Keeping politics out of the pulpit – can we do it and should we even try?

When should religious leaders talk about politics – and when should they keep their opinions to themselves?

Three recent debates have grabbed my attention.  The first one is the campaign to get Jewish organisations to ‘sign on the Green Line’ – to commit to only using maps of Israel which show the border between the State of Israel and the occupied (or liberated?) territories.  Masorti Judaism was asked to sign up and – unlike the Reform and Liberal movements – we decided to refuse.  The initial feeling was this was a controversial party-political issue we didn’t want to take a stand on. 

But then a member of our Executive made the argument that in some parts of the world it’s illegal to use the wrong kind of map and he doesn’t want to live in a society like that.  So our ‘apolitical’ position, while not changing its substance, suddenly found a connection with an explicitly political, liberal conception of human rights.  In contrast, earlier in the year, we had called on the Zionist Federation to grant membership to Yachad, an organisation which brands itself ‘pro-Israel, pro-peace’ and which is commonly perceived as provocatively left-wing.  This was on the basis of our commitment to pluralism and diversity in the Jewish community; on reflection, these values are drawn from a Masorti conception of the Jewish religious tradition, also have unmistakeable political connotations.

Issue number two was the criticism levelled by 27 bishops at the government’s welfare reforms, which they say have forced people into food and fuel poverty.  When asked in an interview what policy the bishops would recommend, a spokesman replied that policy is the government’s job: the Church’s role is to speak about morality.  But the line between morality and politics is hard to maintain, especially when this government likes to promote its welfare policies in explicitly moral terms.

Final issue: gay marriage. It’s clear that this is an issue where religion, politics and morality all overlap.  Religious organisations can’t help taking a position on this and, in so doing, getting involved with one of the more controversial political debates of our day.

It turns out religion and politics cannot be easily disentangled.  The Torah constantly hints at this.  In dozens of texts, moral, ritual and social-political commandments are interwoven with no clear distinction between them.

So if there’s no way of separating religion and politics, how do we decide what political issues it is legitimate for Judaism to speak about?

As Masorti Jews who are committed to modern values but also to bringing Judaism into the modern world, this is even more complex: after all, alongside progressive social values the Torah contains terrible political models – slavery, patriarchy, even genocide.  How are we to decide which to learn from for modern politics and which to abandon because they don’t gel with our values?

In a fascinating but sometimes infuriating article, ‘The Social Order as a Religious Problem,’ Israeli thinker Yeshayahu Leibowitz asks whether Judaism seeks to create a particular social and political system, or whether it consists of laws which are to be obeyed in whatever system happens to exist.  In essence, is Judaism in favour of capitalism, socialism or some other alternative, or is it simply not interested?  He lists three possibilities:

“In the first, it is our religious duty, the religious duty of those who accept the yoke of Torah and Mitzvoth, to strive to create the kind of system in which the sociopolitical legislation of the existing Halakhah may be applied.

“We may, in the second alternative, surmise that the relevant parts of the Halakhah were only used by the Torah as a paradigm to exemplify realization of its social goal within an histor­ically given situation. Our task is to clarify the nature of this goal and seek a social order most adapted to its attainment in our situation as we understand it.

“The third possible view is that the sociopolitical leg­islation of the Torah was intended only for the specific sociopolitical reality that existed then. With its passing, social and political life and the Torah were sundered, and we are free today to choose a social order as we please. All that is required of us is the realization of "justice and righteousness" in a form applicable to the framework we have chosen....”

Which alternative does Leibowitz advocate? It’s not at all clear.  The first is clearly not the intention of the Torah, as witnessed by the absurdity of the claim that the prohibition of ploughing with an ox and an ass yoked together obliges us to return to primitive agriculture in order to observe the commandment.  Both this and the third option, according to Leibowitz, exempt Jews from any religious duty regarding social and political questions in the contemporary world.  He goes on to imply that a position which cares about kosher and non-kosher food but not about Zionism and anti-Zionism or war and peace cannot be reconciled with the spirit of the Torah.

But the second position is also unacceptable to Leibowitz, as it makes Judaism dependent on our subjective opinions on the shape of the idea society and as such deviates from the normative, rule-bound, halachic framework.

Leibowitz’s conclusion, then, is resolutely unclear.  Torah Jews can’t ignore political questions, but neither is there any straightforward way of answering these questions within the halachic framework.  To reframe the conundrum, we have to choose: we can either step outside halacha and address politics, or refrain from talking politics, paradoxically one of the central concerns of Torah, altogether.

