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Reform Judaism

Reform Judaism (also known as Liberal Judaism or Progressive Judaism) is a major Jewish denomination which emphasizes the evolving nature of the religion, the superiority of its ethical aspects to the ceremonial ones, and a belief in a continuous revelation not centered on the theophany at Mount Sinai. Reform Judaism was started by Rabbi Abraham Geiger in Germany and spread to America in the 1800s. It was founded during the French Revolution, which was a time when European Jews were recognized for the first time as citizens of the countries in which they lived. Ghettos were being abolished, special badges were no longer worn, and people could settle where they pleased. and was started as a way to assimilate to modern culture and become more integrated in non-Jewish districts. It stresses less on the Jewish laws (halakha) and more on values of social justice, feminism, and culture. Progressive Jews believe in abiding to different laws than those of Conservative and Orthodox Jews. The origins of Reform Judaism lay in 19th-century Germany, where its early principles were formulated by Rabbi Abraham Geiger and his associates in order to appeal to modern, secularized people. Geiger discovered that Jewish life had continually changed. He noticed that these changes often made it easier for Jews to live in accordance with Judaism. Its greatest center today is in North America. It is important to Jews today because modern Jews find it as a way to be secularized while still maintaining their Jewish identities.

The various regional branches sharing these beliefs, including the American Union for Reform Judaism (URJ), the British Movement for Reform Judaism and Liberal Judaism, and the Israel Movement for Reform and Progressive Judaism, are all united within the international World Union for Progressive Judaism. Founded in 1926, the WUPJ estimates it represents at least 1,800,000 people in 50 countries: close to a million registered congregants as well as numerous unaffiliated individuals who identify with it.

History

Post World War II

Reform Judaism evolved and changed Judaism after World War II, especially in America. Jewish affluence increased after World War II and new congregations were established in the suburbs of highly populated cities. Jewish affluence post World War II allowed for more support from local and national religious institutions. Reform Judaism stressed the moral and theological issues that were prominent in society after World War II. This is what sparked its growth and popularity among its followers. Rabbis from the Reform movement started becoming more heavily involved in other affairs, other than Jewish affairs. Reform Judaism's stress on helping others outside of the direct Jewish community sparked change in other areas of reform Rabbis participated actively in the civil rights movement and later in the organized opposition to the Vietnam War. Reform theology grew increasingly diverse after World War II, as a group of Reform rabbis, known as "covenant theologians", used the early ideas of Martin Buber (1886-1929) and Franz Rosenzweig (1878-1965) to enforce a humanistic approach to Reform Judaism. They also used The Holocaust to raise questions about the existence of God and wrestle with the ideas of a divine being. Because of this, Reform Judaism pressed an increased importance on the questions that come out of God's existence and Jewish law, and paid less attention to the actual rituals and religious activities. As a result of World War II, Reform Judaism also stressed more on the importance of education among Jewish children. Specifically in the 1970's, Jewish education became more comprehensible and easier to attain. For those who were secularized and went to public institutions, the Reform Movement in the 1970's created "Sunday School". In place of the customary two hours per week of Sunday school instruction, most temples now offered twice-weekly classes supplemented by weekends or summer sessions at a camp.

Reform in America

At Charleston, the former members of the Reformed Society gained influence over the affairs of Beth Elohim. In 1836, Gustavus Poznanski was appointed minister. At first traditional, but around 1841 he excised the Resurrection of the Dead and abolished the Second day of festivals, five years before the same was done at the Breslau conference.

Apart from that, the American Reform movement was chiefly a direct German import. In 1842, Har Sinai Congregation was founded by German-Jewish immigrants in Baltimore. Adopting the Hamburg rite, it was the first synagogue established as Reformed on the continent. In the new land, there were neither old state-mandated communal structures, nor strong conservative elements among the newcomers. While the first generation was still somewhat traditional, their Americanized children were keen on a new religious expression. Reform quickly spread even before the Civil War. While fueled by the condition of immigrant communities, in matters of doctrine, wrote Michael Meyer, "However much a response to its particular social context, the basic principles are those put forth by Geiger and the other German Reformers – progressive revelation, historical-critical approach, the centrality of the Prophetic literature."^[51]

The rabbinate was almost exclusively transplanted – Rabbis Samuel Hirsch, Samuel Adler, Gustav Gottheil, Kaufmann Kohler and others all played a role both in Germany and across the ocean – and led by two individuals: the radical Rabbi David Einhorn, who participated in the 1844-6 conferences and was very much influenced by Holdheim (though utterly rejecting mixed marriage), and the moderate pragmatist Isaac Meyer Wise, who while sharing deeply heterodox views was more an organizer than a thinker. Wise was distinct from the others, arriving early in 1846 and lacking much formal education. He was of little ideological consistency, often willing to compromise.

