• Educated Kaplanian Jew Talmud Page Full Commentary

    Kaplan was fond of the phrase a “Copernican Revolution” and used it in several different contexts. When one’s understanding of Judaism shifts from that of a religion to a culture or religious civilization, does one’s understanding of who is an educated Jew correspondingly shift? If so, how?

    From Dr. Jon A. Levisohn

    A Kaplanian Vision of What Jews Ought to Know
    January 2024

    “Judaism as a Civilization,” Rabbi Deborah Waxman reminds us, “was about legitimating multiple ways of being Jewish.” That, it seems to me, is the starting point for thinking about a Kaplanian vision of what Jews ought to know: The disruption of the idea of an eternal core of Jewish beliefs and practices, in order to emphasize—and as Waxman says, legitimate—the heterogeneity of those beliefs and practices. 

    To be sure, there are some practices that have characterized Jewish life in most times and places. Likewise, there are some texts that have served as authoritative for Jewish communities in most times and places. Those historical patterns deserve careful consideration. But Kaplan would caution us against drawing incorrect conclusions from those patterns, conclusions that would flatten out the diversity and multiplicity of forms of Jewish culture. 

    So if Judaism is an evolving civilization, then towards what set of beliefs and practices should we educate? There are four options.

    One option is to double down on essentialism. It may be true that Judaism is an evolving civilization, but surely there are some practices or texts that are at the core. Our educational efforts should focus on those. 

    However, if we take Kaplan seriously, this will not do. Every proposal for a transhistorical essence of Judaism fails. As an argument for promoting a particular practice or idea to students, we cannot simply affirm that lots of Jews in the past have enacted this practice or believed this idea.

    A second option is to swing in the opposite direction, to embrace any and all expressions of Jewishness and Jewish practice, historical and contemporary—that is, to be as non-normative as possible. It’s all good.

    But education is inevitably a normative business. We have to make choices about what to include and what to set aside, and especially, about what to aim for. “It’s all good” is no way to design an educational program with intentionality and aspiration.

    A third option, which avoids the pitfalls of the first two, is to focus on Jewish cultural capital. According to this approach, the purpose of education is to provide the student with the autonomous capacity to navigate Jewish cultural spaces. Therefore, we have to focus on the things that are distinctively suited to provide that autonomous capacity. What Jews ought to know, therefore, is whatever, in the current condition of the evolving civilization of Judaism, holds cultural value.

    There is surely value to this approach, and I have advocated for a version of it myself elsewhere. But it now occurs to me that it is not yet fully Kaplanian. Metaphorically, we may be opening up the beit midrash to more people, but we are still assuming that the beit midrash and its texts are at the center of Jewish life. We are therefore not yet fully embracing the diversity of Jewish civilization. 

    A fourth option, then, is to proliferate the languages of Judaism beyond the textual. But unlike the second option above, we have to do so in a way that embraces the challenge of normativity. What, then, is the normative criterion? What should Jews know? The criterion is the future, i.e., the future health and vitality of the Jewish community. Kaplan calls on us to notice the evolution of Jewish civilization, but not to be mere observers. Jews should know whatever they need to know to be contributors to Jewish civilization and producers of Jewish culture. As educators as well as participants, we have to take responsibility for that evolution.

    From Miriam Heller Stern, PhD

    To Be a Co-Author of the Jewish Story
    January 26, 2024

    For centuries, Jews have survived, adapted, and flourished against all odds. The Jewish story is one of creative overcoming, of rebuilding and self-renewal. What does it take to become an active co-author of this unfolding dramatic story?

    “To be trained as a Jew should mean to be given the habits that would help one function creatively in all of life’s situations,” Mordecai Kaplan wrote in Judaism as a Civilization. Learning to be a Jew is learning to live, think, choose, and create, by applying Jewish wisdom in a dynamic world that demands creativity to outlast the tests of history.  

    What is does it mean to “function creatively?” Jewish creativity is manifest in the ability to produce chidushim – novel ideas, insights, and interpretations. It is the generation of culture, through new recipes, melodies, languages, poetry, ritual objects, stories, humor, customs, and family traditions under a variety of circumstances to nourish and sustain us as individuals, families, and communities. It is strategizing and problem-solving, responding to threats and applying wisdom to navigate new circumstances. 

    Kaplan defined creativity as “the result of whole-souled and organic reaction to life’s values; and a reaction in which senses, emotions, imagination, intelligence and will are fully aroused” (p. 486). This view is mirrored in contemporary research in the field of affective neuroscience that suggests that the cognitive and affective processes of the brain are naturally co-dependent and integrated. The ability to engage in “whole-souled” thinking about our values and surroundings is essential if we are to participate meaningfully in the ongoing process of creation itself. Through this type of deep, holistic engagement we can focus on becoming better humans and improving society each day. Everyone has the potential to participate.

    By recasting the discourse around thinking instead of knowing, we transcend a conventional conception of Jewish “knowing” that is limited to accumulating a body of knowledge or literacy. While wisdom is at the core, creative thinking demands habits of generativity, ingenuity, interpretation, resilience, and empathy. It is not meant to be a lonely or competitive enterprise; the fate of the Jewish people relies on collaboration, combining talents and thinking together, as a community.

    We cannot take for granted that progress is linear, that societies will become stable or predictable, or that existential threats to Jews, Judaism and humanity – be they internal or external – are only a theme of history. Our systems for perpetuating Jewish literacy – namely the enterprise of Jewish education – must take seriously Kaplan’s charge that we center creativity as an aspiration.

    From Dr. Arthur Green

    Who is an Educated Jew
    January 2024

    “Who is an educated Jew?”  The question seems so deceptively simple.  In earlier eras, it did seem to have a simple answer.  One who could swim skillfully in yam ha-talmud, the “sea” of the Talmud, or of traditional Jewish learning as a whole, in the original Hebrew and Aramaic of the sources, was considered a knowledgeable Jew.  But today that is patently inadequate as a definition.  How much does one need to know about the Holocaust?  About Israeli popular music?  About Yiddish literature?  The history of Zionism?  American Jewish cooking?  None of those vital parts of Jewish existence – and many more like them – fit into the old categories.

