With Intention

It is interesting because we are having a discussion at my temple about
Jewish Pluralism with a representative from the Orthodox, Conservative
and Reform movements. The beginnings of Orthodoxy and Reform come from
the same place with very different responses. Jews of Europe were
separate autonomous states within states until the French Revolution.
These autonomous states are what I would call traditional. The French
revolution had an almost complete rejection of the idea of separate
communities and religion as a whole. So there was a big issue of what
to do with the Jews. The Reform response was to become part of the
intellectual elite and reject all forms of traditionalism that did not
have to do with the core of Judaism that was said to be ethics. (This
was a response to the French elitists that said that Judaism was a
superstitious and out of touch religion that had nothing to do with
logic or ethics.) The Reformers decided to recast in that light.

The
Orthodox were appalled with the “throwing the baby out with the bath
water” approach. They wanted to keep as much of traditional Judaism as
was possible. Aspects of traditional Judaism focused heavily on the
post temple reforms where sacrifice could not be done. So how did you
do that in the world without a temple? Keeping the identification of
the ritually pure and profane was a significant aspect of religious
life. Rules were created to elevate standard Rabbinical practice such
as writing the Torah into a ritually pure act. For counter example, in
the temple it was ritually impure to enter the temple after a sacrifice
covered in blood. The priest would have to bathe first.

I
think it is a great challenge for Reform Jews to even come close to
understanding what the Orthodox are bemoaning because so little in
Reform Judaism outside of intellectual arguments is consider holy or
ritually pure (this is what they rejected).

So where is your temple? What does your community hold holy? Ethics? Traditional interpretations of Torah and Talmud? Will the reform movement be able to get out of its own historical way and embrace more traditional aspects of Judasim? Will Orthodox be able to accept Reform Jews? How many more variations of Judaism will we create? Is the Jewish community destined to be like the Christian community with many different approaches where some get along and some don’t believe the other is legit? Does inter-religious pluralism matter?