Quite haphazardly, Wise instituted a major innovation when introducing family pews in 1851, after his Albany congregation purchased a local church building and retained sitting arrangements. While it was gradually adopted even by many Orthodox in America and remained so well into the 20th Century, the same was not applied in Germany until after World War II. Wise attempted to reach consensus with the traditionalist leader Rabbi Isaac Leeser in order to forge a single, unified American Judaism. In the 1855 Cleveland Synod, he was at first acquiescent to Leeser, but reverted immediately after the other departed. The enraged Leeser disavowed any connection with him. Yet Wise's harshest critic was Einhorn, who arrived from Europe in the same year. Demanding clear positions, he headed the radical camp as Reform turned into a distinct current.

On 3–6 November 1869, the two and their followers met in Philadelphia. Described by Meyer as American Reform's "declaration of independence", they stated their commitment to the principles already formulated in Germany: priestly privileges, the belief in Resurrection and a personal Messiah were denied. A practical, far-reaching measure, not instituted in the home country until 1910, was acceptance of civil marriage and divorce. A Get was no longer required. In 1873 Wise founded the Union of American Hebrew Congregations (since 2003, Union for Reform Judaism), the denominational body. In 1875 he established the movement's rabbinical seminary, Hebrew Union College, at Cincinnati, Ohio. He and Einhorn also quarreled in the matter of liturgy, each issuing his own prayerbook, Minhag America (American Rite) and Olat Tamid (Regular Burnt Offering) respectively, which they hoped to make standard issue. Eventually, the Union Prayer Book was adopted in 1895. The movement spread rapidly: in 1860, when it began its ascent, there were few Reform synagogues and 200 Orthodox in the United States. By 1880, a mere handful of the existing 275 were not affiliated with it.^[52]

In 1885, Reform Judaism in America was confronted by challenges from both flanks. To the left, Felix Adler and his Ethical movement rejected the need for the Jews to exist as a differentiated group. On the right, the recently arrived Rabbi Alexander Kohut, an adherent of Zacharias Frankel, lambasted it for having abandoned traditional Judaism. Einhorn's son-in-law and chief ideologue, Rabbi Kaufmann Kohler, invited leading rabbis to formulate a response. The eight clauses of the Pittsburgh Platform were proclaimed on 19 November. It added virtually nothing new to the tenets of Reform, but rather elucidated them, declaring unambiguously that "to-day we accept as binding only the moral laws, and maintain only such ceremonies as elevate and sanctify our lives." The platform was never officially ratified by either the UAHC or HUC, and many of their members even attempted to disassociate from it, fearing that its radical tone would deter potential allies. It indeed motivated a handful of conservatives to cease any cooperation with the movement and withdraw their constituencies from the UAHC. Those joined Kohut and Sabato Morais in establishing the Jewish Theological Seminary of America. It united all non-Reform currents in the country and would gradually develop into the locus of Conservative Judaism.

The Pittsburgh Platform is considered a defining document of the sanitized and rationalistic "Classical Reform", dominant from the 1860s to the 1930s. At its height, some forty congregations adopted the Sunday Sabbath and UAHC communities had services without most traditional elements in a manner seen in Europe only at the Berlin Reformgemeinde. In 1889, Wise founded the Central Conference of American Rabbis (CCAR), the denominational rabbinic council.

American reform has now become the most successful in implementing the Reform program of Judaism. Judaism was less regulated in America than it was in Europe, America stresses the idea of separation of church and state. The fact that European barriers were absent in America made it easier to establish a new sect of Judaism and evolve the Jewish religion. America made it so that Reform Judaism could serve a national purpose. In America, Reform Jews made it their mission to not instruct how to follow the Jewish religion, but rather how to instruct the world the lessons and values that serve for the religion. The beginning of the 19th century had the largest Jewish community dwelling in the United States, with 600 Jews.