But it seems to me that Leibowitz’s position reflects a particular, Orthodox, conception of halacha, in which Jewish law is inferred deductively from objective first principles contained in the Torah.  A more nuanced, historical understanding of Judaism would recognise that in every generation people’s subjective views, conditioned by their social and historical context, come into dialogue with legal precedents handed down from the past, and that halachic ruling are what emerges from this encounter.  This is very clear when we look at the legal radicalism of the early Talmudic rabbis who on many occasions effectively reversed laws they found in the written Torah, but became less pronounced as Jewish law evolved.

This openness is what enables Judaism – in its halachic form – to meet new challenges and unprecedented situations (even ultra-Orthodox rabbis recognise Jewish law’s capacity to meet entirely novel challenges in the area of medical ethics, for example).  Today, this is the insight which allows people in the Masorti/Conservative and liberal Orthodox communities to grapple creatively with issues like homosexuality.  As a result, we can find ourselves coming to halachic positions which deviate wildly from what came before.

But the view that genuine, sometimes radical, halachic innovation is born out of open, subjective intergenerational dialogue, also implies a challenging responsibility: when taking positions on pressing social, political and moral questions, we have no Archimedean point on which to stand.  We have no choice but to go back to basics and to deliberate from first principles.

Get to the chicken without breaking eggs: how to grow Masorti Judaism without being Chabad

Lately the press has been full of stories about the demise of Conservative (Masorti) Judaism in the USA.  I suspect the reports are premature: Conservative Judaism is still very much alive and kicking.  But whereas the American movement - once the largest synagogue body in the world - is wrestling with shrinkage and the search for a new mission, here in the UK Masorti has a different challenge.

We’re the youngest stream of Judaism in this country and, despite rapid growth over the past twenty years, still the smallest by far.  I believe our unique approach to Judaism has the power to inspire people, connect them with other Jews, give their lives meaning and, in the process, counter the dominant trends of social atomisation, consumerism and assimilation which concern us all.

But we’re stuck in a chicken and egg situation: in order to reach out, we have to grow.  We need to found more communities to accommodate additional Jews in new areas, and we need to use the resulting growth in membership to gather the resources needed for further outreach and growth.  In an ideal world, this would form a virtuous circle where the flood of dues-paying members to our movement would enable us to train and recruit the rabbis, educators and community leaders we need to achieve our goals.

But the strategy has one major problem: it’s very difficult to found new communities. 

One organisation in the Jewish world seems to have hit upon a solution to this problem: Chabad/Lubavitch.  The Chabad model is to send ‘shluchim’ – rabbinic emissaries – into the farthest reaches of the world (anywhere from Manila to Birmingham) to set up institutions, draw people in and create community life.  And Chabad are amazingly successful: according to Wikipedia they are the largest Jewish religious organization in the world today, maintaining 3600 institutions in over 1000 cities across 70 countries, with tens or even hundreds of thousands of adherents.

But this model can’t work for Masorti – and not because as religious liberals we don’t have the religious passion to attract the masses (for a comment on this from the Christian world see http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/andrewbrown/2014/jan/18/church-growth-theology-evangelical-lesson-liberals).  Our problem is twofold and very practical: 1. We don’t have the financial or human resources to rapidly deploy enough new rabbis; 2. We are ideologically committed to a bottom-up, grassroots, lay-led model of community development.  We can’t afford to plonk down rabbis and, even if we could, we probably wouldn’t want to.

Our strategy has been different: find groups of people who are attracted to Masorti Judaism, identify potential leaders among them, and then support them to begin creating community life.  When they’re ready, they’ll grow, attract members, develop financial resources and become ready to employ a rabbi, rent a building and then embark on more serious growth.  At the same time it’s the movement’s job to identify candidates and train rabbis, and to develop the community development expertise that will enable us to support these nascent groups. 

Here are three recent, real-life examples.

1. Muswell Hill – I’m a member of New North London Synagogue (NNLS), a fantastically successful community which now has close to 2000 adult members.  But this success breeds problems of its own – it becomes harder for some people to find the kind of intimate community life which the shul once provided.  About two miles down the road is Muswell Hill, a neighbourhood with only one (Orthodox) synagogue, a cross-communal Jewish school, and lots of Jews – including many who are unaffiliated or in mixed families (my evidence for this is anecdotal but Haringey, Muswell Hill’s local authority, does have over 7000 Jews according to the 2011 census).  Informal conversations with NNLS members who live in the area revealed lots of enthusiasm for some more local, intimate Jewish activities.  So we identified some potential leaders, advertised in the shul newsletter, held an initial planning meeting with a handful of local people, and are now planning a launch activity for Saturday night, April 8^th (contact me for details).  

