c. 1999 Religion News Service

UNDATED _ In 1885, Reform Jewish rabbis meeting in Pittsburgh adopted a statement of faith that reflected their desire to join the American mainstream by dismissing most traditional Jewish practices as”altogether foreign to our mental and spiritual state.” Eating kosher food, not working on the Sabbath and skull caps for men _ all of which served to separate traditional Jews from their non-Jewish neighbors _ were rejected in favor of an emphasis on working for social justice. The Pittsburgh Platform, said the rabbis, was meant to underscore their belief in Judaism as a”progressive and rational religion.” Some 114 years later, Reform rabbis will again meet in Pittsburgh to adopt a new statement of faith. However, this time they will consider a document reflecting a growing but still minority trend within Reform Judaism to reclaim many traditional practices rejected by an earlier generation.”Just as Judaism’s other movements have become more traditional in outlook in recent years, so too has Reform,”said Rabbi Paul Menitoff, the New York-based executive vice president of the Reform Central Conference of American Rabbis.”That’s the sociology of the religious world today, Jewish and non-Jewish alike. Practice and spirituality are in.” About 600 of the CCAR’s 1,700 members are scheduled to debate the new statement at the group’s annual convention, which runs from Sunday to Wednesday (May 23-26). Rabbi Charles A. Kroloff, the CCAR’s incoming president, said the statement should pass easily _ a prospect that seemed unlikely just a few months ago.

Last winter, Reform Judaism magazine published a draft of the new statement that enraged those Reform leaders who thought the document leaned too far toward tradition for its own sake, and away from”classical”Reform’s insistence on broad latitude on questions of individual Jewish practice and beliefs.

Much of the opposition came from Reform Jews in the South, Southwest and lower Midwest who are distanced from more tradition-oriented Jewish communities on the East and West Coasts.

Opposition was so widespread within the 1.5-million-member movement _ the largest among American Jews _ that a 13-member committee of Reform rabbis, educators and lay leaders was organized to rewrite the statement.

After a series of rewrites, a streamlined document emerged that significantly watered down the earlier draft, but which still contained far more traditional language than statements of faith adopted in 1937 and 1976 that were also meant to update the first Pittsburgh Platform. “The earlier version did not sufficiently represent a broad consensus within the Reform movement,”said Michael E. Meyer, a professor at the Reform Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati.”It was representative of a relatively narrow spectrum within the movement.” Reworking the document has all but eliminated the controversy that accompanied last winter’s public release of the statement, added Rabbi Eric H. Yoffie, president of the Reform Union of American Hebrew Congregations, the movement’s synagogue umbrella agency.”This is a much more careful document than we started with,”said Yoffie.”Elements that caused distress have been redrafted into broad principles that are widely accepted within our movement.” Kroloff, who leads a congregation in Westfield, N.J., characterized the rewritten statement as favoring”autonomy over obligation. It’s clearly been softened.” The rejected earlier draft was largely the work of Rabbi Richard Levy, the CCAR’s outgoing president. Not only did Levy emphasize Jewish lifecycle, ritual and holiday practices largely abandoned by classical Reform, he also wrote of the biblical exodus from Egypt and Moses’ receiving of the Torah (Jewish Bible) at Mount Sinai using language critics said echoed Orthodox literalism.

Levy, director of the Los Angeles Hillel Council, said the rewritten statement still contains far more traditional ideas and Hebrew terms than any earlier Reform platform. It also urges Reform Jews to study Hebrew, which has largely been replaced by English in most American Reform synagogues.

One traditional Hebrew term used is”mitzvah,”translated as”sacred obligation”and described as”the means by which we make our lives holy.”For traditional Jews, mitzvah signifies divine and rabbinically ordained religious law _ including eating kosher food, keeping the Sabbath and covered heads for men. “That’s an important statement to be making in a Reform document. The implication here is that this is something one takes on,”said Levy.

The new statement also for the first time encourages”aliyah,”or immigration to Israel _ another major shift for a movement that once rejected Jewish settlement in the Holy Land as an outmoded nationalist concept.

In addition, the statement reiterates Reform commitments to sexual equality, accepting homosexuals, interfaith dialogue, environmentalism and”acts of justice and compassion”_ all hallmarks of the movement’s liberal social and political values.

Once approved, the new statement of faith will be widely circulated within the Reform movement as a study document only, with individual Reform congregations or Jews free to adopt as much or as little of it as desired.

Despite the controversy produced by the new statement, Yoffie said the process has strengthened the Reform movement.”It generated serious religious argument in a way we haven’t seen in years,”he said.”That sort of engagement can only be good for us. It’s good to look deeply at who you are.”

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