To the Editor:

Jack Wertheimer provides an interesting overview of the history of Reform Judaism and cites many of the critical challenges facing the movement today [“What Does Reform Judaism Stand For?,” June]. But his pessimistic conclusions appear to be based on a “remarkable statement” supposedly issued by me that in fact I never made. Moreover, Mr. Wertheimer interprets it in a way that directly contradicts all of my writings and speeches on the subject.

As reported erroneously in the Jewish press, my “statement” was this: “if you take [Jewish observance] upon yourself as an obligation rather than as a choice, you’ve reached the point at which you’re no longer a Reform Jew.” My actual words dealt with the difference between the Jew who accepts the obligations of the halakhic system in its entirety—all 613 commandments in the Torah—and the Jew who feels obligated by some but not all of the commandments. I suggested that except in the rarest of instances, the former is not seen as a Reform Jew either by himself or by the Reform movement. Drawing on the bastardized version of these remarks and without checking with me, Mr. Wertheimer concludes, incredibly, that I believe it is wrong for a rabbi or congregant to “flirt with the basic concept of religious obligation, or venture too close to traditional Jewish observances.” He attributes similar sentiments to other leaders of the movement.

In fact, I have repeatedly stated that I welcome the return of the word “mitzvah” (commandment) to the Reform vocabulary precisely because it asserts the idea of Jewish obligation. The Reform rabbinate as a whole has taken a similar position, and the concept was given a central place in the Pittsburgh Principles that were adopted by the movement in 1999. Like many Reform thinkers, I have struggled in my writings with the question of how the modern Jew can reconcile autonomy and obligation; despite the complexity of the task, I continue to believe that a Reform Jew need not—and should not—renounce either one or the other.

Rabbi Eric H. Yoffie
Union for Reform Judaism
New York City

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To the Editor:

Jack Wertheimer has written a perceptive if flawed analysis of the state of Reform Judaism. He is correct that the movement’s commitment to personal autonomy has become problematic. An earlier generation of Reform leaders believed that Reform Jews would engage with the broad scope of the Jewish tradition and make their Jewish decisions based on “commitment and knowledge.” We have mastered autonomy very well; the “commitment and knowledge” part has not been as successful. Like the head of Reform’s Hebrew Union College, Rabbi David Ellenson, many Reform Jews long for a more communitarian form of Judaism that would willingly surrender some autonomy for the sake of building a Jewish future.

But the blame is not to be cast only on the Reform movement. Ever since the late 18th century, all Jews have located themselves along a broad spectrum of beliefs and behaviors in their re-imagination of Jewish life. Each modern denomination of Judaism has brought unique gifts to the table, and Mr. Wertheimer might have given credit to Reform for dealing with the Jewish world as it is, not as we might have hoped it would turn out.

But for him, even the movement’s re-appropriation of certain traditions draws a measure of criticism. Thus, Reform’s new prayer book is evidence of “healthy openness and self confidence or, perhaps, a sudden loss of direction” (I would suggest the former). His critique of the movement’s approach to non-Jews is perplexing. “How,” he asks, “are synagogues to teach non-Jews about Judaism while simultaneously working to increase the knowledge of their Jewish members?” Well, we can treat all who thirst for Jewish wisdom—both Jews and “the strangers within our gates”—as worthy. Can Judaism not compete in the marketplace of ideas? Do we “lose” our heritage by teaching it to Gentile seekers?

Contrary to what Mr. Wertheimer suggests, the Reform movement does not condone intermarriage. (What possible condemnation, at any rate, could change the present sociological situation?) Nor has Reform been relativistic about its commitment to fostering unequivocally Jewish families. In 1995, the movement adopted a resolution declaring that while its religious schools welcomed children of interfaith families, simultaneous education in another faith tradition was inappropriate and unworkable. Whatever individual Jews may think or do, Reform synagogues are not value-free institutions. They exist to create Jews.

Finally, Mr. Wertheimer is to be thanked for publicizing the survey data indicating that 44 percent of Reform Jews profess not to “have a strong sense of belonging to the Jewish people” or to “feel very emotionally attached to Israel.” This is nothing less than alarming. Whether it can be explained by the loss of ethnic loyalties among middle-class Americans or the triumph of a therapeutic culture that nourishes “the Jew within,” Reform Jewish leadership must rise to the challenge of re-connecting Reform Jews to peoplehood. Universalism has been a major success; a healthy dose of “tribalism” could turn out to be just what the doctor ordered.

