Judaism in general, and some expressions of reform Judaism,

To begin with, there is no such thing as a religion called Judaism. Actually, Judaism is a civilization, in which religion is one of its many dimensions. Within its religious area we find a number of mutually exclusive belief systems that are institutionalized or entitled as follows: Orthodoxy, Conservatism, Reform, Reconstructionism, and Humanism.
Orthodoxy is based on the premise of a creator deity who has a will and has the capacity to communicate that will to humankind. That capacity was executed at a moment in time, namely Sinai, and its content is the Hebrew Scriptures. It is therefore perfect and immutable. Further, orthodoxy is committed to the belief that there is an authoritative body of interpreters of that revelation, namely the orthodox rabbinate.
Reform is based on the premise that The Hebrew Scriptures were developed over a period of time, and that they were shaped by human beings and therefore not authoritative. We see Scripture as the poetry of faith, and not its prose.
The conservative movement is actually the youngest of the three. Its position is that reform went too far, and it attempts to find a middle ground.
Reconstructionism is based on the premise that Judaism is a peoplehood, and that God is part of the natural order of things.
There is also secular Judaism, and many of its adherents belong to Jewish community centers, organizations such as B’nai B’rith, the American Jewish Committee, the American Jewish Congress, various Zionist organizations, Yiddish-ist organizations that are openly atheistic (like the Workman’s Circle, an atheist, Zionist, socialist group that was very active at the turn of the century, but still has a few members today), and I could go on for pages.

Some choose orthodoxy (in Judaism and elsewhere). Some choose polydoxy. The choice is determined by our epistemology. In other words, what we decide truth is will determine our theology.
One of the founders of quantum mechanics was said to have made the observation that the opposite of a shallow truth is false, but the opposite of a deep truth is also true. This leads me to believe that all we have is uncertainty, and that therefore, each of us must follow our own course.
I know that response is not satisfactory to my Orthodox Jewish friends, and to other orthodox religionists. Let us continue to disagree as members of a wonderful human family that has been the wellspring of so much intellectual debate in circles both religious and secular.
You see, I begin with the premise that rather than people being here to serve the needs of religion, religion is here to serve the needs of people. Reform Judaism meets my needs. It gives me the opportunity to shape my own Judaism, basing it on my own response to the Jewish past, my own interpretation in the present, and the excitement of being able to pass it on to the future of my children and grandchildren.
I am not limited by halachah. I see it as a wonderful creative process by which the rabbis of the Talmudic period were able to create an intellectual bloodless revolution, destroying the authority of the priesthood, and enabling Judaism to become a religion that was portable, and not merely one that was restricted to a limited geographic area. It is a part of the warp and woof of the tapestry of Jewish history, and enabled subsequent intellectual revolutions within Judaism to occur.

Why am I a Jew? Because I choose to attach myself to my birthright.

Why am I a Jew? Because I choose to a part of a people that has trod the long path of history, and given to the world the social values of the Hebrew prophets.

Why am I a Jew? Because I choose to pass those values on to my children and grandchildren.

Why am I a Jew? Because I want to make certain that the history of our people will not die.

Why am I a Reform Jew? Because I believe that the Jewish literary/historical continuum has values that are beneficial to all humanity.

Why am I a Reform Jew? Because I believe in the principle of philosophical/theological freedom of belief.

I am a Reform Jew because its intellectual voice calls me to be creative and imaginative in my practice, and its prophetic voice calls me to do battle for social justice.

I love being a Reform Jew because as a movement we are in favor of equal rights for women; we support a woman’s individual reproductive choice, we support equality, both social and legal, for our gay and Lesbian brothers and sisters (including officiating at commitment ceremonies for them); we helped to create child labor laws and trade unionism; we have opposed the Viet Nam war, capital punishment, and the proliferation of guns in our society. We have marched arm in arm with Martin Luther King, and have supported Israel even when we have disagreed with its government’s policies.

I love being a Reform Jew because as a movement we are in favor of equal rights for women; we support a woman’s individual reproductive choice, we support equality, both social and legal, for our gay and Lesbian brothers and sisters (including officiating at commitment ceremonies for them); we helped to create child labor laws and trade unionism; we have opposed the Viet Nam war, capital punishment, and the proliferation of guns in our society. We have marched arm in arm with Martin Luther King, and have supported Israel even when we have disagreed with its government’s policies.
I am a Reform Jew because its intellectual voice calls me to be creative and imaginative in my practice, and its prophetic voice calls me to do battle for social justice.

