Conservative Judaism
Conservative Judaism (also known as Masorti Judaism in Israel and Europe) is a modern stream of Judaism that arose out of intellectual currents in Germany in the mid-nineteenth century and took institutional form in the United States in the early 1900s.
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The principles of Conservative Judaism include:[1]
- A dedication to Halakha (Jewish law) as a guide for Jewish life
- A deliberately non-fundamentalist teaching of Jewish principles of faith
- A positive attitude toward modern culture
- An acceptance of both traditional rabbinic modes of study and modern critical scholarship when considering Jewish religious texts.
Conservative Judaism has its roots in the school of thought known as Positive-Historical Judaism, developed in 1850s Germany as a reaction to the more liberal religious positions taken by Reform Judaism. The term conservative was meant to signify that Jews should attempt to conserve Jewish tradition, rather than reform or abandon it. It does not imply the movement's adherents are politically conservative. A number of Conservative rabbis have proposed renaming the movement[2], and outside of the United States and Canada, in many countries including Israel and the UK it is today known as Masorti Judaism (Hebrew for "Traditional").
Origins
Like Reform Judaism, the Conservative movement developed in Europe and the United States in the 1800s, as Jews reacted to the changes brought about by the Enlightenment and Jewish emancipation. In Europe the movement was known as Positive-Historical Judaism, and it is still known as "the historical school."
Positive-Historical Judaism, the intellectual forerunner to Conservative Judaism, was developed as a school of thought in the 1840s and 1850s in Germany. Its principal founder was Rabbi Zecharias Frankel, who had broken with the German Reform Judaism in 1845 over its rejection of the primacy of the Hebrew language in Jewish prayer. In 1854, Frankel became the head of the Jewish Theological Seminary of Breslau, Germany.
Frankel emphasized that Jewish law is not static, but rather has always developed in response to changing conditions. He called his approach towards Judaism "Positive-Historical," which meant that one should have a positive attitude towards accepting Jewish law and tradition as normative, yet one should be open to developing the law in the same fashion that it has always developed historically. Frankel rejected some of the innovations of Reform Judaism as insufficiently based in Jewish history and communal practice. However, his use of modern methods of historical scholarship in analyzing Jewish texts and developing Jewish law set him apart from neo-Orthodox Judaism, which was concurrently developing under the leadership of Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch.
Conservative Judaism in America
In the latter half of the nineteenth century, the debates occurring in German Judaism were replicated in America. Thus, Conservative Judaism in America similarly began as a reaction to eform Judaism's rejection of traditional Jewish law and practice. The differences between the modern and traditional branches of American Judaism came to a head in 1883, when shellfish and other non-kosher dishes were served at the celebration of the first graduating class of Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati. The adoption of the Pittsburgh Platform in 1885, which dismissed observance of the ritual commandments and the concept of contemporary Jews as God's chosen people as "anachronistic," resulted in a split between the Reform movement and more traditional American Jews.
Jewish Theological Seminary
In 1886, rabbis Sabato Morais and H. Pereira Mendes founded the Jewish Theological Seminary (JTS) in New York City as a more traditional alternative to HUC. The seminary's brief affiliation with the traditional congregations established the Union of Orthodox Congregations in 1898, but this was later severed due to the Orthodox rejection of the Seminary's modernistic academic approach to Jewish learning. At the turn of the century, JTS lacked a source of permanent funding and was ordaining on average no more than one rabbi per year.
The fortunes of Conservative Judaism underwent a dramatic turnaround when in 1902, the famed scholar Solomon Schechter accepted the invitation to become president of JTS. Under Schechter's leadership, JTS attracted a distinguished faculty and became a highly regarded center of Jewish learning. In 1913, the Conservative Movement founded its congregational arm, the United Synagogue of America.
Conservative Judaism enjoyed rapid growth in the first half of the twentieth century, becoming the largest American Jewish denomination. Its combination of traditional practice and limited modern innovation (such as mixed gender seating) particularly appealed to first- and second-generation Eastern European Jewish immigrants, who found Orthodoxy too restrictive, but Reform Judaism too liberal. After World War II, Conservative Judaism continued to thrive. During the 1950s and early 60s, as upwardly-mobile American Jews moved to the suburbs, Conservative Judaism continued to occupy this enviable middle position and experienced a boom in synagogue construction.