The initiative was started by Laurence Jacobs, Masorti’s small community fieldworker, but almost immediately other volunteers stepped forward to take on leadership roles.  The plan is to build on a core of Masorti members to draw in other people from the neighbourhood and to go from there.  This group might end up as a minyan or chavurah (informal prayer or community group) affiliated to New North London Synagogue, paying membership to the shul and using its facilities but holding its own, local activities; or it might take a different, more independent path.  Less than one meeting in, the time is not yet ripe for mapping out the future.

2. Noam and Marom graduates – Noam and Marom are, respectively, Masorti’s youth movement and young adult organisation.  Over the years Noam has been phenomenally successful at inspiring young people and connecting them with Judaism, but has not necessarily had the effect of building a relationship between them and synagogue life.  Marom’s aim is to continue to engage young adults with Jewish communal life when they’re done with Noam but are at a stage of life where synagogue does not yet appeal.  

Recently, the first groups of Noam graduates / Marom members have reached an age where regular Jewish involvement has become an issue.  Some of these people (again, despite our commitment to volunteerism, led by a professional – this time Naomi Magnus, our Marom director) have initiated a series of regular, monthly Friday night dinners, sometimes preceded by a kabbalat Shabbat service.  The events are hosted by members, in their homes.  As some of these people begin to get married and have children, we wait to see which direction this group will take – will some of them join other local Masorti shuls?  Will they want to sustain their own, independent group existence and grow into a more permanent community?  Or will some other path emerge?

3. Shenley (Hertfordshire): we know that Hertsmere has one of the fastest growing Jewish populations in the country (over 14,000 Jews live there according to the 2011 census).  It was a no brainer to supplement what at the time was a fortnightly service held by the Elstree and Borehamwood Masorti community.  The fact that Laurence, our small community fieldworker, had recently moved to Shenley provided an ideal opportunity.  He decided to hold a Friday night Kabbalat Shabbat service and pot luck dinner in his home.  He leafleted his entire neighbourhood and advertised in local shops, cafes and online, as well as inviting his own personal contacts from the area.  

20 people showed up for the first event and future meetings are planned, with participants offering to host in their homes.  We’ve been careful to make everyone aware that there are two Masorti shuls in the area – Elstree and Borehamwood (which has now made a successful transition to weekly services) and St Albans – and for the foreseeable future we see the Shenley group as a recruiting ground for these fully-fledged communities.

So the model clearly works – at least in terms of seeding new initiatives.  And potential exists in additional areas: Manchester, Mill Hill and Primrose Hill are all in our sights.  Whether all these groups are sustainable remains to be seen.

But our approach faces one other challenge: while the movement wants to form new communities as part of our growth agenda, local synagogues are often – legitimately – focused on their own needs.  In particular, local shul leaders need to sustain or grow their membership in order to achieve financial stability and fund their important programmes, and are wary of new groups cannibalising their membership.  The last thing we want to do as an organisation is to damage our existing communities, but as the Jewish population becomes ever more concentrated, it’s harder to find areas with lots of Jews that aren’t perceived to be too close to an existing synagogue.  As a halachic movement, we’re also committed to setting up local shuls so people don’t feel they have to drive on Shabbat. 

To solve this problem, we’ve decided to go down the route of satellite communities: partnering with existing synagogues to set up new groups which will hold their own local services, learning and social activities but will continue to use the cheder, burial society, rabbinic services of the existing community and – just as importantly – paying it membership dues.  The model is an extension of what already happens at, for example, New North London Synagogue, where three minyanim share a synagogue and everyone is a member of one large community.  The only difference is that we want to enable new groups to operate off-site so as to draw in new, previously non-Masorti people.  And perhaps the model is sustainable into the more distant future as a new way of organising our community life – rather than basing ourselves around individual, self-reliant synagogues, a better structure could be clusters of small to medium-sized communities all sharing administrative, rabbinic and educational infrastructure.

It’s an exciting experiment and we’re confident in its chances of success – even if we don’t know for certain if it’s going to work  I look forward to reporting back on progress. 

