we dare not tolerate conditions which brutalize and Sh'ma dehumanize. But humanness means the power to control conditions rather than letting conditions a journal of Jewish responsibility control us. Humanness demands individual responsibility 1/20, NOVEMBER 19,1971 The truth of the matter is that millions upon mil- lions of men, women, and children of all races and creeds have suffered privation, prejudice, pogroms, and poverty. There are countless people who faced the same conditions that were the lot of those who are convicted criminals. These include millions of black people. They did not end up as felons and ac- cused murderers—but as productive, law-abiding members of our society. The difference between those who allow conditions to make them criminals and those who are able to overcome the conditions under which they live must lie—at least in part—in Thoughts about thoughts about attica-1 the inner assumption of responsibility. The lack of such sense leads to criminality and self-destruction. The thrust of the argument of many who write and speak on the matter is that if the conditions are bad The prisons and the prisoners of our country have enough, then what happens, however heinous, is to suddenly become one of the prime challenges to our be attributed to the deficiencies of our society consciences. Some have known for a long time that rather than to deficiencies of will and character, lt our correctional institutions have not corrected and seems to me that this attitude represents the ulti- that our prisons were schools for crime. Now the mate in dehumanization. lt denies to man that which whole country is aware of what is happening on the is most uniquely his—his freedom and therefore his other side of the prison walls. The plea of the incar- responsibility. cerated to be treated like men rather than like a breed less than human comes with special merit and By all means let us reform our prisons. They are a poignancy and with a urgency which cannot be national disgrace. Let us humanize and speed up our system of justice. Let us improve our society where ignored. it desperately needs improvement—but let us educate However, much that has been written about the our young and ourselves to recognize our own hu- prisons and the inmate population has been dehu- manness and our own responsibility. manizing to the prisoners—even where there was ostensible defense of the prisoner's manhood. The idea that a man who has a long record of crime is in jail because of his "race" or because he is Thoughts about thoughts about attica-2 "poor" or because of his "political beliefs" is ulti- Haskel Lookstein mately demeaning to those who are seemingly being defended. Writers and columnists seek, as they say, Concerning Attica, Mr. Agnew said, "To compare to go beyond the surface of the facts and to pene- the loss of life by those who violate the society's trate to the "core" of what is wrong with our law with a loss of life of those whose job it is to up- prisons. This penetration usually means shifting the hold it,, represents not simply an assault on human responsibility from the individual criminal to sensibility, but an insult to reason." "society" or to his "environment." This attempt to assign greater or lesser weight to the What is overlooked is that our true humanity con- lives of guards and prisoners has been repudiated by sists in our assumption of individtud responsibility. many. But the fundamental idea came into our cul- True, there are mitigating circumstances; true, that ture from rabbinic Judaism. Its view is best seen in

153 the 's frequent and varied affirmation that mentals of Torah (Chapter 5, law 5), when he says every life has infinite value and that, therefore, no that even if one of the group was a convict liable to preference can be established for one life over the death penalty, one may not allow the group to another. surrender him to the heathens although his surrender would save all the rest. The mathematics of infinite value This infinity of value is ennunciated by the Talmud The conclusion of Jewish law is thus quite clear. No first with regard not to the individual life itself but human life is to be preferred to any other, nor may to the ramifications of that life. Thus the Mishna in many lives be preferred to one even when our sur- Sanhedrin, Chapter 4, states that "whoever destroys face observations of the one life tell us that it is one life is considered by the Torah as if he had de- depraved and devoid of worth. This determination is stroyed an entire world." The Talmudic conclusion simply beyond our scope. Only God may make such is derived from the fact that from one man—Adam— judgments. a world population emerged. When man begins to pick and choose between lives This is of