RICHARD G. HIRSCH

Reform — Ten Years and Six Lessons

For us Jews, religion and nationality with you six of the lessons learned or re­ have been inextricable. The Temple was affirmed during this last decade. not only the center of religion but the sym- bol of national independence, just as the Lesson One: We have learned the return to the Western Wall of the Temple in validity of three simple interrelated pre­ 1967 has become the symbol of renewed mises: There can be no without sovereignty. By our very presence here the Jewish People. There will be no Jewish today in a reunited Jerusalem, we the reli- People without the . There will gious movement of Progressive Judaism be no Jewish State without Judaism.The affirm the rebirth of the Jewish People. circle is complete. Catastrophe has been superceded by res- Our colleague David Polish has called toration, destruction by reconstruction, to our attention that both the pioneers of desperation by aspiration. classic Zionism and the pioneers of classic Ten years ago the international head- Reform selected the same verse from the quarters of the World Union were moved Bible as their motto. Isaiah, Chapter 2, from New York to Jerusalem. When a verse 5 Bet Yaakov lekhu venelkha beor child reaches the age of ten, according to Adonai "House of Jacob, come and let us walk Pirke Avot, ben eser shanim la Mishna he is in the light of the Lord." In all, the sentence ready to study the Mishnah. The word contains six Hebrew words. Both the Mishnah literally means study, teaching, Zionists and the Reformers retained the two middle words "lekhu venelkha — Come ששה סדרים lesson. The Mishnah comprises — six sections. I would like to review and let us go." But each deleted two words from the Hebrew original. The first mod­ ern Zionist movement of , the BILUIM, organized in 1882, took their Richard G. Hirsch is a member of the WZO Execu­ name, from the first letters of the first tive and Executive Director of the World Union for Progressive Judaism. four words of the sentence BILU.

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Bet Yaakov lekhu venelkha "House of Ja• in the eastern and western centres of Jew• cob, come and let us go" (intending to the ish population, so was it an historic land of ). They left out the last two imperative for our world Jewish move• words beor Adonai "in the light of the Lord" ment to have its center in the spiritual and because the early Biluim were either neg• cultural heart of the Jewish People. ative or indifferent to the dimensions of the To move to Israel required a compara• religious heritage. When in the same tively easy decision; it was only a cross- decade the Central Conference of Ameri• ocean leap of faith. To create a vital world can Rabbis was organized, it selected as movement is far more complex; this its motto the very same verse, still requires a leap of action. And to have inprinted on its seal, but it left out the two impact on Israeli society; that demands a words at the beginning of the sentence, rocket-like propulsion of energy, person• Bet Yaakov "House of Jacob," because nel and funds, which our movement has as they did not believe in the perpetuation of yet been unwilling or unable to commit. the Jews as a people. They kept the last The fundamental issue is not now nor two words, 6eor Adonai "in the light of the has it ever been religious rights. To be Lord," because they wanted to stress the sure, the public media and some of our essence of as a faith own members have focused on the lack of grouping. rights and the numerous odious acts of The World Union's move to Jerusalem outright prejudice and discrimination. So is a declaration that we today are commit• far we have waged successful political ted to the complete ideology efforts against amendment to the and even now have a case before Bet Yaakov The People of Israel Israel's High Court of Justice demanding lekhu venelkha The and that two of our rabbis be allowed to serve beor Adonai The faith of Israel. as marriage registrars. We shall continue to plead, pressure, persuade, cajole and Without the synthesis of all three com• lobby in the pursuit of our rights. But in the ponents, Jewish life in the twentieth cen• final analysis, as we Jews have learned tury is neither comprehensive, nor from our historic experience, rights for comprehensible, neither endurable, nor minority groups are never bestowed will• enduring. ingly by any majority. Rights have to be Lesson Two: A movement, like an indi• carved out in social conflict over genera• vidual, is judged not by ideological for• tions. Although Israeli and world Jewry are mulation, but by life commitments; not by truly pluralistic, given the current context resolutions, but by resolute actions; not of Israeli society, it is not seen to be in the by promises, but by performances vested interest of the major political reflected in the achievements of its adher• groupings nor the religious establishment ents and institutions. Just as the Union of to encourage that pluralistic character. To American Hebrew Congregations moved the contrary, the trend toward political its headquarters from Cincinnati to New extremism and religious fanatacism is York, the center of American Jewish life, conducive to opposing any progress and the Hebrew Union College-Jewish for the non-Orthodox movements in Institute of Religion established campuses Israel. TEN YEARS AND SIX LESSONS 43

