Reform Jews Seek Revival of Traditions

It still amazes Steven Sisskind, a West Los Angeles entrepreneur, to find himself wrapped in a prayer shawl, swaying back and forth in communion with God.

“If someone had told me four years ago that I’d be going to temple every Saturday, I would have told them they were crazy,” said Sisskind, 34, who for years abandoned Judaism altogether. “But it’s really become a crucial part of my life.”

What makes Sisskind’s spiritual search notable is where it led him: Not to the Orthodoxy of his grandfather, but back to the Reform Judaism he grew up in--a movement that has been transforming itself in his lifetime from a haven for religious cynics into a sanctuary for the spiritually minded.

Dichotomized Progress

Two centuries after it was born as an alternative to Orthodox Judaism, the Reform movement, the most popular among American Jews, is embracing many of the strictures it had jettisoned.

When 600 Reform rabbis launch their annual convention in Anaheim on Sunday, they will press for adherence to kosher dietary laws, stronger observance of the Sabbath and a host of other traditions that Reform Jews once largely abandoned in favor of individual choice.

But even as the Reform movement pulls back toward tradition--a move that risks alienating many adherents--it also is forging out along the progressive edges of religion.

Nothing symbolizes the dichotomy better than the new Reform prayer book the rabbis are writing. Although it will include more Hebrew prayers and Jewish rituals than ever in the movement’s history, it also will remove gender references that imply or say that God is male.

Other issues on the agenda for the Reform rabbis: whether and how to perform same-sex unions, and whether to condone or condemn assisted suicides.

The Central Conference of American Rabbis is not expected to vote on any of these matters until it meets again in 1999. Even then, the principles adopted most likely will end up as suggestions for congregants, not requirements.

Yet by confronting the forces of traditionalism and progressivism, the rabbis are shaping the future of their movement. Both forces have been building steadily among Reform Jews for about 30 years, and have accelerated in the past decade as Jews show new interest in what their heritage has to offer spiritually, and leaders seek to keep Judaism alive in the complex modern world.

The struggle toward and away from tradition mirrors the pendulum of world history as it has swung between assimilation in one era and multiculturalism in another.

Reform Judaism was born in the late 1700s during the Age of Enlightenment, as some European nations extended new civil rights to Jews, who up to that point had been forced to live in ghettos and were banned from many universities and professions.

In their eagerness to step across the ghetto threshold into larger society, an era of nationalism and assimilation was born. Many Jews chose to drop traditions that had set them apart from the mainstream. Men doffed fringes and head coverings. On their Sabbath, Jews worked, shopped and joined the activities of the larger world that traditionally were forbidden from Friday evening to Saturday evening. And they dropped the kosher laws that kept them from eating in most restaurants.

Out of this desire to join in was forged the Reform theology: that Jewish ritual traditions are not binding on Jews as long as they live ethical lives.

That theology gave rise to a new emphasis on social justice as central to leading a good Jewish life. In the United States, Reform Jews became leaders in the civil rights movement and in causes from environmentalism to nuclear non-proliferation.

Even the synagogue services of this new movement took on a more formal, churchlike tone. Much or all of the Hebrew was eliminated, and organs were installed for music during services.

But ethnic differences now are more accepted and more popular, making Jews increasingly comfortable with the traditions that mark them as members of a distinct and ancient culture.

Reform Jews have been taking a new look at the old ways. Self-denial and time spent reflecting no longer seem like outmoded traditions. In the separation of meat and dairy foods, in the enforced day of rest, many Jews now see a path toward spiritual meaning.

“At the outset of the movement, Jews really wanted to participate in modern society: in the professions, in land ownership, in the universities, and literally come out of the ghetto,” said Rabbi Elliot Stevens, executive secretary of the Rabbinic association.

“Now that we are truly out of the ghetto, we are not afraid to emphasize our Judaic heritage.”

It is part of a nationwide taste for all things spiritual that has attendance swelling at houses of worship.

“There is definitely a boom in spirituality and ritual in the U.S., a greater emphasis on ritualism and ritual, in particular in Protestantism and in other movements like Reform Judaism, which for very specific ideological reasons had discarded it,” said Kimberley Patton, assistant professor at Harvard Divinity School.

“People are newly discovering an old truth: Rituals are containers that hold people together and bind them to God.”

