In a recent article, Yoni Goldstein of Toronto wrote that modern Orthodoxy is
the only brand of Judaism that encourages people to (a) keep Shabbat according
to the letter of the law and (b) check e-mail or turn on the TV once three stars
appear. Haredi Orthodoxy is only concerned with “a” – the law – while “Reform
and Conservative don’t see a particular need to do ‘a.’”
The writer thus lumps
Conservative and Reform together, as do many people who see no difference
between movements that are considered “non-Orthodox.” Without intending to
deprecate my Reform colleagues, I must insist that there are differences and
that the main difference still consists of the attitude toward Jewish law:
Reform officially considers it non-binding, while Conservative/ Masorti
considers it binding.
Masorti Judaism certainly does encourage its
adherents to observe the laws of Shabbat while respecting modernity, although in
some instances it may differ from the modern Orthodox regarding exactly what
those laws require. It is true that sometimes – but not always – we may arrive
at different conclusions than our Orthodox colleagues do, but it is not true
that we are not committed to Shabbat observance and other aspects of Jewish law
just because we are part of the modern world. Are there not differences within
modern Orthodoxy itself? There certainly are between modern Orthodoxy and haredi
Orthodoxy regarding “the letter of the law.”
I recently attended a
two-day meeting of the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards of the Rabbinical
Assembly, of which I am a member, and we spent the entire time discussing
matters of Halacha. Two of the major items concerned kashrut and Shabbat
observance in great detail.
Actually Conservative/Masorti Judaism began
not as a reaction to Orthodoxy, but as a reaction to Reform. The movement was
the outcome of the work of Zecharia Frankel, a renowned 19th-century German
rabbi and scholar. Frankel – who famously walked out of a liberal rabbinical
conference in Frankfurt in 1845 when it refused to adopt firm guidelines for
changes in tradition and decided that Hebrew need not be used in prayer –
founded the Jewish Theological Seminary of Breslau and headed a group that came
to be known as the Positive- Historical School.
He contended that there
were three groups within religious Judaism: Orthodoxy, which insisted on
observance of every item, no matter how small, and on adherence to traditional
ideas and beliefs even when they contradicted modern knowledge; Reform, which
did away with traditional forms and insisted on a return to Prophetic Judaism;
and a third way, which he defined as “rational belief, observance of mitzvot
with understanding of their meaning, accompanied by the possibility of forgoing
details that are not basic and not in keeping with modern understanding – thus
keeping both the Divine essence of Judaism and its historical basis.” This third
way was his way; it eventually became the Conservative Movement when it was
transplanted to the United States, and the Masorti Movement in
Israel.
These definitions may no longer be exact, as major changes have
taken place in both Orthodoxy and Reform since Frankel’s time, but Conservative
Judaism is still based upon the attempt to preserve the essence of Jewish belief
and practice – that is why it is called “Conservative” – while attempting to
make Judaism meaningful and relevant for the times in which we live.
It
is obvious that as long as Israel continues to have an official Chief Rabbinate
(which is anything but modern Orthodox) and grants it exclusive religious power,
the Masorti Movement will be forced to work under legal and fiscal impediments.
This is a great pity, because this third way, to use Frankel’s term, could prove
meaningful to many Israelis who are looking for a pathway into Judaism and are
not finding it in the “official” religion of Israel. What a shame that Israel
remains the only country in the free world where one brand of Judaism, and only
one, can function freely and legally.
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