Can Orthodoxy succeed where Conservative/Masorti Judaism has failed? Comments on Daniel Gordis's 'Cognitive Dissonance'

Daniel Gordis just published a fascinating follow-up to his critique of Conservative/Masorti Judaism in light of the Pew Report - http://jewishreviewofbooks.com/articles/673/cognitive-dissonance/

Here are my comments (also posted on the site):

It seems to me that there's a disconnect between Gordis's diagnosis and his solution.  The solution - a cross-denominational, counter-cultural Judaism grounded in obligation and Jewish literacy - is something I can wholeheartedly agree with, and reflects the vision we are trying to work towards at Masorti Judaism in the UK.  But the diagnosis which leads to this remedy - the idea that Conservative Judaism fell apart because of lowering of standards - is deeply flawed.

If Conservative Judaism failed because Jews are looking for authority and commitment, how does Gordis explain that only 1% of young people (according to Pew) identify with modern Orthodoxy, as opposed to the 11% who still identify as Conservative?  The numbers don't back up his arguments.  Moreover, there's a strong case to be made that the relative vibrancy of certain Orthodox congregations is a result of their exclusivity - ideological commitment is much easier to sustain when anyone who does not identify simply leaves (or does not come in to begin with). Clearly this kind of exclusivity is not a recipe for mass Jewish engagement.  And where Orthodox communities are inclusive - for example in the UK - we see that they suffer from exactly the same kinds of problems that face Conservative communities in the US.

The flip side of this critique is the real elephant in the room missing from Gordis's analysis: the deep commitment of Conservative/Masorti Jews (and many other members of the liberal Jewish world) to diversity and pluralism as matters of principle.  The real challenge is not simply how to sustain a committed, literate Jewish community (which is hard enough) but how to do so in such a way that Jews of different beliefs, styles of practice, philosophical and political orientations, not to mention genders and sexual preferences will choose to join and be part of the conversation.  I would like to hear some intelligent views from contemporary Jewish leaders on this pressing problem.

“A misbegotten shambles perpetrated by an out of touch elite” – why is Michael Gove so sensitive to criticisms of first world war leaders? Some thoughts on history, ideology and politics.

The catfight – I prefer not to dignify it by calling it a debate – between Michael Gove, Tristram Hunt, Boris Johnson, Nick Clegg et al about the history of the first world war is truly fascinating: who’d have thought that (mis)interpreting a complex, controversial historical event could be enough of a reason to demand the resignation of a shadow cabinet minister? 

But that’s what Boris Johnson said this week in response to Tristram Hunt: “I can hardly believe that the author of this fatuous Observer article is proposing to oversee the teaching of history in our schools.  If Tristram Hunt seriously denies that German militarism was at the root of the First World War, then he is not fit to do his job, either in opposition or in government, and should resign.” 

The article by Hunt which provoked this reaction was in some ways no less partisan.  He said: ‘The reality is clear: the government is using what should be a moment for national reflection and respectful debate to rewrite the historical record and sow political division.  In the very paper that so grotesquely called into question Ralph Miliband's wartime service in the Royal Navy, the education secretary has sought to blame "leftwing academics" for misrepresenting the First World War.’

And Gove’s initial foray was also explicitly political: “Our understanding of the war has been overlaid by misunderstandings, and misrepresentations which reflect an, at best, ambiguous attitude to this country  and, at worst, an unhappy compulsion on the part of some to denigrate virtues such as patriotism, honour and courage. 

“The conflict has, for many, been seen through the fictional prism of dramas such as Oh! What a Lovely War, The Monocled Mutineer and Blackadder, as a misbegotten shambles – a series of catastrophic mistakes perpetrated by an out-of-touch elite. Even to this day there are Left-wing academics all too happy to feed those myths.”

It should be clear that there are actually two separate arguments.  One is an argument about history: what actually happened?  Who was to blame for the war, why did it break out, was Britain’s decision to enter the conflict correct, and how should we evaluate the conduct of the war? 

The second argument is one about politics and ideology, over ideas of patriotism, nationalism, militarism, imperialism, pacifism and democracy.  When political leaders argue about history, they’re really arguing about something else: contemporary debates over Europe, immigration, the welfare state, education policy.  But the same leaders are also convinced that it’s possible to separate between the ideological and the academic – hence the outrage each side experiences at the other’s ‘abuses’ of history.