Rabbi Jeffrey K. Salkin
Atlanta, Georgia

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To the Editor:

Jack Wertheimer’s critique of Reform Judaism is cogent and devastating. Reveling in a putative heyday of numerical superiority, Reform leaders are still fascinated with the game of boundary-blurring at the expense of integrity and long-term survival. The truth is painful: the movement is shrinking, not growing. Its membership rolls are inflated by the soft rejection of alienated affiliation.

Here is another painful truth: Reform cannot accommodate success. It struggles to take “yes” for an answer. Enthusiastic young adults in the movement—not a large group, to be sure—are driven away. For them the choice is either admission to the rabbinical track at Hebrew Union College (under its budgetary and movement-imposed constraint to “educate” pulpit rabbis only) or drifting outside the movement and its tepid gravitational pull. Pardes, a distinguished egalitarian yeshiva in Jerusalem, sees many “former Reform Jews” who have discovered the wonder of Judaism—its way of life, its texts, its depth, its vast intellectual history—but who have felt themselves rejected by Reform institutions that cannot tolerate or find a place for their eager embrace. Reform’s loss is modern Orthodoxy’s gain.

There is also a growing recognition within Reform congregations that we are not sustaining ourselves. “Former Conservative Jews” are still passing through Reform on their way out of the communal orbit, but the movement struggles to hold on to the affiliation (much less the emotional adherence) of its own native children. The hallmark “outreach” to mixed-married couples (now reduced to a simple non-judgmental embrace) has given many institutions a short-term membership succor that masks what can only be a cynical frustration. For those concerned about the prospects for Judaism in North America, Jack Wertheimer has accurately and brilliantly depicted a deeply troubling reality.

Rabbi Clifford E. Librach
United Jewish Center
Danbury, Connecticut

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To the Editor:

Jack Wertheimer’s most perceptive observation is that the question of whether “American Reform [was] built upon a structured ideology” or “primarily reflect[ed] a series of pragmatic adjustments to the shifting scene” continues to reverberate. For the past several decades, Reform Jews have championed the centrality of “personal choice” in one’s approach to Judaism. This is a seductive motto, not least because it covers up the widening gap between the articulated ideals of Reform and the conventional practices of its adherents. “Personal choice” can confer ideological validity upon the most haphazard and unreflective religious decisions.

To understand how ideology has become obsolete in Reform Judaism, one need only look at the fate of the movement’s extensive literature. Volumes of thoughtful responsa and guides to Jewish practice, mostly unknown to the laity and too seldom consulted by the rabbis, gather dust in libraries. And why not: such literature is often at odds with a Reform Judaism for which “personal choice” is the central value.

What Mr. Wertheimer does not say (but I will) is that the language of choice is passé. No one disputes the fact that individuals are free to decide what they will and will not observe. Teachers from all denominations of Judaism appeal to the “relevance” of the tradition in terms of “personal meaning” that acknowledge the supremacy of the autonomous self. But personal choice cannot be the core principle: we limit our autonomy as we enter into a religious community. This is at the heart of the idea of a covenant.

If the motto of “personal choice” is insufficient, the more enhanced slogan of “informed choice” is unrealistic in the context of contemporary Reform. Becoming “informed” is not as simple as studying a snippet of text about a particular issue; it entails immersing oneself in a 3,000-year-old tradition and its literature, most of which remains inaccessible to the vast majority of Reform Jews. If the movement were sincerely committed to “informed choice,” the demand for high-level study would be widespread, and far more time and resources would be devoted to it. But when young Reform Jews are discouraged from adopting traditional practices they have encountered through study, one gets the impression that “informed choice” often means only the choice not to observe.

Mr. Wertheimer argues that the movement should formulate “standards for committed living.” Perhaps this would help. But knowing that many such standards already exist and are ignored, the movement might do better to promote new and emerging models of seriously engaged Reform communities. As “choice” increasingly becomes a given—the starting point rather than the central creed—Reform Jews will be ready for a deepened conversation about mitzvah, obligation, and the ways in which the self is enhanced by moving beyond the self.

Rabbi Leon Morris
New York City

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To the Editor:

I join others in thanking Jack Wertheimer not only for his prescient attempt to figure out what Reform Judaism stands for, but also for his life work brilliantly tracing the perils and possibilities of American Jewish life.

One of his many incisive questions is this: “Was American Reform built upon a structured ideology—on strongly held principles—or did it primarily reflect a series of pragmatic adjustments to the shifting scene?” This is a hard matter to resolve: how does one distinguish between principled agreement and cowardly submission to passing whims? The present state of the intermarriage debate in Reform is a case in point. As congregants increasingly demand that rabbis officiate at intermarriages, an increasing number of rabbis are developing theological justifications for doing so, citing the values of outreach and inclusiveness. Whether the reasons are genuine or made with one eye to the next contract negotiation, the intermarriage wars in Reform Judaism are effectively over.

