Thursday, January 29, 2009
Tank
Linking to the Reform Shuckle twice in one week: there's an interesting discussion going on about the Rethinking Reform Think Tank -- i.e., the people who other people expect me to agree with and are surprised to find out that I don't so much. In practice I'm probably closer to them than either of us is to the mainstream of the Reform movement, but we seem to differ on philosophy: they seem to think the problem with the Reform movement is too much autonomy, whereas I think the problem is that (informed) autonomy hasn't really been implemented yet.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
I dunno of it's the link from you or what, but on Tuesday I had 278 hits on my blog, which is over 100 more than my previous best day ever. So thanks for your part in that.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I think that the problem with informed autonomy (I think we hit on this in the session itself at Limmud) is that there is a question of how much information equals informed. Does reading a couple of articles on tefilin make you qualified to decide whether or not to make the choice? And if it doesn't, is it even possible to get everyone in the Reform movement that much information?
David, the problem is that--at least from my own experience--very few Reform Jews even read the two articles on tefillin. They just say, "I'm Reform and I don't do that."
ReplyDeleteI think the Conservative movement takes a sensible approach here.
ReplyDeleteAs a preliminary matter, halacha cannot really be "law" since there is no sanction for a violation. In that sense, it depends on persuasion, not force. But it sets forth a standard of behavior.
In Orthodox, halacha is largely frozen. But as I and Ben have both argued, liberal Judaism (both Conservative and Reform, despite the latter's denial) have adopted a flexible and evolving approach to halacha.
But CJ and RJ go in different directions from there. In CJ, halacha carries normative weight. Men (and sometimes women) _should_ wear tefillin. Of course, in practice people make the decision whether or not to do so on their own. And this makes it easier to get people to make informed choices. Since they "should" wear tefillin, they probably should learn something about it. And the Conservative movement can "push" this to some degree. For example, the Jewish Mens Clubs sponsor a "World-Wide Wrap" with events in local synagogues to help people learn about tefillin, put it on, explain why, etc.
Of course, no one is punished or even ostracized for not doing so. But the Conservative movement can say "You should put on tefillin" with a straight face and some persuasive force.
The Reform movement places autonomy at a very high level. And as such, it makes it difficult for the Reform movement to make any normative claims. "You should do X" ultimately means "You should learn about X if you are interested and then do it if you find it sufficiently meaningful." But it is difficult as a conceptual matter to make any stronger statements than that so long individual autonomy occupies such a high value.
In practice, the two movements are quite similar. People do what they want or what they find important. But the Conservative approach seems to me to be starting from a more forceful position.
"You should do X" ultimately means "You should learn about X if you are interested
ReplyDeleteAlthough I'm not Reform, what I believe the Reform movement (on paper) would say is that "you should learn about X, period." It's called "informed autonomy," not "interested autonomy." And informed means informed.
Bruce says that "among the Orthodox Halacha is largely frozen".
ReplyDeleteI have heard this claim made many times, but anyone who is at least somewhat familiar with modern Halachic literature knows that simply is not the case. That is not to say that there is not room for more innovation and liberalization, but even among "conservative" poskim, there is a lot of room for maneuver.
For example, we can even go back to the Mishna, which in Masechet Shabbat explicitly forbids women from wearing jewelry on Shabbat because of the possibility they will take it off and then carry it in an place where "tiltul" is forbidden (outside a reshut hayahid like a house, or an eruv hatzerot), yet by the time of Tosafot it was already allowed for women to go out with jewelry on.
More modern problems like that encountered in 19th century Europe where Jews converted to Christianity not out of belief but in order to get ahead professionally make some poskim agree that these people should be treated more lenienlty than converts out were treated in the past.
Of course, modern technology has made vast impact on halacha and the invention of the Shabbat clock, Shabbat elevator, refrigerators and the such have made life much easier on Shabbat.
There have been revolutionary changes in attitudes to things like Bat Mitzva ceremonies and Torah Study for women even in the most conservative communities of Orthodoxy.
I believe it is incumbent on all of us to increase our knowledge before falling prey to stereotypical characterizations of halacha and those who decide it and practice it.
David A.M. Wilensky writes:
ReplyDeleteAlso, I think that the problem with informed autonomy (I think we hit on this in the session itself at Limmud) is that there is a question of how much information equals informed. Does reading a couple of articles on tefilin make you qualified to decide whether or not to make the choice? And if it doesn't, is it even possible to get everyone in the Reform movement that much information?
I don't think there's any magical point at which one becomes "informed" -- learning should take place continuously throughout life, and one should always strive to become more informed, no matter how much one knows. But yes, I think reading a couple articles (which, as HW notes, is more than many people do) could be sufficient to make an initial choice, with the understanding that one will keep learning more and possibly revisit that choice.
I don't think it's realistic that "everyone in the Reform movement" will become informed to any given level (as long as the Reform movement remains constantly open to new people, which is a good thing), but that doesn't matter as long as there is enough of a critical mass to create a culture of informed autonomy (which I don't think there is yet in the Reform movement, though I've seen it in nondenominational settings). And I think that is an attainable goal. Perhaps not every Reform Jew is going to bcome a scholar. But Orthodox Jews aren't congenitally smarter than Reform Jews, and therefore, I think it is possible for the average Reform Jew to attain the same level of knowledge as the average Orthodox Jew. Or if you say that won't work because the average Orthodox Jew had more Jewish education in childhood, then I'll amend that to say "the average Orthodox Jew who became Orthodox as an adult", and this would still be a vast improvement. It hasn't happened yet because serious Jewish learning isn't valued in Reform communities, not because Reform Jews are fundamentally incapable of it.
As an intermediate stage before informed autonomy becomes the dominant culture, I'd be satisfied with a culture in which informed autonomy is at least accepted rather than shunned.
Bruce-
ReplyDeleteThe Conservative approach is only better if you start with the premises of the Conservative approach: that wearing tefillin is better, or "more observant", than not wearing tefillin. If the goal is to get people to wear tefillin, then of course an approach that encourages this will be more effective at achieving this goal. If neither wearing tefillin nor not wearing tefillin is perceived as "more observant", then it doesn't matter whether or not the Reform movement can make normative claims about it.
Now there is a strain within Reform discourse that does implicitly accept the Conservative (or Orthodox) premises, and as I have discussed, I find this problematic. The views of informed autonomy that posit a fixed list of mitzvot (external to Reform Judaism) from which Reform Jews can choose, or the Franz Rosenzweig "Not yet" view, basically accept a particular set of practices as normative (albeit not required). I think these views are worthy of the "Conservative Lite" epithet (whereas wearing tefillin, in and of itself, is not).
Just as I said in the previous comment that Orthodox Jews aren't congenitally smarter than Reform Jews, I would add that Orthodox and Conservative Jews aren't genetically predisposed to be more disciplined than Reform Jews. If we believe that a particular practice is normative, I think there is little excuse to say as a movement that it is optional. (This would be dangerously close to what I have called half-assed Orthodoxy.) For autonomy to be justified, it must extend to differences of opinion regarding the nature of the mitzvot and halachot, rather than just differences of practice regarding a fixed set of mitzvot and halachot.