Reconstructionist split
However, the Conservative coalition splintered in 1963, when advocates of the Reconstructionist philosophy of Mordecai Kaplan seceded from the movement to form a distinct Reconstructionist Judaism. Kaplan had been a leading figure at JTS for 54 years, and had pressed for liturgical reform and innovations in ritual practice from inside of the framework of Conservative Judaism. Frustrated by the perceived dominance of the more traditionalist voices at JTS, Kaplan's followers decided that the ideas of Reconstructionism would be better served through the creation of separate denomination. In 1968, the split became formalized with the establishment of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College.
Gender and homosexual issues
In the 1970s and early 1980s, Conservative Judaism was divided over issues of gender equality. In 1973, the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards (CJLS) voted to permit synagogues to count women toward a minyan (quorum for formal community religious duties), but left the choice to individual congregations. After a further decade of debate, in 1983, JTS voted to admit women for ordination as Conservative rabbis. Some opponents of these decisions left the Conservative movement to form the Union for Traditional Judaism.
In December 2006, a resolution was adopted by the CJLS that approved the ordination of gay and lesbian rabbis and permitted commitment ceremonies for lesbian and gay Jews (but not same-sex marriage). However, it maintained the traditional prohibition against anal sex between men.[3] However, an opposing responsum, that maintained the traditional prohibitions against gay ordinations and commitment ceremonies, was also approved. Both responsa were enacted as majority opinions, with some members of the Committee voting for both. This result gives individual synagogues, rabbis, and rabbinical schools discretion to adopt either approach.[4]
Current direction
At the time of the 1990 National Jewish Population Survey (NJPS), Conservative Judaism remained the largest Jewish denomination in America, with 43 percent of Jewish households affiliated with a synagogue belonging to Conservative synagogues (compared to 35 percent for Reform and 16 percent for Orthodox). However, in 2000, the NJPS indicated that only 33 percent of synagogue-affiliated American Jews belonging to Conservative synagogue. For the first time in nearly a century, Conservative Judaism is no longer the largest denomination in America, with the Reform tradition drawing mixed-faith couples and Orthodox groups attracting formerly secularized Jews of the baby boom generation seeking to return to the Jewish roots. At the same time, however, certain Conservative institutions, particularly day schools, have shown significant growth. Conservative leaders agree that these contrasting trends indicate that the movement has reached a crossroads as it heads into the twenty-first century.
Beliefs
For much of the its history, Conservative Judaism avoided publishing systematic explications of its understanding of the Jewish principles of faith. This was a conscious attempt to hold together a wide coalition based on the vision of Conservative Judaism as a middle ground Reform Judaism and Orthodoxy.
In 1988, the leadership council of Conservative Judaism finally issued an official statement of belief, Emet Ve-Emunah: Statement of Principles of Conservative Judaism. In accord with classical rabbinic Judaism, it states that Jews generally hold certain beliefs. However, it insists that the Jewish community never developed any one binding catechism. Thus, no formal creed can be binding on all Jews. Instead, Emet Ve-Emunah allows for a range of Jewish beliefs that Conservative rabbis believe are authentically Jewish and justifiable.
Thus, Emet Ve-Emunah affirms belief in One God and in the divine inspiration of the Torah. However it also affirms the legitimacy of multiple interpretations of these issues. Atheism, Trinitarian views of God, and polytheism are all ruled out. It also explicitly rejects both relativism and fundamentalism.
God
Conservative Judaism affirms monotheism. Its members have varied beliefs about the nature of God, and no one understanding of God is mandated. Among the beliefs affirmed as authentically Jewish are: Maimonidean rationalism; Kabbalistic mysticism; Hasidic panentheism; and other theistic traditions.
Revelation
Conservative Judaism allows its adherents to hold to a wide array of views on the subject of revelation. Many Conservative Jews reject the traditional Jewish idea that God literally dictated the words of the Torah to Moses at Mount Sinai in a verbal revelation, but they hold the traditional Jewish belief that God inspired the later prophets.
Conservative Judaism is comfortable with biblical criticism, including the documentary hypothesis, the theory that the Torah was redacted from several earlier sources. Indeed, the movement's rabbinic authorities and its official Torah commentary (Etz Hayim: A Torah Commentary) affirm that Jews should make use of modern critical literary and historical analysis to understand how the Bible developed.
Jewish law
Conservative Judaism views halakha (Jewish religious law) as normative and binding. However, it also affirms that halakha has always evolved to meet the changing realities of Jewish life, and that it must continue to do so in the modern age.
