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To the Editor:
Dr. Fackenheim's comments on “The Dilemma of Liberal Judaism” [October] were inspiring and penetrating, but do not seem to have resolved the dilemma satisfactorily. It may be true that through creative “encounter” the liberal Jew “learns that not all selecting from the past is arbitrary; and not all acceptance from it a form of submission”; but this surely evades the fundamental question, which is the criterion to be used in selecting from the past. . . . But the dilemma of the liberal Jew is not really so desperate as Dr. Fackenheim suggests in his introduction. He insists that the liberal Jew must find in tradition “the voice of God,” else “why should the contemporary Jew have a qualitatively unique obligation to pursue past Jewish contributions?” Yet, if one finds in Jewish tradition and history that which is aesthetically beautiful, morally compelling, and intellectually satisfying, it must be one's duty to perpetuate that tradition. Why is it the Jew's task? Because no one else will do it. Even according to the traditional view, in a world that has perceived the spiritual quality of Judaism and assimilated it, the unique position of the Jew (and hence his “unique obligation to past Jewish contributions”) will be abrogated. . . . Until that Messianic state is attained, however, if one believes that the world would be spiritually poorer without Judaism, there is every reason for sustaining and furthering it, and fulfilling one's obligation to the unique Jewish past.
Barry S. Augenbraun
St. John's College
Cambridge, England
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A Liberal's Judaism
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