mitzvot in Conservative Judaism

[cellio]

I was recently given a photocopy of the article "Conservative Judaism in an Age of Democracy" by Rabbi Harold Kushner. (I think it came from Conservative Judaism magazine. I can't find an online copy.) This theologically-attuned Reform Jew found it a fascinating read.

Rabbi Kushner's thesis is that the halachic system isn't working for Conservative Judaism, and maybe it's time to stop trying. He argues that there is no enforcement, not by the community and not by a sense of obligation, in the eyes of most congregants, the way there is among Orthodox Jews. He writes:

And concerning the things they do observe, they feel that they are choosing to observe them. We damage our credibility, we blur our authenticity and we cede "home court advantage" to the Orthodox when we continue to claim to be a movement of halachah [...] Conservative Jews at their best are respectful of halachic rules but do not consider themselves bound by them a priori.

Rabbi Kushner wants Conservative Jews to be observant; he's not knocking that. He just thinks that they will only do it of their own free will -- out of a sense of personal autonomy. In his eyes, this is the only way an act can actually be meaningful.

I've long been saying something similar about Reform Judaism -- the serious kind, not the common case of secular Jews claiming to be Reform so they "don't have to do stuff". Reform Judaism's message of informed personal autonomy, guided by history and tradition, speaks strongly to me. While I initially thought I would end up as a Conservative Jew, once I started to learn more about the various movements, I think I realized that I had to be either Orthodox or Reform. Either I believe that torah is the precise word of God or I don't. If I do, I have to decide which of many traditions of halachic interpretation fits; Conservative is one of them but (from the outside) seems to take enough liberties to possibly pose challenges. (I hope I have not just alienated all of my Conservative friends.) And if I don't, then what is the role of anyone's authoritative halachic system in my life?

(What do I actually believe about torah? On one foot, I believe it is a human-written record of a real encounter with God.)

So (back to the article), if mitzvot aren't halachically-obligatory commandments, then what are they? He suggests that they are opportunities to connect with God. This, too, resonates quite a bit for me. Why do I keep any mitzvot at all? In each case, for at least one of two reasons: I have come to understand, through study, that this is what God wants of me (commandment), or it helps me to draw closer to God. The first is straightforward and I could provide examples, but the second is more interesting: Even knowing that the rabbis of the talmud invented the lighting of Shabbat candles, knowing that there's not a solid foundation for that in text, I find the ritual meaningful. Beginning and ending Shabbat with flames serves as a set of "bookends" for the day; it helps me switch into and out of Shabbat mode. I notice the lack when I'm away (say, at a convention or an SCA event) and don't make havadalah until late. It just feels wrong -- yes, I can say the abbreviated blessing, but it's not the same as lighting the candle. Absent any belief at all that these particular rituals are commandments, I would still do them.

Rabbi Kushner suggests viewing a mitzvah as "the opportunity to be in touch with God by transforming the ordinary into the sacred". This idea, too, is familiar. Most Reform Jews I know do not believe there's a strict commandment to say a blessing before eating or say grace afterwards, but the act of doing so elevates a base, animal act, eating. (Either that, or they just view it as polite to say please and thank-you.) I'm not completely sure how I feel about separate dishes for meat and dairy, but I have them -- because it's one more way in which I'm mindful of the fact that I'm not like the animals. I can choose what and when and on what to eat. I have a mind, a soul, and free will.

Rabbi Kushner raises the question: aren't there other ways to sanctify eating (or whatever)? Sure there are, he says, but there's something to be said for following the ones that our community is already connected with. You could say that you elevate eating by eating pork but not veal, but you would not have a community connection thereby. His argument seems to be that you may as well do it our way if you're going to do it at all, so we're all doing the same things together.

He gives a number of examples of "what would X look like in a post-halachic world?". I'll quote one example:

Fasting on Yom Kippur will not be a matter of afflicting ourselves so that God will see our sincerity and our hunger pangs and be moved to grant our prayers, a view the author of Isaiah 58 has been trying to talk us out of for generations. [...] Instead, fasting on Yom Kippur will be a way of proclaiming that we are true human beings. We can do what no other creature on God's earth can do. We can be hungry and choose not to eat. We can be sexually aroused and choose not to respond. We can be angry and choose not to lash out. And when we realize that we have chosen badly, we can choose to repent and change.

