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Shabbat in the Reform movement
When we undertook to revive Erev Shabbat worship, our intention was not to focus solely on a single hour of Friday night prayer. Erev Shabbat was to be the key, opening the door to a discussion of the Shabbat day in all its dimensions. [...] With members returning to the synagogue on Friday nights, we had hoped that some of them would also be drawn to our Shabbat morning prayer and to a serious conversation about the meaning of Shabbat. But this has not happened, and we all know one reason why that is so:He goes on to talk about the bar-mitzvah service as typically seen in Reform congregations. What usually happens is that the celebrating family "owns" the service, so the rest of the community doesn't come because we feel shut out, so the family feels justified in claiming everything ("they don't come anyway"), so the bar mitzvah stops being about welcoming the child into his new role in the community. Rabbi Yoffie writes: "At the average bar mitzvah what you almost always get is a one-time assemblage of well-wishers with nothing in common but an invitation." I wasn't there at the formation, but I assume this is one of the reasons that our informal Shabbat-morning minyan formed: we have a regular community (with enough infusions to avoid becoming stagnant) that celebrates its members' milestones but feels no need to go upstairs afterwards. I go to shul on Shabbat morning to celebrate Shabbat in community, not to attend the theatre.
What typically happens in Orthodox and Conservative congregations, on the other hand, is that the bar mitzvah is a part of the community service: we celebrate with the family, but the family celebrates with the community. The focus is on Shabbat, not on the child. I have seen this work beautifully. It's not absent in Reform congregations (I saw it once at Holy Blossom in Toronto), but it's sure not the norm.
So what are we going to do about it? Rabbi Yoffie has brought the conversation to a broader forum (we've been talking about this problem in our congregations and on mailing lists for years). Rabbi Yoffie wisely recognizes it as part of a bigger issue: the place of Shabbat in the lives of modern, liberal Jews.
Also, other approaches to enhancing Jewish life have failed. Communal leaders outside of the synagogue love to talk the language of corporate strategy. They engage in endless debates on the latest demographic study. They plan elaborate conferences and demand new ideas. But sometimes we don't need new ideas; we need old ideas. We need less corporate planning and more text and tradition; less strategic thinking and more mitzvot; less demographic data and more Shabbat. Because we know, in our hearts, that in the absence of Shabbat, Judaism withers.He talks about the importance of the whole day of Shabbat, not just the hour or three you spend at services. Hear, here. The URJ is trying to start this conversation in individual congregations, creating study programs and focus groups who will try, really try, to explore a more-meaningful Shabbat and report back. I'd love to be part of that conversation in my own congregation, should it happen. I already take Shabbat seriously, but there's still plenty to learn. And one of my biggest challenges is the shortage of a community that wants to keep doing Shabbat after morning services end. Shabbat afternoons, especially in the summer, can be pretty lonely for me.
Renewing some form of regular Shabbat observance among the members of our Movement will take time, and what we are proposing is only the first step. The plan is to begin with a chosen few and to heat the core, in the hope that the heat generated will then radiate in ever-widening circles.Where will it go? I don't know, but I'm glad to see people talking about it.But surely we must begin. Shabbat, after all, is not just a nice idea. It is a Jewish obligation and one of the Ten Commandments -- indeed the longest and most detailed of them all.
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As an outsider, I would say that the heart of the Reform movement since the late 1960s/early 1970s has been far too focused on defining itself by what it is not and leaving it to individual congregations to define what they want to be. At one time, it was even an open question whether belief in God was mandatory as an essential precept (ultimately, the Reform movement determined it was and secular humanist Judaism went on to become another in an endless series of footnotes on Judaism).
The struggle of an individually focused interpretation of Judaism is the construction of community in a meaningful and engaging way. Because Reform Judaism makes the personal interpretation of the covenant paramount, with the importance of community and tradition de-emphasized as merely informing individual choice, it is no wonder that Reform Judaism fell into the trap of the elevation of the individual over all else.
Indeed, to the extent Reform Judaism has emphasized its liberal nature in building community, it has done so to elevate individual choice. The message of openness to gays, lesbians and transexuals, for example, usually lacks even the emphasis on God found in liberal churches (characterized as "God's extravagant welcome"). "Come to us," Reform Judaism appears to say "where you can construct your own personal relationship with God. No one here will question or demand anything."
For some individuals, that is intensely rewarding and sustainable. But in the aggregate, it fractures. If all we care about is the individual relationship with God, then no one cares about each other. Reform Judaism faces the challenge of providing a compelling vision of community and restoring its importance to the worshiper. Otherwise, it is not a community but a collection of individuals with no more in common than Oprah's reading club.