more than demographic significance. It that have infinite value, then all life loses its sanctity. means that the death of a man is not to be viewed Jews understand this lesson better than most. Only a solely from the perspective of that man but as an act short time ago our lives were assigned a value inferior with ramifications for a world of lives—the man's to that of pure Aryans. Ultimately, 6,000,000 of us family who sustain the loss and children and descen- died from such weighing of the worth of various lives. dants who never come into being because of the loss. Is the death of a guard a greater source of pain to Sh'ma his mother than is the death of a prisoner? Do the orphans and widows suffer more when their dead a journal of Jewish responsibility fathers and husbands were "law upholders" rather than "law violators"? And as far as generations yet Editor Eugene B. Borowitz unborn are concerned, are we to mourn their non- Assts. to Editor Mark S. and Zola Colub existence more or less depending on the pedigree of Copy Sylvia Seldin their potential progenitors? It would be well to re- Art Al Lorenz member that this country was founded and devel- Records Alicia Seeger oped by people, a significant percentage of whom Production EW. Taylor Co. "violated society's law" or were the descendants of Contributing Editors Graenum Berger, such violators. Emil Fackenheim, Harry Gersh, Irving Greenberg, Arthur Hertzberg, Norman Lamm, The moral implication of all this is that every life has Richard Levy, Henry Schwarzschild, Steven infinite value. It follows that one infinity is not Schwarzschild, Seymour Siegel, Judd Teller, worth more than another. Albert Vorspan, Elie Wiesel, Arnold Wolf, Only god may judge the infinite Michael Wyschogrod. But the Talmud goes still further and considers the Sh'ma welcomes articles from diverse points of view. limitless value of life also in terms of the life itself, . Hence articles present only the author's, not the regardless of ramifications. This value is implicit in a editors', views. poignant practical decision recorded in the Jerusalem We print typos that do not obscrue the meaning. Talmud (Terumah 8:4). "If a group of heathens ap- proach a body of Jews and say: 'Give us one of your Sh'ma is published bi-weekly, except June, July and number that we may kill him, and if not we will kill August, by Sh'ma, Inc. Publication address, Room 1006, 1261 Broadway, New York, N.Y. 10001. Editorial you all,' all must submit to death rather than sur- address, Box 959, Ansonia Station, New York, N.Y. 10023. render one of their number." In mathematical terms Subscription $10.00 for 2 years in U.S.A. and Canada, the Talmud is here affirming that one infinity is not Institutional bulk (10 or more issues) $2.50 each. Single worth less than many infinities. issue 500, sixteen-page issues $1.00. Application to mail at second class postage rates is pending at New York, Maimonides, in his code of law, extends this princi- N.Y. Copyright 1971 by Sh'ma, Inc. ple further, in a section dealing with the Funda- 1/20, November 19,1971

154 Power and reality in Chancellor; he had worked hard to get the job; he Eugene B. Borowitz wanted it; he felt he deserved it. The trouble was that a good part of the rabbinate and the faculty did During the past six months, I interviewed a dozen not want him in the position. men in preparation for this article. They were un- No one to whom I spoke could, or, perhaps, would animous only on one matter: Dr. Louis Finkelstein pinpoint the objection to Mandelbaum. It is clear would not resign as Chancellor of the Jewish Theo- that the contrast to Finkelstein, as belittling as that logical Seminary of America—which he then pro- would be to anyone, played a major role in it. Yet ceeded to do. Such was the wisdom of those with though every man spoke of his personal liking for proximity to power—or such, at least, was what they Mandelbaum it became clear that, ultimately, their were willing to share. I claim little more infallibility objection to his being Chancellor was a personal one. for my own, second-level analysis. That may be only subjective; it was nonetheless a On the surface the present political situation seemed political reality. So already when Mandelbaum was to center about the succession to Finkelstein's leader- appointed President of the Seminary in 1966, two ship. On a deeper level, it seemed to be a problem of leaders of the Rabbinical Assembly called upon Dr. personalities. However, my thesis is that what we Finkelstein to protest. Ostensibly, it was that the really are seeing is a fundamental change in the na- rabbis had not been consulted; in fact, it was Man- ture of Conservative Judaism as a movement. And delbaum's being put in the position of likely