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PAGE 12 THE SOUTHERN ISRAELITE August 30, 1985
Awesome question
Will there be one Jewish people by the year 2000?
by Irving Greenberg
Conclusion
WHAT IS TO BE DONE?
American Jewry must establish
a systematic religious dialogue a-
mong the Jewish denominations
on the scale of the Jewish-Christian
dialogue of the past 50 years. Over
the decades, the Jewish community
has financed dialogue programs of
the Anti-Defamation League, the
American Jewish Committee, the
American Jewish Congress, the Syn
agogue Council of America, and
the joint National Conference of
Christians and Jews to ensure that
Jews and Christians would over
come the hostilities of the past.
Many have criticized the duplica
tion, but the fact is that an extraor
dinary success was made possible
by this significant investment of
resources.
A legacy of 18 hundred
years of hatred—and even mur
der—has been broadly overcome
by people inspired by dialogue,
religious sharing and theologizing,
as well as by personal and social
contacts. There are Evangelical
Christians now challenging the
anti-Semitism of the New Testa
ment. Devout Catholics and Pro
testants have reformulated their
own traditions to eliminate stereo
typing and hatred and to advocate
Jewish causes such as Israel and
Soviet Jewry. Eminent Jewish
thinkers have formulated the most
positive Jewish models of Christi
anity ever developed in all the days
of their separate existence.
When it comes to Jewish-Jewish
dialogue, however, there has been
a shortage of organizations. The
Synagogue Council of America
(SCA) brings together the three
denominations. To prevent hala-
chic controversy due to participa
tion in SCA, each movement was
given a veto. To avoid straining the
weak fabric of the SCA, “divisive”
theological issues have been a-
voided. Moreover, delegates sit not
as individuals but as representa
tives of their movements, which
restricts or prevents growing to
ward each other. Most local Boards
‘This call for unity is not based on the hope of unanimity or
uniformity. There is nothing wrong with disagreements. The iv
isions need not be papered over. What is needed is restraint to
avoid fundamental breaches, and commitments to find common
solutions. No one should underestimate either the tradition, or
the will and fertile imagination of the Jewish people. There are
positive solutions enough within our gasp. We need the intelli
gence, the sourage and the commitment to pursue it.
of Rabbis follow this same policy.
At the present time, the National
Jewish Resource Center offers the
only serious organizational commit
ment to intra-Jewish ecumenism.
NJRC’s Chevra project for rabbis
is committed to Klal Yisrael and
provides a forum for ongoing dia
logue. Due to limited budget, only
120 rabbis in six cities are currently
involved. That number is not yet
large enough to change the out
come of policies or to reverse the
present tendency to polarization.
NJRC has sought funding to in
crease the scope of Chevra but has
found little receptivity to its re
quests.
Nationally, the federations are
giving millions for Jewish-Christian
dialogue but only pennies for Jew
ish-Jewish dialogue. The level of
consciousness regarding the urgency
of the issue is too low. The truth of
the matter is, if the growing divi
siveness is not stopped, it will split
the unity of community, affect the
success of local campaigns and
cost the federations millions of
dollars.
The internal Jewish discussion
should follow the Jewish-Christian
dialogue model, in all its aspects
(an embarrassing but accurate ana
logy). There should be a high-level
dialogue encompassing systematic
theology and studies in halacha
which respectfully acknowledge divi
sions between the groups. Theo
logical and halachic reasoning that
justify and mandate the necessary
steps to cooperate and to construct
common solutions must be devel
oped within each movement.
For example: Within the Ortho
dox movement, there are scholars
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Irving Greenberg
already arguing that even if the
non-Orthodox movements foliow
halachic procedures, all their acts
will be invalid. In this view, non-
Orthodox theological assumptions
(includingthe possibility of change
in halacha) make all non-Orthodox
acts ipso facto null and void.
