Mail.Liberal-Judaism

• Daniel Faigin <faigin@cahighways.org>

• Robert Kaiser <judaismfaqs@yahoo.com>

• Robert Kaiser <judaismfaqs@yahoo.com>

From: Daniel Faigin <faigin@cahighways.org>
Date: Thu Aug 12 22:23:46 2004
Subject: Rabbi Alfred Wolf Z"L

(I posted this in my blog, http://www.livejournal.com/users/cahwyguy/, but I
want to post it here as well)

I learned yesterday that Rabbi Alfred Wolf of Wilshire Blvd. Temple passed
away on August 1st. The work of Rabbi Wolf (Z"L) has touched my life (and the
life of the Los Angeles Jewish Community) in many, many ways. I feel the need
to share some of them, as a way of remembering the man.

Rabbi Wolf is best known as the founder of the Wilshire Blvd. Temple
Camps. These camps (Camp Hess Kramer and Gindling Hilltop Camp) were vital in
cementing my Jewish identity; they are continuing to do this for my
daughter. Rabbi Wolf was responsible for the founding of the camps in San
Bernadino in 1951; they were in Pacific Palisades in 1952 and moved to Malibu
in 1953. We take Jewish camps and camping for granted nowadays, but think
about what a radical idea this was for a congregation to establish its own
camps was in the 1950s! This is what Rabbi Wolf got Wilshire Blvd Temple to
do. I have memories of him out there in jeans and a T-shirt (you never saw
Rabbi Magnin that way), working alongside campers to plant trees and build the
camps!

I also remember Rabbi Wolf at Wilshire working with the students in the
school. In particular, I remember working with his late daughter Judy, who ran
the student teacher program there when I was a student teacher.

Lastly, Rabbi Wolf made contributions that affected every Reform Jew in the
San Fernando Valley and in West LA. Rabbi Wolf, when he was the regional
director of UAHC (now URJ), was responsible for the establishment of Temple
Beth Hillel in Valley Village, Temple Isaiah in West Los Angeles, and Leo
Baeck Temple in West Los Angeles. I know that for the valley, Temple Beth
Hillel was the seed congregation for the other Reform congregations in the
area; I'm sure it is true in West LA as well.

Rabbi Wolf was a model of a gentleman and a scholar and a do-er. Unlike many
in the rabbinate around him (including his superior at WBT, Rabbi Magnin), he
didn't live for ambition or to make a name. He lived to do good in the
community.

Rabbi Wolf made numerous other contributions as well, especially in the area
of interfaith activities. I'm less familiar with those, although I'm sure that
other friends of mine, such as Rabbi John Sherwood, are well acquainted with
those activities.

I'll miss the man. I can proudly say that he touched my life.

Return to Table of Contents

From: Robert Kaiser <judaismfaqs@yahoo.com>
Date: Fri Aug 13 10:22:49 2004
Subject: Re: Recent Articles from "Conservative Judaism"

Adam writes:
> My question is to what extent this really matters in practical
> terms. Granted, the Conservative movement is halachic from the point of view
> of that movement, but isn't it the case that the vast majority of
> Conservative congregants don't know about halacha and don't care?

So are you saying that leaders in Conservative Judaism should give up?

> And if the rabbi or leader at their place of worship takes an interest in
> halacha and tries to educate or influence his congregants through his
> sermons, will even a minority of the congregants be in attendance to hear
> him?

Speaking from personal experience, yes!  In fact, the Conservative movement
has had an upswing in the number of its members engaging in serious study of
Jewish law, and in practical observance. This is due to a new attitude among
the Conservative leadership, one that did not exist back in 1940s-1960s. Today
CJ leaders teach and preach more about halakha, role model it for the
community, and are rearing more and more observant Jews through Solomon
Schechter Schools, Ramah camps, the Conservative Yeshiva and United Synagogue
Youth.

> This is a serious concern I have about the state of the movement. I would
> like to suggest that the foggy impression the Conservative movement gives
> about the role of G-d in Jewish law inevitably means that people will not
> feel much urge to adhere to halacha.