Religion in general

The following is extracted from a novel on which I am working. In it, Jack, at this point, a Protestant ministerial student, is exploring his boundaries.

He looked forward to the opportunity to have a pulpit, no matter how small, where he could preach, just as he had done in the seminary chapel, what ministers, a generation ago, called the social gospel. His studies absorbed his energy. He poured himself into philosophy, and continued taking language electives. He started to visit the local synagogue, to hear the sounds of the biblical Hebrew in which he was beginning to develop some literary expertise. The rabbi there, a much older man, took an interest in him, and asked Jack why he was attending.
"To tell you the truth, Rabbi, I'm not sure myself. I know that I have really learned to love the Hebrew language. As I have learned more, it has given me insights into the Bible. I first wanted to develop an appreciation for the language not only via the eye, but also via the ear. But at this point, I am back here on a regular basis because I am stimulated by your sermons. It seems to me that you are far closer to my thinking about the role of religion in people's lives than the old fogie professors at the seminary, and they are younger than you are."
The rabbi replied, "They, just like the professors at my own seminary, don't live in the real world. They like hiding behind their academic titles, and their publication of articles that are read only by other academicians. I could hardly wait to graduate and get out from the seminary walls. Still, they serve a purpose. They provide you with the research tools and the text materials that are available to you to motivate people. The average person doesn't give a damn about what's going on in the world, unless it affects his paycheck or his peace of mind. The only way we can move people is to use ancient texts that scare the hell out of them."
Jack pondered this for a moment. "Then you see the texts as tools. They are not an end in themselves. Do you take them literally? What do they mean to you?" "To me, the texts that are sacred to each religion are not books of history or science. They are the poetry of faith. They are neither right nor wrong, but are the high level aspirations of the great spiritual leaders of each generation, in each culture, round the world. There is as much good in the Koran as there is in the Vedas, or the Buddhist writings, or the Bible of the western world. People can only be taught in their own vocabulary. To you, Jesus becomes the paradigm of faith. To me, it is the Hebrew prophets. To my Moslem friends it is Mohammed. It really doesn't matter who said it or how. In my thinking, all that counts is whether it motivates human beings to be kind, loving, and willing to work for the cause of peace in the world.”

Initial thoughts

The journey begins.

I begin with the premise that rather than people being here to serve the needs of religion, religion is here to serve the needs of people. Reform Judaism meets my needs. It gives me the opportunity to shape my own Judaism, basing it on my own response to the Jewish past, my own interpretation in the present, and the excitement of being able to pass it on to the future of my children and grandchildren.

I am not limited by halachah. I see it as a wonderful creative process by which the rabbis of the Talmudic period were able to create an intellectual bloodless revolution, destroying the authority of the priesthood, and enabling Judaism to become a religion that was portable, and not merely one that was restricted to a limited geographic area. It is a part of the warp and woof of the tapestry of Jewish history, and enabled subsequent intellectual revolutions within Judaism to occur.

Each Friday evening, my wife and I light Shabbat candles together. We sing Shalom Aleichem, and I recite a portion of Eishet Chayil, a woman of valor. Of course, I don’t use the verses that do not pertain to our time, and I usually add a phrase or two of my own that speak of special things that Dee has one during the preceding week. We chant the full Kiddush, and enjoy a special meal. After that, we enjoy a quiet evening at home, and will sometimes go to services. We also may go to theater or a concert. There were many Friday nights when we would have Shabbat dinner and all of its ritual with two close friends of ours in the picnic area of the Hollywood Bowl, and then enjoy the evening there. One of our favorite Shabbat experiences was in a French restaurant in Edinburgh, Scotland, when the waiter, a Roman Catholic Scot, saw us lighting the candles, and in his thick burr asked if we minded his joining us in the Kiddush. He and other members of his family had lived in Israel, and he was fluent in Hebrew.

Our most meaningful High Holy Days were a few years ago, when we in a 26-foot RV in the wilds of Wyoming. We had our own private services, just the two of us. We blew Shofar, read Torah from a text, and instead of a sermon, the two of us shared our own thoughts on Judaism and our personal and familial values. If anyone is interested, I have written the story of that trip in detail. Moses went up on Sinai; we were in the Tetons.