Rabbi Kushner ends with these provocative words:

[T]he halachic system was an instrument of great depth and sensitivity and caused wonderful things to happen for many generations of Jews, but it is withering in an age of democracy and personal choice. Our movement, our generation is called on to do what Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai and his colleagues did two thousand years ago, to reinvent Judaism in a way that will meet the needs of people today to fulfill their human destiny and make God a constant presence in their lives in an age when the currency of Jewish loyalty and faith will no longer be obedience but the pursuit of holiness.

The halachic system is certainly not withering within the Orthodox movements, but it is having a rough time in many parts of the Conservative movement. I'm not sure why Rabbi Kushner feels the need to reinvent anything, though; serious Reform Jews have been pursuing many of these ideas for some time. I would like to invite him to join us in that pursuit.

Comments

[geekosaur]

I think the point is that it's the Conservative movement that needs to be reinvented. That said, Kushner's answer isn't it — how does it then differentiate itself from the serious/committed part of Reform?

(Then again, I'm still waiting for that to slam headlong into "classical" Reform.)

rambly but hopefully worthwhile

[sanpaku.livejournal.com]

You know, I was just musing about this today; I frequently do. I am sitting here in my hotel room with my menorah brought on the plane. No one is here to watch me light the candles. Why do I do it, even when it is a pain in the ass to do so?

In truth, I don't feel in my life that God is directly invested in me doing these things, on either an emotional or intellectual level. On the other hand, I still feel that I've let God down when I don't do them. I think what comes closest to the truth is that I wish I felt God was invested in the outcome because that assumption is the only one that makes a system work that I want to work. But it is rare that I feel that way in my bones. I'm like everyone else in that I do these things because they make me feel comfort in the universe rather than because I think God commanded me and if I don't do it I'm destroying His plan.

What I find striking is the starkness with which everyone wants to pose these issues. EITHER halacha is God's Word and you obey because God Said So (or the rabbi told you God Said So), OR Judaism is an ethical cafeteria in which everyone does what they personally feel is meaningful.

The historian in me says that on most of these issues the tradition is elastic enough to make that either/or choice false. The Talmud is a playful document that constantly emphasizes both human agency and the implacable divine will. Being mushy and inconsistent about these things -- not needing to choose between extremes -- seems to me to be something that observant Jews really have lived with for thousands of years. The way I've come to feel about it is that orthodoxy, broadly speaking, is probably correct about what the halachic tradition mandates that we do. But Conservatism is correct about the history, about how those decisions were usually made on the practical level.

What this means is that in practice, when I come to the end of a train of thought like the one I started out this comment with -- that I don't feel obligated in some external sense -- I then reason back: do I do these things just because they make me happy, give me naches? That's what I think the logical outcome of Reform is -- you can eat pork or not, whatever works for you. But my reaction is more than that. It's not just bookends to the day; something is making me feel bad when I don't do things the right way.

Now, the great fudge of Conservatism is what I would call "mystical historicism," which is to say, there are other things than either God or your own reason to make you feel connected to mitzvot. In essence, it's kehilla or community -- you do these things for reasons similar that you obey a stop sign and feel bad if you don't, even if no one is around to see you do it. It's not a divine imperative or your own individual logic, and it's not just guilt; it's your sense of connection to others. Schechter and other Conservative theorists who defend it as "historical positivism" really come close to equating that with God's will.

You can easily say, as Reform have long said, that this is woolly romanticism, and bound to fail in the long run. Certainly there are some issues -- the current debate over homosexuality in Conservatism, for example -- that seem very hard to fudge. The Torah says this and you have to side either with mesorah or with historicism/skepticism -- that "mitzvot" in the Torah are human products, fallible and subject to change. The issue makes me wince because I don't think it can be solved, and I think that's where people like Kushner or Gellman are coming from.

part 2

[sanpaku.livejournal.com]

(truncated because I exceeded the character limit in the other comment)

But on the day to day level, generally, this is closest to what I feel in my gut -- we do this because we're part of a way of life and a system of thought that connects us with God but also with each other, like in this conversation right now, which we would never have over anything else. Which is why I am upset over people like Kushner, since to my mind they want to replace the common grounds of this conversation over halacha with whatever homiletical mush they feel like serving up today. You can only figure out how you fiit into halacha once you know what it is and what the prayers or mitzvot were originally supposed to accomplish within that system. After that, reject it, maybe. But a "post-halachic" Judaism can only happen if and when halacha is known to the Jewish people, and that's not where his philosophy leads.