However, change loomed on the horizon. From 1881 to 1924, over 2,400,000 immigrants from Eastern Europe drastically altered American Jewry, increasing it tenfold. The 40,000 members of Reform congregations became a small minority overnight. The newcomers arrived from backward regions, where secular education was scarce and civil equality nonexistent, retaining a strong sense of Jewish ethnicity. Even the religiously lax had very traditional sentiments. While at first alienated from the native modernized Jews, a fortriori the Reform ones, they slowly integrated. Growing numbers did begin to enter UAHC prayerhouses. The CCAR soon readopted elements long discarded in order to appeal to them: in the 1910s, inexperienced rabbis in the East Coast were given Ram Horns fitted with a trumpet mouthpiece, seventy years after the Reformgemeinde first held High Holiday prayers without blowing the instrument. The five-day workweek soon made the Sunday Sabbath redundant. Temples in the South and the Midwest, where the new crowd was scant, remained largely Classical.

Theology

God

In regard to God, while some voices among the spiritual leadership approached religious and even secular humanism – a tendency that grew increasingly from the mid-20th century, both among clergy and constituents, leading to broader, dimmer definitions of the concept – the movement had always officially maintained a theistic stance, affirming the belief in a personal God.^[4]

Early Reform thinkers in Germany clung to this precept;^[5] the 1885 Pittsburgh Platform described the "One God... The God-Idea as taught in our sacred Scripture" as consecrating the Jewish people to be its priests. It was grounded on a wholly theistic understanding, although the term "God-idea" was excoriated by outside critics. So was the 1937 Columbus Declaration of Principles, which spoke of a "One, living God who rules the world".^[6] Even the 1976 San Francisco Centenary Perspective, drafted at a time of great discord among Reform theologians, upheld "the affirmation of God... Challenges of modern culture have made steady belief difficult for some. Nevertheless, we ground our lives, personally and communally, on God's reality."^[7]The 1999 Pittsburgh Statement of Principles declared the "reality and oneness of God". British Liberal Judaism affirms the "Jewish conception of God: One and indivisible, transcendent and immanent, Creator and Sustainer".

Whereas the Orthodox and Conservative movements have rigid beliefs in God's existence, the Reform movement stresses the importance of questioning the existence of God and wrestling with questions on theology and God. Reform Judaism rejects Jewish law as binding, and therefore interprets the laws of God and the torah based on a secularized standpoint. The Reform movement believes that God's commandments and laws should be interpreted in order to conform to the modern time period. Like Orthodox and Conservative Judaism, Reform Judaism believes in only one God. Reform Jews are committed to a process of rational thought and therefore look onto science in order to make sense of God and how the universe was born. Most Reform Jews believe that God revealed the Torah to Israel in some form, but they would differ on what form such revelation may have taken. Most Reform Jews would also agree that God revealed the divine presence to people just in a one tim event at Mount Sinai but in stages over a long period of time. Reform Jews also believe that by studying Torah, he or she continues the process of bringing God's revelation to human beings. The study of God is not to have one rigid idea of God's existence, but rather to help humans to understand the ethical monotheism that is the core belief of Judaic theology.

Values

Feminism

Second Wave feminism and Jewish feminism in American Jewish life sparked the Reform movement to take a turn in evolving the sect of Judaism as more of an inclusive movement. Women seek full participation in both religious activities and cultural activities as Jews. Unlike the Orthodox movement, women in the Reform movement are allowed to be more integrated in Jewish rituals. They have the ability to be rabbis and cantors. Reform Judaism was the first movement to integrate women as a premise of its reformation. Young women of the Reform movement are also allowed, at the age of 12, to have a Bat Mitzvah. However, young women of the Orthodox movement are not allowed to have a Bat Mitzvah at all, and those of the Conservative movement have many restrictions regarding having a Bat Mitzvah. Feminism is important in the Reform movement of Judaism because the Reform movement stresses the importance of change and reconstruction. For that reason, women are inclined to be a part of the Reform movement as a means of obtaining the ability to be a leader and performer of the Jewish faith. In the 1970's, The National Federation of Temple Youth extended rabbinical education to women. The first woman, Sally Priesand, was ordained by HUC–JIR in 1972. In 1981 the UAHC published its own Torah commentary, encouraging lay study of the Pentateuch according to the liberal approach of Reform.

