I find myself with little patience with those who would make like Katsav and hesitate to call a Reform rabbi “Rabbi”; I wrote this in response: But believe me, when Reform rabbis gather, they don’t plot ways to keep kosher…

i.e.

So, in response to your last paragraph, I believe that people who really are observant reform Jews might actually understand the current shift toward recognizing traditional Jewish customs and practices, something which would probably have no impact, whatsoever, on the average congregant.

So reform judaism as a movement is NOW recognizing the “value” of these things! Basically, what was Reform Judaism 10-20 years ago? It’s the same movement, the same underlying philosophy. Just because they place a value in certain things today doesn’t make them that different than they were 20, 50 or 100 years ago.

The second point is that Reform and Conservative Judaism are failures as a movement. You said it yourself when you refer to the average congregant. This is opposed to orthodoxy where the average congregant does care about these things.

In other words, the movement is probably not even relevant to a vast majority of people who count themselves among Reform Jews, because they’re more secular than anything, and boy, cheeseburgers are good!. Max Diamont, in The Jews in America, writes that in every movement, the main constituents actually practice “one level below” what they claim to be. I’ve found this to be pretty much true, although not so much among some of the people I’ve met in hareidi circles

So, in response to your last paragraph, I believe that people who really are observant reform Jews might actually understand the current shift toward recognizing traditional Jewish customs and practices, something which would probably have no impact, whatsoever, on the average congregant.

The current reform movement (AFAIK) does not say that the pittsburgh platform was wrong or a mistake, which effectively means that while its not the “current” platform of the Reform movement, it would be 100% ok for a reform jew to follow it.

This can be view in reaction to JTS’s former chancellor saying that allowing driving on the sabbath was one of the worst decisions/mistakes Conservative Judaism made.

In other words, just because the reform movement says “keeping kosher is good(tm)” today, doesn’t mean that someone who is actively anti keeping kosher is outside the pale (as opposed to just not wanting to), nor would that outlook be viewed as mistaken.

This is true, I never do know! I actually have a question kind of external of this topic that I’d like to ask you. Would you mine shooting me an email so I can email you back? I know this sounds weird, but it will all make sense (haha, I’m sure THAT is comforting). I would greatly, greatly appreciate it, check out the link from my name, my email address should be at the very bottom of that page.

Thanks muchly, but of course I understand if not!

Anyone who knows Massachusetts knows that we have a huge Orthodox community here, many of whom are liberal Democrats (and some of whom might even have approved if I’d married a nice Jewish girl instead of a nice Jewish boy.) We have a number of MO friends and it would be easy to join the Modern Orthodox world, if we wanted to. But there is the whole children issue, and to some degree, we’re just lazy

Adam — it’s OK to be a Yankees fan. I didn’t know from baseball until I moved here, and I am a Red Sox fan mostly by default.

As for your Shabbos invite — you never know!

Aside from historical research purposes, the Pittsburgh Convention document doesn’t really have much to do with the Reform movement today.

In 1937 and again in 1976, Reform leadership met and reassessed its purpose and goals. In 1976, to celebrate the 100th year of the movement, they issued the following statement:

Within each area of Jewish observance Reform Jews are called upon to confront the claims of Jewish tradition, however differently perceived, and to exercise their individual autonomy, choosing and creating on the basis of commitment and knowledge.

While that approach doesn’t do it for me, personally, I’ve got to recognize that it reflects an evolution of thought in the Reform movement away from the very reactive Pittsburgh Platform (keep in mind who the people were who founded the movement- wealthy German Jews who wanted to have nothing to do with those smelly Eastern Europeans. Now think of who the movement caters to now- descendents of those reviled Eastern Europeans, who still have a soft spot in their hearts for the charming old world ways of their Bubbes and Zeides).

The movement, to its credit, had the cojones to recognize that they couldn’t honestly go on using the same constitution and bylaws, and opened up the avenues for discussion of actually increasing observance.

Do you like your hat with ketchup or mayonnaise?

Thanks for the compliment! Love what you had to say as well and really identified with just about all of it.

I am so with you. My most meaningful experiences are the ones that I share with my beshert (whether they are directly “religious” in the sense of spending shabbos together, or having amazing sex, or just having a great, connected conversation — and in that sense the lack of finding a religious community that I like or fit in isn’t that big a deal). So the thought of sitting apart at shul, and not being able to share glances, thoughts about the parsha, etc…would just significantly lessen the experience for me.

