The Reform movement’s exploration of Protestant mega-churches as a potential model for reinvigorating Jewish worship doesn’t have everyone kvelling. The problem, as some see it, is that the mega-church model just isn’t, well, very Jewish.
Blogger Daniel Burstyn comments on the use of “jumbo-trons” at the Union for Reform Judaism’s recent biennial follow this line of argument:
Jumbotrons are all well and good for large gatherings of non-Halakhic Jews, like the Biennial and Craig Taubman’s Friday night live kind of things. They might be ok for other environments, like camp. Maybe when the Temple is rebuilt, there will be Jumbotrons.
But they really go against the grain of the “do it yourself” aspect of Judaism, as it has developed since the publication of the Jewish Catalog in the early 1970s. So much so that I would suggest that they aren’t really very meaningful in my experience of worship - I mean, I won’t be installing one in my living room to replace the siddur that I hold in my hand. Nor will my 25 family congregation ever need one on a regular basis.
All that razzle dazzle has really razzled and dazzled you Biennial-goers, hasn’t it. And if you come from Congregations that are Biennial sized, you might be considering using them. But it’s so far from the experience of small congregations, you apparently have forgotten to remember that you have no idea how disempowering this all is. I was at a service yesterday that tanked as soon as the Rabbi left. When there will be jumbotrons and only a bevy of Levi-techies will be able to run them, and the Rabbi-Kohanim are the only ones who know how to turn on the “uplink” - then the Jews in the Pews will be far far farklempt!!
If Joe or Jane Jew can’t walk onto the bima and run a worship service as well as s/he can run a committee meeting or an awards dinner, then something is broken. There should be no “little man behind the curtain,” nor flashy light show on the bima in Judaism.
Hat tip: Jewschool
Rabbi Eric Yoffie, president of the Union for Reform Judaism, had an ambitious agenda for his synagogue movement’s biennial meeting. In his speech to the gathering, he urged a renewed commitment to Shabbat observance among Reform Jews, called for a deepening of dialogue with North American Muslims, pushed universal health care and issued an impassioned call for shoring up ties between his movement and Israel.
Yoffie’s speech is here.
Also of note is the speech to the Reform biennial by Ingrid Mattson, president of the Islamic Society of North America. Yoffie had drawn national headlines — along with cheers, jeers and some things in-between from his fellow Jews — when he addressed ISNA in August.
Are Chabad bar mitzvahs a joke? Are Reform bar mitzvahs “institutional extortion”? The JTA’s Ami Eden has the blow-by-blow on the debate over which movement does a better bar mitzvah.
To be sure, the Reform Siddur “Mishkan T’filah” is pretty far from what Shafran would consider an ideal prayerbook, but he’s pretty pleased by its steps toward tradition — particularly its inclusion of a prayer for the resurrection of the dead.
On the always-interesting Orthodox blog Cross-Currents, Shafran writes:
The editors of the new Reform prayer book may insist that its users needn’t subscribe to the Jewish belief that the righteous will one day rise from their graves. But their inclusion of the blessing of resurrection, however they may have sought to soften it, reflects unquestionably the deep stirrings of Jews alienated from our eternal beliefs groping uneasily toward their acceptance.
It may be naive to imagine that changes in the Reform prayer book hold out hope that Reform-affiliated Jews might yet come to consider returning to the fullness of the Jewish religious tradition.
But I’m not willing to consider a million-plus fellow Jews as nothing more than a desiccated limb of the Jewish people, hopelessly destined to wither and fall away.
Not only because there are encouragingly many once-distant-from-Judaism Jews living fully Torah-observant lives today.
But because I believe in techiyat hameitim [the resurrection of the dead].
Granted, most Reform Jews probably won’t take Shafran’s comparison of their movement to the moldering dead as a compliment. Nor are they likely to be thrilled by the basis for his enthusiasm about their new prayerbook — namely his desire that it will help some find their way to Orthodoxy. Still, it’s a positive development when a leading ultra-Orthodox figure engages with developments in Reform Juaism.
All too often, the ultra-Orthodox world is afraid to engage with their more liberal kin (so supremely secure in their beliefs that they dare not expose themselves to alternative views). Writing admiringly about Shafran’s post, Orthodox blogger Harry Maryles brings up an old controversy over “One People, Two Worlds,” a book of exchanges between a Reform rabbi and a haredi scholar that was ultimately banned by the ultra-Orthodox Council of Sages. Maryles sees in that incident a lost opportunity to reach out.
More broadly, the ultra-Orthodox may be eager to reach out to non-Orthodox Jews to expose them to haredi beliefs, but they should keep in mind that a conversation involves listening as well as talking.
Debra Nussbaum Cohen (one of my favorite religion reporters) has a fascinating article in the latest issue of The New York Jewish Week about young Reform Jews turning toward tradition.
Reporting from the Reform movement’s Kutz Camp in Warwick, N.Y., she writes:
In addition to demanding more traditional prayer, a small but growing number of campers and young faculty there are wearing yarmulkes or tzitzit, even tefillin along with prayer shawls. One of this year’s campers had shuckling — the rhythmic prayer-rocking usually done by fervently Orthodox men — perfected. For the first time, song leaders taught the chasidic songs of Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach alongside more modern Reform tunes.
There are even “rumblings” of interest in making the camp, which is now kosher-style, really kosher, said Kutz Director Rabbi Eve Rudin. “We first started seeing kids lay tefillin two or three years ago. Certainly we saw it last summer. It’s a handful of kids. Tzitzit are more widespread; quite a few kids are wearing them.”
The more traditional kids also seem to blanch when the camp tries to hold more nontraditional prayer sessions, such as a jazz service that is described as having been “botched.”
Accommodating this turn toward tradition has, of course, involved a delicate balancing act for Reform Judaism, since the movement was originally built, as its very name suggests, on the rejection of many of these Jewish traditions, which had been considered irrational or out of step with the times.
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