You're right that it does lead to Reform, but I don't know that you'd want to trumpet that... if Conservatism is judged a failure for not connecting Jews with halacha, I surely think Reform is open to the same charge vis a vis Jewish ethical values or whatever. You do know that you are extremely unusual for a Reform Jew; I think of you probably in some of the same terms that some orthodox people might think of me -- an outlyer within the movement that does not, unfortunately, disprove the broader truth about that movement. (E.g. one guy asked me, "how many Jews that walk to shul on shabbos are there in Cranston?")

So the point at the end there inviting Kushner et al. to join you is a little unfair; t's like me saying that you're not a real Reform Jew because you do the mitzvot... or like me saying that orthodox people are this, this, and this, but look at this person being a "hypocrite" over here -- people in other movements justify what they do in those terms and not by fulfilling their role as foils to our movements. Or, just because some orthodox people have been known to daven in minyans led by women, doesn't mean that I get to say that they're not really orthodox, or that when they do so, they're being Conservative in all but name so why don't they join us. (The rejoinder would surely be something like, only once you live entirely within the system, do you get to define your deviations from it.)

[mbarr.livejournal.com]

Yep- he gave the keynote 2 years ago at the Biennial USCJ Convention. Menachem Creditor also spoke on the same basic topic.. and I was arguing then that they called their result Reform. They really annoyed the non-egal folks and some (very few) of the more traditional, but egal folks. AKA -- the folks that actually have shabbos communities, and keep kosher, in the movement.

As far as I can tell -
reform = do mitzvahs not because you are obligated, but because it will bring you closer to God. interpersonal commadments are still required, though.

conservative = you are bound to do it all. We just think we can change things faster than those old fogeys in the ortho world.


ortho- Change? Why? (Unless you're on the far left, and in which case... you're basically classical Conservative.)

Personally speaking- the decision last year about now on the gay rab school & marriage stuff were rather problematic. (mostly in the way they were done, and what they say, vs the topic at all) - They even managed to get a good portion of the law committee to resign over it, which.. isn't good.


The Masorti (conservative) movement in israel looks very different than the one here... it'd be incompatable with most folks that attend a conservative shul, unless they live in very small parts of the country. No driving, no electricity, keeping kosher, etc.

Oh well.. this is the area I inhabit... the far left of the ortho world :)

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

Having grown up in the Conservative movement while shifting toward the Orthodox, I have been watching the shifting sands in the Conservative movement for many years. I have long been of the belief that, at some point in the future, there will no longer be a Conservative movement, with the right-leaning Conservative joining the left-leaning Orthodox camp and the left-leaning Conservative joining the right-leaning Reform. And it bothers me, because that will leave a large number of people un- or under-represented in the major Jewish movements.

Not that I can completely classify myself within a movement. When pressed, I say I'm Modern Orthodox, but even that definition is hard to pinpoint, with many who identify as Modern Orthodox having divergent definitions of what it means to *be* Modern Orthodox.

[loosecanon.livejournal.com]

Then there's "Modern Orthodox" who follow the rules for community's sake, but don't pick and choose as individuals. They wear modern clothes but keep kosher, might turn on a light or two, but don't drive on Shabbos and Holy days.
There aren't many of them left, but they seem to be mostly Eastern European, Second or Third generation, and from the trades classes rather than the intellectual lines.
They seem to be a cultural class rather than a religious movement.

[530nm330hz.livejournal.com]

I read your precis of R' Kushner a little differently; I think he starts off by making the observation that on the ground, away from the JTS ivory tower, Conservative Jews have already made the transition to a non-binding halacha. Having grown up in a Conservative shul, I came to the same fork in the road that you did, and decided that between the two consistent positions of obligation and cultural inheritance, I was more comfortable accepting obligation. It was a few years later that I formally shifted membership to an Orthodox shul.

