This article initially appeared at Jewish Ideas Daily and
is reprinted with their permission.Reform Judaism is the largest movement in American Jewry. The Union for Reform
Judaism represents 900 congregations with 1.5 million members. It recently chose
a dynamic new president, Richard Jacobs. True, Rabbi Jacobs’ election caused an
uproar: he drew criticism from the right for his support of J Street and the New
Israel Fund and charges from the Left that the people he brought to URJ did not
include enough women. Still, the fact that a URJ leadership change could stir
such controversy is a sign that people care about the movement’s
future.
But the Reform movement faces problems far deeper than the
distractions of political correctness and ideological minefields.
The
recent UJA-Federation study of the New York area’s Jewish population provides a
sense of where those problems lie. The number of Reform Jews in New York has
declined both in absolute numbers and as a percentage of the Jewish community. A
startling 74 percent of Jewish children in New York can be identified as
Orthodox. True, New York’s Jewish community has certain unique characteristics;
but New York’s trends are apparent in other population centers as well,
especially the decline in synagogue affiliation and the growing numbers of
interfaith families.
The American Jewish community as a whole cannot
survive if there is no non-Orthodox movement to which American Jews can belong;
in other words, survival depends on a strong Reform movement. But in light of
current trends, is that possible? Some have already answered in the negative. In
2009, Rabbi Norman Lamm, Chancellor of Yeshiva University, declared, “We will
soon say kaddish on the Reform and Conservative movements.” Even within the
Reform movement, Rabbi Dana Evan Kaplan recently wrote that without a serious
revision in basic structure and heightened expectations of Jewish living, Reform
Judaism is doomed.
I am not so pessimistic. But, if the survival of a
strong Reform movement is indeed possible, what will it require? Is current
leadership up to the task? The first indicator of the movement’s problem – the
decline in synagogue affiliation – is not hard to understand. Increasingly,
American Jews simply choose not to join synagogues.
People see synagogues
as too expensive, boring, or irrelevant. This trend is most pronounced in
precisely those parts of our country, like the West and Southwest, where the
Jewish population is growing most rapidly.
The recent economic downturn
has merely accelerated an alreadyexisting trend.
Thus, if Reform Judaism
is to survive, the primary task of its leaders is to focus steadily on promoting
synagogue affiliation. Synagogue membership is the citizenship card of Jewish
life. It provides the resources needed to create places in which the growing
intermarried population can raise Jewish children and Jewish learning can be
transmitted to the vast majority of Jewish children, those who do not attend
Jewish day schools. Synagogue membership provides funding for the URJ and social
capital for other Jewish organizations.
This task does not require us to
“reimagine” synagogues or transform the ways in which they are funded; the
challenge must be not redefined but met. Reform synagogues simply need to do
what synagogues have done for the past 2,500 years: serve as centers of Jewish
living and community. And Reform synagogues, in particular, must maintain an
open door for anyone who wishes to walk through it.
But if that is the
central task, is Reform leadership up to it? The movement needs high-quality
clergy, of course; it also needs committed lay leadership.
THE REFORM
movement was built on the basis of lay-rabbinic partnerships.
We need to
attract strong, dynamic lay leaders who see and feel that the future of the
Jewish people depends on them. Too often we reward people simply for showing up.
We need to find ways to draw serious people to address the serious challenges of
Jewish life.
The kind of organizational dysfunction we too often see does
not have to be accepted; it does not exist everywhere in Jewish life. The
community Federation in my hometown of Chicago (Jewish United Fund of Chicago is
the technical title), for example, while it employs skilled and forceful
professionals, also engages lay leaders. More than financial resources, board
membership demands a serious commitment of time. In spite of these demands, or
because of them, individuals actually compete to be on the board.
When
lay leaders see that their communities’ future rests in their hands and not just
those of professionals, they become energized and active. Some rabbis seem to
fear that engaged lay leadership will weaken the authority of the professionals
who run communal organizations, but it is more likely that skilled lay leaders
will recognize and respect the professionals’ skills. True, respect will not
always mean acquiescence; but the disagreements that arise are more likely to be
serious and constructive.
Moreover, if lay leadership is stronger, rabbis
will be freed to do what they are most qualified to do: articulating a
compelling case for Jewish meaning in 21st-century America. Despite American
Jews’ extensive achievements in secular learning, they have produced no
significant Jewish theology since Mordecai Kaplan’s 1935 Judaism as a
Civilization.
Judaism needs a view of God incorporating advances in
neuroscience, an understanding of Jewish identity that includes the many
interfaith families who raise Jewish children while incorporating references to
other faiths, and an understanding of Zionism that goes beyond boilerplate
affirmation. This enterprise will strike some as syncretism, capitulation, or
assimilation. Yet, if the Reform movement does not address these matters, who
will? The job is fully large enough to occupy the time and energies of the
Reform rabbinate; strong lay leadership will give Reform rabbis a better chance
to succeed at it.
In 1969 Rabbi Richard Levy, later to become president
of the Central Conference of American Rabbis, wrote that the American Reform
synagogue has “defaulted” on all three of its traditional functions: building
community, nurturing study, and engaging in meaningful worship.
Since he
wrote, the default has only deepened. If it is not addressed now, there may be
no future opportunity for repair.
The writer is the spiritual leader of
Reform Congregation Solel in Highland Park, Illinois. He writes frequently on
Jewish thought and American Jewish life. Thousands read his blog at
www.rabbimoffic.com.
This article initially appeared at Jewish Ideas Daily and
is reprinted with their permission.