An insider view: a defense of theological imprecision.

AMERICAN REFORM JUDAISM: AN INTRODUCTION BY DANA Evan Kaplan constitutes a noteworthy academic achievement. The book is remarkable in both its breadth and depth, and will surely become the definitive work on this largest American Jewish religious movement.

Kaplan himself is superbly qualified to author this work. An American ordained as a rabbi at the Jerusalem campus of Hebrew Union College, Kaplan also earned his doctorate in American Jewish History under the eminent scholar Lloyd Gartner at Tel Aviv University. He thus writes with the knowledge and familiarity of an insider, while simultaneously displaying the rigorous academic training that prepared him for his career as a scholar. In short, Kaplan writes as a sympathetic and engaged, yet disciplined and critical academic, and American Reform Judaism displays his many talents. He is the participant-observer par excellence.

Furthermore, as the current President of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, I must as a reviewer confess the obvious--I am no less a participant-observer of the subject addressed in this book than is Kaplan. I am in this instance what in Hebrew would be termed a nogei-a ba-davar, someone whose very life work is devoted to the topic of this study. However, rather than disqualifying me for this assignment, I would hope that my very passion for and involvement in Reform Judaism allows me a privileged perspective in assessing American Reform Judaism and its importance.

The first three chapters provide an excellent and nuanced overview of the history and theology of Reform Judaism in America throughout the last 150 years. Kaplan proves capable of engaging both the lay and academic reader as he presents this history and theology. His accuracy in presenting these developments and the readability that marks his work make American Reform Judaism the single best analysis of this type that is currently available. The book should be consulted by all who want an accurate yet concise understanding of the evolution of the institutions and beliefs of Reform Judaism in this country from the days of Isaac Mayer Wise and David Einhorn through the current moment.

While this discussion of the history and figures that have shaped and guided the course of American Reform Judaism and its theology is excellent, what genuinely distinguishes American Reform Judaism is the depth Kaplan displays in defining the challenges and issues that confront Reform Judaism in America today. Kaplan devotes entire chapters to the effervescence and controversy that mark current Reform initiatives on worship and prayer, the struggles for recognition and growth of Reform in Israel and the impact these developments in the Jewish State have upon the nature of American Reform, the creative efforts in education that inform the movement, and the energy and excitement that motivate and direct programs on outreach as Reform attempts to engage the intermarried as well as those on the periphery of the Jewish world. In addition, other chapters reflect in detail on matters of women's equality and acceptance of gays and lesbians by the movement. Kaplan explicates the impacts which the standpoints and attitudes present in contemporary Reform on these issues have for the future of the movement.

In each chapter, Kaplan draws heavily upon written materials. However, he has also conducted extensive interviews with Reform leaders in every one of the areas he addresses, and this makes his book unparalleled in its comprehensive portrayal of and insight into all these issues. Anyone interested in reflecting upon the state of contemporary American Reform Judaism will have to read this book, as American Reform Judaism provides the foundation and background that is necessary for any intelligent discussion of the contemporary state of Reform Judaism in America.

Having noted the considerable virtues that American Reform Judaism possesses, I would now like to turn to two issues--one addressed to the Reform Movement itself, the second extending beyond the boundaries of Reform to American Judaism as a whole--that the book raises.

While Kaplan acknowledges the growth and excitement that have characterized Reform during the last two decades, he also regards the lack of any consistent ideology or theology for contemporary American Reform Judaism--the efforts of theologian Eugene Borowitz notwithstanding--as a serious deficiency that must be redressed if the movement is "to reverse the widely held perception that Reform Judaism is only a religion of convenience" (p. 261). In making this statement, Kaplan echoes the stance of Arthur Hertzberg, who, in his Foreword to the book, asserts, "The one element without which Reform Judaism cannot have a firm future is a unifying religious vision" (p. viii). And Kaplan himself warns, "If the Reform movement is going to prosper and grow, both numerically and religiously, it is going to have to develop a coherent, effective strategy for reconciling authority and autonomy" (p. 261).