suc- this is the result of our reaching a new stage in Amer- cessor that caused the uproar. Two concessions re- ican Jewish life. sulted. The Assembly was to be consulted when a new "chief executive officer" would be appointed The easy truth is, no one could succeed Louis Finkel- and Dr. Finkelstein made clear publicly, several stein. He transformed Cyrus Adler's sleepy storage- times, that Mandelbaum's Presidency did not carry house into an institution with world Jewish and with it succession rights. general American impact. He made himself a scho- lar's scholar and, at the same time, the single most Five years later the rabbis had not changed their charismatic personality in American Jewry. The mind. They and a good part of the faculty still did question of his successor, however, is of special im- not want Mandelbaum as the head of the Seminary portance to the Conservative Movement because, as and the leader of Conservative Judaism. Their one man said to me, "With us, all things begin and difficulty was. as the old political adage has it. you end with 'The Seminary."' That is true historically, can't beat a horse with no horse. Until Finkelstein financially and symbolically. The Seminary founded resigned and forced their hand, they had no real the United Synagogue and the Rabbinical Assembly. counter-candidate. It still raises the money for Conservative Judaism, giving the United Synagogue about a sixth of its The other possible candidates budget and the Rabbinical Assembly about a third There was some prior support for Gerson Cohen, of its budget. Equally important, the "mythology" who recently returned to the Seminary from Colum- of Conservative Judaism has centered neither on the bia University. Cohen's scholarly credentials are power of laymen nor the creativity of local institu- great and have won him a good deal of admiration. tions but on the scholarly awesomeness of The From that point on the doubts began. The new- Seminary. Hence, who would succeed Dr. Finkel- Finkelstein would need to give vigorous administra- stein was a matter with many ramifications. tive leadership to the Seminary and spiritual direc- tion to the Conservative Movement. The Seminary At the center of the controversy has a financial crisis. (The budget cut for 1971-72 But why should there have been any question about was supposed to be one million dollars.) Its faculty it? None of the Vice-Chancellors was young enough is getting old and seems quite tired. Student morale to be considered. Yet the Seminary had a young, remains a problem. New programs and a revision of vigorous and, by non-Finkelsteinian standards of old ones are called for. The Conservative Movement comparison, effective President, Bernard Mandel- too is in crisis. The successes of the 1960's now baum. That was the crux of the Conservative Jewish seem to have vanished. The reliance on the suburban power struggle. Mandelbaum was in line to be The synagogue makes the Movement particularly vulner-

155 or de-sacralization would be more precise.) How able to the anti-institutional, anti-middleclass mood things turned out, it seems to me, has only con- of the 1970's. To most pre-resignation observers, firmed that intuition. that was hardly a role for Cohen to fill. They found him essentially a private rather than a public person, Recall for a moment the "hierarchical" structure of one more at home in the library or archive than the Conservative Judaism. The laity is expected to fol- meeting or convention. low the leadership of the rabbinate. And the rabbin- ate accepts the leadership of "The Seminary." Of But there was no one else to turn to. Abraham course there is some partnership and in recent years Heschel, once a prospect, was ruled out by age and both laity and rabbinate have taken a more active illness. To Robert Gordis, the only other "faculty role. Still, there remains a fundamental acquiescence member" mentioned, there was almost as much of the one group to the other, the whole held to- emotional objection as there was to Mandelbaum. gether by the symbol of halakhah, Jewish law, That left only dark horses. Perhaps Moshe Davis or dynamically interpreted. Seymour Fox could be brought back from Israel? Perhaps a congregational rabbi should be brought in That is all now falling apart. What "The Chancellor" to give the Seminary a fresh, community view, say was, that is, what Louis Finkelstein represented as a a scholarly rabbi like Arthur Hertzberg or Abraham personal embodiment of Conservative Jewish values, Karp? Or perhaps a few years of quiet but competent neither Cohen, nor Cohen/Mendelbaum can now be. inside leadership could be bought by elevating David At the very least, the symbolic functions of the old Lieber of the University of Judaism or the New