The rank and file was also the impetus behind the replacement of the neo-Protestant confirmation service with the traditional bar-mitzvah ceremony, the repudiation of the anti-Zionism of Reform’s 1885 Pittsburgh Platform, the creation of a gender-neutral liturgy, and the dramatic growth in the proportion of female students at Hebrew Union College. The dynamic is not much different in the other denominations.

The decline of Mr. Wertheimer’s own Conservative movement shows what happens when the leaders of a movement tell the people that they know what is best for them. Conservative Judaism is dying precisely because it has by turns resisted the desire of its members for egalitarian worship, the ordination of women, and openness to intermarried families.

I believe that Judaism organized around movements is a dying anachronism of the 19th century. As independent seminaries continue to grow, the official denominations will lose their monopoly on placement. As the cost of synagogue membership grows, Jewish federations will begin to offer free synagogues in Jewish community centers. Entrepreneurial leaders will become boutique rabbis who serve the needs of their flock outside any movement structure. The Reform seminary, Hebrew Union College, will become independent of the movement, freeing itself to raise funds more effectively. The Jewish Federation system will at some point be ready to breach the wall of separation that has for too long supported every Jewish communal institution except the synagogue.

Or maybe none of this will happen, and things will just plod along as they have since 1824, when a few Frankfort Jews wanted to hear organ music accompany the prayer service. For better or for worse, the Jews of tomorrow, who will probably not refer to themselves with any particular label except Jewish, will decide our future. And as scary as some of their choices may seem to Mr. Wertheimer (and to myself), I consider them preferable to the elitist fulminations of professionals in today’s moribund movement world who pathetically sound the bugle for a cavalry that will never mount up for them.

Rabbi Marc Gellman
Melville, New York

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To the Editor:

I appreciate Jack Wertheimer’s fine explication of the state of Reform Judaism, but I must take exception to his statement that the movement’s “leadership remains intensely attached to Israel.” The Union for Reform Judaism (URJ) may pay lip service in support of the Jewish state, but its record of advocacy tells a different story.

In 2004, the URJ criticized the U.S. Congress for “passing one-sided pro-Israel resolutions.” The URJ leadership opposed the U.S. intervention in Iraq to depose Saddam Hussein, who was, among other things, paying bounties to the families of Palestinian terrorists who killed Israelis. Earlier this year, the URJ issued an ill-timed endorsement of the establishment of a Palestinian state. More recently, URJ president Rabbi Eric Yoffie declared that the movement would not cooperate with Christian Zionist friends of Israel.

Mark Gold
Springfield, Virginia

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To the Editor:

In his otherwise superb article on the present and future of Reform Judaism, Jack Wertheimer misses at least part of the point while discussing the renewed vibrancy of the movement in the 1970’s and 80’s. Crucial to the history of Reform was the decision in the 1960’s by the leadership, faced for decades with empty pews, to undertake a “self-study” of the movement. For this the Union of American Hebrew Congregations (UAHC, today the Union for Reform Judaism) turned to Leonard Fein, then a scholar at Brandeis and MIT. In 1972, he published his findings in a watershed volume, Reform Is a Verb: Notes on Reform and Reforming Jews.

Fein’s conclusions were basic, and dramatic. In effect, his report declared: “Folks, you have empty pews because you have an empty religion.” It did not take long for the movement’s leadership to get the message; the return to synagogue ritual, use of Hebrew, innovative services, and an emphasis on text-study followed almost immediately and became hallmarks of a revived and newly-vibrant Reform. I would note parenthetically that an additional, exogenous factor in Reform’s “renewal” was the increase in ethnic consciousness across American society—the “Roots” phenomenon—that characterized this period.

Jerome A. Chanes
Brandeis University
Waltham, Massachusetts

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Jack Wertheimer writes:

The letters submitted by five prominent Reform rabbis can be read as a fascinating mini-symposium on the limits of autonomy, the state of lay-rabbinic relations, and the nature of authority in the Reform movement.

Rabbi Eric H. Yoffie sets the record straight about a statement on religious choice and obligation that occasioned much discussion when it appeared in print a year ago. As he had not, to the best of my knowledge, ever before issued a public complaint about the “bastardized version” of these remarks, I assumed they reflected his current position. I am happy he has cleared this up.

But Rabbi Yoffie skirts the larger question I posed in citing these remarks: has the Reform movement drawn any red lines to its left? Rabbi Clifford E. Librach’s letter provides anecdotal evidence of demarcations to the right, which according to his testimony make for an intolerance of those Reform Jews who delve too deeply into traditional Judaism. Given that Reform has grown to become the largest of the Jewish religious movements, it has a responsibility to clarify not only which traditions it negates but which revisions of Judaism it rejects.