Hence, the ultimate test confronting our We have joined the World Zionist world movement in regard to Israel is not Organization both as a World Union and what we say, but what we do; not what we through the organization of ARZENU — protest, but what we create; not what we our international movement of Reform proclaim ourselves to be, but what we in Zionists. We are sending shlichim to the fact are. United States, Great Britain, South Africa Without rabbis to perform religious and Australia. We have created a new acts, to what avail is the demand for rab• international , binical rights? Without institutions to be . We have mobilized the recipients of government subsidies campaigns for Aliyah. We have given to all other religious groups, to what increased the number of youth and adults avail is the insistence on government sup• who undergo educational experiences in port? Without a movement to exercise Israel. At the culmination of this confer• religious rights, in Israel, to what avail are ence, in full cooperation with the HUC- pronouncements outside the Land of Israel? JIR, we shall begin construction of the Judged by what we would like to be, we World Education Center for Progressive have fallen far short of our objectives. Judaism, a magnificent campus of Jewish Judged by what we were, we have come a learning and living comprising a youth long way. It was only twenty-five years center-hostel, a world headquarters- ago that Har-El, the first Progressive con• tourist reception center and synagogue to gregation, was organized, and only be erected by the World Union, and an twenty years ago that the first building of archeology museum, class-room center, the Hebrew Union College in Jerusalem and library to be erected by the College- was dedicated. We have developed fifteen Institute. congregations and are planning synagogue-community center building Lesson Three: In the process of moving programs in Tel Aviv, Haifa, Nahariya to Israel and establishing an Israeli Pro• and Ramat Aviv. We have expanded the gressive movement, the World Union Leo Baeck School into an impressive insti• itself has been transformed. Prior to the tution of learning and communal activity. development of the Israel Program, the We are ordaining Israeli rabbis at the world movement was an organization Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of whose primary task was to send rabbis to Religion. We have established a flourish• far-flung Jewish communities such as ing Israeli youth movement with camp Latin America, South Africa and Austra• programs for our own youth as well as for lia. The World Union provided seed Arab, Jewish and disadvantaged children. money for rabbis and new congregations. Together with the United Move• Once they were able to establish them• ment, the Jewish Agency and the Govern• selves and attain a condition of financial ment, we have established the first Reform independence, the World Union's task kibbutz, Yahel, and during this confer• was to provide a framework for sharing ence we shall formally dedicate our common concerns and encouraging coop• second kibbutz, Lotan. We are now erative ventures among the constituen• beginning work on Har Halutz, a Mitzpeh cies. We shall continue, and indeed settlement for families in the Galil. strengthen, our endeavors to stimulate the 44 FORUM:50

expansion of those vital purposes. With Israel becomes a public, national issue, the move to Israel, however, the World since in Israel even irreligious persons do Union assumed a new dimension. We not think of driving on Yom Kippur. How have evolved from a service agency prim• much more serious are public controver• arily into an operating agency as well. sies over major issues relating to !shut — Every new program we have initiated has "Personal Status (marriage, divorce, con• attracted new support and new suppor• version, who is a Jew, and similar issues). ters. The more creative are the programs These public policy questions reflect the we develop, the more funds we mobilize ongoing role of the State in the process of and the more people we involve. The redefining the Jews as a people. stronger we become in Israel, the stronger Since the Progressive Jews of Israel live we become as a world movement. The in an environment where Jewishness is an greater our participation in the Zionist