York Finkelstein role have been split into inside and out- Administrative Vice-Chancellor, David Kogen? With side functions. At the most, people will realize that every additional name the desperation increased. All the present leadership is make-do. Of course the of these men, and others, had reason to be men- needs of the movement will soon begin the myth- tioned. None had a chance to unify the movement making process around Cohen. Already men who against Mandelbaum. spoke critically about him in private are publicly building up his greatness. But these days people An ingenious compromise are more politically, aware and sophisticated than The observers were not wrong in what they saw, they ever were and not every man can be made a were there to be some immediate decision: they Finkelstein rather than a Cyrus Adler. predicted a compromise. Mandelbaum's drive and energy needed to be retained as he alone could ful- The seminary myth falters fill the financial and organizational roles. Cohen The real difficulty, however, is not so much with must be given the academic leadership and somehow Cohen or Mandelbaum, as with the expectations set the directions for the Movement. No one could people have been taught to make of "The Seminary" foresee how that might be accomplished. The solu- and its leader. In recent years, the reality seems to tion worked out is Talmudic in its ingenuity (per-, be that The Seminary had begun to fail in its haps the reason Finkelstein is generally given the mythic role. There were continual complaints about credit for suggesting it). Since Mandelbaum deserves its Orthodoxy; its poor training of students; its self- a reward for his years of effort, he will become righteous scholastic indifference to the plight of Chancellor. But since the rabbis and faculty do not American Judaism; its foot-dragging with worthy support him, the effective power of that office will projects, most recently, blocking an official Conser- be transferred to that of the President, Cohen. vative synagogue in Jerusalem lest men and women Politically, it is elegant strategy. But it says a good sit together there. Worse, most people have been deal about American values and Jewish institutions, forced to realize that even The Seminary is as much and has implications for Conservative Judaism that a prisoner of its own fund-raising needs as is any go far beyond who is the "chief executive officer." other American organization.

The manifestation of collapse But the hardest thing for the alumni to face is that Even before these events had taken place, my con- The Seminary no longer stands for anything unique versations had indicated to me that what we are in Jewish scholarship. At one time Conservative living through is, in fact, the collapse of the Conser- Judaism could claim its teachers were more "scien- vative Jewish symbol structure. (De-sanctification tific" than the Orthodox and more Talmudically

156 oriented than the Reform Jews. And no other insti- A problem of discipline tution demonstrated such a fusion of the Jewish past That Conservative myth of The Law is also now and modern method. Today, half a dozen institu- breaking apart. It was bad enought that The Chan- tions do and what was once uniquely precious in cellor needed replacing. It is probably more signifi- The Seminary has become a commonplace of Jewish cant that the Committee on Law and Standards re- study. That is also true for "The Faculty." In the signed, almost unanimously. This was caused not by heyday of and , a new refusal by the laity to observe The Law. Tacit- The Seminary not only had some of the greatest ly, the Conservative Movement has long since given scholars in the world but men who were actively in- up on them. Despite occasional pockets of obser- volved in the Conservative Movement, i.e., worked vance or some youth returnees, it seems obvious within the United Synagogue. Today's faculty must that the overwhelming majority of Conservative Jews share greatness with men in many other institutions. do not keep kosher, even at home, and do not main- They also show little loyalty to The Seminary. There tain the Sabbath, even according to Conservative law. has been a steady drift elsewhere. The new President Neither The Seminary nor the Committee managed himself did not find it difficult, some years ago, to to reach them. One does not even discuss the prob- leave The Seminary for Columbia's graduate faculty. lem of lay observance. What now disturbs the Rab- binical Assembly is that rabbis are breaking its The genesis of the ideology of the law halakhic discipline. .Once, no Conservative rabbi No wonder that rabbinic discontent with The Sem- would conduct an intermarriage; or accept a convert inary has grown strong. Most of the men are