    But beyond that, we need to recast the question in the context of our digital age.  So much of what those classical scholars achieved involved feats of memorization and access to sources, matters that can now be handled by the ever-growing tools of artificial intelligence.  Possessing a great store of knowledge about Jewish subjects will be significantly less important or impressive in the future than in earlier ages.  (Pharaoh will be able to say: “My robots can do that trick too!”)

    This change may help liberate us to read the initial question differently.  That word educated is the key.  What does it mean to be educated about being a Jew, or to have been educated by the fact of one’s Jewishness?  “Education” in English bears within it some of the same sense as Bildung in both German and Yiddish, the formation or cultivation of the self through exposure to the treasures of a cultural setting and tradition.  I think of the Hasidic tale that concludes with the punchline “It’s not about how much Talmud you’ve gone through, but rather about how much of the Talmud has gone through you.”

    Jewish education, then, is about being shaped by the Jewish experience.  This includes life and schooling in an intensely Jewish community.  That is one where Jewish teachings, values, patterns of living, ethnic concerns, languages, and so forth are the stuff of daily living.  I can picture such cultivation in a Chabad setting in Los Angeles, on a secular kibbutz that has introduced more Judaism in ‘Emek Yizre’el, and various places in between.  In a secularized context, it is easier to picture in Mexico City or Paris than in the US, where the assimilatory pressures are strongest and the choices of identity popular among the youth are least shaped (for those of fair complexion) by ethnic origins.

    This cultivation of the educated self, and around it the Jewish family and community, will necessarily take multiple forms in our highly diverse community.  We still need a place for the traditional talmid hakham, the one who has that mastery of the ancient sources, including, but not limited to, the legal texts.  So, too – perhaps even more urgently, from my point of view – the neo-Hasidic scholar with deep reach into the sources of Jewish spirituality, who can translate them into the language of today’s many seekers.  But so too those steeped in Jewish history and memory, in literary/artistic creativity, and other rich sources of Jewish roots.         אלו ואלו דברי אלוהים חיים.

    Tosafot (additional commentary) by Rabbi Lily Solochek

    Rabbi Lily Solochek, Reconstructing Judaism
    The Answer is in the Question 

    At the center of centuries of Jewish thought and writing are questions. Whether we look to the vast discussions of the Talmud, to the Four Questions on Pesakh, or even to debates in contemporary Jewish life, Jews anchor themselves with questioning. The how and the why are just as important, and often more important, than the what. Rabbinic literature, modern Jewish philosophy, and contemporary Jewish thought would not exist if not for our persistent drive to ask questions.  

    Perhaps the question is not what an educated Jew knows, but what an educated Jew asks. 

    As a Jewish educator, my first goal for students encountering Jewish text, tradition, or culture is to ask questions. Sometimes we find the answers, sometimes we do not. The students’ questions are an insight to how Judaism exists in their own lives, minds and hearts.

    By embracing and welcoming questions, we model interacting with Judaism in real time, encountering how our civilization has changed over the millennia. Students have a lifetime to explore Jewish culture and religion; we have the opportunity to plant the seed of curiosity and be exemplars of our tradition’s proclivity for questions.  

    We can start with the most basic question, the Simple Child’s inquiry at the Seder: What is this? We can ask how these rituals, traditions, recipes and stories give deeper meaning to our lives. We can ask why we continue to engage with Judaism in a world that grows increasingly secular, and how Jewish civilization continues to sustain our people around the world. We can ask why and how. As educated Jews, they should never feel they have reached the end of their learning journey, but rather they should continue cultivating their own curiosity and never stop inquiring.  

    As our world continues to evolve around us, so must our questions.  

    Tosafot (additional commentary) by Dr. Miriam Heller Stern

    Dr. Miriam Heller Stern
    Jewish Creativity: An Essential Aspiration for Jewish Education 

    Gemara author Dr. Miriam Heller Stern expands on her vision of how the arts inform what it means dive deeply into Kaplan’s understanding of the arts and their role in Jewish civilization, working out of the inspiration of Kaplan’s approach to the arts and Jewish Civilization.

    Jewish Creativity by Dr. Miriam Heller SternDownload

    •

    Margie Jacobs

    •

    ,

  • Educated Kaplanian Jew Talmud Page

    Kaplan was fond of the phrase a “Copernican Revolution” and used it in several different contexts. When one’s understanding of Judaism shifts from that of a religion to a culture or religious civilization, does one’s understanding of who is an educated Jew correspondingly shift? If so, how?

    062824-Educated-JewDownload

    Kaplan was fond of the phrase a Copernican Revolution and used it in several different contexts.   When one’s understanding of Judaism shifts from that of a religion to a culture or religious civilization, does one’s understanding of who is an educated Jew correspondingly shift? If so, how?

    From Dr. Jon A. Levisohn

    A Kaplanian Vision of What Jews Ought to Know
    January 2024

    “Judaism as a Civilization,” Rabbi Deborah Waxman reminds us, “was about legitimating multiple ways of being Jewish.” That, it seems to me, is the starting point for thinking about a Kaplanian vision of what Jews ought to know: The disruption of the idea of an eternal core of Jewish beliefs and practices, in order to emphasize—and as Waxman says, legitimate—the heterogeneity of those beliefs and practices. 

    To be sure, there are some practices that have characterized Jewish life in most times and places. Likewise, there are some texts that have served as authoritative for Jewish communities in most times and places. Those historical patterns deserve careful consideration. But Kaplan would caution us against drawing incorrect conclusions from those patterns, conclusions that would flatten out the diversity and multiplicity of forms of Jewish culture. 

    So if Judaism is an evolving civilization, then towards what set of beliefs and practices should we educate? There are four options.

    One option is to double down on essentialism. It may be true that Judaism is an evolving civilization, but surely there are some practices or texts that are at the core. Our educational efforts should focus on those. 

    However, if we take Kaplan seriously, this will not do. Every proposal for a transhistorical essence of Judaism fails. As an argument for promoting a particular practice or idea to students, we cannot simply affirm that lots of Jews in the past have enacted this practice or believed this idea.

    A second option is to swing in the opposite direction, to embrace any and all expressions of Jewishness and Jewish practice, historical and contemporary—that is, to be as non-normative as possible. It’s all good.

    But education is inevitably a normative business. We have to make choices about what to include and what to set aside, and especially, about what to aim for. “It’s all good” is no way to design an educational program with intentionality and aspiration.