For years I've expected the Conservative movement to split along that fissure, but now I'm not so sure. It seems so obvious to those of us who faced that decision, but there are many people who want a movement that straddles the divide, that formally declares that there is such as thing as "the right way to do things" but doesn't enforce it by communal pressure. There are many people who don't keep kashrut or Shabbat personally but would be scandalized if the shul served trefus or ran an event on Shabbat that was mechallel Shabbat.

On the other hand, I'm eagerly awaiting the fracture of Orthodoxy into YU Orthodoxy and Agudas Israel Orthodoxy --- As a "left-winger" I am very unhappy that the "black hats" get to define what most people thing of as Orthodox Judaism.

fidei defensor, continued

[sanpaku.livejournal.com]

This comment is inspired by some of the comments and how they dovetail with the main post, so bear with me.

I know several Conservative Jews (in addition to the commenters) who faced that same sense of the fork in the road and felt they had to choose orthodoxy. Since people ask me some version of the same thing all the time, it's sure something I think about a lot.

I would reiterate that I really think this is a false dichotomy that everyone is setting up. It serves the purpose of denominational polemicists to insist that you have to make this choice, and that leads ineluctably to one denomination or the other. But it seems to me that whether or not you feel obligated by divine will, personal choice, communal values, or cultural inheritance has almost NOTHING to do with whether or not you're a Conservative Jew or if Conservatism will survive. It's not what Conservatism is based on, in the final analysis.

Conservatism (and the other movements too) is not about personal choice at all but about the halachic process. Conservatives maintain that the divine character of tradition can be maintained even if you think it is the result of a human process, what I would call "historicism" -- that decisions about mitzvot are made through human agency and not as the direct outgrowth of divine imperatives.

To pose the issue starkly: what does it mean, and can we accept, the idea that Torah writ large is the product of human discourse? Orthodoxy can't accept this because it seems to destroy the underpinnings of the halachic system. Conservatives say that you can accept this but still keep the system because the system acknowledges its own constructedness (with certain limits, of course).

It's a damn hard thing to do -- to say one day that the Torah is God's revelation and to say the next that it is a piece of wisdom writing among others in the northwest Semitic ethnic literature. For most of us, though -- and by "us" I mean thoughtful Jews who have engaged in the modern world -- it's the only real position. We want to think that we say brachas because we connect with the divine even as we know that Noah and Gilgamesh have an awful lot in common with each other.

And here it is that I can't make the jump to orthodoxy, and I suspect Conservatives as a whole won't either: orthodoxy goes further than saying that we are obligated by God to perform mitzvot. In the name of defending the integrity of Torah and halacha, the rationale for the obligation is given a trans-historical, supernatural character. Orthodoxy requires not only orthopraxis but belief in the ahistorical character of Torah as a whole. The psalms were written by David; Ecclesiastes was Solomon. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob observed Shabbat before it was given at Sinai. Etc. Every surface comment of the text has divine significance, and every traditional bulwark for belief must be accepted as truth. That's what happens when you maintain the divine character of the whole system, which has more or less merely unfolded in accordance with God's original intent.

I don't mean to deny that orthodox Jews are incapable of reasoning about history or of seeing distinct historical phases in halachic development -- of course they do. It's just that there's a limit to how far you can extend such insights. You can see individual halachic actors at work, but not in the creation of Torah, which is above all that. To (over)generalize, orthodoxy believes that historicism is corrosive and has to be kept away from texts that touch on the divine character of the system.

I would submit that there will always be a need for something like Conservative Judaism, because the fruits of historical thinking applied to Jewish religious development are simply too powerful to be wished away even by those who still feel God is present in the mitzvot as a whole. For me, it's a big part of why I could never see myself following these folks into leaving Conservatism. Even if I could see myself being orthopractic someday and make the leap to believe in divine obligation, I could never see myself making the leap to deny historical ways of thinking. That would be to deny everything I feel in my gut about how the world works. And I honestly don't know how they made that leap themselves over that issue.

[chaiya.livejournal.com]

This article is still not available online, btw. (I bookmarked your post to look for it later.) I have succumbed and will be subscribing to the magazine instead, with a request to get the past two issues so I can read it. :P