But, uh-oh, I also just admitted to pre-marital sex so…at least we are both heretics together.

What I struggle with, is that I feel like there are tons of people who are like-minded as us in the sense of not finding that organized connection. And I struggle in trying to think of a way to effectively bring these people together into meaningful experiences.

So I would invite you and your husband over for shabbos dinner but…alas I am halfway across the country from you.

And I’m a Yankee fan…don’t hold it against me.

Different people have different boundaries on what is and is not OK for them. My husband and I live within walking distance of a huge reform synagogue, and what bothered him was not the lack of a kosher kitchen, but the use of microphones and sound equipment on Shabbos. But we are not shomer-Shabbos, not anywhere close to it. Our beliefs and education on halachah probably put us into the liberal end of conservative Judaism, but we are not affiliated with a synagogue, mostly because every one in our area is oriented towards families with children, and for various reasons we are not having children. We’re friendly with a local Chabad rabbi, and go to his events occasionally, but our religious expression, such as it is, really is something we do together, not with him on one side of a mechitza and me on the other.

(BTW I got chewed out in an online forum for marrying him because I am keeping him from the mitzvah of reproducing! Apparently by some standards a “good” Jewess who can’t or won’t have children should not get married… though I live in Massachusetts and am bi, so I suppose I could have married a nice Jewish girl

What is being a Jew?

And I still haven’t found any references to anyone in the Reform movement saying that Judaism says it’s okay to eat shrimp. That’s your black hat still talking.

Maybe it’s time you ate SP’s old hat.

Some of us “shtetl Jews” know how to google. And you?

Here’s the start of Article 4 of the Pittsburgh Conference Declaration of Principles:

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.

Excuse me. I’ve got the munchies.

in regards to “saying its ok to eat shrimp”, read up on the treifa banquet. read up on the pittsburgh platform. Yes, these are all in the pasts to some extent, but they are all part of the philosophy of the reform movement.

It’s interesting that you used to wear a black hat but don’t now. But the part of you that goes inside the hat is just as important. It’s possible for one’s clothing to be of the 21st century, but for their head to still be in the shtetl. This seems to be the case in many communities that consider themselves “advanced”, yet still hold tight to the halachic reins.

And I still haven’t found any references to anyone in the Reform movement saying that Judaism says it’s okay to eat shrimp. That’s your black hat still talking.

1) I’m not a black hat wearer (though I used to be (to the semi-chagrin of my parents), though I’m past that phase of trying to be someone I’m not to fit in).

2) I’m not threatened by reform judaism, just like I’m not threatened by catholicism. I have no issue with someone eating shrimp in their own home (beyond caring for each jew to not sin), but I do care if someone says “Judaism says it is ok to eat shrimp”.

3) What criteria “outline” judaism. I’d say the halachik process is what outlines it, so yes, there can be evolution, but when you reject the process, which is what reform has, how do you fit within the “criteria”

or in other words, besides for accepting jesus, what’s the difference between Messianic Judaism and Reform Judaism, and if that is the main difference, wh does it push it outside your criteria? or in other words, what is your criteria for being “jewish”?

I have no idea why you feel so threatened by Reform Judaism. I find Jews who tell me that proven scientific principles are assur to be much more frightening. I am more revolted by unethical, non-Torah business practices within the kashrus industry than I am by soemone eating shrimp in the privacy of their own home. The latter doesn’t matter much to me; it impacts me little or not at all. I find the insanity perpetrated by our “legitimate” Jewish brethren to be, on the whole, more damaging.

In my view, those who practic Reform Judaism deserve Reform Judaism. But you can look at it like a “kosher style” deli: some people make do with it until they discover the real thing.

You brought in the argument about whether we should adopt the same laissaz faire attitude to the messianic “Jewish” movement. The answer’s easy- no. Their messiah doesn’t fit the criteria outlined by Judaism.

Saying a reform jew is inauthentic is like saying a secular jew is inauthentic. However, secular jews aren’t redefining the jewish religion. In truth, the items that really create the unbridgable barrier between reform/conservative from orthodoxy is the things that do decide if someone’s a jew and their status. marriage/divorce/conversion….. that gap is unbrigable, without those movements giving up their “autonomy”, and by “autonomy” that basically makes them indepndent religions, not distinct takes on a single religion.