    A third option, which avoids the pitfalls of the first two, is to focus on Jewish cultural capital. According to this approach, the purpose of education is to provide the student with the autonomous capacity to navigate Jewish cultural spaces. Therefore, we have to focus on the things that are distinctively suited to provide that autonomous capacity. What Jews ought to know, therefore, is whatever, in the current condition of the evolving civilization of Judaism, holds cultural value.

    There is surely value to this approach, and I have advocated for a version of it myself elsewhere. But it now occurs to me that it is not yet fully Kaplanian. Metaphorically, we may be opening up the beit midrash to more people, but we are still assuming that the beit midrash and its texts are at the center of Jewish life. We are therefore not yet fully embracing the diversity of Jewish civilization. 

    A fourth option, then, is to proliferate the languages of Judaism beyond the textual. But unlike the second option above, we have to do so in a way that embraces the challenge of normativity. What, then, is the normative criterion? What should Jews know? The criterion is the future, i.e., the future health and vitality of the Jewish community. Kaplan calls on us to notice the evolution of Jewish civilization, but not to be mere observers. Jews should know whatever they need to know to be contributors to Jewish civilization and producers of Jewish culture. As educators as well as participants, we have to take responsibility for that evolution.

    From Miriam Heller Stern, PhD

    To Be a Co-Author of the Jewish Story
    January 26, 2024

    For centuries, Jews have survived, adapted, and flourished against all odds. The Jewish story is one of creative overcoming, of rebuilding and self-renewal. What does it take to become an active co-author of this unfolding dramatic story?

    “To be trained as a Jew should mean to be given the habits that would help one function creatively in all of life’s situations,” Mordecai Kaplan wrote in Judaism as a Civilization. Learning to be a Jew is learning to live, think, choose, and create, by applying Jewish wisdom in a dynamic world that demands creativity to outlast the tests of history.  

    What is does it mean to “function creatively?” Jewish creativity is manifest in the ability to produce chidushim – novel ideas, insights, and interpretations. It is the generation of culture, through new recipes, melodies, languages, poetry, ritual objects, stories, humor, customs, and family traditions under a variety of circumstances to nourish and sustain us as individuals, families, and communities. It is strategizing and problem-solving, responding to threats and applying wisdom to navigate new circumstances. 

    Kaplan defined creativity as “the result of whole-souled and organic reaction to life’s values; and a reaction in which senses, emotions, imagination, intelligence and will are fully aroused” (p. 486). This view is mirrored in contemporary research in the field of affective neuroscience that suggests that the cognitive and affective processes of the brain are naturally co-dependent and integrated. The ability to engage in “whole-souled” thinking about our values and surroundings is essential if we are to participate meaningfully in the ongoing process of creation itself. Through this type of deep, holistic engagement we can focus on becoming better humans and improving society each day. Everyone has the potential to participate.

    By recasting the discourse around thinking instead of knowing, we transcend a conventional conception of Jewish “knowing” that is limited to accumulating a body of knowledge or literacy. While wisdom is at the core, creative thinking demands habits of generativity, ingenuity, interpretation, resilience, and empathy. It is not meant to be a lonely or competitive enterprise; the fate of the Jewish people relies on collaboration, combining talents and thinking together, as a community.

    We cannot take for granted that progress is linear, that societies will become stable or predictable, or that existential threats to Jews, Judaism and humanity – be they internal or external – are only a theme of history. Our systems for perpetuating Jewish literacy – namely the enterprise of Jewish education – must take seriously Kaplan’s charge that we center creativity as an aspiration.

    From Dr. Arthur Green

    Who is an Educated Jew
    January 2024

    “Who is an educated Jew?”  The question seems so deceptively simple.  In earlier eras, it did seem to have a simple answer.  One who could swim skillfully in yam ha-talmud, the “sea” of the Talmud, or of traditional Jewish learning as a whole, in the original Hebrew and Aramaic of the sources, was considered a knowledgeable Jew.  But today that is patently inadequate as a definition.  How much does one need to know about the Holocaust?  About Israeli popular music?  About Yiddish literature?  The history of Zionism?  American Jewish cooking?  None of those vital parts of Jewish existence – and many more like them – fit into the old categories.

    But beyond that, we need to recast the question in the context of our digital age.  So much of what those classical scholars achieved involved feats of memorization and access to sources, matters that can now be handled by the ever-growing tools of artificial intelligence.  Possessing a great store of knowledge about Jewish subjects will be significantly less important or impressive in the future than in earlier ages.  (Pharaoh will be able to say: “My robots can do that trick too!”)

    This change may help liberate us to read the initial question differently.  That word educated is the key.  What does it mean to be educated about being a Jew, or to have been educated by the fact of one’s Jewishness?  “Education” in English bears within it some of the same sense as Bildung in both German and Yiddish, the formation or cultivation of the self through exposure to the treasures of a cultural setting and tradition.  I think of the Hasidic tale that concludes with the punchline “It’s not about how much Talmud you’ve gone through, but rather about how much of the Talmud has gone through you.”

    Jewish education, then, is about being shaped by the Jewish experience.  This includes life and schooling in an intensely Jewish community.  That is one where Jewish teachings, values, patterns of living, ethnic concerns, languages, and so forth are the stuff of daily living.  I can picture such cultivation in a Chabad setting in Los Angeles, on a secular kibbutz that has introduced more Judaism in ‘Emek Yizre’el, and various places in between.  In a secularized context, it is easier to picture in Mexico City or Paris than in the US, where the assimilatory pressures are strongest and the choices of identity popular among the youth are least shaped (for those of fair complexion) by ethnic origins.

    This cultivation of the educated self, and around it the Jewish family and community, will necessarily take multiple forms in our highly diverse community.  We still need a place for the traditional talmid hakham, the one who has that mastery of the ancient sources, including, but not limited to, the legal texts.  So, too – perhaps even more urgently, from my point of view – the neo-Hasidic scholar with deep reach into the sources of Jewish spirituality, who can translate them into the language of today’s many seekers.  But so too those steeped in Jewish history and memory, in literary/artistic creativity, and other rich sources of Jewish roots.         אלו ואלו דברי אלוהים חיים.

