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cecerose
Some people identify culturally, but not religiously, as Jews; they want to be able to say "I'm a Jew" but without the burden of mitzvot or believing in God or the like. Some of them gravitate to Reform congregations -- for things like school for their kids, not because they want to attend services. They know that non-observance is accepted by the Reform movement, so they don't think they have to worry about people questioning them on kashrut issues at potlucks or tsk-tsking them for going to a movie on Saturday afternoon or whatever. They see Reform as "freedom from religion".
Now add people who do take religion a little more seriously but believe that traditional observance is "outdated". They will have a lot in common, on an outward basis, with the secular Jews above.
Now along comes someone who appears to be more traditional. For the secular Jew this is inconvenient, but for the modernist this is a threat. I have heard lots of people in this group complain that we're becoming "too Orthodox" if we do more prayers in Hebrew or ask people to not bring meat/milk mixtures to potlucks. For them, the Orthodox are the enemy, and they do not distinguish practice from theology. (Most have probably not even spent a lot of time thinking about the question.) To them, traditional observance is sort of like someone deliberately returning to pre-modern values like subjugation of women. It doesn't matter if that isn't true; it's a visceral reaction. Or so it appears to me, anyway. The people I've talked to seem completely unable to comprehend that someone might willingly choose to keep kosher or walk to shul or the like.
2. Both the reform and the reconstructionist movements hold that religious observance of halacha is nonbinding and voluntary -- what I find troubling is that lay reform and reconstructionist Jews often don't have enough of background to make meaningful choices. Do you see this as a problem?
Yes, it's a problem. I think it's something that's getting better; with the current swing toward tradition comes increased education, including for adults. But it's a challenge, and in practice only a very small number of Jews will put in the effort to approach this intelligently.
It's not a huge problem, though, because I think most of the rest wouldn't have "done religion" anyway, so this approach doesn't lure people away from practice. I think those who want to practice will practice, and ask questions as needed, and those who don't want to will avail themselves of the "I don't have to" excuse.
I'd actually be happier if my movement were, say, a fifth its current size but with five times as many people taking these questions seriously. Any outcome is fine but I'd love it if more people would make the effort and could articulate their positions.
3. How did you get involved in gaming? What do you enjoy most about it? (I've tried, Lord knows, I've tried and my character is currently riding around in someone's sack.)
I assume from your parenthetical comment that you'e mostly talking about role-playing games. I started playing D&D -- badly -- with a group of friends. We were all social-outcast geeks anyway and this sounded cool to several of us, so why not? We bumbled along but never really connected with experienced players. I hooked up with other players in college and played in some games then. I also got into the SCA in college, and found that there was high overlap among SCA people, D&D players, and my circle of geeky friends.
At this point, gaming is something I do with friends because it's an activity we all enjoy. I haven't sought out strangers to play with since college, and I've never played at conventions or competitions. I think I see it as primarily a social activity, so I naturally want to do it with people I like to socialize with.
As for what I enjoy about gaming itself, I think it's the chance to experiment with a character who isn't me in a world that isn't mine. Even if my characters often bear a striking resemblence to me, I can at least try. It's a creative outlet, but in a shared environment so I get help from other people.
4. Describe your favorite childhood comfort food.
Hmm, that's tough. There were several. Grilled-cheese sandwiches (unadultrated with other ingredients such as tomatoes) and cream-of-tomato soup often filled this role. So did baked ham-and-cheese sandwiches -- take a bun, load it up with thinly-sliced ham, american cheese, mustard, relish, and onions, wrap it all in foil, and stick it in the oven until gooey. No, I don't know where that came from. (Obviously, I haven't had this in rather a while...)
And then, of course, there was chocolate. I had a pretty serious sweet tooth. :-)
5. If you were given a year long all expense scholarship for Jewish study, where would you go?
Assuming I could qualify for admission (a pretty big assumption, but so's the funding :-) ), the Jerusalem campus of Hebrew Union College (the Reform seminary). Part of this is a cop-out, though; no Orthodox institution would take a woman interested in the rabbinate, which rules out most formal learning programs, and I don't think I'd gain much from the material that is traditionally taught to Orthodox women. So that means that if it's a formal program it's connected with one of the other movements, and of those Reform speaks most clearly to me.
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As for what is "traditionally" taught to Orthodox women, vs. what is required for rabbinate or similar curricula, there are institutions that teach material similar to that required for rabbinic training, such as Matan, Drisha, Nishmat, Pardes, Bruriah (most in Israel; Drisha in NYC, Matan I think is in Boston) - but they presume, as do Orthodox rabbinical schools, extensive background in Hebrew, Tanach and Halacha/Talmud. They also presume that one is Jewish by Orthodox standards. IOW, you'd have a lot of catching up to do to get up to the level where you could seriously think about such training.
Between these programs, and the new minyanim such as Shira Chadasha in J'lem and Darchei Noam or Montauk Minyan in New York, you could find outlets for your religio-intellectual and liturgical interests within a lefty-Orthodox milieu. Even Conservative, particularly if you avoided the pulpit, but stuck to educational positions, could be a context for this. But I don't see Reform satisfying you in the long run. And in either case, you'd have to "upgrade" your conversion.
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Because I could not honestly stand in front of a beit din and say "I believe every word of torah, written and oral, was written by God and traditional interpretation of all halacha is thus binding on me". Attempting to convert under Conservative or Orthodox auspices would have been fraudulent, and I won't do that. Should that view ever change, of course I will reopen the question.
Even if the apparent outcome is the same in terms of my observance (it's not; it's just way ahead of the Reform pack), the reasons for it are different. I can be quite comfortable and self-confident in saying, for example, that I do not believe that kol isha represents what God demands of me today; in an Orthodox congregation, it would be assumed that I do accept that and I would certainly be required to play along, which strikes me as pretending to be something I'm not. That's just one example; there are bunches of others. (I know there's variation in the Conservative movement; one local Conservative shul would never permit a woman on the bima (except for a bat mitzvah) and another one has asked me to lead services -- and yes, that means their rabbi accepts my conversion as valid, after investigation.)
As you said, Reform does not, congregationally, encourage observance. I can live with that if they don't get in the way of observance; sometimes that happens and that's frustrating, but some of us have been slowly raising consciousness within the shul and I think things are getting better. My rabbi is also pretty observant (and encouraging of same), which helps.
Schools: thanks for the information. I didn't realize that anyone was making this material available. I've heard (well, read) enough Orthodox rabbis say things like "learn what you need in order to be a proper Jewish wife and mother and only then should you look at anything else" that, combined with my not having found the places you mentioned, I came to an incorrect conclusion. (And yes, of course I would face challenges were I to try to attend one of those, as you mentioned.)
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I can't speak for any of these places, but I think that both Pardes and Drisha have classes which are doable for people who don't have an extensive background. Wait, why don't I look it up?
Hmm... from the Drisha FAQ:
From the Pardes FAQ:
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Alas, this is so true. I, personally, find that I either have the time to do stuff or the money to do stuff, but rarely both. (At least on the "gee, why don't I spend 3-12 months doing X" level.)
While these programs probably have shorter than year-long programs, and probably have some amount of financial aid, there's still the time/money problem... plus the fact that you have a life in Pittsburgh that you can't just drop.