by Rabbi Julie Schonfeld
Since the beginning of January, I have been on a tour of North America and have seen over 400 Conservative rabbis face to face or conducted extensive phone interviews with them. What am I looking for?
I have been reaching out to my colleagues with the question: “as a rabbi, what are you are trying to accomplish in your community? How does your Torah inspire your community to bring change in their lives and the world?” In the aggregate, their stories are a lens on the Conservative movement today.
We need to return the discussion of “movement” in American Jewish life to its true meaning. A “movement” whether it be Zionism, Civil Rights, hassidism, or Conservative Judaism is about powerful ideas that unite and motivate people to come together with a compelling commitment to build towards a vision of the future. A movement inspires people to believe that the work of their lives can create change in the world and this conviction sustains their commitment through the inevitable ways and times that flawed human beings working and living together will disappoint one another.
Why fight for a “movement” when many claim that this concept has passed its time? Some of our most talented and creative thinkers eschew the concept of Jewish religious movements. And yet, as the menu of individual programs and initiatives being generated by small organizations multiplies, no one has adequately answered the question of how a “supermarket” of projects, minimally, if at all, connected to established communal institutions or to one another, actually creates committed Jews and enduring Jewish communities.
We in the Conservative community, and indeed, in the larger Jewish community, have been confusing the Conservative “movement,” with Conservative “institutions.” The Conservative Movement is a set of values and ideals. Conservative Judaism teaches us that we are obligated to make ourselves more decent people and to make our world a more just place. Conservative rabbis teach that Judaism lives in committed, caring communities, where ritual and ethical mitzvot are both viewed as sacred.. We aspire to a Jewish life, lived fully in a complex and multivalent world.
The Conservative movement opens its doors to wherever people are embarking on the path and we challenge all involved to keep growing further. Hebrew language, Torah study, commitment to Israel are challenges we lay squarely before our community. We embrace the realization that if we are “commanded” or obligated to mitzvot, that commitment applies to the ritual precepts as well as the ethical ones.
Resources are more scarce and all over North America, the synagogue, our most sacred gateway to Jewish life for centuries, is under myriad stresses. But my colleagues speak with excitement, hopefulness, and gratitude that when momentous events in people’s lives lead them to explore Judaism, rabbis are blessed to be present with something significant to offer. In a meeting this week of a small group of Conservative rabbis, they spoke of Torah study, of Hebrew fluency, of meaningful encounter with Israel and her people, of the profound and urgent need in communities to help people learn to take care of one another. Underneath each endeavor were the text, the community, and the goal of helping people internalize the actions of Jewish life.
The urgent need to distinguish between “movement” and “institution,” does not belong exclusively to the Conservative community. In part, because Conservative Judaism was such a pervasive and defining framework of 20th century North American Jewish life, it has become the midrashic vehicle through which the larger Jewish community is telling its uncertain story of transition and change. The promulgation of Conservative Judaism, a learned, committed Jewish expression that is vitally committed to the larger community and society is one of the greatest gifts we can give to future generations.
Our national organizations and institutions are not the “movement,” they are over 100 years old and in urgent need of rethinking. The ideals of our movement, by contrast, are as relevant and inspiring as ever. If we keep talking about bricks and bylaws rather than about the vision of the “movement,” we can’t effectively build the institutions we need.
The challenges we are facing in the Conservative movement belong to all of us in the larger Jewish community. Our task is to clarify and revitalize our vision for the future while sustaining the power of the large networks of community that still hold so much potential for bringing Judaism forward into the 21st century.
Rabbi Julie Schonfeld is Executive Vice President of the Rabbinical Assembly, the rabbinic arm of the Conservative movement.
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Rabbi Schonfeld is “right on” in reminding us to distinguish between a movement and its institutions. Nonetheless, I see two gaping holes in her statement:
1. She doesn’t address the question of the extent to which the institutions drive the movement vs. the movement driving its institutions.
2. She omits one integral characteristic of a movement — it is moving towards a destination that is different from the destination of any other movement.
As an activist in the Reform movement, I find nothing in Rabbi Schonfeld’s text, once you removed the parochial or institutiional references, that couldn’t be signed by Rabbi Yoffie, or, presumably, Rabbi Jacobs. What distinguishes the two movements, to my mind, is their respective attitudes towards the binding nature of halacha.
Which leads to my other point. The Conservative institutions espouse the binding nature of halacha, but the movement — the Jews in the Conservative pews — are to a considerable extent ignoring the halachic demands of kashrut and Shabbat (which Reform institutions essentially model as options for us Jews in Reform pews), as well as the second day of Rosh Hashanah, and probably the Festivals as well.
Surely every reader on this site knows the famous t’shuvah, go see what the people are doing. If the people in both movements are doing the same thing, do we really need two sets of institutions? Or to phrase it differently, once you remove the centrality of the institutions, aren’t we really two separate cohorts in the same movement, of a Jewish religious expression in tune with living in the general society rather than in isolation from it, within a framework of personal autonomy?
Personally i am very disappointed with Conservative Rabbis for one reason-
They are partly responsible for allowing the phenomenon of post Bar and Bat Mitzvah drop outs from happening as most of the Hebrew Schools were happening at synagogues right under their noses.
I taught Hebrew School for about 12 years in the U.S. at different synagoguges and in different cities. These Rabbis had the title of “Spiritual Leaders” for their congregants and didn’t push Jewish summer camping, trips to Israel, Hebrew High or youth groups to any of the “graduating” Hebrew School kids who were having their Bar or Bat Mitzvah.
Tens of thousands if not hundred of thousands of Jewish kids passed through the movement- USY Ramah etc could of had so many more participants if the Rabbis tried to promote them in some way. Most of these Rabbis seem to only know how to speak politically correct at the pulpit and retire to Florida. Julie, you yourself said you just interviewed 400 Conservative Rabbis and not one of them said anything worth quoting- there wasn’t one quote- no specific project was highlighted- what are these Rabbis doing? There is a spiritual Holocaust going on in America today – they should be working like mad to create dynamic programs that will encourage Jews to get involved in Jewish life. Instead i have read that the number of Conservative synagogues continues to decline as one after another closes. When will it end?
Rabbi Schonfeld is from all accounts bright and well-meaning. I’m sure in a very difficult job as well. But as a long time Conservative Family that has finally thrown in the towel (along with many friends) I’d suggest her Rabbinic survey here, and logic, is yet another example of how incredibly tone deaf Conservative leadership is. My family left for three reasons that are so obvious yet apparently oblivious to the RA:
1.) We aren’t Jews in a “movement”, we are Jews that enjoy Jewish life amongst a wide array of observance, practice and belief – does any Rabbi really expect my kids (4-12) to identify as “Conservative” over all their other Jewish affiliations?
2.) We believe in Jewish outreach, in sharing our love and passion for Jewish life with the un-affiliated and curious; Conservative shuls and Rabbi’s are far too often very intimidating and not very good at making it easy for the less-knowledged, 3.) There is a better version of Conservative Judaism thriving right now amongst the independent minyan folks and at places like BJ that dis-affiliated with the “movement”…why would anyone be loyal to a movement that has continually failed to match what happens independently?
4.) To have allowed the Bnai Mitzvah and Hebrew school fiasco to play out for literally decades, at the expense of so many young people, is unforgivable and in and of itself should be reason to disband the “movement”.
I hope the incredible intellect and people of the Conservative movement – and there are many – prove me wrong, but it is hard to imagine any central body being able to fix what we are watching unfurl.