I love being a Reform Jew because as a movement we are in favor of equal rights for women, we support a woman’s individual reproductive choice, we support equality both social and legal, for our gay brothers and sisters (including officiating at commitment ceremonies for them), and we helped to create child labor laws and trade unionism, and we have opposed the Viet Nam war, capital punishment, and the proliferation of guns in our society. We have marched arm in arm with Martin Luther King, and have supported Israel even when we have disagreed with its government’s policies.

I am a Reform Jew because its intellectual voice calls me to be creative and imaginative in my practice, and its prophetic voice calls me to do battle for social justice.

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A theological question has been raised by an orthodox E-mail crony of mine in New York, as to the implications of the recent find of a rock on Mars that may offer evidence of early forms of life on the red planet. Actually, this question is meaning only to those who take a very simplistic view of religion. That simplistic view is anthropocentric and geocentric and literalist. Its world view is summed up in the hymn sung by some Protestant children, “How do I know? The Bible tells me so”. This mentality accepts the Genesis cycle of stories as an absolute scientific truth, rather than as mythology.
It is interesting that the rabbis, as far back as two thousand years ago, did not accept that approach. They developed an approach to Scripture, known as Midrash. That noun is derived from the verb darash, meaning to draw out. The concept was and is that one needs to interpret Scripture, and not merely to accept it on its face. There were four approaches to Midrash that were remembered by the acronym, “Pardes” (meaning paradise). The letters which it contained
were the initials of four words. The first was Pshat, (simple), which meant that the text could be understood from its simple meaning. This was rare. The second was “Remez” (wink) which meant that there was a subtle hint of the meaning in the text. The third was “Drash” (draw out) which meant that the meaning of the text had to be drawn out by the use of certain rules of analytical procedure known as hermeneutics, and this was the most frequent method of understanding. The fourth was “Sod” (secret) which meant that the text could not be understood, or that its meaning is a mystery.
By the twelfth century C.E., the great poet/philosopher, Abraham Ibn Ezra, whose philosophy was a mixture of neo-Platonistic emanationism and pantheism, and had come to the conclusion that yesh mi ayin, creatio ex nihilo, creation of something out of nothing, was not a valid concept. He developed the theory, and in relating it he took every step leading up to his concept, left out the conclusion, but closed his remarks with the enigmatic “V’ha-maskil yavin”, and the enlightened will understand. Earlier, Moses Maimonides in the Moreh Nevuchim, posited the idea of a finite deity limited by the rules of reason and physical reality.
All this as background, it is no surprise that many contemporary Jewish thinkers reject what has flippantly described by Rabbi Roland Gittelsohn, z”l as “cosmic bellhop” theology. In other words, the deity is not a cosmic bellhop who carries ones bags through life if one tips him by praying, and drops the bags on ones feet if not given the tip of prayer.
Further note that the reference to the Divine in this essay avoids the English word “God”, and its equivalent spelled with a hyphen, replacing letter “o”. That is because for many Jews, this particular English conjures up no meaningful referent. Why use an English word derived from a Teutonic root referring to a wood deity, when we have perfectly good Hebrew ones. Even for a rationalist like me, a term arising out of Judaism’s mystical tradition stands out above all the rest. It is the “Ein sof”, the endless One, the Eternal. The reality is that the One to whom we refer intimately as HaShem is actually unknowable. Why? Because the finite mind can not comprehend infinity. Trying to define the Eternal is like trying to wash an elephant with a toothbrush. Whether we are modernists or traditionalists, we must accept the reality of the finite nature of our minds. This acceptance leads us all to realize that our grasp of ma-seh v’resheet, the work of creation, is and can only ever be partial. Therefore, whether there is life on Mars or not has no effect on our theology. The ever expanding universe described to us by the physicists is the result of an Eternal reality, whose creative surge may be located here on earth, or anywhere else in the universe. Rather than indulge in obscure metaphysics, let us a Jews, together with the other human creatures of the Eternal seek to understand the understandable, namely one another, and thereby work towards the goal of Tikkun Olam. For centuries, indeed for millennia, the Jew has been wed to system that can be called the mitzvah system. The word mitzvah literally means commandment. The Yiddish understanding of the word mitzvah as a good deed really is a misunderstanding. The mitzvah of not wearing a garment of mixed wool and flax, the mitzvah of wearing a fringed garment, the mitzvah of bringing a sacrifice of the first harvested of ones fruits, the mitzvah of refraining from thirty-nine specific categories of work on Shabbat were not seen as good deeds. They were seen as commandments. Not only that, they were not seen as human or cultural or ethnic commandments. They were seen as commandments from God, a creator God who possessed a will, and had the capacity to communicate that will to humankind.
