The late Orthodox rabbi of our community with whom I was pretty close, asked me this rhetorical question many years ago, “Peter, do you know the difference between your people and mine?” I thought he was going to get that, you know, “attitude,” but, no, his answer was eye-opening. He said, “It’s what they’re used to. Other than that, there is no difference.”
He was so correct. A number of people in his shul used to tell me they would switch, “if you didn’t have that goyische organ!” Theologically they didn’t care; they cared because the two styles were radically different, and from their childhood on they had been accustomed to no musical accompaniment, surely no organ, little English, and a minimum participation of women.
But there were people who ultimately did switch, because Reform today is not “your father’s Reform Judaism.” In a Reform congregation years ago (Beth El is a perfect example), you NEVER would have heard sung, Aleinu l’shabeiach la-Adon ha-kol. You would have SAID, not sung (until the antiphonal English version was composed), “Let us adore the ever-living God.” Nowadays there is hardly a Reform congregation where Aleinu is not the prayer du jour, where the regulars ever heard of the antiphonal Adoration, and where “Let us adore…” is considered “churchy.”
Now there was a hint of this evolution in the 1970s with the results of the Lenn Report of the movement. That study asked the question – among others – “If you are going to join a congregation, what is your primary reason for affiliating with a particular synagogue?” The rabbis couldn’t believe the number one reason, but if we thought about it and were able to analyze the implications of the answer, we would have seen what we are seeing today. The main reason was (drumroll, again): if parents could find carpooling for their children to religious school! It didn’t matter how the parents were raised, the distance from home to religious school, the style of worship, how good looking the rabbi was, the politics of the congregation…none of the above. If they could find others to share the drive, THAT’S the synagogue they would join.
Do you see what mattered…and what matters! It’s all post-denominational, and it was headed in that direction much earlier than most would have expected. Well, just as the influx of Conservadox Jews because of their spouses, impacted on classical Reform Judaism, so did the makeup of religious schools do the same.
There is one other phenomenon that has created today’s portrait of our movement.
In the early history of Reform many of its rabbis came from Orthodox backgrounds simply because there wasn’t Reform or Conservative or Reconstructionist or any other branch. If you weren’t Orthodox you were usually, shall we say, nothing. Thus, our earliest rabbis rejected not only the “old ways” of their immigrant parents, but the “old ways” of their religion. They were pretty radical in their approach tossing the baby out with the bath water. But as is often the case, we see that the pendulum has surely swung in the century-plus since the movement officially began. Rabbis adopted a great deal of that which was rejected. For example, the traditional seven aliyot for a Torah reading (as opposed to one, maybe up to four) were seen to be a “must”; what was once read in English was now being chanted in Hebrew; what was once never even read, let alone chanted, became included in worship and rituals. No wonder my friend in yesterday’s part 1 couldn’t tell the difference between his shul and a Reform Temple!
Again, let’s go back to part I.
You’ll recall that aspects of my childhood synagogue were famischt. In certain regards it was very traditional as was I when I first began my rabbinical studies and when I first came to Wilmington. I fought for and won the right to wear a talit and kipah (long story), and I changed the grade in which our school children began the weekday Hebrew school, to grade 3 instead of grade 4 (Sunday school began in kindergarten). But the heart and soul of Reform – it’s principles, it’s emphasis on “choice,” it’s majestic and varied music, and other things – were indelibly inscribed in my heart and soul. The more-or-less recent evolution towards a Reform movement virtually indistinguishable from others hasn’t sat well with me; Classical Reform Judaism, the style of Beth El and my Delaware congregation when I arrived at both, has become ever more appealing.
That’s one rabbi’s opinion. Look for an article dealing with Classical Reform Judaism from the mid-1800s, how it developed and what it entailed…maybe even articles about the other streams of Judaism.
(Just as today’s article is Part II, this is Part II of yesterday’s joke: “What was it like before computers: a hard drive was a long trip on the road; a mouse pad was where a mouse lived; and then there’s one more I just cannot include in the context of a synagogue communication