still without t'vilah, ritual immersion; or marry a woman bound by the Jewish discipline of respect for one's without a get, a Jewish divorce. All of these have teacher, but among the older generagion of rabbis now occurred within the Rabbinical Assembly. More teacher, but among the older generation of rabbis disturbing, because of the old "liberal" clause in the betrayed them, using them for its fund-raising pur- by-laws of the Committee on Law and Standards, poses but remaining unresponsive to what the men even one votq in their favor would make such devia- continually reported as the real problems of the Jew- tions "an official" Conservative halakhic position. ish community. (One source attributed Finkelstein's Surely there must be limits to what, at least, a Con- unexpected decision to retire as due in no small part servative rabbi can do? If not, how can one speak of to an acrimonious session which he had with a group The Law? of Conservative rabbis when they chanced to be to- The need for sanctions gether in Jerusalem recently.) To meet this situation, a special committee, headed Since "The Law" was supposed to be the unique by Robert Gordis, has recommended a new procedure means by which Conservative Judaism moved for- for determining The Law—for rabbis, to be sure. (Cf, ward, the gap between the rabbis and The Seminary his explanation of it in Conservative Judaism, first became severe there. Shortly after World War II Spring 1971.) a gentleman's agreement was reached. The rabbis Thirty years ago, Gordis engaged Mordecai Kaplan could do what they wanted to about reinterpreting in a debate on the nature of The Law in Conservative The Law through their Committee on Law and Stan- Judaism. Kaplan called for democratically determined dards as long as The Seminary was free to be fully transformation. Gordis held out for scholarly led observant. Freed of The Faculty's restrictive hands, conservatism and sanctions. Gordis won that debate, the rabbis then moved to put the ideology of The so to speak, for the Conservative institutions gener- Law into dynamic effect. Where the Orthodox were ally followed his line (or he expressed theirs) and defensive and the Reform Jews undisciplined, the Kaplan gradually had to found his own institutions. Conservative Jews would not hesitate to change but Reading and listening today to Gordis' interpreta- would do so only on the basis of a scholarly, histori- tion of The Law, I find him remarkably consistent cally oriented interpretation of rabbinic literature. over the years. Thus his plan not only provides for For two decades their rallying cry has been that Con- determining what are legal options for Conservative servative Judaism was the only true Judaism, for it rabbis but it calls for sanctions against members who was a religion of halakhah as halakhah ought to transgress them. As Gordis said at the Rabbinical be taught. Assembly kallah early this September, "Without sanc-

157 tions, we cannot speak of law." Conservative Judaism may well flourish in this posi- tion of the greatest traditionalism with the greatest However, Gordis' plan provides for setting standards modernity. of the rabbi's own personal religious observance. (To be sure, in this area departures from traditional Halakhah: the transitional ideology halakhah would be legitimated for Conservative But it is now clear that Conservative Judaism can rabbis by a lesser committee vote than in the areas no longer identify itself as the Orthodoxy with the of family and personal status.) That would make it courage to change. It is now manifestly committed to possible for a rabbi to be brought before a sanctions non-Orthodoxy. Or to be more blunt, religiously it committee of the Rabbinical Assembly for deviant has now become the right wing of Reform Judaism. personal practice. Such an idea seems to go too far, There has been so much talk in recent years about as a matter of principle, for most members of the Reform Jews becoming more traditional (and very Assembly. The overwhelming number of men speak- little attention to the growth of Reform's "Unitar- ing from the floor at the kallah opposed it. Most of ian" wing) that it has obscured this, more startling my informants felt reasonably certain that the plan truth. Conservative Judaism has now completed its would never be accepted. Some felt family and syna- passage out of Orthodoxy. It is now not merely the gogue practice could be subject to sanctions. Others halakhah as it ought to be, but, in its respectful thought sanctions would be abandoned entirely, let- though drastic breaks with the traditional halakhah. ting the Law Committee function as a private guide it has come to an approach to The Law which is to those who inquired of it. more Reform than Orthodox.