    Tosafot (additional commentary) by Rabbi Lily Solochek

    Rabbi Lily Solochek, Reconstructing Judaism
    The Answer is in the Question 

    At the center of centuries of Jewish thought and writing are questions. Whether we look to the vast discussions of the Talmud, to the Four Questions on Pesakh, or even to debates in contemporary Jewish life, Jews anchor themselves with questioning. The how and the why are just as important, and often more important, than the what. Rabbinic literature, modern Jewish philosophy, and contemporary Jewish thought would not exist if not for our persistent drive to ask questions.  

    Perhaps the question is not what an educated Jew knows, but what an educated Jew asks. 

    As a Jewish educator, my first goal for students encountering Jewish text, tradition, or culture is to ask questions. Sometimes we find the answers, sometimes we do not. The students’ questions are an insight to how Judaism exists in their own lives, minds and hearts.

    By embracing and welcoming questions, we model interacting with Judaism in real time, encountering how our civilization has changed over the millennia. Students have a lifetime to explore Jewish culture and religion; we have the opportunity to plant the seed of curiosity and be exemplars of our tradition’s proclivity for questions.  

    We can start with the most basic question, the Simple Child’s inquiry at the Seder: What is this? We can ask how these rituals, traditions, recipes and stories give deeper meaning to our lives. We can ask why we continue to engage with Judaism in a world that grows increasingly secular, and how Jewish civilization continues to sustain our people around the world. We can ask why and how. As educated Jews, they should never feel they have reached the end of their learning journey, but rather they should continue cultivating their own curiosity and never stop inquiring.  

    As our world continues to evolve around us, so must our questions.  

    •

    Margie Jacobs

    •

  • The Democracy Project

    It is often observed that for Mordecai Kaplan (and others) democracy was the religion of America. 
    The Kaplan Center appreciates our grant from the Jewish Partnership for Democracy: A More Perfect Union. This grant allowed us to embark on a “religious” journey from February through October 2024. Each month we selected a passage from Mordecai Kaplan or one of his students and collaborators.

    FEBRUARY 2024

    This month features Rabbi Manny Goldsmith, zichrono l’veracha.

    For Kaplan, the idea underlying democracy is that the interests uniting human beings, if they become truly aware of those interests, are strong enough to ward off the divisive influence of people’s differences. The crucial problem of freedom is how to guard our individuality and the capacity to think for ourselves and yet cooperate with those whose backgrounds, upbringings and outlooks are different from our own. This is an art, said Kaplan, that human beings are slow to learn. Democracy should be conceived as a process of social experimentation by which people are seeking to learn that art and to apply, step by step, the wisdom acquired as a result of such experimentation. That is why the art of free, voluntary cooperation, the ultimate objective of democracy, must constantly be cultivated.

    -Rabbi Manny Goldsmith, Reconstructionism Today, Spring 2003

    VOTE

    • In your own life, how do you balance authenticity and devotion to your beliefs and deeply understand the belief systems of those different than yourself?
    • How do your communities engage in the ongoing “experimentation” of creating balance between these two forces?
    •  Why indeed are we so slow to practice “the art of democracy?  
    • In your own life, when do you practice this “art of democracy” most naturally and fully?

    MARCH 2024

    This month features Kaplan’s diary entry from Thursday, Dec 24, 1942

    The contribution which Judaism has made and should continue to make to democracy and the American way of life is best summarized in the motto enunciated by the prophet Zachariah. [ 4:6 ] “Not by might nor by power but by my Spirit saith the Lord of Hosts,” and to add the supplement of Hillel’s famous summary of Judaism, “the rest is commentary, go and learn.”

    The importance of Zachariah’s motto is that it furnishes the key to that inner freedom without which democracy is merely a hollow form.  “Not by might nor by power but by my spirit” sets forth the mental attitude which is a prerequisite to the building of a world on the foundations of peace.  Before we can have democracy in action, we must will it…

    VOTE

    • When do you experience democracy in a “hollow form” in our political life?  What accounts for its hollowness?
    • When is democracy “thick and textured” as opposed to hollow?
    •  In 2024, is democracy more “hollow” or more “thick and textured”?  
    • What role does media play in “thickening’ and “hollowing “ our experience of democracy?

    APRIL 2024

    This month features Kaplan’s diary entry from August 10, 1939 on Facism, Mobocracy, and Democracy

    After mentioning the two factors which have contributed to the rise of mobocracy, viz: a) the stupendous machinery of communication which unites millions into a seething sea of human emotion, and b) the failure of democracy to make good its promise of bringing special privilege under control.

     The rulers in a mobocracy know that they can gain control of the masses by instilling in them hate and fears of some common enemy who has to be augmented to gigantic proportions if he is comparatively insignificant and harmless, and who has to be invented if he is non-existent. For their purposes, mankind must be treated as broken up into classes or nations or tribes that are engaged in a mutual life and death struggle. The purpose of propaganda is to fan the flames of hate.

    VOTE

    • How do media and “mobocracy” work together to make the challenge even more severe in 2024?
    • What is the difference between acculturation and propaganda?
    • What are the most potent forces in today’s American democracy that can provide unity rather than fragmentation? 
    • DeTocqueville spoke of the “tyrrany of the majority”.  How does this play into our contemporary challenge to democracy?

    Dr. Elliot Dorff

    Join Dr. Jeffrey Schein in conversation with Dr. Elliot Dorff, author of recently published Ethics at the Center: Jewish Theory and Practice for Living a Moral Life, for reflections on Judaism and Democracy

    https://vimeo.com/964859569?share=copy

    JUNE 2024

    This month features an excerpt from Kaplan’s The Future of the American Jew

    On Democracy and Education

    What the democratic peoples then lacked and still  lack, is a clear recognition of power as that around the use of which any educational system, that is to help them live, must be built. A democratic system of education should train the young to regard all power which the individual possesses and acquires as misused, unless, it is somehow shared with all mankind. That is to be taken literally, and not merely as a pious wish.

    VOTE

    • In what way is the power of democratic learning as much a privilege and responsibility as a right?
    • Progressive education is here being critiqued by Kaplan for not only starting with the individual but stopping with her.  Do you concur?
    •  Kaplan also argued that “peoplehood” goes wrong when democracy and individuality overwhelm?  Do you agree? 
    • To paraphrase another great American, ask not what your skills and passions can do for you but how can they also be put to the uses of Jewish Peoplehood.  Why is this such a hard question to ask?