The Conservative movement does not teach anything "foggy"; rather, it avoids
the traditional and simple view of revelation as mere quotations from God. (No
less a figure than Maimonides considered such views impossible.) It is true
that the automatic acceptance of the Torah as authoritative becomes
problematic once you accept that God does not speak like a person, but what
can we do? We have to teach what we believe is correct.

Having a historical, nuanced understanding of theology does tend to push away
those who are most enthusiastic about following a strict set of laws. People
who are willing to accept pre-defined dogmas of faith, and who are not willing
to reject ideas that they find incompatible with their analysis, eventually
move towards Orthodoxy. On the other hand, non-Orthodox forms of teaching
(however correct) attract many philosophical Jews who, for a variety of
reasons, do not find following strict rules to be meaningful.

Thus, the philosophy of CJ is less attractive to those people who are
searching for clear truths and laws (the very people who are likely to become
the most observant) and instead attracts free-thinkers (the very people who
are less likely to become observant.) That is not a fault within the movement;
rather, it is a statistical bias that we must correct for when comparing
observance levels within Orthodoxy and Conservatism.

Shalom,

Robert Kaiser

Return to Table of Contents

From: Robert Kaiser <judaismfaqs@yahoo.com>
Date: Thu Aug 12 22:22:02 2004
Subject: Without a Divine stamp

Adam writes:

> Without a Divine stamp on the Torah and masorah
> to give it "teeth", people just don't see it as important. 

What are you getting at? I prefer my teachers and rabbis to teach me
the truth as they best understand it, rather then anything else. If
they taught me something about God and Torah that they didn't truly
believe, then it would be but a pious lie, meant to scare us into
following God's will.

In any case, the Orthodox Jewish position on God, Torah and following
Jewish law is not as straightforward as you might think. Rabbi Elliot
N. Dorff writes "For the Orthodox, the Written and Oral Torahs are the
exact words of God revealed to the People Israel at Sinai. Orthodox
belief depends on the twin doctrines that God articulated His will
verbally and that we have the verbatim record of that revelation in the
Written Torah and in the unbroken chain of tradition that continues to
our own day. Since the Torah is the word of God, no human being has the
right to modify it. The self-perceived needs and values of the
contemporary Jewish community are not an acceptable, alternative source
of value. We must obey the word of God as it has come down to us in the
texts of the tradition, and when we apply them to new circumstances, we
must hew to received authority as closely as possible."

Dorff notes that this view seems to have the virtue of simplicity:
people should do what God's text tells them to do. However, "Orthodoxy
itself is splintered into many groups. These groups are often as
hostile to each other as they are to other denominations of Judaism,
and intergroup marriages within the Orthodox communities are uncommon.
Not only are the groups diverse; in significant areas they do not
recognize the legitimacy of each others acts. Some, for example, will
not eat the meat slaughtered unnder the supervision of others.
Following the text is not always as simple as it seems."

Why did this occur? Don't we just simply follow the revealed word of
Torah?  The problem is that we -cannot- do so. None of us can, at least
not directly. The fatal flaw in this thinking has been pointed out by
Rabbi Dorff: "The appealing authority...is compromised, however, when
one recognizes that human beings must interpret and apply the texts
taken to be divine before one can live by them. Even if one wanted to
follow the literal word of God, thc need for people first to understand
that word necessitates human interpretation. Through that process human
fallibility is inextricably mixed into thc very meaning of the divine
word. As a result, it as impossible to follow the indisputable word of
God; one can only achieve a human understanding of God's will. 

["A Living Tree; The Roots and Growth of Jewish Law' Eliot N. Dorff and
Arthur Rosett, SUNY Press, 1988]

Once you realize this, things ain't so simple!

Shalom,

Robert

Return to Table of Contents

"It is not our task as liberal Jews to complain about the Orthodox attitude or to be bullied by it, but rather to choose our legitimate path according to the inner logic and development of liberal Judaism" (Rabbi Walter Jacob)

Previous Issue: v14n3		Next Issue: v14n5
MLJ Home Page	Return to Retrieval Form