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Op-Ed: Reform Judaism must move beyond ‘personal choice’

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SAG HARBOR, N.Y. (JTA) — Change is afoot in American Reform Judaism. A new president of the Union for Reform Judaism has been selected. The movement has launched a series of nationwide public forums to discuss its future. Hundreds of Reform rabbis have endorsed a plan toward achieving greater efficiency in the movement’s institutions. Rethinking … Read more

Longing to Hear Again

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by RABBI LEON A. MORRIS, From Jewish Theology in Our Time FORMULATING A THEOLOGY for the twenty-first century requires far more modesty than earlier theological writings seemed to acknowledge. In the medieval period, theologians spelled out the minute details of correct belief with a confidence built around sets of proofs for the existence of God, for … Read more

The Imaginative Power of Sacrifice

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Nothing lasts forever. Upon resolving to build the Temple, Solomon sends a message to King Huram of Tyre requesting wood and additional craftsmen. He writes about dedicating a House in the name of God, “as is Israel’s duty forever.” (II Chronicles 2:3) The rabbis, in the aftermath of the Temple’s destruction, are faced with the … Read more

Reforming Reform

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To the Editor: Jack Wertheimer’s most perceptive observation is that the question of whether “American Reform [was] built upon a structured ideology” or “primarily reflect[ed] a series of pragmatic adjustments to the shifting scene” continues to reverberate. For the past several decades, Reform Jews have championed the centrality of “personal choice” in one’s approach to … Read more

Use Traditional Text

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Rabbi Leon Morris NEW YORK (JTA) – The forthcoming publication of Mishkan T’filah, the first new Reform prayer book in 30 years, reminded me of these words by Abraham Joshua Heschel in “Man’s Quest for God”: “The crisis of prayer is not a problem of the text. It is a problem of the soul,” Heschel … Read more

Be Afraid – Be Very Afraid

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Walking in Jerusalem, a precarious experience, as size dictates right of way There is nothing more meaningful to me than walking the streets of Jerusalem. This has been a city of pedestrians for millennia. Omdot yahu ragleinu b’shaarayich Yerushalayim – “Our feet are standing at your gates, O Jerusalem” (Psalm 122.) While walking the city … Read more

A First-hand Account of Israel’s Wagner Debate

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NEW YORK, July 17 (JTA) — The opportunity to hear the German State Orchestra, Staatskapelle Berlin, perform in Jerusalem was in itself ironic. That Daniel Barenboim, the orchestra’s world-famous conductor, is an Israeli Jew made a performance in Jerusalem all the more intriguing. Moments after Shabbat ended on July 7, two friends and I hurried … Read more