    JULY 2024

    This month features an excerpt from Kaplan’s 1945 Siddur: That America Fulfill the Promise of Its Founding, a prayer for Independence Day

    May America remain loyal to the principles of the Declaration of Independence, and extend their application to ever-widening areas of life.

    Keep out of our life all manner of oppression, persecution, and unjust discrimination; save us from religious, racial and class conflicts; may our country be a haven of refuge to the victims of injustice and misrule.

    Instruct us in the art of living together, of reconciling differences of opinion and averting clashes of interest, of helping one another to achieve a harmonious and abundant life. …

    May America be ever hospitable to new revelations of truth in science and philosophy, ever sensitive to the appeal of beauty in nature and art, ever responsive to the call of duty and the spirit of religious consecration and worship; And may Americans so love their country that they shall withhold no sacrifice required to safeguard its life and to fulfill its promise.

    VOTE

    • This is written as a prayer, and thus had hope attached to it as well as action. Do you feel its context is equally relevant today?
    • In what ways have the American people fulfilled the reflection that Kaplan included?
    • What does harmony and abundance mean in the context of modern democracy? 
    • Are you in agreement that progress towards the ideal fulfillment of the American dream includes philosophy? Art? Religion?
    • How might you reword this last sentence in the era of the internet, or is it still relevant as it stands?

    AUGUST 2024

    This month features an excerpt from Kaplan’s The New Haggadah For the Pesach Seder

    For our forefathers, Pharoah was the symbol of all those tyrants who ever acted as though they were gods, and whose will had to be obeyed without question, on penalty of torture or death. And that is why Pesach means more than that first emancipation the Israelites won from Pharaoh when they left Egypt. It means the emancipation the serfs in the Middle Ages won from their overlords; the freedom the slaves won from their masters; the freedom the common people of countries won, when their kings were overthrown; it means the guarantee of the sacred rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The first emancipation was thus only a foreshadowing of all the emancipations that were to follow, and which will yet follow in the days to come.

    VOTE

    • How do you see democracy linked to emancipation from tyranny?
    • Is the use of biblical text and ideology useful to you and others as metaphoric in your understanding of current events?
    • What tyrannies are inhabiting your life currently? How might you work towards emancipation from them? 
    • Kaplan implies a sequential and continual change for the better – do you think he was right? What are the next set of emancipations you envisage being needed? Likely? Does what you think is needed coincide with that you imagine will happen next?

    SEPTEMBER 2024

    This month features an excerpt from Kaplan’s “Salvation through Labor,” a prayer for the Sabbath before Labor Day, adapted from the writings of A.D. Gordon (1945).

    In the day that is to come, you will be given, O man, a new spirit, and be stirred by new feelings, by a new hunger, not a hunger for bread nor a thirst for riches, but a hunger and thirst for work.

    And you will take pleasure in all the work that you do.

    You will give heed to do all your work as part of Nature, as part of the work of the universe and its expansiveness.

    And when you pause for a moment to straighten your back, and to take a deep breath, it is not only air that you will inhale; you will breathe in also a subtle something that will fructify your feeling and thinking, and add life and light to your spirit.

    You will have moments when your whole being seems to dissolve into the Infinite.

    VOTE

    • How do you envision the connection between work and change?
    • What are the many ways in which we can understand work?  How do you feel about the idea Kaplan fosters that engaging in labor is a way of engaging with the Divine? Does this change any dissatisfaction you might have with the ongoing struggle to create justice for all within our current democracy?
    • Does democracy by definition require continuous change?  What about our political structure do you think creates a continuous move away from stasis? Is this a good thing? 
    • How might you use Kaplan’s words as inspiration for yourself, your workplace, your communities?

    OCTOBER 2024

    “The role of American Jewry in relation to Eretz Israel is similar to the role of the American home front in relation to the battle front during the recent world war. Were it not for the backing of the home front, or for the fact that America proved to be the ‘arsenal of democracy,’ the most clever strategy and the most arduous valor on the battle line would have been of no avail. Similarly, American Jewry will for a long time have to give moral, political, and economic support to the Eretz Israel enterprise, which is the deciding factor in Israel’s struggle for survival in the modern world.”

    VOTE

    • Do you think Kaplan’s words are still true today or has Israel transcended the absolute reliance on the American Jewish community?
    • What ways can we and do you give moral support to Israel? Has this changed in the past year as the war continues?
    • What are the moral values involved in giving political support to Israel? Do you feel our government is acting in line with them?
    • How might you prioritize the many needs for economic support? Do we include rebuilding in Palestine as one of those needs essential to the well-being of the State of Israel? How best to choose where we as individuals send our money to provide the most and most just assistance to the citizens of Israel?

    •

    Margie Jacobs

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  • “God Cafe”: A Contemporary Reconstructionist Approach To Theology

    by Sarah Brammer-Shlay 

    One of the aspects of Reconstructionist Judaism that drew me into this movement was the way its vision centers on trusting the Jewish people, our people. Mordecai Kaplan stated, “There are dead cultures or civilizations. What renders them alive is an indigenous leadership which actively relates the culture or civilization to the present day interests and problems of the people” (The Future of The American Jew, pg 87). Deeply ingrained in Kaplan’s vision of Judaism is a trust in the evolution of the Jewish people and an acknowledgment that change will occur. In order to be a vibrant community, we must listen to the needs, desires and lived experiences of the Jewish people in our contemporary times. 

    Trusting in the wisdom of our people has been core to my work with The God Cafe Project, an initiative through which I explore God and divinity in various Jewish communities. There is great wisdom in the theology of Jewish thinkers and the ancient Jewish texts that came before us. I return to these texts frequently and draw inspiration from them. And yet, in my work with the God Cafe Project, I have intentionally decided to decenter these texts and instead center the wisdom and experiences which every individual is bringing into the room. One might say this approach echoes Kaplan’s, in the sense that our beautiful texts get a vote but not a veto. I mean to suggest that personal narratives may be a necessary and helpful place to begin a vulnerable and open conversation about the way individuals approach their theological questions, qualms and journeys. As Jewish human beings evolve, their wisdom evolves and in turn Judaism evolves.

    ————

    The God Cafe Project began in 2017 before I had given it that name. The exploratory idea was inspired by my unit taught by Rabbi Jacob Staub on theology in my Reconstructionism 101 class at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College. Learning about the ways that Kaplan and other Reconstructionist thinkers have thought about God prompted me to reflect on particular moments in my life where divinity – what God was and is- felt very clear and compelling to me. 

