cellio | what I believe

In this entry, I talked with

goljerp about the different movements in Judaism and what Reform believes. I'm moving the discussion here to talk about what I believe.

There is a famous story about a gentile who approached Rabbi Hillel and asked him to explain all of Torah while standing on one foot. (In other words, summarize!) Hillel said: "What is hateful to you, do not do to others. This is the whole Torah. The rest is commentary. Now go and study." I'm not nearly as succinct as Hillel, so I'm going to sit while I write this. :-)

Prelude: When I began my explorations into Judaism, I thought the Reform movement advocated mostly ignoring halacha and making things up as you go. I was under the impression that real scholarship didn't happen there and that it was basically a feel-good religion without the rigor (intellectual and spiritual) that I was looking for. I was wrong. I began my investigations with the Conservative movement, but ultimately ended up with Reform.

There are two (related) reasons that I am not a Conservative Jew. The first is that I do not believe the Torah is the precise word of God -- which is not to say that it's not important, just that it's not divinely authored. The second is that I believe the decisions about interpretation properly rest with the individual, not with a rabbinic assembly. (Nothing prevents an individual from deferring to a rabbinic body, but I believe that's the individual's decision to make.) There is also a second-order effect: there are flaws in the halachic process as it has evolved. I'll talk about each of these points below.

Torah

I have trouble accepting the traditional interpretation of divine authorship. And while I don't claim the expertise necessary to evaluate all of the biblical scholarship that casts doubts on that account, I recognize that there are valid questions there. I do believe in a revelation at Sinai (pretty much as described); I just think the account was written by men, with God's input.

You know how sometimes you'll stay up half the night having a fascinating, detailed discussion with a good friend, and maybe later you'll try to write down what happened? I think it's something like that. God talked to Moshe and reinforced certain points as especially important, and Moshe (and maybe others later) wrote it all down. (There is also internal evidence that the teaching as written down is incomplete -- places where it says "do this as I have instructed you" but the instructions aren't there. The traditional interpretation is that this is the proof for the Oral Law having been given at Sinai.)

There is a body of Torah analysis that depends on precise word choices -- and sometimes on spelling errors and gemmatria and stuff like that -- to reach conclusions about halacha and "what God really meant". I don't buy into that, because I don't necessarily believe God chose all the words. But I do believe that God was involved; the Torah is not something that was just made up by men! And some points are brought up several times in the Torah, and I believe that indicates things that were especially important. (Shabbat is one of those repeated themes.)

So the Torah is a source of truth, but not an infallable or sole one.

Autonomy

Partly because of the above, it falls to each of us to learn, interpret, and understand. "Go and study", as Hillel said. But also because rabbis are not like (Christian) priests, who are presumed to have a closer connection with God than the rest of us. We all have a connection with God (if we want it), and we (pretty much) all have the capacity to learn (if we put our minds to it).

"Israel" means "[he who] wrestles with God". It does not mean "[he who] just shuts up and does what he's told". I think there's a message there.

So, we all have not only the privilege but the obligation to come, through study and thought, to our own conclusions about what behavior God demands of us. We do not do so in a vacuum, of course; it would be silly to disregard work that others have done. But the responsibility falls with the individual -- and if I err, it is entirely on my shoulders.

More on halacha

If the direct chain of transmission of halacha ever existed, it has long since been broken. Rashi, the Rambam (Maimonides), Karo (author of the Shulchan Aruch), etc were smart, learned people, but not the sole inheritors of the tradition, in my opinion. The Orthodox principle that you can never contradict a ruling made by a previous generation is wrong, in my opinion -- and ill-advised, given the the lengths they'll go to to "reinterpret" -- but never contradict, heaven forbid! -- past rulings. This don't-contradict-your-predecessors attitude goes back at least as far as the Talmud; I am reminded of a discussion in Tractate Pesachim where the rabbis of one generation said "do this during the day" and a later generation said "by which they really meant 'night'". Day, night -- what's a little semantic difference among colleagues? (I am not making this up.)

And then there are all the fences ("gezeirot"), the laws that the rabbis invented that aren't really Torah law per se but are just there to protect us from accidentally violating Torah law. Chicken with milk is a good example of this. The Torah says "do not seethe a kid in its mother's milk". Even if you generalize kid to all animals, how can you apply it to chickens? Chickens don't have milk. But the rabbis said that, as a precaution lest we become confused, we also don't eat chicken with dairy.

(In case you're wondering, I do follow that halacha -- not becuase I believe that's really what the Torah says, but because of a sense of klal Yisrael (unity, sort of). It's a major point with a lot of people; it does me no real harm to follow it; it adds a degree of mindfulness to my observance that would not otherwise be there; and besides, this way my kashrut-observant friends can eat from my kitchen.)

In interpreting halacha, I personally draw a distinction between intention and side-effect. (Halacha, for the most part, does not.) For example, pushing an elevator button does in fact kindle a light (usually), in the button, but I don't desire that light, and in fact I can do just fine without it. This is different from turning on a reading lamp, where my purpose is to turn on the light. So, while I will take the stairs and try to arrange to not need an elevator, if I need one, I'll use one. The rest is stringency to help me remember that Shabbat is different from other days.

This is the sort of question that I wrestle with in many areas. It's a situation that's probably unique to Reform. If an Orthodox or Conservative Jew has a question about whether something is permitted, he asks his rabbi, who (for example) opens up the Shulchan Aruch and finds the answer. (Ok, the SA isn't the final word on any subject these days; allow me my rhetorical device, please.) If it's a truly new situation, it probably gets sent off to the rabbinical authorities for an answer. The Reform Jew, however, works it out for himself, with whatever guidance he seeks out. (I ask my rabbi for input on lots of things, for instance.)

Now, it's true that many Reform Jews don't work it out, nor do they seek out answers, and many people -- including some within the Reform movement -- believe that there are no obligations. On the other hand, I've met plenty of Orthodox Jews who are not at all learned (and can't explain even basic principles), and who don't seem to care, and are publicly observant but don't worry about it otherwise. In neither case should the movement be judged by some of its members.

Wow, that was long. And I feel like I've left a bunch of stuff out, but it'll have to wait.

Monica

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