Encore
On this page, we present essays – profound or timely – culled from the CLAL literary archive. Most of the articles that appear here appeared originally in the pages of Sh'ma– A Journal of Jewish Responsibility, which was founded by Eugene Borowitz in 1970 and published by CLAL from 1994-1998.
For further information regarding Sh'ma today, click here.
(from
Sh’ma 13/259, October 14, 1983)
Facing the Need for Women Rabbis
By Jacob Neusner
Conservative
Judaism stands at the parting of the ways. Whether
it will flourish or wither away depends on what people now decide. When Conservative Judaism offered an alternative,
within an essentially traditional framework, to Orthodoxy, it flourished. When it claimed to be little more than another
Orthodoxy, a copy, it withered. From the
1920s to the 1960s, it flourished. From the
1960s to the present time, it has declined.
In
its heyday, Conservative Judaism offered the Jewish community a traditional approach to
Judaism, one clearly distinguished from Orthodoxy. How
was it different in the generation from World War I to the 1960s? Women sat next to men. Rabbis gave sermons, taught, and reached out to
the congregations. Discourse was
intelligible, critical, and interesting. And
Orthodoxy? Women sat apart. Rabbis were remote and distant. There was no pretense at scholarship in Western
modes. People loyal to traditional ways found
a home in Conservative Judaism.
But
today Orthodoxy presents the community with rabbis interested in the life of the people. Conservative Judaism enjoys no monopoly on
scholarship. Modern Orthodox. scholars
represented, for example, by those around Isadore Twersky at Harvard as well as some at
Yeshiva University, speak compellingly on scholarly issues.
Certainly the Conservative movement no longer exercises intellectual
leadership without significant competition from Orthodoxy, particularly in the modern
mode.
But
what Conservative Judaism, at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, has wanted to
present to the community is simply another form of an essentially Orthodox approach to
things. It just will not work because no one
needs it.
In
its age of leadership, Conservative Judaism engaged the larger Jewish community in the
great issues of the day: Zionism from the
1920s to the 1950s, to which the Orthodox were indifferent and much of Reform hostile; the
incipient organization of the Jewish community as we now know it; outreach to the
unaffiliated Jews; the building of a whole system of Jewish education – all of these
achievements of the second and early third generations belong (if not exclusively) to
Conservative Judaism.
The
Movement Is On The Sidelines
Today,
by contrast, the three greatest movements in the inner life of American Jewry bypass
Conservative Judaism. Having been engaged
early on with each, I can point to the failures.
The Jewish federations have become instrumental in making the Jewish community more Jewish.
The havurah movement has revitalized Jewish religious expression.
The campus has become a principal base for Judaic studies in this country -- an unprecedented development in the history of Judaism.
And
where has Conservative Judaism been? The
Federations -- in many cities run by Conservative Jews -- are ignored. The havurah
movement, brought to its richest expression in Conservative and Reform synagogues, might
as well have happened on the moon. The
professors of Jewish studies in universities -- many of them JTSA alumni -- are declared
non-persons by their alma maters.
The
age of renewal must come. American Jewry
cannot accept only a single route to the tradition of Judaism, the one supplied by
Orthodoxy. The same reasons that called forth
the formation of Conservative Judaism explain why. Reform
Judaism serves valiantly, but not universally. Two
(if not more) roads into the traditional framework of Judaic living and thinking must
remain open. One of them, the Conservative,
sorely demands repair.
Conservative
congregations must now restore the vitality of the center… in two senses: first, the
center of Conservative Judaism at JTSA; and second, the vital center of American Judaism
that Conservative Judaism has marked out for itself.
In
my view, the road to renewal has taken a minor detour, in the Rabbinical Assembly's
rejection of a woman as a member. The wave of
the future is now. It is the attainment of
complete equality for women in the traditional sector of Judaism. That can be accomplished solely by Conservative
Judaism. It will be the centerpiece for the
renewal of the vital center.
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