    My background is in community organizing, so whenever I am experiencing something new or asking myself a compelling question, my first instinct is to reach out and ask: Has anyone else felt similarly or am I alone? The answer is rarely that we are alone. 

    Most experiences we have in our lives, although specific to our own particular backgrounds, are rarely a completely unique or isolated experience. So, bringing my relational organizing skills with me, I asked a series of interested people to respond to this question: “What is a specific time in your life where you found yourself particularly connecting to or grappling with God and/or divinity?” It turned out people had a lot to say. These conversations, although emotionally moving both for me and the individuals sharing, presented two potential limitations. The first is that it was a high bar to expect someone to be willing to have such a vulnerable conversation with someone they minimally know. The second is that given that our society often avoids these types of conversations, to jump immediately into an isolated reflective conversation might require previous reflection that many individuals have not found the space to have. It takes a lot of emotional work to pick up the phone and share deeply vulnerable moments with someone. At times, we need to hear others’ stories to ignite remembering our own. It is not always easy to reflect on your own experience without listening to others’ first. In a similar way to feminist consciousness raising groups, there is power in the communal experience. The community is core to Judaism and it is core to Reconstructionism. Therefore, after holding these initial individual conversations, I began to experiment with how to have these sorts of honest, vulnerable and seemingly taboo conversations in a group setting.

    The God Cafe Project has evolved into a curriculum which includes a one-time workshop – “God Cafe”- and also a multi-week cohort experience. I have had the privilege of conducting God Cafes across the United States and over Zoom over the past few years. I use creative and diverse pedagogy to facilitate conversations on a topic rarely discussed. I am continuously amazed by individuals’ capacities to open up and share with each other on a topic often left untouched. By rooting the conversation in individual experience, we create a more equal playing field where all voices are heard and seen as vital to the conversation. 

    In the multi-week version of the project, I do include more formal teaching about Judaism’s diverse theological approaches ranging from the Biblical to Contemporary Period. This addition of text demonstrates the variety of ways in which one can think about God and demonstrates that we are steeply aligned with our tradition through our exploration and questioning of how we relate to God. Interestingly even in these sessions where we look at text, what participants often are most excited to hear is about each other’s experiences and each others’ questions pertaining to the subject. The unique value proposition of The God Cafe experience is the ability to hear personally from each other; that is in fact the holy and sacred encounter.

    I begin each God Cafe experience by asking participants to release any expectation they might be holding to be articulate or completely rational. Upon first glance, the move away from rationalism might seem counter to the beliefs of Reconstructionist Judaism. A core part of Kaplan’s vision for the Reconstructionist movement is that we should conduct rituals, pray and create communal experiences that are based in our contemporary values, including a rational approach around God. In some Reconstructionist communities, it might feel counter cultural to open up the God conversation in a way that does not necessitate rationalism as an entry point.

    Although I appreciate our movement’s integrity on this topic, I also strongly believe that without releasing ourselves of an expectation to be rational when entering the conversation, we limit our creativity and autonomy. For many in and out of the Jewish context, the conversation around God is centered around belief. The God Cafe works to combat this notion. I do not believe that belief is where this conversation must begin. In the God Cafe workshop, I have decided to center our conversations around experience. At the core of all the work I do lies the previously stated question: “What is a specific time in your life where you found yourself connecting to or grappling with God and/or divinity?” I have found by centering around a particular moment in one’s life, it gives space for individual agency. Theology becomes not just a project for a well-written theologian but rather for every individual. At the core of Reconstructionist Judaism is the pursuit of Jewish community that is accessible and resonant for the masses; where individuals are empowered to be knowledgeable and grounded leaders in their communities. What more beautiful way to model that pursuit than with an exploration of the Divine?

    Throughout my experience leading these conversations across diverse communities, I have learned something core about my own belief system; that more than anything I believe that people have the natural authority to make and notice meaning in our lives. I see central to my job as a future rabbi and leader in the Jewish community the need to continuously create space for others to believe that as well. 

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    Eric Caplan

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    ,

  • Repair & Remedy

    Primary Contacts:

    Amy Leszman 
    amyl@judaismyourway.org  

    Rabbi Caryn Aviv
    caryn@judaismyourway.org

    www.judaismyourway.org

    The Torah of Inclusion holds fast to Kaplan’s conviction that we have the obligation (or privilege, depending on your perspective) to participate in the evolution of Jewish culture, civilization, and spirituality. The Torah of Inclusion joins two terms: Torah + Inclusion. Torah means both the foundational sacred text of Jewish wisdom, as well as the process by which Jews and loved ones discern insights, meaning, goodness, and connection to what we hold sacred in our lives. 

    Inclusion means expanding who belongs within the tent of Judaism, with particular attention to those who have felt hurt, invisible, excluded, disenfranchised, and on the margins of Jewish life. Inclusion is shorthand for the way we aspire to treat and be with each other, living in the tension and evolution of Jewish and American civilization. 

    We imagine a maximally inclusive Jewish community that embodies a diverse, open, democratic, egalitarian, and just American society of which we want the Judaism Your Way community to be a part. The Torah of Inclusion is a prophetic voice, speaking both to the Judaism Your Way community and beyond to our wider society. The Torah of Inclusion supports policies that promote inclusion and dignity for all, including people who identify as BIPOC, LGBTQIA+, and differently-abled. 

    The Torah of Inclusion represents our evolving view on Judaism, who is included, and who Judaism is for. Much like Kaplan, we believe that Jewish life must embrace creativity, flexibility, justice, compassion, and imagination for Judaism to evolve. We believe and practice through the Torah of Inclusion that there are many right ways to be Jewish and to connect to Jewish/American cultures.

    In February 2022, Judaism Your Way launched a new project called Repair & Remedy (please see emailed attachment for more information). Repair & Remedy offers transformative learning opportunities for Jews and our allies to explore Jewish and Black texts about the generational, harmful impacts of racism and to investigate our individual and collective responsibility to right those wrongs through teshuvah and action. Repair & Remedy invites participants to imagine how Jews and our allies can deploy Jewish concepts and practices to repair, remedy, and heal the impacts of racial harm.

