I first ran into a Reconstructionist Jew in law school. Never really got into him what the tenets of Reconstructionist Judaism was. Anyone help me out?
V.
I’m fuzzy on it, but I remember it being something like that Reconstructionist Judaism believes that belief in G-d, Torah or Israel is sufficient to make you a Jew. Thus, even if you don’t believe in G-d, but study the Torah, that is enough.
I think of it as Unitarian-ish Judaism.
Here is a site called Who is a Reconstructionist Jew?
Oddly enough, they seem to worship a being called God, not G-d.
As I understand it, Reconstructionism is like pre-Reform Reform. When it was founded, in the early part of the 20th century, Reform Judaism was pretty different from the way it is now - so much so that Jews generally refer to that that style of practice as Classic Reform, to note the difference to modern Reform. Basically, Reform Judaism, which was founded by German Jewish intellectuals, at the time was extremely liberal, never used Hebrew, almost anti-Zionist, they felt that the Land of Israel was unimportant to modern Jewry, etc. Mordechai Kaplan, who was an Orthodox rabbi, founded Reconstructionism in an attempt to come up with a centrist position. (Fun trivia fact: Rav Kaplan’s daughter was the first Bat Mitzvah.) Anyway, with the founding of the State of Israel, Reform began to move slowly back towards older traditions, focusing on Israel, teaching Hebrew, blah blah. Since the majority of American Jews affiliate with the Reform movement, they continued to do stick around with it instead of switching to Reconstructionist. After a while, the two movements became extremely similar. Today, the biggest difference, as far as I can tell, is that Reconstructionists strongly believe in allowing each congregation to make its own decisions about how they want their shul to be run, instead of using some kind of central line. According to Rowan, over in FFF, some shuls are even affiliated with both movements, so similar is their doctrine.
This is not something that I know a whole lot about. But my impression is that the Reconstructionists differ from the Reform and Conservative branches of Judaism in relatively obscure theological details, which were originaly developed by Rabbi Mordechai Kaplan over the course of his half-century of teaching at the Jewish Theological Seminary. These issues can go over the heads of many of the lay people. This accounts for the fact that Reconstructionism has never really grown to rival the other two branches to which it is similar, and the fact, noted by Kyla, that some congregations are affiliated with both movements.
There’s an old joke that sums this up, concerning the purported slogan of the Reconstructionist movement: “There is no G-D - and Mordechai Kaplan is his prophet”.
But again, I’m actually not too well versed in this subject, and am open to correction.
Some minor qubbles with Kyla’s post:
The early Reform movement was not “almost anti-Zionist”, they were, for the most part vehemently anti-Zionist. Zionism suggested that the Jews were a nation distinct from any other. This was a great threat to the early Reform viewpoint which considered Judaism a religious perspective, and considered Jews to be otherwise completely part of Gentile society. Over time, the Zionist symphathies of their membership forced a change in the Reform position.
Mordechai Kaplan was a Conservative theologian. The JTS (at which he taught) is the foremost - if not only - Conservative seminary in the US.
The University of Judaism in LA also ordains Conservative Rabbis (but possibly not at the time that Kaplan was at JTS).
Rick
The University of Judaism in L.A. are splittest dogs!! At least according to my JTS-ordained former roommate. He forthrightly based his opinion on the decrease in his bargaining power with the increase in the supply of conservative rabbis.
Thanks for all the answers. My thinking is that Reconstructionist Judaism is rather like most third parties in American history - eventually, their ideas were adopted in some part by the mainstream parties.
V.
For what it’s worth, let me relate this little bit. The rabbi of our Reform congregation took her regular sabbatical (as she does every seven years). The substitute rabbi was a Reconstructionist rabbi. And, oh by the way, her lesbian partner and daughter would also come to services as well. She was a pretty good rabbi.
I can imagine the riot that would break out if that happened in an Orthodox or Conservative congregation…
During a Purim celebration at the seminary, my old roommate presented a Top Ten list of things not to say to the JTS admissions committee. Here’s what I remember:
"I want to be a rabbi because:
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I hear you can make a killing doing intermarriages.
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Rabbis have lots of access to impressionable teenage girls.
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I want to be the test case for striking the ban on homosexual Conservative rabbis … AANNNDDD
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Being a rabbi is the best way I can imitate the life of my Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ."
He got big laughs. 'Course, at the time, my roomie did not foretell the raging debate on this MB about whether JC was a rabbi.
V.
Bibleo: in case you are serious, you DO know that Jews are not allowed to write/say the Holy Name of G-d, don’t you? There are a lot of Observant Jews here on this Board, who I respect very much, so I try to follow the practice.
Daniel, you’re right, we aren’t allowed to say the name of god. However, his name isn’t god. You probably know what it is - the English word Jehovah is a corruption of his name. God is an English word, and there isn’t actually any rule against saying it. The use of g-d is what’s called gader torah, a fence around the Torah. That’s going the extra step, just to make ABSOLUTELY SURE that you aren’t breaking a rule. My Islam professor (who was a kipa-wearing Jew) once yelled at my class for writing g-d, but not all-h in our papers, because the Arabic word for god comes from the same root as the Hebrew, and we should be more careful about using it than we should about using the English word. Point being, I feel no compunction to write god as g-d, but in religious conversation, usually refer to god as HaShem, the Name.
Gosh, I’m long-winded.
I appologize if I offended anyone. I knew about the prohibition on writing the name (or at least I thought I did), but I never imagined it would apply to what I take to be the title “God”. The site The name of God explains it (to my satisfaction, anyway). The author of the page describes himself as a taditional observant Jew. I’m open to hearing dissenting views.