This conviction reflects a distinction made by historian Bernard Lewis in his book, History: Remembered, Recovered, Invented.  Lewis defines three kinds of history.  Remembered history is essentially collective memory: past events which a particular community or nation chooses to remember, whether as reality or symbol.  Recovered history is the history which has been forgotten, in other words rejected by collective memory, and which is subsequently reconstructed by academic scholarship (for a brilliant discussion on the relationship between memory, history and identity see Zakhor by Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi – Yerushalmi argues that critical, modern Jewish historiography arose in the 19^th century as an ultimately failed attempt to replace the traditional identity that had collapsed along pre-modern Jewish collective memory). Invented memory is designed for a new ideological purpose, whether this is conservative, radical, nationalist or multicultural. 

Lewis draws a clear line between recovered and invented history, claiming that whereas recovered history is characterised by an honest attempt to identify and neutralise the prejudices of the historian in pursuit of the truth, invented history reflects nothing but its authors’ ideological positions.  But aside from the fact that the current debate shows that it’s all too easy for one person’s recovered history to be dismissed as invention, the distinction itself is nowhere near this neat. 

In his classic book What is History?, E.H. Carr convincingly showed that ideology and scholarship can never be separated.  Our naïve faith that historical interpretations emerge in a straightforward way from the facts is disrupted by the insight – obvious once you consider it - that historians inevitably choose which facts to present – based on which are most relevant or important.  The problem is that relevance and importance assume a frame of reference, one that by definition cannot be derived from facts.  In other words, facts are a product of interpretation no less than interpretations are products of the facts.  While Carr refused to submit to relativism – the idea that any subjective historical narrative is as good as any other – he was clear that history is not objective in a simplistic sense, but consists of an interaction or dialogue between the historian and his or her facts.

But if the lines between history and ideology are inherently blurred, in another sense, the approaches of Gove, Hunt and the rest are all resolutely ideological.  Gove and Johnson are not only using the war to argue for their own political opinions.  Their underlying view is that there is one, objectively true version of history which has to be defended in the face of ideologically motivated mendacity. 

Hunt and Clegg understand, against this, that history is inherently pluralistic, with diverse interpretations vying for our attention.  Yet this nuanced approach is also a principled position which needs to be vigorously defended.

Thus the real debate is a philosophical one, between an objectivist, monistic epistemology (Gove and Johnson) and one which takes a more complex, sophisticated view of historical interpretation and knowledge in general.  And it’s no surprise that epistemological pluralism should go along with more accepting attitudes towards social and cultural diversity.

So when MPs argue about history, it’s not just a cover for a political debate.  Real historical and even philosophical positions are on the line – and debates over distant events, freed from the demands of political correctness when talking about more contemporary issues, are often where these views come into the open. 

A cynic might not be surprised, in this light, by a Tory politician’s sensitivity criticisms of the war as ‘a misbegotten shambles – a series of catastrophic mistakes perpetrated by an out-of-touch elite.’  It all sounds a bit too contemporary.  But this kind of unintentional honesty provides a rare opportunity for voters to judge politicians not by what they say, but by what they actually think.

Are religious labels past their sell-by date? A defence of denominations in a post-denominational world

This is my piece published in this week's thejc.com - but unfortunately not yet in the online edition.

I’m about to head out to Limmud conference, where literally thousands of Jews of every conceivable stripe spent five days learning, debating, celebrating and socialising together.  Coming hot on the heels of that other winter highlight, Hanukah, Limmud set out a particularly fashionable message about contemporary Jewish existence. 

The Hanukah story is a narrative of cultural tension and ultimately civil war within the Jewish people.  Sectarianism threatened their existence whereas unity brought salvation.  So too, the Limmud version of Judaism preaches the values of coexistence, mutual respect and learning from each other as vital for the Jewish future.  In recent weeks, this message has had a galvanising effect: those Orthodox rabbis who called for a boycott of Limmud have been roundly criticised by most mainstream communal leaders.

This welcome support for better relationships among different kinds of Jews, however, reflects a more radical, controversial view: the idea that denominationalism is necessarily destructive.  In the face of exciting new cross-communal initiatives, traditional institutions such as Masorti, Reform, Liberal and the United Synagogue often seem to be on the back foot - if not actively softening at the edges.  Perhaps this explains the development of multi-denominational community centres in Oxford and Hatch End, the emergence of alternative, ‘partnership’ minyanim within Orthodoxy, or the fact that for the very first time, the Chief Rabbi felt the need to attend Limmud.

