indeed he was effusive with praise for this young couple who were going to
spend their first year of marriage in Israel with the husband spending time in
a yeshiva.
I realize of course that not all Conservative rabbis are
like this. But I’ll bet that there are a lot more like him – that actually live
up to the original Conservative credo of trying to conserve Judaism.
I bring all this up in light of an editorial by Forward
editor Jane Eisner. She too was critical of her own columnist Jay Michaelson
for considering Charedism to be the single biggest existential threat to ‘fabric
of American Jewish Life’…. And castigated him for demonizing and alienating one
group when there is another threat that is ‘just as potent’.
Her point was that the many unaffiliated Jews are
increasingly opting out of their Judaism. From the Forward article:
As the UJA-Federation of New York’s recent population survey highlighted, the growth of the “unaffiliated” has equally profound and worrying consequences for the future of the Jewish community. Compounded by the shrinking middle — that mixture of Reform, Conservative and Reconstructionist Jews who are, with some notable exceptions, throwing a party fewer and fewer people want to attend — we have a community that is ceding ground to an extreme form of Judaism largely because many of its members don’t care enough to maintain any other form.
The statistics that Ms. Eisner quotes in her editorial are illustrative
of the problem. The trend is towards the growth of Orthodoxy and the shrinkage of
everything else. It isn’t too hard to
predict the future of heterodox movements.
But instead of being triumphalist, I think we Orthodox Jews are
better served by reflecting on this massive attrition by so many Jews from
Judaism… and seeing if there is anything we can do about it. To my mind it is
tragic that we are losing so many Jews to an assimilation that sees any and all
religion as archaic and useless.
It is all too easy to write everybody else off and say, “That’s
life”! We can’t really do anything about it. Let us therefore concentrate on ourselves
– to make our lives holier and re-build Judaism’s numbers by our own
propagation. Thankfully there is Chabad and other Kiruv organizations that do
not feel this way. But the people they reach are all a drop in the bucket compared
to attrition numbers.
Which brings me back to the Conservative rabbi I mentioned
at the beginning of this article. The fact is that if there was some way we
could work together with people like him, I think our attempts at outreach
would be far more successful. Altruistic Conservative rabbis like him I am sure
would be eager to do that.
I am convinced that any and every non observant Jew that
becomes Orthodox would be a success story for him – if he were in some way
involved with an Orthodox Kiruv movement – even it were nothing more than steering
teenagers to NCSY and through them they became observant, that would be considered
a victory for him.
I’m not saying that it will be easy to accomplish that. I
realize there are restrictions involved because of issues having to do with
validation. These issues are real. Virtually all the Gedolim of previous generations,
including Rav Soloveitchik, forbade any religious collaboration with heterodox
rabbis for fear of giving them tacit recognition.
One may argue that conditions are different now and since
these movements are in decline there is little danger of our legitimizing them in
any meaningful way. And that the benefit of reaching out far outweighs a now
archaic public policy. But it is way below my pay grade to over-rule these
giants.
That those on the left wing of Orthodoxy have done so - even if for these very reasons does not make
it right. Besides - joint public prayer ceremonies and the like do not really do
all that much for outreach anyway, in my view. There is a difference between working with them behind the scenes – and standing in a public arena and thereby by inference endorsing
them.
I believe that we should work with them. Those
who are sincere about Mitzvah observance, like this rabbi, desire to keep Jews – Jewish. And they now realize
that their past leniencies like permitting their members to drive to Shul on
Shabbos was a big mistake. And exactly counterproductive to their goals of
preserving Judaism. They have instead created a path out of it… and their
movement is now in serious decline.
I don’t know how to co-operate with them in ways that will
not violate the will of the rabbinic giants of the last generation. But I’m
sure it can be done. The devil – I know – is in the details. But at this point
in time – it is worth taking the time to figure it out. There is too much at
stake and the time is short. Before long there will be no Conservative Jews to
work with. If not now, when?
