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| NCSY - an antidote to the spiritual holocaust (NCSY website) |
There is an ongoing spiritual holocaust taking place right at this
very moment. Right here in America. One that I have been lamenting for quite
some time now. One which became overtly apparent after a Pew Research survey was
made public a few years ago. One which seems to be getting worse by the day, despite the
best efforts of many to stop it.
Jews in this country are abandoning their Judaism at a
record rate. That an estimated 70% or more of non Orthodox Jews are
intermarrying still sounds shocking – even after all the years since that
statistic was made public by Pew. And that doesn’t even take into account Jews
that did not intermarry but still could not care less about their Judaism. I shudder
to think what the actual combined percentage of Jews there are like that.
A lot of people in (and some out of) Orthodoxy blame
heterodox movements on this phenomenon. I understand why they feel that way. I would put it slightly differently. Heterodoxy did not create this
problem. But they have clearly accelerated it. Not willingly. In both the case
of Reform and especially Conservative Judaism the goal was to perpetuate it. But the
exact opposite of what their innovations intended is what has happened. And is still happening.
Reform Judaism is not my focus here. They have long ago discarded any legitimate claim at authenticity be rejecting the very essence of Judaism itself. Mitzvah observance. Added to this is how they now define who is and is not a Jew. A method as ridiculous as saying the a football player can be defined by being a baseball player. Their numbers might be growing. But they are not growing as Jews. Some might be Jewish by virtue of being born of a Jewish mother. But increasing numbers of them do not have that distinction.
It is the Conservative Movement that I want to focus on. Their leaders did not want to abandon observance. But they did believe it could be modified to fit the times. They therefore innovated certain leniencies to accommodate those who had for the most part abandoned Mitzvah
observance either out of ignorance or ‘necessity’. Or the desire to simply fully assimilate into an American culture made difficult by Halacha.
The effect of
these innovations was an eventual wholesale abandonment of Halachic observance by vast numbers of Conservative Jews. Mostly without any guilt. It has only taken a few generations
for these Jews to see little difference between themselves and their fellow non
Jews. That made it possible to find no reason to be Jewish at all. The one concept so often preached by Conservative leaders is Tikun Olam – or repairing
the world via working for social justice causes like civil rights. But that is a worthy goal all by itself. You don’t have to be Jewish to work
for social justice.
Furthermore, whereas Israel was once a rallying point for
all non Orthodox Jews - today that is hardly the case anymore. In fact there is more animosity toward Israel (or at least its
political leadership) by non observant Jews than at any time since its creation over 70 years ago.
Gone is Israel as a
cohesive factor among most American Jews. For far too many, Israel is not even on their radar
as an issue. Why should it be? Why should a Jew that doesn’t even care about
his Judaism care about a Jewish state? Especially one they see being
commandeered by people observing the
very rituals they have been taught are unnecessary. And in some cases even consider unethical! The Israel
of the idealistic socialist secular founders that created the Kibbutz which ‘made the desert bloom’ has been replaced by a nation increasingly being ruled by what they see as religious terrorists.
If this isn’t a spiritual holocaust, I don’t know what is.
The Conservative Movement still holds on to the illusion that
they are a Halachic movement Even though they make no demands upon their members
to observe Halacha even while they maintain the necessity of doing so in
theory. This is one of the primary reasons their movement is dying.
Yet
another sign of this is being reported in the New York Jewish Week:
Facing financial pressures, the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, the movement’s congregational arm, has reportedly laid off a portion of its staff in a bid to trim its budget…
This is not the first time the USCJ has faced financial troubles… The organization had unveiled a strategic plan in 2011 after years of declining membership and revenue. At the time, a senior executive at one of the movement’s largest synagogues told JTA that United Synagogue leaders were “rearranging the chairs on the deck of the Titanic.”
Unfortunately, that senior executive was right then. And
he’s even more right now.
Here’s the thing. Reform Judaism itself is in my view an integral part of the spiritual holocaust. Conservative Judaism – though
trying to survive as identifiably Jewish is failing miserably. It must seem to their leaders that the only hope for survival as a movement is to re-locate to Israel and establish
legitimacy there. so they can minister to a population of traditional but not fully observant Jews
that actually care that they are Jewish.
That is not going to happen as long as
the religious population there continues to grow and fight them on it. The 2 Charedi parties (UTJ and Shas) now have an unprecedented combined 16 Keneset seats.
What can we as Orthodox Jews do about this spiritual holocaust? I believe that all we can really do is to try and reach out to those Jews that have shown at least some interest
in their heritage. One assimilated Jew at a time. And teach them about the beauty, ethics, and morality of a of a Jewish lifestyle based on authentic Halachic observance. Mostly by example - modeling such behavior.
This does not mean banging them over the head with all the minutia
of Halacha. What it does mean I think is to show them what an observant lifestyle can
look like. And what it can do for them spiritually. One Mitzvah at a time. When
they are ready.
Other than that, I would argue that what hasn’t worked till
now… ‘ain’t gonna work in the future’. The idea of conserving Judaism by abandoning or ignoring ritual observance is a failure of monumental proportion. I think the
best and brightest minds in the Conservative Movement (such as Professor Jack Wertheimer) already know that.
I
would therefore once again urge all those that might identify as Conservative
Jews and care at all about preserving their Jewish heritage – to come home
to the Judaism of their forefathers. Give it a try. It is through that heritage that the Jewish people have continued to - not only survive, but to grow and thrive.