The mitzvot (plural of mitzvah) we have just mentioned, and they represent only a small sample, were biblical. During the period of their creation, we were first a shepherd people, and then an agrarian people. Under the influence of the Greek city-states, this agrarian people become both urbanized and mobile. A local people became internationalized. A tribal or national deity became cosmic in nature.
In response to these new realities, the Talmud was born. Through the vehicle of interpretation the mitzvah system was both expanded and radically changed. Many mitzvot that were dependent for their performance on a local, agricultural life were passed by under the Talmudic principle of t’fillah bimkom korban, prayer in place of sacrifice.
The next step was the development of the concept of syag which may be translated as fence or hedge. The Talmud says, “Build a syag around the Torah.” The syag became a series of ever increasing concentric circles of ritual. Ceremony upon ceremony was added to the warp and woof of the tapestry of Judaism. The Jewish law codes of the mediaeval period were manuals of ritual. The siddur, the prayerbook, became the portable homeland of the Jew. Centuries elapsed. The ritual became frozen and came to be the raison d’etre for most of the Jewish people.
As events and rationales faded amid the mists of antiquity, larger and larger segments of our Jewish populace lost all understanding of why this b’rachah, this blessing? Why that practice? Why the other rule? The age of reason, the age of modern philosophy, were the genesis of a Jewish intellectual revolution. New values, new perspectives, new understandings, instead of buttressing belief in an evolving mitzvah system, challenged its validity. New theologies challenged the Divine authority that commanded ritual practice. New cultural motifs undercut the old motivation. New Weltanschauungen (world views) created hitherto unasked questions. A new phenomenon arose, the bifurcated Jew: the Jew who lived most of his or her life in the contemporary Western world, but who had one foot in the past, pawing the ground, looking for hidden roots. This Jew found a new modus vivendi. He sought no more rams or bullocks to be slaughtered on the altar, nor desired any more pious or perfunctory performance of prayers. Instead, this Jew maintained the motif of the moth, being motivated mysteriously toward the flame, yet fearful of fitfully flying into it. This scenario of spiritual schizophrenia provided no panacea. It purported to preserve us, yet painfully perpetuated a pestilence which plagues our people to this day. It grows as we grievously grope for growth. It is the demon that daunts, the devil that debilitates, the darkness that destroys. In one word its noxious name is “guilt.”
We suffer from a malady which Gilbert Murray describes as “the failure of nerve.” We no longer wish to be bound to the core of commandment. Yet, we are fearful to free ourselves from its fetters. We impale ourselves on the horns of dilemma, having neither the understanding nor the will to loose ourselves from its barb. What path is there for us to pursue? What providence can provide us with a prescription? What practice can palliate or prevent our pain? Before we can alleviate these anxieties, we need to find the drive to dry the estuaries of ennui that envelope our energies. This then is a call to commitment, and to courage.
We recall the words of Marc Antony, “The fault, dear Caesar, lies not in our stars, but in ourselves.” We have within us the capacity to cope, if we will but find it. The solution, I believe lies in authority, but not the external authority of the past. The failure to face the fact that we feel frustrated forces us to fall back. We need to push ourselves forward, to power ourselves through the guilt barrier and say, I am free to determine the dimensions of my duty. I am a Jew on my terms, not the tenacious terms of a tyranny of time and culture conditioning. I am my own authority, and I shall decide the way in which I will assert my own identity, my selfhood, my being. From the vast literary historical continuum that gives me my inner name, the inner name of Jew, I am free to choose.
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Epistemology is that branch of philosophy that asks the question, “How do we know what we know?” In other words, “What is the standard for truth?”
From this definition we need to move to the statement that epistemology precedes theology. This statement means that how we decide what we know what we know will determine what we believe about God. The orthodox religionist sees revelationism as his/her truth test. The non-orthodox religionist has a number of epistemologies available. A non-exhaustive list would include subjective idealism, naive realism, rationalism, empiricism, and coherence theory.
There is no inherent superiority in ones chosen epistemology. The choice is a purely subjective one. However, once that choice is made, certain conclusions necessarily follow. There is a rality that between liberal and orthodox religion there exists an epistemological abyss that cannot be bridged.
The revelationist choice demands following the tenets of the given scripture absolutely, or as it is interpreted by its authoritative interpreters. The other choices make the individual the arbiter of his/her belief system. Thus, there can be no conformity of these opposing systems.
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The following essayt was written in responce to an inquiry.