In response to this demand for ideological precision, Eric Yoffie, President of the Union for Reform Judaism, in his Afterword to American Reform Judaism, succinctly observes, "Who can deny that Kaplan is correct when he says that theological clarity is desirable.... But American Jews are resolutely pragmatic and resistant to theological speculation, and always have been. Theological struggle is to be encouraged, but the absence of theological consistency has rarely been a major problem in America for Jews of any stripe" (p. 262). In making this point, Rabbi Yoffie correctly indicates that religious movements and institutions often prosper despite--and perhaps even as a result of--a lack of "theological clarity." At the very least, he points out that "theological consistency" itself hardly guarantees either religious commitment on the part of most modern Jews or success on the part of modern Jewish religious organizations.

In fact, if one looks at the history of Jewish religious movements in the United States and Germany--the two major venues for the development of modern Jewish religious denominationalism--during the last two centuries, it is remarkable how successful non-ideologues have been in fashioning and sustaining religious organizations and institutions that have flourished and guided religious Jews in the modern setting. For example, Samson Raphael Hirsch (1808-1888) of Frankfurt, one of the great architects of modern Orthodox Judaism and a pronounced ideologue, was frequently quite critical of his Berlin colleague Esriel Hildesheimer (1820-1899), founder of the modern Orthodox Berlin Rabbinerseminar, for his lack of ideological rigor. In his Horeb, Rabbi Hirsch maintained that a belief that "the Torah both written and oral was closed with Moses at Sinai," was the sine qua non for Orthodox Judaism. Jewish law, in his opinion, was not subject to the exigencies of history.

Hirsch was therefore extremely troubled that Rabbi Hildesheimer permitted men like David Zevi Hoffmann and Jakob Barth--who wrote critical academic works on biblical and rabbinic Judaism--to teach at his Orthodox rabbinical seminary. Rabbi Hirsch protested their presence on the Rabbinerseminar faculty in a lengthy letter to Rabbi Hildesheimer on the grounds that their historical investigations undermined the notion that Jewish law was eternal and sanctified. Rabbi Hildesheimer may well have agreed with the theological position his Frankfurt colleague adopted. However, he was unperturbed by this criticism and pragmatically observed that scholars of the caliber of Hoffmann and Barth, who were simultaneously punctilious in their observance of Jewish law, were required if Orthodox Judaism was to survive in the German setting. Hildesheimer simply ignored the theological point that Rabbi Hirsch made. Nevertheless, his seminary prospered and produced Orthodox rabbis for Jewish congregations throughout Germany and central Europe.

Similarly, in the United States, Isaac Mayer Wise, the "father of American Reform Judaism" and founder of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations as well as the Hebrew Union College, was renowned--as Kaplan himself points out--for his ideological flexibility, signing platforms on one occasion that affirmed the Talmud as the authoritative guide for Jewish life while in another instance assenting to a policy pronouncement that disparaged the Oral Law altogether. Such inconsistency infuriated Reform ideologue David Einhorn of Philadelphia, who inspired the Pittsburgh Platform of 1885 with its clear statement of "classical Reform principles." Rabbi Einhorn also bitterly attacked the Minhag America prayer book of Rabbi Wise for its moderate and ideologically inconsistent character, and warned that before too long American Judaism would be locked in chains and lulled into slavery by the non-sectarian nature of the Wise prayer book. Yet, Wise, like Hildesheimer, succeeded in establishing institutions that have thrived and guided--for all their current lack of ideological exactitude--Reform and other American Jews for over 130 years.

I would indicate once more that I, no more than Rabbi Yoffie, am opposed to "theological clarity." It may well be desirable. However, "theological hesistancy" is not necessarily an impediment to creating a mood or disposition that many religious persons find more compelling in guiding and instructing them in the modern setting, and religious institutions that embody such an ethos may well succeed where organizations that are more ideologically rigid may fail. The genuine test for Reform Judaism today will be whether it can prove capable, as Rabbi Yoffie phrases it, of building "on the religious revival now occurring in our ranks, to encourage Jewish study and observance of both the ethical and the religious mitzvot, and to strengthen our ties with the Jewish people in the Land of Israel and throughout the world. In short, we need to immerse ourselves in Jewish doing, guided always by our liberal principles, and if we do so, appropriate theological formulation will be developed afterwards" (p. 262).