    Rabbi Mordechai Kaplan believed that Judaism provided ideas, tools, and practices that could improve the human condition. Kaplan also fervently believed that Judaism could contribute towards the creation of a more just and compassionate society and that it was up to us to motivate Jewish individuals and groups to work for justice. Repair & Remedy draws inspiration from and invokes Kaplan’s spirit to create more consciousness, conversation, and action around the need to reimagine racial justice and equity in the United States, and to work towards enacting that vision. 

    As far as we know, there is no other educational effort that pairs Jewish and Black texts together to study harm, repair, and the impact of racism. And, also as far as we know, there are not currently any efforts in the American Jewish community that seek to galvanize Jews to participate in tangible reparations efforts, which is the goal of our next phase of Repair & Remedy through the creation of giving circles. In both ways, we believe Repair & Remedy is Kaplanian in spirit and educationally innovative in character.

    https://www.judaismyourway.org/repair-and-remedy/

    https://www.judaismyourway.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/participant-booklet-electronic.pdf

    If you’re interested in purchasing the curriculum and learning how to facilitate, please contact Rabbi Caryn Aviv at caryn@judaismyourway.org.

    Back to the Innovation Garden

    •

    Sheridan

    •

  • The Deep Dive

    Primary Contact: Eliana Light
    eliana@elianalight.com

    Welcome to The Light Lab: Transformative T’fillah, Together 

    Our mission is to make Jewish liturgy and prayer practice accessible and meaningful to all seekers.

    Through our gatherings, programs, podcast, and collaborations, we unlock the transformative power of tefillah to strengthen our spiritual cores and revitalize our communities. 

    We envision a future where tefillah inspires, comforts, and empowers us towards Oneness and a healed world. 

    Learn more about our T’fillahsophy here.

    The Light Lab was founded by Eliana Light, a Jewish educator with 10+ years of experience translating t’fillah, spirituality, and g?d-language for all ages and stages. Learn more about Eliana’s professional development offerings here.

    Listen to our flagship offering, the Light Lab Podcast! Episodes come out every other Thursday. 

    We’ve got expansive explorations of liturgy with co-hosts Eliana Light, Cantor Ellen Dreskin, and Rabbi Josh Warshawsky, and interviews with teachers, t’fillah leaders, and others in the spiritual space (past guests include Rabbi Steve Sager, Rabbi Sid Schwarz, Daphna Rosenberg of Nava Tehila, and Rabbi Deborah Sacks MIntz of Hadar). Plus, our detailed show notes enhance the learning experience even more. 

    Bring the Light Lab to your community for programs (in person or virtual) that engage, enlighten, and inspire:

    • The Deep Dive- Whether in services or teaching, we often rush through our liturgy. So let’s slow down. Through the Light Lab methodology of chevruta study, singing, and personal reflection, we’ll take one gem of our liturgy and raise it to the light. What do our ancestors have to say to us right now? What does our own soul yearn to say? In this safe and supportive environment, let’s dive deep, open our hearts, and move from liturgy to prayer. 
    • The Light Lab Podcast, Live! – Go “behind the scenes” and host your very own episode of the Light Lab Podcast, right in your very own zoom! Whether a round-table with the hosts, or an interview with your clergy, educators, or guests, it’s an exciting new way to learn together. Live chat and q&a offer even more interaction. Plus, your synagogue or organization will be named as a sponsor of the episode upon its release! 
    • s*ngs ab-ut g?d: a divine musical exploration- What does “God” mean to you? How has that changed over the course of your life? How can music help us explore these big questions in our communities? And why do these questions matter? Through soulful, playful original songs rooted in sacred texts and personal story, we will sing, explore, and wrestle with g?d together. 
    • Real Talk with the Universe: A Prayer-As-Poetry Workshop (with co-teacher Alexander Nemser). When we encounter our liturgy as poetry, we can allow its language to resonate with depth and possibility; when we approach our prayer-practice with mindfulness, we can align our intention to connect with the details of our breath, body and heart. Using these techniques, plus wisdom gleaned from Judaism and contemporary poetry, we’ll dive into a prayer, ritual, or holiday of your choice. We invite you to open to an authentic experience of prayer in a new way: to write, to breathe, to learn, and to open your imagination to soulful possibilities. 
    • rise&shine online- What if instead of singing our prayers, we could dance them? rise&shine is an immersive, embodied, heart-centered journey through the liturgy, expertly guided and lovingly curated. Put on your headphones and let the house beats open your soul to joy.  

    Additionally, Eliana has over 8 years of experience as an artist in residence, combining prayer leadership, concerts, consulting, and learning at all levels. 

    To learn more about artist-in-residence shabbatot, t’fillah consulting, or any of the programs listed here, contact us at welcome@lightlab.co.

    Stay in the loop by following the Light Lab on instagram and facebook.

    Back to the Innovation Garden

    •

    Sheridan

    •

  • Home

    Beneath the Surface: Mordecai Kaplan’s Philosophical Commitments Explored

    Sunday, February 11, 2024 – 3pm Eastern

    with Dr. Nadav Berman and Dr. Rabbi Vered Sakal

    How does Mordecai Kaplan arrive at his understandings of truth and religious experience?  Join Drs. Berman and Sakal as they explore Kaplan through the lens of the non-Jewish theologian Jon Hicks. Dialogue with them as they extrapolate from  Kaplan’s philosophical commitments to the critical issues of a 21st Zionism and the presence of evil in the world. 

    What’s New…

    MORE FEATURES:

    Israel is on all of our minds and in our conversations these days. Join our conversation through:

    A Three-Part Series in Honor of the 40th Yahrzeit of Mordecai Kaplan
    and the 90th Anniversary of Judaism as a Civilization

    What Remains Revelatory in the 21st Century in Mordecai Kaplan’s Thought?

    with Drs. Arnie Eisen, David Ellenson, and Nancy Fuchs Kreimer

    Watch Recording

    Judaism as a Civilization, The Hanukkah Gift to the Jewish People and World that Keeps on Giving

    with Dr. Deborah Waxman and a response by Dr. Elias Sacks

    Watch Recording

    The Great Kaplanian Report Card: Valley Beth Shalom as a Kaplanian Playground

    with Rabbis Amy Bernstein, Ed Feinstein, and Jeffrey Schein

    Watch Recording
    Upcoming Webinars
    Past Webinars

    Kaplanian Scholarship

    Looking to deepen your knowledge of Mordecai Kaplan’s life and philosophy?  

