Up until the year 1770, "Jewish life was lived as a separate kingdom within a kingdom. Jews governed themselves by their own law courts and they lived almost entirely in their own community. Their contact with the outer world was only incidental and transient." (Freehof , REFORM JEWISH PRACTICE, p.10)
The Enlightenment
The Enlightenment had a great impact on the Jewish community:
- It was an 18th century movement of great intellectual
activity in the cause of general education and culture,
including self-emancipation from prejudice, convention
and tradition.
- It emphasized a firm belief in human progress and the ability of reason to promote such progress. Reason could bring men and women together by demonstrating that behind the different religious expressions there was a common faith-the religion of humanity. This religion distrusted irrational doctrines and repressive institutions, superstitions, and unreasonable authority." (Raphael, p.6)
The Emancipation
During this same time one begins to see what is called the Jewish Emancipation, the abolition of disabilities and inequities applied specially to Jews, the recognition of Jews as equal to other citizens, and the formal granting of the rights and duties of citizenship.
Here are excerpts from the debate in the French legislature about whether Jews should be allowed to enter the mainstream of French citizenship:
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The Jews should be denied everything as a
nation, |
The Beginnings Of Reform
Judaism
Reform Judaism began in Germany in the 19th century, spread through Europe and blossomed in America. The early Reformers were inspired by the ideas of the Enlightenment and energized by the increasing freedoms granted by the emancipation. They were also motivated by two realities:
- A desire to take full advantage of newly granted rights and to show the non-Jewish intelligentsia that Jews could take their place in the new societies that were then being built; and
- A fear that many in the Jewish community were so excited about their new freedoms that they were leaving Judaism altogether; Reformers wanted a religion that would embody the principles of the enlightenment while still maintaining a Jewish flavor or character.
"If anything seemed to the reformers to exhibit the dankness of the ghetto clinging to the Jews as they sought to climb the ladder of German economic and intellectual life, it was the public ritual of the synagogue and it was in this area that the first steps to religious reform were directed." (Tempkin, p.370)
Reform synagogues eagerly adopted Christian styles of worship:
"Since public worship has for some time been neglected by so many, because of the decreasing knowledge of the language in which alone it has until now been conducted and also because of many other shortcomings.... there shall be introduced...a German sermon and choral singing to the accompaniment of an organ." (New Israelite Temple Association, Hamburg, 1817, (Hertzberg, p.286)
Reform Judaism also directly confronted the Torah and the Talmud:
Samuel Holdheim (a major early reformer):
"The present requires a principle that shall clearly enunciate that a law, even though divine, is potent only so long as the conditions and circumstances of life, to meet which it was enacted, continue; when these change, however, the law must also be abrogated, even though it have God as its author....The Talmud speaks with the ideology of its own time, and for that time it was right. I speak from the higher ideology of my time, and for this age I am right." (Blau, MODERN VARIETIES OF JUDAISM, p.37)
We know from a passage in an authoritative guide to Halakhah written during the second half of the 19th century that fringes were still being regularly worn by traditional Jews and the problem of being identified to unfriendly eyes because of them still existed:
Those who generally go among the Gentiles do acquit themselves
of their obligation....[to wear Tzitzit ] Yet in any event,
at the time the benediction over [the fringes] is said,
they should be exposed for the time it would take to walk four cubits."
(MISHNAH B'RURAH, 8:11-25 Zaritsky , HAFETZ HAYYIM, p.19)
So for many, their fringes at this time were completely worn beneath their clothing, to be taken out and exposed to their eyes only at rare, sacred moments.
Early reformers abolished even this underground practice. They sought to: "eliminate rituals, customs, and prayers that [were] considered unenlightened, unintelligible and unaesthetic." They spoke out against "minute, soulless practices" and "meaningless, Oriental rites" Traditional "rituals were 'senseless' and 'irrational' and must be discarded. (Raphael , pp.7,26)
In 1845, a number of rabbis stopping in Berlin on their way home from one of the founding Reform conferences wrote down suggestions for reform of the synagogue service. Among them was the discontinuance of the use of the Tallit . (Philipson, p. 245)
Reform Judaism In
America
THE PITTSBURGH PLATFORM, "prepared in 1885 by a group of 15 Rabbis...became the guiding principles of Reform Judaism in America for 50 years (Isaacs , p 58):
- We accept as binding only the moral laws and maintain
only such ceremonies as elevate and sanctify our lives,
but reject all such as are not adapted to the views and
habits of modern civilization.
- We hold that all such Mosaic and rabbinical laws as regulate diet, priestly purity and dress originated in ages and under the influence of ideas altogether foreign to our present mental and spiritual state. They fail to impress the modern Jew with a spirit of priestly holiness; their observance in our days is apt rather to obstruct than to further spiritual elevation.
Many early reformers also:
- Opposed the kissing of the mantle of the Torah scroll
- Did not support the belief that God annually reviewed one's behavior on Yom Kippur
- Transformed the idea of a Messiah into a Messianic age
- Wanted a universalistic orientation which did not separate Jews from all other peoples
- Were opposed to Jewish nationalism (Zionism )
- Declared that the kol nidre prayer was not essential
- Omitted all Mi She-Berachs
- Moved towards eliminating prayers in Hebrew
- Removed priestly prerogatives such as calling people of priestly lineage to the Torah for the first aliyot
- Removed services for Tisha b'Av
Those of us who attend Reform services regularly might be surprised by the above, because we know that many of the practices that the early reformers eliminated are with us again today. Tzitzit in Modern Times continues the story.
GENERAL REFERENCES
Blau, Joseph, L., MODERN VARIETIES OF JUDAISM. NY: Columbia University Press, 1966.
Encyclopedia Britannica, 1947
Encyclopedia Judaica
Frehof, Solomon B., REFORM JEWISH PRACTICE AND ITS RABBINIC BACKGROUND. Cincinnati: Hebrew Union College Press, 1944.
Hertzberg, Arthur, ed., JUDAISM: THE KEY SPIRITUAL WRITINGS OF THE JEWISH TRADITION, NY: Simon & Schuster, 1991.
Isaacs, Ronald H. And Kerry M. Olitzky, eds., CRITICAL DOCUMENTS OF JEWISH HISTORY: A SOURCEBOOK, Northvale: NJ: Jason Aronson, 1995
Philipson, David, THE REFORM MOVEMENT IN JUDAISM, Ktav, 1967.
Raphael, Marc Lee, PROFILES IN AMERICAN JUDAISM: THE REFORM, CONSERVATIVE, ORTHODOX, AND RECONSTRUCTIONIST TRADITIONS IN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE, San Francisco, CA: Harper & Row, 1984.
Temkin, Sefton D., "How Reform Judaism developed," [review of RESPONSE TO MODERNITY: A HISTORY OF THE REFORM MOVEMENT IN JUDAISM. By Michael A. Meyer. NY: Oxford, 1988] JUDAISM, v 40, #3, Summer 1991, Issue No. 159, pp.369-377.
Zaritsky, David, ed., THE HAFETZ HAYYIM ON THE SIDDUR: EXPLANATIONS, INTERPRETATIONS AND PARABLES ON THE DAILY PRAYER BOOK BY RABBI ISRAEL MEIR HACOHEN OF BLESSED MEMORY, Jerusalem Academy Publications, 1974.
11/29/97
© Rosemarie E. Falanga, Cy H. Silver