What complicates any such effort is the movement’s insistence on reconciling the irreconcilable: autonomy and obligation. Several of my correspondents seem to agree that, as Rabbi Jeffrey K. Salkin puts it, “personal autonomy has become problematic,” or, as Rabbi Leon Morris adds, “the language of personal choice is passé.” Rabbi Salkin’s letter indirectly offers at least two examples of how the movement’s emphasis on autonomy is harmful. One relates to his defense of teaching together both Jews and non-Jews who “thirst for knowledge.” If the purpose is to transmit the wisdom of Judaism in an academic fashion, I, too, see no problem. But the rabbi’s teaching role is prescriptive as well as descriptive; Torah study is devotional as well as intellectual. In order to “create Jews,” rabbis must explain that a mitzvah is a commandment that should be observed, not merely an interesting folkway that some Jews choose to observe. Such discourse is hard enough to come by in Reform settings, and doubly hard in the company of non-Jews who are not commanded to observe mitzvot.

A second example of the dilemma the movement has created for itself concerns Rabbi Salkin’s assertion that “Reform Judaism does not condone intermarriage.” But when hundreds of Reform rabbis officiate at intermarriages, how can anyone imagine the movement does not condone them? Moreover, as Rabbi Marc Gellman notes, the autonomy fetish has led to a situation in which some rabbis are coerced into officiating at intermarriages, often against their better religious judgment, because their congregants insist upon it and their movement does not draw a line. Rabbi Gellman may well be describing the reality on the ground when he says that “the intermarriage wars in Reform Judaism are effectively over.”

Rabbis Librach, Morris, and Gellman raise important questions about the state of relations between Reform rabbis and their congregants. Rabbi Salkin argues on this score that I fail to credit Reform “for dealing with the Jewish world as it is, not as we might have hoped it would turn out.” This too easily exonerates the movement of its missteps and discounts the power of leadership. My conception of the rabbinate is of men and women who are prepared to resist what they know to be wrong, even at the price of being out of step with the times.

A recent, posthumously published book of essays by the social critic Phillip Rieff, The Crisis of the Officer Class, argues that our cultural drift has come about from the top down rather than the bottom up. According to Rieff, the traditional guardians of society have stopped valuing culture and traditions, discipline and depth, and have abandoned the role of responsible guide for that of therapist. If our rabbis, too, bend to the demands of the Jewishly uninformed, how can we hope to reverse the tide of defection from Judaism?

In this connection, I strongly disagree with Rabbi Gellman’s analysis of the Conservative movement. I have candidly written in these pages about the serious challenges facing that movement (“The Perplexities of Conservative Judaism,” September 2007), but I would not characterize it as “dying.” Nor would I attribute its weaknesses to defiance of “egalitarian worship, the ordination of women, and openness to intermarried families.” In fact, the movement’s decline set in two decades after it embraced the first two positions and continues even as it becomes ever more receptive to the third. The reason, in my judgment, is the same “crisis of the officer class” that afflicts Reform. When leaders cannot articulate what they stand for and why, members drift away.

One serious consequence of such drift, as Rabbi Salkin reminds us, has been the erosion of strong support for Israel among Reform Jews. But it must also be said that rhetoric within the movement has abetted the erosion. There are Reform rabbis who have been imbalanced in castigating Israel for its policies toward the Palestinians or its failings on the issue of religious pluralism. Whatever criticisms there are to be made, the ties binding American Jews and Israel must remain indissoluble.

I emphasize this point because all five of my rabbinical correspondents are exemplars of passionate commitment to Israel and the Jewish people. One can only hope with Rabbi Morris that their personal model will help inspire a deepened conversation about obligation within their movement. On this score, I take exception to Mark Gold’s indictment of Reform’s record on Israel. I do not subscribe to the policy positions of the Union for Reform Judaism, but many of them are shared by substantial portions of the Israeli populace. I remind Mr. Gold that the current Israeli government has officially endorsed a two-state solution.

I suppose I have missed the point Jerome A. Chanes would have me make. I see no evidence that the Reform movement began its synagogue revolution in response to Leonard Fein’s 1972 study. I suspect the movement changed its approach for a variety of reasons—as a response to the Havurah movement of the 1970’s that sought more hands-on, less formal worship; the formative experiences of new leaders once a year of study in Israel became a requirement for rabbinical and cantorial students; and the spirit of musical and liturgical experimentation that has marked congregational life in America generally over the past few decades.

I am grateful to all of my correspondents for the seriousness and measured tone of their comments.

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