issue in the public domain, their responses venture, the greater is the sense of Jewish to questions of religious practice are of adventure for our members outside . national as well as religious import. Little wonder that significant differences of opin• Lesson Four: The move to Israel has ion have arisen between the Israeli Pro• sharpened the ideological conflicts within gressive movement and some of our the family of Progressive Judaism. Diaspora constituencies over religious Reform Judaism evolved as a religious practices and life-cycle rites. The Israeli movement to offer a creative response to movement is not motivated by political modernity. We have successfully demon• expediency as some of our Diaspora strated that we can construct a framework members have charged, but by a percep• of Jewish living in the Diaspora wherein a tion of Jewishness rooted in an intense positive will be retained peoplehood experience. alongside integrated participation in Each of our constituent movements is society at large. not only the product of basic tenets of But in the Diaspora, Jewish identity is a Progressive Judaism, but in keeping with private matter, and th extent of religious the spirit of Reform, is motivated by the observance is determined by personal distinctive conditions of the milieu in choice. The principle of separation of which it functions. The very existence of church and state precludes the injection of the Israeli Progressive movement has the state into the religious domain and vice forced the rest of the world movement to versa. In Israel, in contrast, Jewish iden• be more sensitive to the issues of Klal tity is a public issue. Indeed, the major Yisrael. I predict that the overwhelming raison d'etre of the state is to forge a presence in the Diaspora Jewish con• public Jewish identity. The numerous sciousness of the Jewish state will continue religion-state controversies reflect to test Jewish identity. Whereas previous strongly-affirmed divergent interpreta• generations of Progressive Jews were tions of how to define the Jewish dimen• challenged by the confrontation with sions of the Jewish State. For a Jew in the modernity, future generations will be no United States the question: "Should I less challenged by the confrontation with drive a car on Ybm Kippur" is a personal, Jewish peoplehood. The internal controv• religious question. The same question in ersies which will be generated as a conse- TEN YEARS AND SIX LESSONS 45

quence will help keep our movement Samaria, are internal matters. Jews dynamic. A movement which has no ideo• abroad, whose sons do not serve in the logical ferment eventually stagnates. We armed forces have no right to pass judg• who advocate pluralism among world ment. There have been vitriolic debates in Jewry should welcome and encourage the Diaspora over the so-called issue of pluralistic expression within our own the right to dissent. I say 'so-called' movement. because in my judgment both those who advocate the right to dissent and those Lesson Five: We have earned the right who oppose the right to dissent are trailing to take stands on the major issues con• a red herring. fronting Israeli society. Those who In all my years in social action I have attended the previous Conference in 1980 discovered that when a person agrees with will recall that at the time funds for expan• you, you will not object to his right to sion of Kibbutz Yahel and for construction speak, no matter from which shore or of the facilities at Kibbutz Lotan had not platform he agrees with you. But if some• been authorized or appropriated. The one disagrees with you, then it is easier to issue had a direct relationship to the avail• find fault by impugning his motives or ability of Israel government resources for disapproving his tactics or his right to settlements within the Green Line. When speak. we lobbied for support of our kibbutzim, in The real issue, therefore, is not the right effect we were participating in the debate of dissent, but responsible participation in over settlement policy which has riven the political process. And responsible par• Israeli politics. No one questioned our ticipation in the political process is right to lobby and protest both here in dependent on the circumstances. If I Israel and from abroad. Why? Because had been in Israel following the manifestly we have a stake. We address tragedy at the Sabra and Shatilla refugee the issue as insiders and not as foreigners. camps I would have been one of the We are here by right and not by privilege. 