| Letter#6
Conservative Judaism
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| My dear Mr. Isaacs: |
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| Having noted
that no mention has been made of Conservative Judaism in any of my letters, you inquire
whether I line it up with Orthodoxy or Reform Judaism in principle. I have deliberately refrained from mentioning Conservative Judaism, in order not to confuse the issue, which is Orthodox Judaism as the Judaism of our fathers of old in Israel, or the non-existence of any Judaism to which the sons of Jacob are obligated to pay sacred allegiance, because it has been displaced by Christianity. The clear-cut issue is Orthodox Judaism versus Christianity, that is because Orthodox Judaism may claim some degree of continuity with Judaism of old, as it stands for the God, the Messiah, the priesthood, the sacrifices, belief in revelation, resurrection, etc., as set forth in the Old Testament; while Reform Judaism is the opposite, being a denial of all that is basically Jewish from a doctrinal point of view, even to the point of being indoctrinated sympathetically in many in- stances with the God of Spinoza, though mouthing the God of Moses. Conservative Judaism, as an organized division of American Jewry, is of a later date than the Reform sect. Its influence has been due largely to the work of Rabbi Solomon Schecter, the founder of the United Synagogue of America (1913). Its center of operation is the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, N.Y.C., of which Rabbi Louis Finklestein is president. While Conservative Judaism stands for more Hebrew and tradition than does Reform Judaism; while it has always stood for a homeland in Palestine, which the Reform division of Jewry opposed until the advent of Hitler to power, and then only as a place of refuge for the unfortunate Jewish exiles, nonetheless its middle-of-the-road position in doctrine has caused it to be classified as neither "fish, flesh nor good red herring," as Moses is not divided in the Conservative Judaic way. If anything in Moses is to be amended or abrogated, it must be done with authority of a divine nature, which neither the Orthodox, the Reform, or the Conservative wing of Judaism possesses. The best evaluation of both Conservative and Reform Judaism that I have come across of recent date in the Judaic world came from the pen of an Orthodox Rabbi, Morris Besdin. I present it to you as my answer to your inquiry-- "In vain will you search for a clear definition and concrete exposition
of the philosophy and ideology and Conservative Judaism. It is in its very nature a
shifting and variable quantity, depending upon the form and shape given to it by
individual exponents. There are congregations that style themselves conservative, whose
avowed tenets of belief and whose mode of worship approximate those of traditional
Judaism, while there are other congregations in the conservative fold which both in theory
and practice are hardly distinguishable from Reform Judaism.--They do not recognize the
absolute authority of the Shulhan Aruch (code of Jewish law, standard authority for
Orthodox Jewish practice), nor do they regard Jewish custom and tradition as
binding." Nothing further need be said about Conservative Judaism. Hence I purpose to refrain from discussing it in the future, as in the past, unless you raise some issue specifically related to that appeasing sect in Jewry. |
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