With the loss of the law One may take this line of thought a step further. In any case, time seems finally to have vindicated Why was this ideology of The Law so effective in Kaplan. Gordis' logic remains unimpeached: no sanc- theory but not in practice in the 1950's and 1960's? tions, no law. But the area in which the Rabbinical I venture the suggestion that the immigrants and Assembly may let some sanctions operate will, at the their children needed it to ease their integration into greatest, be so small as to make the old Conservative the American style. A theory of The Law as dynamic rhetoric about The Law seem quite empty. What, in allowed them to adapt to the new culture with less truth, will distinguish Conservative from Reform guilt than Reform Judaism could. Today we can see Jews, will be synagogue kashrut and some traditional those decades actually gave rise, not to an invigor- Sabbath prohibitions, somewhat more Hebrew in the ated halakhic Judaism, but to the transition of the service and somewhat greater stringency about post-immigrant generation from a more to a less divorces. Even that is likely to evanesce with time. tradition-centered existence. Louis Finkelstein ac- With The Law gone, it seems to me we see the end complished much for Jewish scholarship, for Jewish of the whole mythic structure of Conservative Juda- self-respect and for Jewish survival. But even as he ism as a philosophy rather than an organization, as a used the immigrants' love of tradition to create his content rather than a coalition. All the chief symbols institution and his movement, the social forces used —The Chancellor, The Seminary, The Facuty, The him to validate the immigrants' slow but steady Law—have lost their unique meaning. They no movement to a more Americanized way of life. longer speak with special power. They denote only Louis Marshall and Jacob Schiff turn out to be the that which is quite common to other American master architects of American Jewry. They founded Jews, the desire to stay Jewish in an identifiable way the Seminary to bring the East-Europeans into Amer- but to do so in a modern, post-ghetto form. ican culture. Their strategy has now come to I do not mean to suggest, by any means, that the fruition. Conservative Movement is dying or has no future. A new american jewish style Institutions do not expire that quickly. Besides, An era is passing in American Jewish life, not be- Conservative Judaism, though it may not have a dis- cause one man is going out of office but because the tinct point of view does have a unique social stance. conditions surrounding the change suddenly make All those non-Orthodox Jews who want a richer clear what otherwise was hidden. I know that I did relationship to the tradition than they find in Reform not see very much of this when I began my research Judaism, will find its institutions their rightful place. for this article. Now so many things converge to

158 make it seem correct, I can only wonder how long it of the Gordis report and its reception, and, as one of will take for apparatchiks of the Conservative (and those who, on the Rabbinical Assembly Executive Reform) Movement to see beyond their ideological Council, took an active part in discussions, I register blinkers. that disagreement. The issue was not, "Will the Rab- Today, all institutions are under attack and religious binical Assembly have standards for its members or institutions, because they should reflect the very impose a discipline as a requirement for membership?" highest values, are under particular scrutiny. In such No one on the Executive Council took the position a time the future of Judaism will not well be served that the Rabbinical Assembly should impose no by protecting our institutions first and then seeing standard whatever for membership. The issue was, where our people are. Our old organizational divi- "By what means and under what auspices will such sions made our Americanization possible. That is standards be defined and enforced?" My view was pretty much over now. A new American Jewish that the Membership Committee should have the style needs to come into being to meet our new right to define, and the duty to enforce, standards. situation. And it will then need to find its own ap- I believe the vast majority of R.A. members would propriate institutional expression. That is how far support that Committee, for example, if it chose to we have come. expel an R.A. member on account of his performing a marriage ceremony between a Jew and an uncon- verted gentile. The problem of halakhah is not to discover whether a rabbi may perform such a cere- The reality is more conservative power mony. The Law Committee is not needed to answer such a question. The debates centered upon the pur- Jacob Neusner pose and operations of the Law Committee, not on whether Conservative Judaism should obey halakhah. The division of the Seminary chancellorship, accur- I should chaim, therefore, that Borowitz's interpre- ately described in Eugene B. Borowitz's article, tation of the issues at hand is quite at variance with seems to me hopeful, and not a sign of decay. Rabbi the discussions of the Executive Council—and these Mandelbaum has demonstrated the capacity to points were made quite explicitly and recorded in reach and