This view, together with Conservative Judaism's diversity of opinion concerning divine revelation, results in considerable diversity in the Conservative movement's tradition of halakha.
The movement is committed to Jewish pluralism and respects the religious practices of Othodox, Reform, and Reconstructionist Jews, while disagreeing with some of their positions. It accepts the clergy of these movements as legitimate rabbis capable of ministering authentically to their congregations.
Conservative Judaism also accepts that the Orthodox approach to halakhah is generally valid, even though it generally opposes Orthodoxy's alleged fundamentalism toward the Torah, Talmud, and halakha. Accordingly, a Conservative Jew may satisfy their own halakhic obligations by participation in Orthodox synagogues. This become important to Conservative Jews traveling or living in Israel, where Conservative rabbis are not officially recognized.
Organization
Institutionally, Conservative Judaism is a unified movement. The international body of Conservative rabbis is the Rabbinical Assembly (RA), while the organization of synagogues is the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism (USCJ), and the primary seminaries are the Jewish Theological Seminary of America (JTS) in New York City and the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies at the American Jewish University (formerly the University of Judaism) in Los Angeles. Conservative Judaism outside the USA is often called Masorti Judaism; Masorti rabbis belong to the Rabbinical Assembly [5]
Affiliated seminaries outside the USA include the Meyer Seminario Rabínico Latinoamericano] in Argentina, and Machon Schechter in Jerusalem.
See also
- Committee on Jewish Law and Standards
- Keshet Rabbis
- Rabbinical Assembly
- Role of women in Judaism
- Conservative Halakha
- Criticism of Conservative Judaism
External links
- Additional reading
- An intro to Conservative Judaism
- The Rabbinical Assembly
- The United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism
- The Jewish Theological Seminary of America
- The Masorti Movement
- Standards for Congregational Practice
- Principles of Masorti Judaism
- The Core Principles of Conservative Judaism
- What is Masorti Judaism?
- Formulating Jewish Law For Our Time
- A Guide to Jewish Religious Practice - Official work on Jewish law
- The role of women in Conservative Judaism
- United Synagogue Youth
- Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies
Footnotes
- ↑ Emet Ve-Emunah, Statement of Principles of Conservative Judaism, 2nd Printing, 1990
- ↑ "In what Direction is the Conservative Movement Headed," Jewish News Weekly of Northern California, January 20, 2006
- ↑ Rabbis Elliot N. Dorff, Daniel S. Nevins, and Avram I. Reisner, Homosexuality, Human Dignity, & Halakhah, Committee on Jewish Law and Standards, Rabbinical Assembly, December 6, 2006.
- ↑ "Conservative Jews Allow Gay Rabbis and Unions," The New York Times, December 7, 2006.
- ↑ Masorti - About the Movement
ReferencesISBN links support NWE through referral fees
- Conservative Judaism: An American Religious Movement. Marshall Sklare. University Press of America (Reprint edition), 1985.
- Conservative Judaism: Our Ancestors To Our Descendants (Revised Edition), Elliot N. Dorff, United Synagogue New York, 1996
- The Conservative Movement in Judaism: Dilemmas and Opportunities, Daniel J. Elazar, Rela Mintz Geffen, SUNY Press, 2000
- Conservative Judaism: The New Century, Neil Gillman, Behrman House 1993
- Halakha For Our Time: A Conservative Approach To Jewish Law, David Golinkin, United Synagogue, 1991
- A Guide to Jewish Religious Practice, Isaac Klein, JTS Press, New York, 1992
- Conservative Judaism in America: A Biographical Dictionary and Sourcebook, Pamela S. Nadell, Greenwood Press, NY 1988
- Emet Ve-Emunah: Statement of Principles of Conservative Judaism, Ed. Robert Gordis, JTS, New York, 1988
- Etz Hayim: A Torah Commentary, Ed. David Lieber, Chaim Potok and Harold Kushner, The Jewish Publication Society, NY, 2001
- Jews in the Center: Conservative Synagogues and Their Members. Jack Wertheimer (Editor). Rutgers University Press, 2000.
Traditional-Egalitarian Judaism
- Beyond Dogma, Jerusalem Post Magazine
- Can anyone save Conservative Judaism from itself? The Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles
PDF
Observance of Conservative Jews
- Conservative Leader Takes Heat for Standards Stance, Forward, March 2002
- Eight Up: The College Years, Survey of Conservative Jewish youth from middle school to college. Ariela Keysar and Barry Kosmin
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