Tikkun Olam:

Tikkun Olam is one of the most revered ideas of the Jewish faith. It includes repairing the world through repeated acts of kindness and helping those in need. Reform Judaism, in particular, uses Tikkun Olam as one of its missions. Promoting social justice is important because it includes being inclusive and becoming more secularized by helping those outside the direct Jewish community. Progressive Judaism encompasses social justice in its approach to the most important social and political issues of out time: sexuality, gender, race, war and pace, poverty, and the environment. Tikkun Olam serves as a way for Reform Jews to bring peace, justice, and freedom to all people. Many Reform affiliated organizations have emerged since the rise of Reform Judaism in order to fulfill its mission of Tikun Olam and social justice. Some organizations include Jewish Aid Australia (JAA) and Tevel b'Tzedek (Earth - In Justice). The two most prominent forms of Tikkun Olam that are significant to the Reform movement are tzedakah (justice and righteousness) and g'milt hasadim (acts of loving kindness). Reform Jews, as well as Orthodox and Conservative Jews, believe the idea from the Talmud that emphasizes that to save one life is equal to saving an entire world. Reform Jews believe in the implications of tending to and caring for each soul. Reform Jews believe that each human life is of value and is worth saving. Tikkun Olam serves as the backbone of Reform Judaism and what this sect of Judaism stands for. Social justice is an important virtue that all Jews are required to attend to.

Reform Movement in Israel

The state of Israel was first introduced by Reform Judaism in 1958 in Jerusalem. There, German Jewish immigrants established the first Progressive congregation. By the High Holy Days, congregation size reached about five thousand people. The Reform Movement in Israel was established by congregations and their rabbis, as they united into being known as the Movement for Progressive Judaism in Israel. In 1974, Reform Judaism's headquarters moved to Jerusalem. In the 1970s, Israeli Reform also established the first kibbutz (collective agricultural settlement) in the southern desert and a youth movement with groups in various cities. In 1980, HUC-JIR ordained its first Israeli Reform rabbi in Jerusalem. Though the Reform movement reached prominence in Israel, it was rejected by the Israeli rabbinate and was deemed illegitimate. More specifically, the Orthodox movement in Israel was, and has been, opposed to the Reform movement because of its propositions on change in the Jewish religion. As a result, the Reform movement has been more successful and prominent in America than it has been in Israel.

References/Citations:

1.Meyer, Michael A. "Reform Judaism." Encyclopedia of Religion, edited by Lindsay Jones, 2nd ed., vol. 11, Macmillan Reference USA, 2005, pp. 7665-7673. Gale Virtual Reference

Library,go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=GVRL&sw=w&u=usfca_gleeson&v=2.1&it=r&id=GALE%7CCX3424502609&asid=5875ffc76a96d5f1c17ae61013db9f13. Accessed 4 Nov. 201

2.Adams, Peter. Politics, Faith, and the Making of American Judaism. N.p.: n.p., n.d.  Print.

3.Rayner, John D. "Halachah In European Progressive Judaism." The Journal Of Progressive Judaism 8.(1997): 85-91. ATLA Religion Database with ATLASerials. Web. 4 Nov. 2016.

4.Alpert, Rebecca T. “Whose Torah? : A Concise Guide To Progressive Judaism”. n.p.: New York: New Press, 2008., 2008. Ignacio: USF Libraries Catalog. Web. 4 Nov. 2016.

5.Schwarz, Sidney Howard. "Progressive Judaism In Israel." The Reconstructionist 9 (1976): 11.RAMBI. Web. 4 Nov. 2016.

6.Cohn-Sherbok, Dan. "Revelation And The End Of Certainty In Contemporary Progressive Judaism." Dialogue & Alliance 3 (1989): 17. RAMBI. Web. 4 Nov. 2016.

7.Galas, Michał. "The Influence Of Progressive Judaism In Poland : An Outline." Shofar 3 (2011):55. RAMBI. Web. 4 Nov. 2016.

8.Kranson, Rachel, Shira M. Kohn, and Hasia R. Diner. A Jewish Feminine Mystique? : Jewish Women In Postwar America. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 2010.

eBook Collection (EBSCOhost). Web. 4 Nov. 2016.

9. Meyer, Michael A. Response to Modernity: A History of the Reform Movement in Judaism. New York: Oxford University Press, 1988. Print.

10. Prell, Riv-Ellen. Women Remaking American Judaism. Detroit: Wayne State UP, 2007. Print.

11. Kaplan, Dana Evans. American Reform Judaism : An Introduction. Piscataway: Rutgers University Press, 2003. eBook Collection (EBSCOhost). Web. 17 Nov. 2016