The question that you raise is an interesting one, although it is not a rare one at all. As you have wisely stated in effect, there is more to being a Jew than having a theological position. Judaism is an evolving religious civilization, with many dimensions beyond what is narrowly defined as religion.
You say that you are an atheist. In philosophy there are three classical positions with regard to the existence of a divine being: theist, atheist, and agnostic. When asked “Do you believe in God, the theist replies, “Yes”; the atheist replies “No”; the agnostic replies something like “I do not know”, or “The evidence is not in”, or “I am sitting on the fence”.

Allow me to suggest that all three positions are invalid, and there is a fourth response to the above question. “Tell me what you mean by the term that you are using, and then we can have a discussion.” Unfortunately, most people who say that they are atheists are denying what one theologian refers to as “cosmic bellhop theology”. In other words, God is a cosmic bellhop who carries your bags through life if you tip him by praying, and who drops the bags on your feet if you do not tip him enough. That position has been rejected by philosophers for centuries.

The following essay that I wrote a while back is long, but your question is a serious one, and requires a detailed response. It offers a concept that I believe is a workable one for a person with a scientific orientation. I hope that after you read it, you will stay in touch with me, and we can enter into dialogue and have the pleasure of challenging one another.

There can be no being without its possibility. That is axiomatic. All being can be divided into two categories: static being and dynamic being. Static being is existence at a moment in time. Dynamic being is change throughout its process.

An illustration is as follows: Visualize an oak tree. Nearby is an acorn. Both exist at the moment and illustrate static being. There is a relationship between the acorn and the oak. The acorn has the possibility of becoming another oak. This demonstrates change, or dynamic being. However, there are other changes that are less aesthetic, or less pleasing to us, but they illustrate the premise as well. For example, the acorn has the possibility of failing to germinate, and rotting. It also has the possibility of being burnt in a forest fire. It even has the possibility of being eaten by a squirrel and defecated. These are forms of being, whether we enjoy them or not.

All of the above discussion is preliminary to developing a definition of the term, “God”. Let us remember that in the world of philosophy and theology there is not, nor ever has been, nor is there likely to be, agreement on the meaning of the term. We must further note that all definitions by their nature are a priori propositions, and therefore cannot true or false. However, they can be meaningful or not meaningful to a discussion at hand.

Throughout history, there have been many different God concepts. The limited God concept was introduced by Maimonides in the third section of the Moreh Nevuchim (The Guide for the Perplexed). This was written in the twelfth century. Rabbi Mordechai Kaplan, founder of contemporary Judaism’s Reconstructionist movement, defines God as “The process that makes for the preservation of the Jewish civilization.” Rabbi Ira Eisenstein’s is “The sum total of the highest aspirations of humankind.” Rabbi Roland Gittelsohn’s is “That force that makes for the upward surge in biological and ethical evolution.” The list goes on and on. The definition of the term God, originated by Rabbi Alvin Reines, Professor of Philosophy at the Hebrew Union College - Jewish Institute of Religion, the reform rabbinic seminary is as follows: God is the Enduring Possibility of Being.

This definition needs, for the purpose of clarity, to be broken down into its constituent elements. Being has already been discussed. Enduring means that God is infinite in terms of time. This concept has seen agreement among many theologians of various religions. The unique dimension of “possibility of being” is what makes this definition a very workable one for contemporary religion, which is based on rationalism and empiricism.

We need to explore the premise that nothing that exists in actuality is eternal. Everything actually existent is subject to change. We are all familiar with the catch phrase of contemporary futurists, “The only thing that is permanent is change.” Thus if God is a thing existent, God is not eternal. Only if God is possibility can God be eternal. This gives God the capacity of being infinite.

This further gives the person committed to a belief in God a very rational basis for explaining that belief. If God is the possibility of being, and that possibility is necessary for being, we, every time that we experience being, we experience God. Thus, in every moment of consciousness, we experience the Eternal One.