In the United States, denominational Judaism also seems to be in retreat.  The recent Pew Research Center’s survey, ‘A Portrait of Jewish Americans,’ shows that whereas 75% of Jews aged 50+ affiliate with particular denominations (Reform, Conservative, Orthodox or ‘other’), in the 18-29 age bracket that number shrinks to 59%, with the remaining 41% identifying as Jews of no denomination. 

While there is much to celebrate here - Jews getting along better with other Jews is certainly no bad thing - the post-denominational trend has a more troubling side.  The Pew figures show that as American Jews assimilate, they tend to switch allegiance from the traditional to the progressive strands of Judaism, from there to non-denominational affiliation, and finally to identifying as ‘Jews of no religion.’  This is not to say that you can’t be a committed Reform or post-denominational Jew – plenty of those certainly exist.  But the emergence of non-denominationalism seems primarily to reflect a process of disengagement from Judaism.  

But does assimilation leads to the loss of denominational identity, or is the relationship the other way around?  In a recent article, Daniel Gordis (a Conservative rabbi who has moved towards modern-Orthodoxy) blames the synagogue movements – and Conservative Judaism in particular – for failing to stem the tide of assimilation through their inability to articulate a compelling message for modern Jews.  Gordis believes that too much compromise and the abandonment of principles has driven people away.  Yet we’re all too aware that very few contemporary Jews want to engage with a Judaism they see as dogmatic or intolerant.

So what are our options?  Here and there in the Jewish world there are exceptions to the sectarian/assimilation polarity.  Chabad Hasidim, for example, are well known for combining passion and commitment with genuine love and openness.  But while Chabad’s outreach strategy reflects tolerance of all Jews, it does not imply a fundamentally accepting attitude towards different expressions of Judaism.  

My own movement, Conservative/Masorti Judaism, provides a different twist to this model.  A slightly cynical Masorti rabbi friend from Israel recently commented to me that our problem is that we invest all our energy in the future of the Jewish people, while neglecting our own movement.   It’s true that in the States, at a time when official Conservative Judaism is undergoing a period of organisational decline, hundreds of independent minyanim, educational projects and social change initiatives are being led by people who’ve grown up in Conservative synagogues and summer camps and who are now expressing their values in the wider Jewish world. 

In this country too, Masorti Jews are disproportionately represented in the leadership of cross-communal Jewish institutions of all kinds.  On a personal level, I’ve recently been part of the initiative to set up a new Jewish school – Alma Primary in Finchley.  Although many of the initial founders were members of New North London Synagogue, we took the decision to make Alma a cross-communal school, not a Masorti one. 

And, unlike Chabad, this commitment to diversity goes all the way down into Masorti theology.  Our rabbis are committed to the idea that halacha, Jewish law, is inherently pluralistic.  Masorti synagogues are well known for combining a clear, recognisable ethos with a remarkable tolerance for difference – often within the same community.  My own shul, New North London, has both traditional (separate seating, male-led service) and fully egalitarian minyanim, with very little tension between them.  And all this takes place in a synagogue community where people meet week in week out for prayer, Jewish learning and the building of meaningful relationships.  Are there any post-denominational frameworks in the country that can offer the same?

It turns out that there is a third option beyond intolerant sectarianism and the abandonment of specific ideological commitments.  The kind of ‘soft’ denominationalism represented by Masorti and other like-minded communities might be our best way forward.  Certainly without it, the post-denominational institutions we’re so proud of will have very little to sustain them.

Who do you want to get into bed with - Masorti or Haredi Jews? A question for my modern Orthodox friends

The organised Jewish community has become obsessed about who’s attending Limmud.  More specifically we’re preoccupied with which Orthodox rabbis are attending (or not attending) and more specifically still with what other Orthodox rabbis have tosay about Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis who has finally done what his predecessor Jonathan Sacks should have done, and signed up for the conference.

I hate to add to the clamour by writing this piece, and I personally have no strong feelings about whether Rabbi Mirvis should attend.  I hope he enjoys Conference and feels he made the right decision.  But the episode does raise important issues of Jewish identity and Jewish peoplehood.

I recently stuck my nose into a Facebook debate in a groupcalled MO/OO – Modern Orthodox/Open Orthodox.  A call had been issued for modern Orthodox leaders to stand up for the Chief Rabbi and speak out against a group of ultra-Orthodox luminaries who’ve issued a public letter urging their followers to boycott Limmud.  I asked why only modern Orthodox leaders were being called on.  Shouldn’t Jewish leaders of every stripe rally round an institution that brings Jews together to learn?  How has the question of participation at Limmud come to be seen as an internal battle for people who label themselves with the ‘O’ word?