At the same time, the popularity of age-old traditions is raising concerns among some Reform Jews. The movement historically has taught its members to challenge everything from the most simple Jewish rituals to belief in God. Many people worry that Reform Judaism is compromising its most cherished ideal, the right of the individual to choose.

Indeed, in recent months, rabbis have been quietly discussing the possibility of codifying their suggestions into actual limits on what people could do and still call themselves Reform Jews.

“There are many, many Reform Jews who don’t want to keep kosher, who don’t want to be told how to approach God,” said Rabbi Lawrence Goldmark, president of the Board of Rabbis of Southern California. “If we try to dictate, we may forget who we are.”

The question of limits--and of the dual tug toward both tradition and progressivism--is likely to be the subject of fierce debate at the convention this week.

Challenge to Reform Jews

Reform Judaism is one of the few branches of any organized faith in this country that welcomes gay and lesbian congregants and rabbis. The movement has ordained women rabbis since 1972. Today, 287 of the 2,000 Reform rabbis in the United States are women.

Yet many of the more tradition-minded Reform leaders oppose Jewish ceremonies for joining gay couples and the removal of references to God as male.

In April, the rabbis postponed a vote on a resolution that would have stated that Jewish ritual allowed rabbis to perform same-sex unions. Many rabbis within the movement officiate at such ceremonies, but the convention has taken no stand on whether they can be sanctified within Jewish tradition.

The rabbis will spend much of the day Tuesday discussing the pros and cons of the proposal.

At the same time, Jewish leaders are looking for ways to stem the tide of intermarriage and disenchantment with Reform Judaism that has threatened Judaism’s survival. More than half of Reform Jews married in the past decade chose non-Jewish mates.

Many Jews have discarded most Jewish observance altogether. Of the 5.2 million Jews in this country, 2 million do not attend synagogue with any regularity.

“The challenge now is not to reform Judaism--it’s to reform Jews,” said Rabbi Richard Levy, president of the association.

“My hope is that the new set of principles we’ll be discussing will encourage people to bring more rituals into their lives which can obliterate much of the ordinariness of life in late 20th century society.”

In addition, unifying social fights such as the plight of Soviet Jewry or the immediate survival of Israel, which once drew American Jews together, have been largely won.

Reclaiming Traditions

“Like the rest of the country, Jews are seeking something more in our lives. We can no longer make a career out of fighting our enemies, and we have to ask ourselves the question, together with the rest of America: Is a big Audi and a swimming pool enough?” said Rabbi Arthur Hertzberg, a prominent Jewish scholar.

“The answer is, it isn’t enough. Because people die, people suffer, people ask themselves, ‘What is my life about?’ And the only way they can deal with that is through a tradition.”

The emphasis on tradition has been showing up in Reform synagogues for the past two decades. Congregations have broken apart and re-formed over such disputes as how much Hebrew to put back into the service and whether to use an organ or other musical instrument (Orthodox belief holds that playing a musical instrument is forbidden on the Sabbath). A new sub-branch of Reform Judaism, called Traditional Reform, has sprung up. It, in turn, has been pulled into separate divisions over where to draw the ritual line. In the more traditional congregations, men are wearing the traditional kippa, or skullcap, in the sanctuary again, and Saturday mornings are once more devoted to Torah reading or study.

That type of new Reform synagogue drew Sisskind back to more ritual observance.

He grew up attending an old-style Reform temple--a cavernous place in Bel-Air where a small percentage of the 3,000 member families showed up for worship. The temple, Sisskind recalled, offered little in the way of serious Jewish study.

In 1988, when a young Rabbinic intern at the temple, Mordecai Finley, started a minyan, or prayer group, that focused on traditional prayers and Torah study, Sisskind and others took notice. Soon the minyan grew from about a dozen people to more than 200, and Finley, who had since become an ordained Reform rabbi, broke off and established his own congregation, Ohr HaTorah.

It meets every Saturday in a leased church and calls itself a “traditional-progressive” Reform synagogue. Dustin Hoffman and his wife, Lisa, are founding members of the shul. Along with about 400 other members, they try to closely observe the Sabbath, and study for much of the day on many Saturdays.

“I always thought of spiritual things as sort of fuzzy, of no use because there is no way to make a living out of it. What’s the point of it if you can’t put it on your resume, that sort of attitude,” Sisskind said.

“Then for me, it just came to a point where the system that I had grown up with was not doing it for me. I just needed to look at life in a different way.”