Quote:
Originally Posted by guy44
...I wanted to touch on levite's discussion of intermarriage in the reform movement. It's an extremely contentious topic internally and has been for years. Many people feel that it is eroding the number of people who consider themselves to be Jewish or practice Judaism. Others have a much more modern belief that love triumphs all. As admirable as the idea is for only marrying Jews...well, realistically, Jews are a tiny percentage of the American population, and an even smaller percentage of the world at large. My personal belief is that it is unrealistic to expect people nowadays to only marry within the tribe, so to speak. And as with many aspects of a religion and culture thousands of years old (the idea that women are not full and equal members of the community, and may not become rabbis, or that gays are committing a sin), Judaism may have to adapt to modern realities somehow in this case.
Judaism hasn't survived this long, in so many locations, and through so many difficult times by being monolithic and unable to evolve. In fact, the one thing I like most about my heritage is that Judaism not only encourages, but demands, that its adherents constantly take honest appraisals of - and question - absolutely everything. The story goes that after Jacob awoke from the dream in which he wrestled with angels, he took the name Yisrael, which means "one who struggles." The Shema, one of our holiest prayers, begins "Shema Yisrael," which means "listen, you who struggles with god." Times change, and I think it is up to Jews to both maintain their faith and keep up with them.
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With all due respect, guy, I have to disagree about this one thing. I think there are many, many areas of halakhic dispute between the movements in which I would agree with you: Judaism has to be free to evolve, yes, and with our tradition of makhloket l'shem shamayim [dispute for the sake of Heaven], we will inevitably evolve in different directions sometimes. And if it's a matter of what is or is not kosher, or what is or is not the minimum acceptable length of a weekly Torah reading, or what does or does not constitute a full Amidah, or what is or is not appropriate dress or other behavior for a Jew, I say that there is room for us to both do as we feel is best for the Jewish people, and we need not agree.
Where this differs is that, up until thirty-odd years ago, the entire Jewish people, fractured as it was, all understood that the fundamental basic of Jewish identity was matrilineal descent. We all knew that if your mother wasn't Jewish, then you needed to be converted in order to be a Jew. With all of our differences of opinion, our arguments, and our internal frustrations between movements, identity was one thing everybody trusted was universal in Judaism. And to me, that is sensible: as long as we know who the Jews are, we have some sense of what is going on, and where we stand, regardless of the ever-increasing differences in practice and halakhic standards.
We are in the midst of a dreadful crisis of assimilation. I work at a Jewish day school, at the high school level, and even with my students, who are in as Jewish an environment as one could wish, the level of ignorance is stunning, because no matter how much we at school try to cram into their heads, they get no supporting education at home, and their environment does not urge them to spend time studying Torah and learning Hebrew, their environment urges them to spend time playing Xbox and watching YouTube and, in short doing everything to absorb the secular American culture around them-- which, God help us, when it isn't secular is usually pretty Christian. The Jews we do have aren't strong enough to make up for those we lose to assimilation. Our numbers have never been big, but in the past there has always at least been a level of education, of being bound up with Jewish culture, of daily practice of the tradition, that has made up in strength what we lack in population. But not any more.
We don't need to weaken Jewish identity further right now. And if you want to say to me that the Reform movement doesn't see patrilineal descent as weaking, that may be the prerogative of the Reform movement, in theory, but unlike Reform views on prayer or kashrut, which can be ameliorated vis-a-vis their impact on the rest of the people, this has a terrible effect on the rest of the Jewish people. In all other things, a Jew can do as s/he likes, and have relatively small effect on the Jewish people: you don't keep kosher? OK, fine, so we'll go out to eat, or I won't eat hot food at your house, or I'll invite you to my place. You don't like the traditional prayer services? OK, so you go to your shul and I'll go to mine. But you marry a non-Jew and your kid wants to marry mine...? Suddenly we're screwed.
I've had a number of students now who I had to counsel, sometimes when they came to me in tears, because their Reform father and non-Jewish mother had told them their entire lives that they were Jewish, and their youth group never told them otherwise, and they get to a Conservative Hebrew School or a transdenominational high school, and they want to date a Conservative student, and that student's parents wig out when they find our their baby is dating a non-Jew. These are good kids who, all of a sudden, at 14, 15, 16, 17, suddenly are told that if they ever want to marry a non-Reform Jew, or make aliyah [emigrate to Israel], or have any honors in a non-Reform shul, etc., they need to convert. And naturally enough, they feel hurt and betrayed and angry as hell, and I have to try to help them sort out their feelings while maintaining their respect for their parents and their desire to continue associating with the Jewish people. And in some cases, I have seen students so fed up with the "deception" practiced on them that they simply walk away, disillusioned, and dismiss their practice of Judaism altogether.
The problem with intermarriage and patrilineal descent as a solution to it is that it's no solution. It just creates the illusion for the two spouses that they have solved their problem, when, in actuality they are simply visiting their troubles upon their offspring.
My problem with the Reform movement's actions is not that they don't crack down on intermarriage-- personally, I feel that's a bad choice, but it's not my movement. My problem is that the Reform movement doesn't simply tell its intermarried couples: listen, marry whoever you want, just get your children halakhically converted at birth. It's easily done, and it will save everybody a world of trouble later on. Because identity is the one thing that affects the entire people of Israel. There is no containing the ramifications. And as it stands, we are hemorrhaging Jews to assimilation, easily half the Reform movement is intermarried, and the only educated, motivated Jews who are vigorously keeping their children Jewish are the Orthodox. If we don't contain the problem now, non-Orthodox Judaism will be a thing of the past in 100 years.
I'm not saying this because it makes me happy, or because I want to take a poke at the Reform movement. My mom is Reform, my fiancee is Reform, some of my favorite colleagues in Jewish education are Reform. As a future Conservative rabbi, I am always eagerly hopeful that the two great liberal movements can find ways to work together, and I am absolutely heartbroken and hamstrung that there is this key difference that no amount of invoking "makhloket l'shem shamayim" can overcome.
Without consistency in identity, the Jewish people will fall apart. It's that simple. Nearly everything else is something that we can all agree to work on in dialogue with one another. But not this. And as a future Conservative rabbi, I am dreading the moment when I have to tell some nice young Reform kid that I cannot marry them to their fiancee without them converting first, because despite what their parents told them, halakhically they are not Jewish. That is not something I want to have to do-- God, I am dreading it! But it has to be done. Otherwise, Judaism is like a balloon not made of bonded latex or polyethylene or what have you, but of something much more permeable: slowly but surely, all the air inside will leak out, and after a time, all that will be left is an empty husk, the contents inside indistinguishable from the air outside.