A proposed new document urging Reform Jews to pray daily, keep the Sabbath and follow laws of kashrut has touched off a passionate debate among Reform rabbis and congregants.
The document, a draft for a new platform titled “Ten Principles for Reform Judaism,” seeks to set guidelines for how North America’s 1.2 million affiliated Reform Jews should practice their faith in the 21st century.
At issue is just how focused on Jewish observance the Reform movement should be. The debate highlights the schism between those Jews considering themselves “classical Reform” and those who are more traditional in their religious practices.
“There’s a great deal of division and disagreement from all sides,” said Rabbi Eric Yoffie, president of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, the movement’s congregational arm. “These really touch on very fundamental concerns about what it means to be a Reform Jew.”
Yoffie will be among the featured speakers at the UAHC’s regional biennial, which will take place from Friday to Sunday, Jan. 22 to 24 at the Sonoma County Doubletree Hotel in Rohnert Park.
He said he won’t try to sell the points at the regional meeting but will continue to urge discussion aimed at reaching consensus on the hot-button document.
Among other things, the platform:
*Proclaims the Torah as “our center,” and calls for a “disciplined commitment at every stage of our lives to learn Torah in the widest possible sense.”
*Urges a commitment to “observance of the mitzvot of Shabbat” through “the practice of refraining from ordinary weekday acts” and “welcoming the special Shabbat rituals into our lives.”
*Opens the door to observance of both “mitzvot that have long been hallmarks of Reform Judaism” and “other mitzvot new to Reform Jewish observance,” including the wearing of tefillin, observance of kosher laws and going to the mikvah, or ritual bath.
*Encourages “Reform Jews to make aliyah, immigration to Israel.”
*Urges familiarity with Hebrew, saying, “the more Hebrew we use in our prayer and our study, the more we shall share in the holiness of our people’s heritage.”
Authored by the leader of the movement’s rabbinic arm, the Ten Principles stand in stark contrast to decades of Reform practice that placed a higher priority on ethics than ritual observance.
Reform rabbis were originally slated to vote on the platform in May at their annual convention in Pittsburgh. In that same city, in 1885, the movement adopted its controversial first platform, which discarded all of Judaism’s rules about keeping kosher and customs of dress as “altogether foreign to our mental and spiritual state.”
But the dispute sparked by the proposed new platform makes it unlikely the issue will be resolved before the May convention.
Reform Judaism is a movement in transition between an era characterized by worship services filled with organ music and operatic solos to one in which congregants join in on folk-like songs played on guitar or keyboard. Today many cover their heads and wrap themselves in tallitot during prayer.
Rabbi Alexander Schindler, president emeritus of the UAHC, said there has been tension over issues of observance since the 1930s.
Never before, however, has anyone made a move to make the more traditionalist orientation an official part of Reform policy. Now that Rabbi Richard Levy, president of the Central Conference of American Rabbis, has attempted to do so, the outcry is enormous.
Levy began circulating a first draft of his Ten Principles in March at the Reform rabbis’ annual conference. It prompted a stir, with critics accusing Levy of being out of touch with Reform laity.
But it wasn’t until the winter 1998 issue of Reform Judaism magazine reached 300,000 households that the ruckus began in earnest. The issue features a cover story detailing the proposed platform.
“If the platform is adopted as policy by the movement, my children and I will join swelling ranks of the unaffiliated,” Laurie Livingston, a member of San Mateo’s Peninsula Temple Beth El, wrote in the Reform Judaism magazine’s Web site discussion forum.
“I have gone to great lengths to give my kids a strong Jewish education and Jewish identity. They love going to temple,”Livingston wrote. But the proposed platform “is too regressive and Orthodox for me.”
In the version published in the magazine, which has since been replaced by another, toned-down draft, Levy used Hebrew terminology and focused his principles on such concepts as kedushah, or holiness; mitzvot, or commandments; and a sense of being commanded by the Torah.
The full text of the platform can be read in the Winter 1998 issue of Reform Judaism or on the Web site of the CCAR at www.ccarnet.org/platforms/tenpri.html
The impact of the article was exacerbated, some say, by the magazine’s cover, which pictures the bearded Levy in prayerful contemplation, wearing a yarmulke and wrapped in the traditional prayer shawl as he kisses the fringes, or tzitzit, on the end.
Together, the platform and picture caused some to wonder whether they could remain Reform. It is clear some in the movement equate observance of traditional practices with Orthodox Judaism — and view the traditionalist camp as moving in that direction.
In an article in the same issue of the magazine, Rabbi Robert Seltzer, a professor of Jewish history at New York’s Hunter College, said Levy’s platform is “turning Reform Judaism into Conservative Judaism Lite.”
He warned the platform appears part of an international move toward right-wing conservative religiosity.
In Reform Judaism’s Web site forum, Lori Ubell of Oakland agreed with Seltzer’s perspective.
“It is far easier to worship a book, or rules or a method of eating than an unknowable God who demands much and gives little other than life,” she wrote.
But Yoffie stressed no platform would stand as a final word on Reform Jewish life.
“Individuals are autonomous,” he said. “If the CCAR adopts certain principles, no rabbi or Jew will be bound by them. They have value to the extent they serve as an educational tool.”
Still, Yoffie believes consensus on any platform is crucial. While he welcomes a new openness to ritual practice and Jewish study, he said the divisions over the Ten Principles may mean now is not the right time for them to be adopted.
At the same time, those more inclined toward an observant lifestyle feel the proposed platform gives them a voice in a movement in which they feel marginalized. Some argue that a new generation of Reform families longs to return to traditional practice and spirituality.
Mark Levy of Santa Monica has been wearing a kippah and tallit, and keeping kosher at home and eating out, for about 25 years. He has been asked by others in the movement why he is Reform rather than Conservative or Orthodox.
When Levy was president of his congregation, Leo Baeck Temple, his wearing a kippah and tallit while sitting on the bimah during services prompted such fury it was taken up by the board of directors.
Levy, who is no relation to the rabbi who drafted the platform, said adopting the platform would be valuable “as long as it doesn’t say, `You must’ “do anything.
“Even if these things never get adopted, there are people talking about it, and we’re hearing people’s voices that we never heard before,” he said.
The proposed platform has affirmed Barbara Shuman’s place within the movement.
“I’m one of the few in my community to personally wear a tallit and to have more Shabbat [observance] in our home,” said the member of Temple David in Monroeville, Pa.
“For me being a Reform Jew means understanding that I have a covenant with God, and I think there are responsibilities incumbent with that,” she added. “I’m hopeful that whatever form these principles eventually take, they will not just say it’s up to every individual but that there’s something that applies for all of us.”
Rabbi Richard Levy, who started the whole process, is pleased by the debate. “I hoped this effort would produce serious discussion of what God and Torah and mitzvot mean to us,” he said by phone from his offices at the Los Angeles Hillel Council, where he works as executive director.
“Wherever we go from here, I know there is a commitment to continuing the discussion and moving beyond it to action.”