400,000 demonstrators in Tel Aviv, as We have implanted ourselves literally in were many members of our movement, the soil and therefore in the soul of Israel. and I would have lent my name to an ad in Similarly, when it comes to an issue the Israeli press, as did the Israel Move• such as the proposed amendment to the ment. But had I been in Los Angeles, I Law of Return which would invalidate would not have been among those Jews conversions performed by non-Orthodox demonstrating against Mr. Begin nor rabbis abroad, our right to oppose the would I have demonstrated in front of legislation both here and abroad is Israel's embassy in Washington, nor unquestioned. If anything, it is we who would I have lent my name to an ad in the question the right of the Knesset, a civic New York Times. What is the difference? body comprising a majority of secular I am the same person, I hold the same Jews and non-Jews, to pass judgment views whether in Jerusalem or in on religious acts performed by Jews Washington, but the commitment to par• abroad. ticipate responsibly in the political process i t dictates'different reactions under varying But, we have been told that foreign conditions. policy or issues affecting Judea and 46 FORUM:50

In a way, it is far easier to be an Israeli Do Diaspora Jews have a right to par• than a Diaspora Jew. The Diaspora Jew ticipate in this debate? Do we as a world• has to judge not only what is right, but has wide religious movement have a right to to exercise right judgment. If he is cir• take sides in this conflict between two cumspect, it is not because someone from schools of Zionist thought? I submit that Israel has told him what to do, but because we not only have a right, but an obliga• he imposes on himself a sense of responsi• tion, both as individuals and as a move• bility and discipline. He has to be more ment. If Diaspora Jews have the right to concerned about the public consequences speak out on internal policies affecting the of expressing the truth as he sees it than fate of Argentinian Jews and Soviet Jews, does the Jew who lives in a Jewish state. do they not have the right to speak on The question: "Is it good or bad for the issues affecting the Jews of the Jewish Jews?" is rarely raised in Israel. But "Is it State? We have been careful not to iden• good or bad for the Jews?" is a legitimate tify our movement with any political question for the Diaspora. party, and this should continue to be our The above is not to be construed as in policy. There are among us persons hold• any way limiting the freedom of expres• ing radically divergent political views. All sion of Diapora Jews. Quite the contrary. of them should feel at home. But within the The bonds binding Jewish communities to framework of the political process, there is Israel and to each other are inextricable. a profound religious issue, to which we Neither oceans nor boundaries nor citizen• must respond as a movement if we would ship can negate the interdependence of be true to our heritage. Jewish destiny. The character and poli• We have before us two conflicting con• cies of Israeli society invariably affect cepts of holiness. There are some religious Diaspora Jewry. Nowhere is this more evi• Jews who, professing love of the holy dent than in the major controversy now Land and obedience to God, fan the raging in Israel over Judea and Samaria. flames of religious fanaticism, violate the Fundamentally at issue is a debate civil liberties of minority groups, advocate between two diametrically opposed rule by force, and prevent the evolution of schools of Zionism. The school repres• conditions leading towards peaceful com• ented by the Herut party and some reli• promise. We call their version of Judaism giously oriented political groupings, a perversion. Their love is blind, their mes- believes in Eretz Yisrael Hashlemah, (the sianism false, and their zealotry danger• total land of Israel.) For them control over ous. Their deeds defame the Holy Faith, the territory overrides all other considera• desecrate the Holy One, and defile the tions. The second school led by\he Labor Holy Land. Alignment and minority parties acknowl• As religious Jews we declare that the edges the historic right to Eretz Yisrael, concept of Am Hakodesh takes prece• but believes that human considerations dence over Eretz Hakodesh. The Holy such as the demographic composition People has priority over the Holy Land. and the democratic character of the We repudiate those forces which, by Jewish State take precedence over re• silence or inaction, condone religious and tention of all territories now in Israeli political intolerance, verbal and physical control. acts of violence, and anti-gentile as well as TEN YEARS AND SIX LESSONS 47 anti-Jewish acts of racism. The alliance reality that far more Israelis have "gone between political radicalism and religious down" to the Western world than Jews extremism is unholy and un-Jewish. from the West have "gone up" to Israel? Unless these foreboding trends are rev• How do we maintain our zeal on behalf of ersed, the Diaspora will be alienated, the the "Let my people go" campaign for democratic fabric of Israeli society will be Soviet Jewry