There’s a fundamental question here for people who define themselves as modern-, liberal- or open-Orthodox (or any other variant I have yet to come across).  Who is your coalition?  Who do you align with?  Who’s a member of your Jewish ‘family’?  Are you more at home with the people to your right – the ‘black’ and ‘grey’ worlds of more mainstream and ultra-Orthodoxy – or with those to your left – Conservative/Masorti Judaism and the more traditional fractions of other liberal Jewish movements?  Are the aspirations of MO/OO Jews best served by fighting over the future of Orthodoxy, or should they more profitably throw their lot in with the rest of us, ignore their own right flank, and focus on the future of the Jewish people as a whole?

Some people in the Facebook debate said we can’t ignore reality – whatever the similarities between us, Orthodox and Masorti are divided by a clear line: Orthodox Jews are obligated in a very practical sense to halachic observance whereas most Masorti Jews, however committed they might be to the halachic framework in theory, tend to give halacha at most a vote and certainly not a veto in their own religious decision making.  This difference seems to stem from a theological distinction: Orthodoxy of whatever persuasion ostensibly buys into the idea of a direct link between divine revelation and the halachic system, whereas Masorti/Conservative Judaism understands halacha as a human creation which evolves over time in response to changing historical circumstances and the Jewish people’s ongoing quest to articulate a meaningful response to God.

But the minute we look around us, we see this isn’t the case.  The (Orthodox) United Synagogue is full of Jews who identify as Orthodox but whose lifestyles don’t begin to approach the standards set out by halacha; you can’t even assume that committed members of US communities are fully observant.  I’d venture to say that not every member of the MO/OO Facebook group keeps all 613 mitzvot.  And I know for a fact that they (alongside many modern Orthodox academics and intellectuals) don’t all buy the official line that the Torah as we know it was given to Moses at Mount Sinai.  At my own (Masorti) shul, this diversity of religious practice also holds true – in fact, there’s no way of knowing who keeps what, and the fact that there’s no correlation between communal involvement, Jewish knowledge and ritual observance is one of the best things about the community. 

And even if we could draw a (blurry) line between Orthodox and Masorti Judaism in terms of practice or theology, should we assume that commitment to a certain style of observance is a necessary qualification for participation in the debate over liberalism and halacha?  To anyone who thinks it is, I’m tempted to respond that maybe a certain level of commitment to liberal values should also be a condition of entry.  In other words, if you think I’m not frum enough to participate in your conversation, maybe you’re not open-minded enough to take part in mine.

But this kind of small-mindedness is clearly fruitless.  I prefer the line taken by an (Orthodox) rabbinic colleague who told me he aspires to create a meaningful conversation about the future of what he calls ‘centrist Judaism’ in which anyone who connects with the term would be able to participate.  I take this to mean a conversation in which anyone who cares about halacha, Torah education, Jewish peoplehood and liberal values can take part – without strict entry criteria and without the problem of constantly having to look over our shoulders at people whose opinion we think we should care about but who are not part of the conversation.  Because this way, anyone whose opinion we care about will be part of the conversation, and anyone who chooses to stay outside can safely be left there.

One final point, and something I think all of us – Orthodox or not – can learn from the history of Conservative/Masorti Judaism (and emphatically not because Masorti Judaism is in any objective way better than the other streams).  Conservative Jews have always had as their first allegiance not their own movement, but the Jewish people as a whole.  Solomon Schechter, one of the founders of Conservative Judaism in the States, coined the term ‘Catholic Israel’ to refer to the collectivity of committed Jews of whatever denomination, in his eyes the historical agent which has the authority to shape and authorise halachic change.  Today, the Conservative movement in the States is in a period of numerical and organisational decline, but hundreds of independent minyanim, synagogues, educational projects and social change initiatives are being led by people who’ve grown up in the Conservative movement and who are now expressing their values in the wider Jewish world. 

In this country too, Masorti Jews are disproportionately represented in the leadership of cross-communal Jewish institutions of all kinds.  On a personal level, I’ve recently been part of the initiative to set up a new Jewish school – Alma Primary in Finchley.  Many of the initial founders were members of New North London Synagogue, but we took the decision to make Alma a cross-communal school, not a Masorti one.  In his sermon for Yom Kippur and in a recent address to a meeting of Masorti leaders from all over Europe, Rabbi Chaim Weiner, Av Bet Din of the European Masorti Bet Din, spoke about two exemplars of modern Jewish leadership: despite the ideological rift between them and Masorti, he chose to take example from Rabbi Ovadia Yosef and the Lubavitcher Rebbe.  How many Orthodox leaders would be open enough to publicly take inspiration from Leo Baeck or Mordecai Kaplan?

