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mitzvot in Conservative Judaism
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.
rambly but hopefully worthwhile
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.
Re: rambly but hopefully worthwhile
Since I put myself pretty firmly in the other camp, I'm curious about this position. Is there any other -ism (and yes I know Judaism is more than that) in which people do such different things and claim they are practicing that -ism? That was not meant as an attack question, but a stir the pot, see what response it gets question. The less original question (I hope the first one is original at least) is: Is there a limit to where a person can go with this 'I'm doing what I think is meaningful' and still call it Judaism?
Re: rambly but hopefully worthwhile
But if what you're asking is, on the level of system, can this variety be accepted within that system, well, I think that's built into the history of any meaningful idea. In Australia the "Liberal" party is conservative; in America "liberal" means progressive. When some people stretch concepts and philosophies in different directions, other people do the work of deciding whether those stretches are legitimate. In different periods and for different reasons, the stretches are more or less legitimate in the eyes of the larger group; divisions are formed or ended, etc.
Can Jewish movements accept limits on what is legitimate? Well, we all seem to agree that Christianity, whatever else it is, isn't Jewish, even in the "Jews for Jesus" variety. So presumably that's a start!
Re: rambly but hopefully worthwhile
Saying "your philosophy is not compatible with our set of beliefs. You are outside the fold." doesn't have to be value-laden. We think we are right and we can respect your right to think something else, but not to say it under our banner.