A man stumbles/lurches across a desert wilderness. The sun beats down upon his tired body, and he feels as dry/arid and hot as the sand upon which he walks. In the distance…..a shimmer, an oasis perhaps….a glimmer of hope….sustenance to water his bedraggled parched body. But alas, his hope is a mirage and his journey again becomes a helpless, hopeless wander. We are Jews, wandering the wilderness that is our lives. Time and time again, we are on the brink of succumbing to the thirst, abandoning our faith, yet somehow we are refreshed, and our faith is restored. Tradition is the wellspring of our sustenance. We must renew our dedication to it periodically, thereby rejuvenating the covenant of our ancestors. It is this renewal, and devotion to our tradition that sustains us through the ages.
Tradition and history is also crucial to Isaac in our Torah portion: “Isaac dug the wells again that had been dug in the days of his father Abraham and which the Philistines had stopped up after Abraham’s death; and he gave them the same names that his father had given them.” (Gen. 26:18)
Isaac repeats the actions of his father, and in doing so affirms the value of the past….of tradition. By re-digging the wells of his father, and giving them the same exact names that hid father had given, he restores the flow of water, the physical sustenance and also symbolically, the flow of tradition. We can see Isaac’s actions as a metaphor for the Shalshelet HaKabalah, the chain of tradition. Isaac sees the utmost importance of the past, and so should we. It could be argued that we have strayed from the straight and narrow path, and therefore the well is slowly but surely drying up.
Some would argue that it is Reform Judaism that has most abandoned our history and regressed too far. Even with our increased attention to ritual, in many synagogues, kippot and tallitot are still relegated to the rickety shelf in the furthest corner, or lay limply in a wicker basket, untouched. How can we possibly call ourselves Jews if we do not wear any of the vestments of our religion? Are these truly the things that maintain our chain of tradition? Have we really lost our way?
I remember my first days of classes at Hebrew Union College in Jerusalem. In just one week I realized that a 13 year old student in Israel knew more about Torah and if they were Orthodox, volumes more that I did. How can I be considered authentic in light of this? It would seem that Orthodoxy, is the best way to dedicate oneself to tradition and practice the most “authentic” Judaism.
Indeed, our world undergoes continual change but the basic guidelines for life do not change. The Ten Commandments, the Torah has guided our People for more than three thousand years. These guidelines provide us with a solvent moral code. It is clear that we must apply the basic non-changing morality of our tradition in our lives in order to maintain our traditions and our standards of morality. But is it really necessary for us to maintain all traditions in order to preserve our Judaism? What is it that we are passing down our Shalshelet HaKabalah/Chain of Tradition? Should the permanent nature of the “basics” lead to rigidity of tradition throughout? Where do we….where does Reform-Progressive (I use these terms interchangeably) fit into the picture?
It could be argued that Reform Judaism is the only movement which truly maintains the dynamism of the Jewish faith. All people must recognize a number of realities. First, Reform Jews and their rabbis have the right to study and interpret the texts of our Tradition. Second, Progressive Judaism is the most effectual branch of Judaism in the United States, and third, Reform Judaism is firmly entrenched in American life. When we accept these as true, we can move on to the larger and more profound question of what role Reform Judaism can and should play in the Jewish world, and how we can discover our authentic voice and add to the Jewish tradition of our forefathers and foremothers.
Progressive Judaism is a dynamic and useful approach to Judaism. It is more diverse and complex and includes more voices than any other branch of our faith, and therefore the Reform branch can teach Judaism very effectively to our children and our children’s children.
Judaism has reinterpreted the texts to be accepting of the “other” in our midst. In fact, it has argued that the “other” is simply, “one of us”. Women now have rightfully assumed their place as leaders in our movement. If we had remained “loyal” to the Tradition as Orthodoxy might define it, one-half of our people would have continued to be marginalized. Instead we chose to recognize the inherent value of women and the contribution they could make to Judaism. How can a chain, based on Torah, on study, become weaker when it includes more thinkers and more teachers?
The Progressive approach also seeks to isolate the core values of Jewish faith. We have edited the writings of our past rabbis and molded an authentic and potent Judaism that cuts to the essence of the issues facing the Jews of America today. We have declared the chain of tradition to be our moral code as Jews, and we are committed to the idea that as the world evolves, while the basic moral code does not change, the mode of our religious observance and the ways in which we act out our moral code does. We know things now that our venerated ancestors did not. Our societal situation has changed and therefore we are called upon to amend and enhance the thinking of our forefathers.
We maintain the chain of tradition by remolding or even replacing the links that have rusted and become rigid. A chain is meant to bend and sway based on the conditions with which it is presented. Damaged links create a defective chain. In the Mishnah and Talmud, questions and problems with the text are continually raised. Reasoning would suggest that if they could question and debate the meaning of the text, so can we. Indeed, we are obligated to do so. Just as our Supreme Court has found the thinking of earlier jurists in need of amending or even to be flawed or outdated, we too must respectfully question and responsibly reconsider the thinking of our earlier scholars. Reform-Progressive Judaism asks us to be as dedicated to careful study and religious devotion as those who came before us.
Progressive Judaism is a uniquely dynamic approach to Judaism. However, we must be careful not to flippantly cast away tradition as outdated and useless. Progressive Judaism, rather than weakening our chain of tradition, strengthens it. It retrofits the chain with a “new metal alloy” of sorts that makes it stronger, but at the same time more flexible.
Progressive Judaism has taken the more complex and challenging route of opening up the Chain of Tradition to the world. This can be a treacherous path, but in this path there is great opportunity. Our Judaism is no less berthed by the Rabbinic period, than by earlier links in our chain than Orthodox Judaism. We are the inheritors of the great Rabbis Hillel and Shammai just as much as those in other movements.
We must continue to honor the scholarship and Judaism’s of the past by retaining and building upon what they accomplished, in much the same way that Isaac re-dug the wells of his father. We might call our religion by the same name, even study in much the same way as our ancestors did, but sometimes there is a need for change. Sometimes the dirt through which we dig our well has changed and sometimes we cannot re-dig the well in the same place or in the same way. Just as there have been advances in well technology, there have been advances and new ways of thinking in Judaism.
But how do we know how to navigate this complex intersection between a changing world and tradition? How do we what is essential to our faith? One method is to ask, will what we do look Jewish? A day of rest is not good enough. A day of rest on Shabbat, infused with spirituality and communal worship is Jewish. Our text is central to our authenticity as Jews.
This is what Progressive Judaism does. It allows us to access our Judaism in new ways, and brings greater authenticity to it. It allows us to turn the Torah over and over again, finding new meaning, new lessons that have meaning in our lives. Progressive Judaism and Tradition are not at odds. They are perfect complements and serve to strengthen each other.
We must make sure as Isaac did that the water continues to flow…that our tradition reaches and is incorporated by our children into their Judaism. Tradition is the steady beat that orders our lives. True Judaism is the dynamic infusion that we as individuals and as communities give to Tradition. May we sweeten and increase the sustenance that we pass on to the generation that follows after, keeping our religion forever evolving and forever dynamic. This is our challenge and our obligation.