Encore Archive

Welcome to Encore, the place where you will find the latest thoughts and reflections by CLAL faculty and associates on topics of the moment. Each week you will find something new and (hopefully) engaging here!

To access the CLAL Encore Archive, click here.

To join the conversation at CLAL Encore Talk, click here.

(from Sh'ma 13/243, December 10, 1982)

The Logical Limits of Jewish Ecumenism

By Shubert Spero

Given the body of beliefs and practices we call Orthodox Judaism, what conditions have to be fulfilled in order for an Orthodox Jew to be able to engage in any sort of ecumenical activities and still remain consistent with his Orthodox principles?

Condition number one: Reform, Conservative and Orthodox must realize the asymmetry of their relationships to their respective Judaisms. By their own definitions, Reform and Conservative understand their Judaism to be developmental, subject to modification, and that the mechanism for change is, in varying degrees, within the control of their spiritual leadership. However, one of the more persistent beliefs of Orthodoxy is that the halachic process embodies procedures that are more resistant to human change so that even if Orthodox Rabbis wanted to change certain rituals or modify certain beliefs, they could not easily do so. They see themselves more as servants of the process rather than as its masters. Reform and Conservative must recognize this asymmetry and not make impossible demands upon the Orthodox or interpret lack of response as recalcitrance, hunger for power or sheer sinat chinam (groundless hatred).

Condition number two: The Orthodox are accused of not having sufficient ahavat Yisrael (love of Israel). Orthodox Jews will give us first-aid oxygen in emergencies and invite us to their homes for cholent, but if they are so loving, why do they not accept invitations from other Jews to visit their homes?

The elementary ethical demand is reciprocity. This, Orthodoxy will not give us! The Conservatives accept the Orthodox get (divorce), but the Orthodox will not accept a Conservative get.

Our dealings with the other cannot always be reciprocal. It depends upon the relationship. The (U) will accept Satmar hashgacha (certification of Kashrut); Satmar will not accept the (U) certification. Satmar's principles may be skewed, but there is nothing immoral about the situation. This type of imbalance always grows out of the logic of the relationship between the Right and the Left. Interdenominational reciprocity is an unfair and impossible demand.

Suspending Judgment

Condition number three: In order for Orthodox Jews to be able to freely engage in ecumenical activities, it is necessary that they adopt a certain psychological perspective that I call the D.D.Z. or the De-Denominationalized Zone. Orthodox Jews must learn to relate to Reform and Conservative in certain settings as taking place in a D.D.Z.--that is to say, we are meeting in a strictly factual world in which I see you as you are and not as I think you ought to be. If you are a Reform rabbi, I neither confirm your rabbinic title nor repudiate it because, in this context, I am not called upon to do either. You are a rabbinic leader of a Reform congregation. I accept it as a fact with the objectivity of a sociologist. While in the context of the De-Denominationalized Zone, I suspend all intra-Jewish judgments.

Is it right for an Orthodox Jew to engage in such a suspension of judgment? I believe it is. We live in imperfect, pre-Messianic times in which great rabbis have ruled that we can no longer exercise our obligations of hochiach tochiach--of rebuking our fellow Jews, of constantly chastising them and sitting in judgment upon them. This is so because none of us is perfect; our motivations are suspect and we have lost the art of tochacha (of rebuking our fellows).

Our Claims to Truth Conflict

At this point, we come up against a logical limit of Jewish ecumenism. Some people believe that ecumenism requires that I adopt a sort of tolerance of the "three wings" in which I affirm that each branch of Judaism is an equally valid version of Judaism, an equally correct approach to God, an equally legitimate Jewish way of life.

Now, an Orthodox Jew cannot do this--logically cannot do this!--because of his understanding of the nature of Orthodox Judaism. For here we are dealing with truth-claims, cognitive beliefs, statements of fact, with propositions that are mutually exclusive so that if one is true, the other must be false, and vice versa. Orthodox Jews believe that Judaism requires them to assent unequivocally to certain beliefs, certain cognitive statements; that, for example, "the Torah in our possession is, in its entirety, the word of God." It follows that a rabbi who teaches that it is not is making a false statement.

Therefore, in theoretical terms the Orthodox Jew, a la Voltaire, must say: "I believe many of the teachings of Reform and Conservative to be wrong and misleading, but as Jews there are many areas where we can work together."

Traditional Judaism not only includes rituals, theological beliefs, and moral rules, but also functions as a legal system in areas we call civil law. Now what happens when Reform rabbis decide to change these rules in Judaism which involve the status-conferring institutions of the halacha? A Reform rabbi decides that W. is the Jewishly lawfully wedded wife of B. without requiring that W. receive a get, a Jewish divorce, from her first husband A. Obviously this is no longer a private matter, a matter of individual conscience which the non-Reform community can ignore. A social fact has been created which may intersect with the non-Reform community. What am I, an Orthodox rabbi, to do when the children of W. and B. wish to marry Orthodox individuals? The halacha considers the offspring of such a marriage to be mamzerim (illegitimate) and forbidden to marry into the Jewish community.

Logic Dictates Our Position

If we are indeed one people and if liberal Jews wished us to continue to be so, didn't they realize they were placing Orthodoxy into an impossible position by unilaterally changing the procedures which confer status? Bear in mind the asymmetry; the logic and not the good will of the situation is such that Reform and Conservative can accept Orthodox procedures without violating principle, while the Orthodox cannot accept Reform and Conservative procedures without violating their religious and legal commitments.

The issue of conversions is the most tragic and anomalous of all. The problem with Reform conversions is not only who is doing the conversion or what is the nature of the ceremony, but primarily what sort of Judaism have you sold the convert? What beliefs, what practices, what sort of commitment?

What enables me to say to a Reform Jew, "You are my brother," is the fact that he was born a Jew. This according to tradition is the overriding sufficient condition. But now consider this non-Jew who wishes to become Jewish. The biological component of Jewish parentage is not present. Instead we are placing the entire burden of status-conferral, of being born again, of acquiring a new Jewish personality, upon a theological procedure, a set of beliefs, a set of attitudes. But if the ceremony is a Reform one, if the theological procedures are according to Reform theology, which differs radically from the tradition, if the set of beliefs that this non-Jew has accepted, the attitudes he has learned, the life style he is to this non-Jew has accepted, the attitudes he has learned, the life style he is to adopt are not the traditional Jewish ones--then the transition has simply not been made, the difficult and metaphysical change from non-Jew to Jew simply did not take place--because the right ingredients were not used! Change the recipe and you get a different result. How in all fairness can the Reform expect the Orthodox to accept this convert as Jewish when their converts are in their entirety, creatures of their theology, and the Reform have always known that the Orthodox do not believe in their theology?

Here in the Diaspora, with the growth of the Orthodox community and the increase of Baalei Tshuva (those returning to Judaism), these tragic consequences of denominationalism continue to proliferate in more sad stories, more shocking discoveries, more frustrated relationships. As I have indicated, the only groups, in my judgment, that are in a position by their own understanding to do something about this are the Reform and Conservative. They can, if they so desire, for the sake of the unity of klal Yisrael (the entire Jewish people), bring their procedures for marriage, divorce and conversions into line with the Orthodox.

Ultimately--and here I engage in prognosis--the modern Orthodox even in Israel will learn the ecumenical spirit as I have outlined it here. But there are those built-in limits to Jewish ecumenism. Once these are recognized and accepted, we can go to work together to achieve the best of all possible Jewish ecumenisms, which I am convinced is not inconsiderable, and can help to restore some unity to the fractured House of Israel.