{"id":573,"date":"2011-01-12T18:26:00","date_gmt":"2011-01-12T18:26:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theatheistrabbi\/2011\/01\/can-reform-judaism-be-made-more-relevant.html"},"modified":"2011-01-12T18:26:00","modified_gmt":"2011-01-12T18:26:00","slug":"can-reform-judaism-be-made-more-relevant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theatheistrabbi\/2011\/01\/can-reform-judaism-be-made-more-relevant.html","title":{"rendered":"Can Reform Judaism Be Made More Relevant?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

In last week\u2019s Forward<\/i>, Rabbi Evan Moffic<\/a> offered some thoughts about how to make Reform Judaism more relevant.\u00a0 He begins by noting that membership is down (as it is in all non-Orthodox synagogues).\u00a0 One section in particular caught my eye:<\/p>\n

We would also address real theological questions that American Jews confront. Anecdotal evidence from my own experience working as a rabbi suggests that a large number of Reform Jews know very little about Jewish understandings of God. They see their Jewish identity in cultural terms, and if asked about God, they would probably describe either the \u201cold man in the sky\u201d they do not believe in, or something close to \u201cthe power that makes for human salvation\u201d envisioned by Mordecai Kaplan. Neither our prayer books nor our curricula address God in a meaningful, relevant way. We need powerful statements about a God that address the doubts we have, connect to the lives we live, and enrich our relationships and activities in a sustained way.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This also confirms my experience in the Jewish community, not only with self-identifying Reform Jews, but also with Jews of all kinds of non-Orthodox backgrounds.\u00a0 Of course, I personally encourage the rejection of theism and to the extent that people are moving toward Kaplan\u2019s non-supernatural ideas, I would only persuade them to go even further.<\/p>\n

I do not fully comprehend Moffic\u2019s complaint.\u00a0 I have seen many attempts to create \u201cpowerful statements\u201d about God by non-Orthodox rabbis.\u00a0 They are constantly writing and preaching about God, yet as he correctly points out, the message is not getting through.\u00a0 And you won\u2019t be surprised to learn that I see this as a good thing.<\/p>\n

The fact that so many liberal Jews have doubts about the existence of God is not a weakness of the Jewish community.\u00a0 It\u2019s a strength.<\/p>\n

For many years, one thing that liberal rabbis have been honest about is that the texts and traditions of Judaism were created by humans.\u00a0 Certainly they\u2019ve thrown in the words \u201cdivinely inspired\u201d here and there, but that is a phrase empty of content.\u00a0 It\u2019s never even very clear to which texts it\u2019s meant to apply.\u00a0 What does it mean to be \u201cdivinely inspired?\u201d\u00a0 Does it mean that you are convinced that God is talking to you?\u00a0 If so, what claim of authority can that possibly have on the rest of us?\u00a0 The modern secular Jew has at last learned that it has none.<\/p>\n

If these rabbis wanted to make Judaism relevant, they would begin addressing this problem.\u00a0 Not many liberal Jews attend services, but every time they do they are confronted with a cognitive dissonance between what they feel is true and what is being uttered in prayer and preaching.<\/p>\n

I have a Reform colleague who is heavily involved in the creation of the movement\u2019s new machzor<\/i> (high holiday prayer book).\u00a0 He told me that the book would restore many traditional passages to the liturgy, specifically mentioning the U\u2019netaneh Tokef<\/i>, a prayer that speaks of God\u2019s annual decision about who will live and die, and somewhat gruesomely, exactly how death will come.\u00a0 If there is a single prayer in that liturgy that is guaranteed to create discomfort, it is this one.\u00a0 Is that a \u201cpowerful statement\u201d about God?\u00a0 Does any reasonable person believe that it will create more belief instead of less?\u00a0 I, for one, spent many years reciting it with revulsion until I finally asserted my personal integrity and rejected it together with all of the other meaningless liturgy.<\/p>\n

If Reform Judaism wanted to be relevant then it would not have rejected the request of at least one humanistic synagogue to join its ranks<\/a>.\u00a0 Having turned its back on the most philosophically rational and compelling vehicle for continuing to be Jewish, its leaders should not be surprised when the movement continues its downward trend.\u00a0 Had that congregation been accepted for membership, I believe that a truly re-formed and non-theistic Judaism would have begun to assert itself.\u00a0 Instead, Reform Judaism declared itself beholden to unsustainable supernatural ideas.\u00a0 Closeted humanistic rabbis remained in the closet while the traditionalists took over the movement.<\/p>\n

As my midrash teacher, Professor Eugene Mihaly, of blessed memory, commented about the rejection of that congregation back in 1994:<\/p>\n

Exclusion, ostracism, mindless stringency to appease the traditionalists, institutional coercion are alien to Reform Judaism\u2026. They chill and kill. They are the death knell of liberal religion.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Indeed they will be.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In last week\u2019s Forward, Rabbi Evan Moffic offered some thoughts about how to make Reform Judaism more relevant.\u00a0 He begins by noting that membership is down (as it is in all non-Orthodox synagogues).\u00a0 One section in particular caught my eye:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2281,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[24,39],"class_list":["post-573","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blogentries","tag-liberal-judaism","tag-secular-humanistic-judaism"],"yoast_head":"\nCan Reform Judaism Be Made More Relevant?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"In last week\u2019s Forward, Rabbi Evan Moffic offered some thoughts about how to make Reform Judaism more relevant.\u00a0 He begins by noting that membership is\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theatheistrabbi\/2011\/01\/can-reform-judaism-be-made-more-relevant.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Can Reform Judaism Be Made More Relevant?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In last week\u2019s Forward, Rabbi Evan Moffic offered some thoughts about how to make Reform Judaism more relevant.\u00a0 He begins by noting that membership is\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theatheistrabbi\/2011\/01\/can-reform-judaism-be-made-more-relevant.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Atheist Rabbi\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-01-12T18:26:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Jeffrey L. 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