Halachic scholarship that seeks
unifying solutions should build on
the suggestion of the Chazon Ish
(the great leader of the most tradi
tional Israeli sector of the past
generation!) that disbelief and even
atheism should be treated as a
modern cultural bias of “pressure,”
rather than as a willful denial.
There are other possible positive
Orthodox approaches in the
thought of Rabbis Abraham Isaac
Kook and Joseph P. Soloveitchik.
Yet, for the most part, the hala
chic disciples of these great figures
are being educated to simplistic
philosophies of halacha and social
ized to separatist approaches. All
three movements need an infusion
of high-level scholarship in philoso
phy, theology, and halacha. Devel
oping such high-level scholarship
takes time, talent, and careful cultiva
r
tion.
In addition, we need middle-
level dialogue in which the rabbis
and practitioners, as well as the lay
leadership of each movement, are
brought into systematic and regular
contact for learning, for better mu
tual understanding, and for finding
common solutions to common prob
lems.
Finally, there must be a popular
level, modeled on the “living room
dialogues” of the Jewish-Christian
experience. Through such dia
logues, people overcome stereo
types. They learn that there is real
commitment in the other groups to
values which they also respect and
desire. This changes the atmosphere
and gives support to the rabbis
who seek to overcome some of the
legal and theological obstacles.
Without such lay sympathy, it
would be impossible for spiritual
leadership to overcome barriers.
It is time that those Jews who are
not totally “denominationalized” as
sert the principle and the priority
of Klal Yisrael(the unity and totali
ty of the Jewish people). I would
call upon all Jews to put pressure—
peer pressure, moral judgment, even
economic pressure—on the leader
ship of all the denominations. Let a
non-Orthodox Jew who is giving
money to traditional institutions
ask them: What are they doing to
advance unity? Are they abusing
other Jews? Just asking the ques
tion begins to have an impact on
policy.
Let Orthodox Jews who are active
in the community constantly chal
lenge their non-Orthodox co-work
ers: What are they doing to insure
that their own denominations not
act irresponsibly in matters of per
sonal status or issues that affect the
overall unity of the Jewish people?
It is time to collect I.O.U.s from
each other. At least, a combination
of moral and political pressure
should be brought to bear to ad
vance solutions that favor the good
of the total community, rather than
the short-term advantages of a partic
ular group.
Among those Jews who view the
polarization with equanimity, many
are convinced that only their group
will survive. But the Orthodox
who favor withdrawal should not
be so complacent. True, they could
turn out to be the saving remnant.
They could equally turn out to be
the contemporary “Dead Sea sect”
the group that withdrew to save its
own purity and died an arid, name
less death sundered from Jewish
history.
Those Conservative Jews who
feel that Orthodox is reactionary
and a lost cause, those Reform and
secular Jews who have written off
the survival of the traditionalists,
all those who are convinced that
they alone are modern enough to
survive, should ask themselves
whether it is not equally likely that
they will simply be assimilated into
the magnetic culture of the 20th
century?
We need each other. The renewal
of each group is the best insurance
for the survival of all groups. It is
time to develop true consciousness
of the urgency of the polarization
problem and to formulate strategies
detailed enough and wise enough
to attack problems and find root
solutions. The will to unity, and
recognition of common fate is extra
ordinarily powerful among the Jew
ish rank and file. The failure lies in
the fact that all that energy has
gone into political and philanthrop
ic fields. It is time to translate the
sense of common destiny into theo
logical categories, halachic think
ing, and religious behavior.
This call for unity is not based
on the hope of unanimity or uniform
ity. There is nothing wrong with
disagreements. The divisions need
not be papered over. What is needed
is restraint to avoid fundamental
breaches, and commitments to find
common solutions. No one should
underestimate either the tradition,
or the will and fertile imagination
of the Jewish people. There are
positive solutions enough within
our grasp. We need the intelligence,
the courage and the commitment
to pursue it.The time to act is now
® 1985. the National Jewish Resource Center
The author of this special "Perspectives"
responsible for the views expressed.
solel\
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