The controversies within Judaism were complex enough when they could all be gathered up in the tidy question, “Who is a Jew?”
Those four words served as shorthand for a wide range of tensions: between secular and religious Jews, Orthodox and Conservative/Reform, Israeli and diaspora, those who opposed intermarriage and those who welcomed it as an opportunity for conversion, hawks and doves, and more.
The issues were endlessly tangled, but the question was pithy.
Now, however, after the Central Conference of American Rabbis declared its support Wednesday for rituals blessing homosexual unions, even that question is subdividing.
Forget the rest of Judaism for a moment; it is enough this week to ask, “Who is a Reform Jew?”
Is it somebody who believes in marriage-like ceremonies for homosexual couples? Is it somebody who hews to the traditional belief that the Torah opposes homosexuality?
Is it somebody who looks for new expressions of Judaism in modernity? Is it somebody who is returning to the traditional observances of the faith?
The answer, according to the Reform rabbis, is yes.
Last year the conference, a group of 1,800 rabbis representing an estimated 1.5 million Reform Jews, adopted a set of principles that encourage traditional Jewish observances and obligations, in sharp contrast to the absolute modernist tone of the group’s founding platform in 1885.
The 1999 principles encouraged such traditional practices as learning Hebrew and wearing head coverings and prayer shawls. It even referred to such things as “mitzvot,” or sacred obligations.
On the other hand, the document did not make such practices mandatory, or even explain in what way such sacred obligations were obligatory for Reform Jews. It was left, apparently, to the conscience and culture of each rabbi and congregation to decide.
That was the tack the rabbis took this year with the same-sex union resolution.
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That resolution, approved by a reportedly overwhelming voice vote, declares that homosexual relationships are “worthy of affirmation” in Jewish ritual. It supports rabbis who bless such unions.
But it also supports rabbis who will not bless homosexual unions, and it acknowledges that there is a wide variety of opinion on the matter within the conference.
Undoubtedly this vote will echo far outside Reform Judaism.
The United Methodist Church is squaring itself for a titanic battle over just this topic when it meets in general conference this summer. Inflamed by the suspension of Chicago minister Rev. Greg Dell, the defrocking of Rev. Jimmy Creech and the refusal of a California church court to pursue similar action against 68 ministers who jointly blessed a lesbian union, the denomination seems to be pushing toward a definitive vote on homosexual marriage.
The Episcopal Church is also likely to grapple with the issue at its triennial meeting this summer. And the Presbyterian Church U.S.A., which meets every summer, seems unable to escape it.
The rabbis’ resolution, however open-ended, will provide comfort and ammunition for those mainline Protestants who want their denominations to take a similar stance.
But it certainly will not make things any smoother for Reform Jews looking for recognition of their Judaism from religious authorities in Israel.
Performing marriages is the sole prerogative of Orthodox rabbis in Israel and a sore spot for Reform Jews there and abroad. Reform activists have argued for years that a Reform rabbi’s blessing of a marriage is no less Jewish than an Orthodox rabbi’s, so the government should recognize both equally. Anything less, they said, is a slap in the face.
The Orthodox rabbis who control the religious-political apparatus in Israel have not been much moved by that argument to date. But if they were looking for a concrete example of the differences between Orthodox and Reform marriages, the central conference just provided it.
Whatever Israeli Orthodox or American Methodists think of the resolution, the most interesting reaction will come from within the Reform tradition itself.
As several rabbis involved in Wednesday’s vote pointed out, the same-sex union resolution gives unequivocal support to the importance of individual conscience. One could argue that it makes individual conscience the paramount value of the Reform tradition, above any particular understanding of the Torah or centuries of rabbinical teachings.
But while individual conscience tells a great deal about the individual exercising it, it says virtually nothing about the identity of a people or a common faith. To answer the question, “Who is a Reform Jew?” the conference will have to begin talking about what it is the rabbis hold in common, and where, if anywhere, the tradition can impose on the person.
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