with the reality that in recent rent asunder, and the Zionist vision of years most Soviet Jews have preferred to national and spiritual renewal will be "go" to every country but Israel? How do dissipated. • we continue to swim in the mainstream of The prophet Isaiah understood that the World Zionist Organization without holiness was dependent first on redemp• being choked by pollution and contami• tion of the people vekar'u lahem am hako- nated by politicization? In sum, how do we desh geulei Adonai "They shall call them till the soil of our Zionist dream without the Holy People, the redeemed of the Lord." sullying our souls in the Zionist reality? (Isaiah 62:12). There can be no redemp• There are no facile answers to these tion of the land without redemption of the and other profound moral dilemmas. people, and no redemption of the people There are those within our movement who without the creation of a just society. would prefer that we distance ourselves from Israel, and its institutional forums, Lesson Six: The more intense our rela• lest, as one of our leaders has recently tionship to Israel, the more acute appear written, we "put national-political objec• the moral dilemmas and the more essen• tives above universal-ethical principles." tial it is for Progressive Judaism to con• They do not understand that here in front them. Our movement, with its social Israel, Jewish values are tested neither in justice emphasis, has been galvanized by theory nor in the abstract. Here, there is the Zionist vision of integrating the renewal no artificial dichotomy between the of the Jewish People with the renewal of a political-historical-particularist dimension Jewish society grounded in social and eco• and the religious-spiritual-universalist nomic justice. However, our more active dimension. Here, Jewishness and human- participation in Israeli society and in the ness, particularism and universalism, framework of the Jewish Agency-World body and soul are inseparable. This is the Zionist Organization has made us aware source of both our anguish and our rap• of severe deficiencies in the work ethic and ture, our frustration and our exhilaration. in public and personal standards of moral• That is the essence of Zionism. ity. Is this the Chosen People? Is this the Let those who wish to do so, withdraw ? Is this the Jewish State from the fray. Let them preach pristine for which our forefathers prayed for two platitudes from the rarified heights of a millenia? How can we reconcile the dream moralistic universalism. Let them beunin- with the reality? How do we reconcile the volved spectators and objective comment• restoration of power with the difficulty of ators. But for the rest of us, let us do battle differentiating between the acceptable use with the world as it is, refusing to accept it and the unacceptable abuse of that and refusing to reject it. And let the con• power? How do we reconcile the plea frontation with the rough reality be its iorAliyah from lands of freedom with the own prize. Sekhar mitzva mitzva — "The 48 FORUM:50

reward of a good deed is the deed itself." Jews assembled there, and he threatens There is a familiar Midrash of how God them: im atem mekablim hatora mutau, offered the Torah to all the nations of the De-im lav sham tehe kvurtekhem. (Shab- world, each of whom rejected it, and at 88a). "If you accept my Torah, it shall finally, when offering it to the Jews, they be good; but if not, here shall lie your graves." accepted with the words, "Nasseh And then, and only then, did our forefathers V'Nishma." "We shall do and we shall say, "O.K. God, Nasse V'Nishma — We listen." It is a favourite Midrash because it shall obey and we shall listen." puts our ancestors in such a positive light. Evidently, we Jews require grave It also solves a theological problem for threats to our survival before we accept some Jews. After all, we were not the the Torah and its dictates for Jewish living. chosen people, only the choosing people. Today the threat to Jewish survival hangs However, there is another Midrash, not so heavy over our heads in all places of our well known or so often recounted, but sojourning as well as in Eretz Yisrael. We much more characteristic of the behavior have no choice. We hereby dedicate our• pattern of our people. The beginning is the selves to the only alternative available. same. God offers the Torah to all the Let us persevere in our common enter• nations. When He comes to the Jews they prise: the preservation of the Jewish Peo• give the same answer as all the pagans. ple, the perpetuation of the Jewish God, how can we accept such high stand• heritage, and the creation of a Jewish ards? We shall never be able to live by society in this land of sanctity and eternity. them. What does God do? He lifts Mt. Let us accept the Torah and it will be Sinai high over the heads of the 600,000 good.