A slightly cynical friend – an Israel Masorti rabbi – commented to me that the problem with Masorti/Consevative Jews is that we invest all our energy in the future of the Jewish people, while neglecting the future of our own movement.  But in the present divided, fractious state of the Jewish community, I see this tendency in a much more positive light.  We certainly face a challenge in getting the balance right: how much do we invest in our movement as a vehicle for articulating the Jewish values we believe in, and how much do we act on those values through action in the wider Jewish community? 

And the same challenge is no less important for Orthodox Jews involved in leading Partnership Minyanim, championing Limmud, working for gay/lesbian inclusion or promoting critical, open-minded education.  I’d like to extend this challenge as an invitation to anyone who’s concerned with centrist, liberal, halachic Judaism, and the future of the Jewish people as a whole.  How can we work together and learn from each other, both within and across the denominational lines which ostensibly divide us, in pursuit of our common goals?  I’m waiting to hear ideas.

Lost rabbits and a dilemma about parenting

 We recently moved house and, in the space of a week, managed to lose our two guinea pigs and rabbit.  If you follow me on Facebook you may remember me scrambling around the garden to save one of these animals from a fox only a few months back.  The guinea pigs were the first to go.  Unused to having a lawn (our previous house had decking and a patio) we left the rabbit and guinea pigs in the run overnight.  The next morning, the rabbit was still there but the guinea pigs were gone.  The gashes in the grass led us to believe that the rabbit had dug a hole just deep enough to let the guinea pigs escape. Given that guinea pigs run more or less aimlessly when released from the hutch, we were under no illusions that they’d come back. 

We started being more careful with the rabbit after that, keeping him in his hutch rather than letting him run around the garden.  But he stopped eating and started to shed fur.  Whether this was from boredom or loneliness, we decided that pending the purchase of new companion guinea pigs, we had to let him roam around the garden, making sure to return him to his hutch at night time.  But the rabbit was hard to catch and impossible to retrieve when he hid in small, dark places.  One evening he escaped and hid under the shed.  We weren’t too worried about leaving him – this had happened before and he always emerged in the morning.  But in middle of the night we heard noises – some kind of screaming – from the garden.  I couldn’t really get back to sleep, and in the morning the rabbit was gone.  Only a few traces of fur were left in the grass.

I felt guilty about the guinea pigs (although the kids accepted their loss quite calmly) but we were all upset about the rabbit.  I looked for him in the garden for the next couple of days.  My four year old came home upset, having thought to pick dandelion leaves for him, then remembering he was gone.  I had a similar moment this morning when I cut the dry end off a cucumber I found in the fridge.

While I know this is trivial – animals die all the time – I’ve found the guilt surprisingly difficult.  I was responsible for a domestic animal who couldn’t look after himself in the wild, and allowed him to come to harm.  My wife (more upset than me – it was really her rabbit) said that’s just how it goes.  Animals are not objects, you can’t control them and you can only look after them while they’re with you.  Keeping a depressed rabbit cooped up in a hutch or run would have been the only other solution – and obviously no solution at all. 

I’m not sure I agree – there were other precautions we could have taken – but ultimately I accept that there’s a trade-off here: control and safety versus freedom and danger.  And the strength of my feelings shows that this applies not only to rabbits, but also in a more profound way, to parenting and our relationship with our children.  (Incidentally, I just finished re-reading Haruki Murukami’s Wind-up Bird Chronicle in which the disappearance of the narrator’s cat prefigures the surreal and unexplained disappearance of his wife). 

I let my kids do things (climb high trees for example) that I know make other parents quail.  I have a strong belief in letting children become independent and self-reliant, even if that sometimes means they face setbacks, get stuck or hurt themselves.  I focus on this belief as an antidote to my other tendency to protect and control.  But how would I feel if the independence I give one day confirmed my deep-seated fears by leading to real harm?

So an incident with rodents (and a leporid) has awoken existential angst about parenting which I don’t know how to solve.  In the meantime, we’re thinking about getting a cat.  You do have to let them out, but I think I’ll feel safer with a carnivore that can jump onto rooftops.