In making this last point, Rabbi Yoffie points beyond the denominational borders of Reform Judaism to the challenge confronting the contemporary American Jewish community as a whole. The American Jewish community today is no longer--as it was at the turn of the twentieth century--an immigrant community seeking adjustment to the United States. Old ethnic patterns that formerly preserved and divided the Jewish religious community are no longer present, and the rivalry that once existed between American Jews of German and Eastern European descent is no more than an historical memory--if that--for most American Jews. Jews are now fully accepted into American life, and Jews of all stripes and ethnic backgrounds are now full participants in the cultural and economic spheres of the United States. As a result, the attitudes and beliefs that had so sharply divided Reform from Conservative Jews in the first half of the twentieth century are now blurred for most non-Orthodox synagogue members, and a permeability has emerged that allows for crossover among the disparate liberal Jewish movements.

At the same time, the explosion of Jewish day school education in the United States, an increased religious traditionalism among many, the opening of Jewish studies programs in universities, the rise of trips to Israel among countless numbers of Jews, and a serious commitment to formal and informal modes of Jewish education directed at every age group have led to a renaissance in American Jewish religious life. Indeed, Kaplan describes much of this in his book and he, like other commentators, heralds the religious creativity and vitality of the current moment as signs of a Golden Age for Judaism in America.

At the same time, Kaplan recognizes that the reality of acculturation has fostered Jewish assimilation and record numbers of Jews today do not affiliate at all with any synagogue movement. Furthermore, even when affiliation does occur, many of those who do join Reform temples are seldom in attendance and can hardly be said to live lives with Judaism at the center. Jewish demographic mobility from places of origin has led--as the National Jewish Population Surveys of 1990 and 2001 attest--to an attenuation of traditional Jewish associational and kinship patterns that previously promoted Jewish affiliation and commitment among large numbers of American Jews. Liberal forms of Judaism must recognize that most Jews are at best part of a "thin Jewish culture." As Jews have become fully accepted by gentiles as social equals, and as traditional Jewish attitudes that opposed exogamy have weakened, intermarriage rates have soared. The cultural cohesion that now marks the grandchildren and great-grandchildren of Jews of eastern European and Germanic descent has surely been matched by a lack of Jewish ethnic homogeneity as a result of the high rate of intermarriage. For most Jews in contemporary America, Judaism is no longer "a habit of the heart."

All American Judaism today--like Reform--stands at a crossroads where trends of weakened Jewish commitment and attachments compete with pockets of intense Jewish revival and knowledge. The task of Reform Jewish religious leaders will be to strengthen these pockets of revival and knowledge, and thus create, in the words of Rabbi Leon Morris, "a framework for an impassioned engaging liberal Judaism" (p. 253) both within and beyond traditional Jewish institutional structures. The future of Judaism in the United States depends upon the ability of liberal Jewish religious leaders to maintain and revitalize Jewish religious tradition in light of these conditions that confront our community today.

Reform Judaism is well situated to confront the challenge of maintaining Judaism in a tolerant and pluralistic American society. There is a marked affinity between the ethos and directions of an open and inclusive Reform Judaism and the cultural and religious characteristics and behaviors that mark the overwhelming majority of present-day American Jews. The question that remains is whether Reform Judaism will prove sufficiently strong and resilient to serve as a catalyst for attracting great numbers of highly individualistic yet searching American Jews into the riches and spiritual depths that Judaism can provide. In our situation--where Jews can affirm or reject their Judaism--the answer remains unclear. However, the future of all American Judaism, not just the Reform movement, is dependent upon Reform Judaism's success in this enterprise.

DAVID ELLENSON is President of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion--the eighth President in its 130-year-long history. He holds the Gus Waterman Herrman Presidential Chair and is the I.H. and Anna Grancell Professor of Jewish Religious Thought at HUC-JIR in Los Angeles.