inspire colleagues and lay people. Rabbi the minutes, which, for the crucial sessions, were cir- Cohen is, as was rightly said, a noteworthy scholar, culated among all members of the R.A. Opposition whose important dissertation on Ibn Daud showed to the Gordis proposals for the Law Committee was both exactness and imagination. He likewise can and just that, and not to the principles stated by Gordis, will do the task before him, which is to accomplish and affirmed by virtually the whole of his opposi- the educational reform—aggiornamento—of the Sem- tion, concerning the centrality of halakhah for con- inary and the reconstruction of its faculty. The out- servative Judaism. come of the change in office ought to yield a stronger, not a weaker, institution, even though the An incorrect judgment particular offices at hand have undergone drastic Since these two points—the end of the old chancel- redefinition. lorship, the end of halakhah—lie at the foundation of the judgment, that "the whole mythic structure What I find less hopeful is the missed opportunity of Conservative Judaism as a philosophy . . ." is of the past two months, the opportunity openly to done with, it follows that that judgment is based up- discuss the issues facing Conservative Judaism at a on an excessively pessimistic interpretation of the crucial turning in its history. The debates concerned one, and a false comprehension of the other—and is the merits of this or that personality—and many therefore apt to be incorrect. very able men never came under consideration at all. The Seminary community seems to have been bitter- Whether we shall become "the right wing of Reform ly divided. Considerable forebearance and good will Judaism" or not is of no consequence to the issue. will be required to reunite it. But since that question has been raised, my I say one has to know little indeed about the character The halakhah remains central of Conservative synagogues or about the commit- On the issue of halakhah within the Conservative ment and learning of Conservative rabbis to think Movement, I differ from Borowitz's interpretation either would belong other than where they are,

159 which is in a more or less well demarcated middle, of the young people that they wanted a "younger" between modern Orthodoxy and Reform. True, we man. And Richard Levy proves this point complete- are not Orthodox. But we are not now, and I doubt ly in his statement which is cleverly written but al- we ever shall be, on that account identical with Re- together without feeling and conviction. All in all, Reform. the statement which I wrote in the National Jewish Post is validated by Rabbi Levy's article in your Admittedly a new era is at hand. But our movement journal: enters it with good leadership, leadership in touch with contemporary Jewish life in a way, perhaps, in "Now that it is over, what does it mean? It does not which the former was not, and with remarkable re- mean that the Conference is divided, on any issue, on sources of rabbinical and lay talent. purely generational levels. There are issues that divide the Conference: Vietnam, whether Reform Rabbis I trust that this writer has sufficiently established his should perform mixed marriage ceremonies; whether independence of mind and position not to be con- we should be political activists or not; whether our sidered an apologist for the 'apparatchiks' of the liturgy should be classic or innovative, and others. Seminary. Reducing the issues at hand to concern But every side of these questions is espoused by col- for jobs or institutional loyalties is grossly misleading. leagues of all ages. It is to attribute to the opposition to one's view- point motives less decent than one's own. "What I think it means can be explained in other terms: Some of the younger men—not too many— are impatient. They are in a hurry. They do not wish ... but others say... to wait their turn. They want to be in the seat of power—and they want it now. They wish, in plainer The younger men need to know the limits terms, to remove, if not their fathers, at least their older brothers, who stand in their way to leadership. I don't know if your publication prints letters to But the outcome of the vote revealed that a larger the editor. Perhaps it wants its readers to hear only group by far—of all ages—believe that this ambition, that which it wants them to hear. In any event, I this restiveness, this patience may be unstandable but cannot help but react to the unkind and pointless that they must have their limits." article which Richard Levy has written about the Conference election in St. Louis. Joseph R. Narot I am glad to learn that he has x-ray eyes and could Miami, Fla. look through my shoes and see that when I was nom- inating Rabbi Kahn "my feet were doing visible somersaults in my shoes." In his statement, he was fairly callous to my sensitivity, not to age, but to a HASKEL LOOKSTEIN is the rabbi of Congregation principle. The issue of the election was that the Kehilath Jeshurun in New York City. young men really had no issue. Nothing was a stake in the election in the choice between Leonard Beer- JACOB NEUSNER teaches religious studies at man and Robert Kahn except the subjective feelings Brown University.

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