From: mannj@acf9.nyu.edu (Jordan Mann)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.jewish
Subject: Orthodox Monopoly
Date: 9 Sep 92 17:49:27 GMT
Organization: New York University

A number of people have responded to my most recent posting.

>In article <mannj.715971400@acf9> mannj@acf9.nyu.edu (Jordan Mann) writes:
>>
>>If I understand the Reform and Conservative correctly, they interpret the
>>(Written) Torah as literally as the Orthodox do, if not more so.  Their
>>decision not to fulfill many of the commandments results not from 
>>reinterpretation but from rejection or from the belief that these 
>>commandment are "not relevant".
>....
>>This has no bearing on my point, which is that the Conservative and
>>Reform are the first to reject the *Written* Law.

Art Kamlet writes:

>I will not speak for reform Judaism, but conservative Judaism does
>not reject or make irrelevant the written law.
>
>What conservative Judaism does is continue to interpret the written
>law, and not freeze it in the distant past.
>
>Please read some responsa beofre making such claims.
>
>As examples, some of the more well-known responsa are:
>
>   - is electricity per se allowed on shabbat (yes - with restrictions)
>   - are women permitted to be counted in a minyan (yes)
>   - is a woman permitted to be a rabbi (yes)
>   - Is commercial wine prepared in the United States treife (no)

Jonathan Baker also responded with a lengthy discussion of the decision to
ordain women as Conservative rabbis.  You have shown that in many areas,
the Conservative work very hard to adhere to Written Law (and a great deal
of the Oral Law as well).  What I would like to know is, do they adhere
to *all* the Written Law?  How many Conservative rabbis observe the laws
of Niddah?  And what is the rationale for not observing them?  If you believe
that the Written Law is *Law*, then it is all Law.

It is worth noting that Mordecai Kaplan, the founder of the
Reconstructionist movement, which rejects the divine revelation of the 
Torah and teaches that every person is free to 
choose for himself which rituals and practices he will observe, taught
at the Jewish Theological Seminary, the guiding institution of the 
Conservative movement, for over 50 years, and had a great impact there.
To be sure, the Conservative movement has encompassed a wide range of beliefs,
and many of its luminaries, such as Solomon Schecter, certainly accepted
the divinity and authority of the Written Law.  But this branch of the
Conservative movement is dying out, and more on this below.

Daniel Faigin writes:

>Fine. I'll speak for Reform. Reform does not reject or make irrelevant the
>written law either. Instead, it is base from which the various responsim
>derive, in combination with the reflection of our historic development
>contained in the Oral Law and later Judaic writings.

Really, this is preposterous.  I will simply quote from the famous
"Pittsburgh Platform" of 1885, which has never really been repudiated 
by the Reform movement:
   
   We recognize in the Mosaic legislation a system of training the
   Jewish people for its mission during its national life in
   Palestine, and today we accept as binding only its moral laws,
   and maintain only such ceremonies as elevate and sanctify our 
   lives, but reject all such as are not adapted to the views and 
   habits of modern civilization ... We hold that all such Mosaic
   and rabbinical laws as regulate diet, priestly purity, and dress
   originated in ages and under the influence of ideas entirely 
   foreign to our present mental and spiritual state ... Their
   observance in our days is apt rather to obstruct than to further
   modern spiritual elevation ...

I'd also like to point out that noone in the Reform movement, and almost
noone in the Conservative movement, believes that the entire Written Law
is the "word of God", to borrow a convenient phrase from a more popular
religion.  As I mentioned before, the Conservative movement once had 
a few prominent scholars who believed this, such as Schecter, Lieberman,
and Weiss-Halivny, but they are all either dead or, in Weiss-Halivny's
case, estranged from the movement.  And what difference does it make
how carefully you justify your actions in the light of the Written Law
if you don't believe that it's God's Law anyway?  My original point was
that the Conservative and Reform movement represent a fundamental break
with any form of Judaism that came before them.  All the previous 
versions of Judaism, Phariseeism (is that a word?), Saduceeism, 
Karaitism, what have you, observed the commandments of the Torah not
to "foster Jewish identity", or because they were "the secret of the
preservation of the Jewish people over the centuries", or some such
wooly notion, but because they believed that *God told them to*. 

>Art Kamlet
>Daniel
--

Jordan Mann at NYU      (mannj@cims.nyu.edu)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.jewish