    Our 21st Century Kaplanian vision of Jewish Education unfolds…

    Visit the Garden
    Book a Garden Tour
    Watch Presentations

    Visit Reconstructing Judaism to explore the way Kaplan’s influence has become woven deeply into the fabric of a major North American Jewish movement.

    Kaplanian Perspectives & Scholarship

    Dr. Vered Sakal

    Realism, Pluralism and Salvation

    Dr. Eric Caplan

    The True Spirit of Hanukkah

    Read Articles

    Kaplanian Voices

    Our Kaplanian voices series seeks to sensitize us to the unique ways many of us experience the very notion of Peoplehood  in 2023. Below are excerpts from conversation between Rabbis Jeffrey Eisenstat, founding director of our movement’s Camp Havaya, and former camp counselors about their initial exposures to the philosophies of Mordecai Kaplan a decade ago and its present meaning to them as young adult Jews in their thirties.

    https://vimeo.com/882745010?share=copy
    Yael Kurganoff on the power of Camp Havaya connections to Israel
    https://vimeo.com/881424233/76d62f5b88?share=copy
    Josh Davidson on the essence of peoplehood
    Watch Full Conversation and Other Interviews

    Visit the Ira Eisenstein portal where you will find….

    • Introductions by Rabbi Richard Hirsh to Ira Eisenstein’s books Creative Judaism and What We Mean by Religion with digital copies of those currently out-of-print volumes now available on our website
    • Reflections about Ira Eisenstein as theologian and wise leader by Rabbis Dennis Sasso and Jeffrey Schein
    • A recording of Rabbi Eisenstein’s contributions that was hosted by the SAJ:Judaism that Stands For All as part of its centenary celebration
    Explore

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    •

    Sheridan

    •

  • Kaplan on Intellectual & Spiritual Honesty

    Between 1972 and 1975, Dr. Mel Scult conducted about 50 hours of taped interviews with Mordecai Kaplan, some of his family, and several of his students. In these recordings, Kaplan talks about his early life and the influences of his parents and teachers on the development of his world view  

    What jumps out immediately is that Kaplan is deeply committed to honesty —his own and that of others as they (we) engage with Judaism and its reconstruction. Kaplan inherited this passion for honesty from his father, Israel Kaplan, and sought to pass it on to his own rabbinical students.   

    Kaplan relates that his father was “very critical of people’s ethical behavior.” He rejected Hasidism, in part, because he was bothered by “the politics, yes power politics” which characterized the Hasidic movement. They competed with one another for disciples. He didn’t like that.” In his view, power politics had displaced ethics and intellectual honesty in the Hasidic world. Israel Kaplan rejected at least one rabbinic position offered to him while the Kaplans still lived in Europe because, as Mordecai tells it, the members of the congregation prayed wearing a gartel, “a belt worn by Hasidim during prayers to separate the upper from the lower regions of the body.” 

    Kaplan also mentions his father’s chagrin at being sent to Syracuse as a mashgiach looking into the Passover kashrut of a sugar company.  When he came back..he told me, “what was there that could be hametz in the manufacturer of sugar?”  In other words, this is an instance of graft-its not honest.  This was a form of duplicity Israel  Kaplan could not tolerate. He walked away from his position in the court of the chief rabbi and struggled to earn a living in America for the rest of his life. 


    In these conversations with Scult, Kaplan notes parenthetically that his own professional experience, upon completing his smikha at the Jewish Theological Seminary in 1902, led him to better understand his father’s choice to only work for institutions in which he could feel both ethically and intellectually comfortable. “Before I became a member of the Seminary faculty [in 1909]… I was very unhappy as the Orthodox rabbi at Kehillat Jeshurun… because I couldn’t be intellectually honest in that position.”

    Kaplan elaborates his view on the centrality of honesty in a Reconstructionist pluralistic approach to Judaism in a conversation with campers at Camp Cejwin.  He emphasizes that spirit and honesty, which distinguish human beings from other creatures, have the potential to bring about universal peace and creative survival.  

    Kaplan’s devotion to truth is also reflected in his Scholar’s Prayer, reprinted in the Kol Haneshemah: Limot Hol/ Daily Prayer Book, p. 28.


    From the cowardice that shrinks from new truth,

    From the laziness that is content with half-truths,

    From the arrogance that thinks it knows all truth,

    O Lord of Truth, deliver us. 

    According to two of his students, Rabbis Ray Artz and Michael Graetz, Kaplan often recited recited this prayer (sometimes alternating with Biblical passages) before every class he led, and no other JTS professor led class with a prayer! And he, reputedly the godless one! (cf. Rabbi Michael Cohen’s conversation with Rabbis Arz and Graetz in the “I Remember Mordecai” section of the Kaplan Center website.)

    Indeed, perhaps no group so consistently heard Kaplan’s message as did the rabbinical students he taught over five decades.   When Kaplan resigned from the Seminary in 1927—(he later withdrew his letter of resignation)–the Chancellor of the Seminary, Cyrus Adler, received a letter from Milton Steinberg, then president of the student body, expressing the students’ collective debt to Kaplan. By approaching the tradition with honesty, creativity and clarity, Kaplan imparted to them a Judaism which they, and their future congregants, could embrace wholeheartedly. 

    There is preeminently one man among our teachers who is responsible for what faith, and courage, and vision we may lay claim to. It is from him that we have acquired the hardihood to go on in a difficult and discouraging cause, for it is he who has given the Judaism we expected to teach the content and vitality we have elsewhere sought in vain. He made the cause a creative venture, when it was otherwise a pursuit without purpose and without clarity. We have seen in him that clear and simple passion for spiritual honesty which we believe is the first desideratum in American Jewish life. And if we, his students, have learned something of that spiritual honesty our debt is to him. He has taught us devotion and given us things worthy of devotion when we had almost lost the faith that these were anywhere to be discovered. His example has given us to understand that creative spiritual activity was still possible in Jewish life and his was an example we have been sadly in need of. Preeminently our teacher and guide, we feel that the departure of Professor Kaplan will leave us utterly divorced from the things most worth learning, without the guidance toward those values which we believe Conservative Judaism ought to conserve and create. 

    While speaking to Scult, Kaplan noted that he was lucky that the Jewish communities of the 20th Century had a greater tolerance for expressions of personal religious truths than did the Jewish communities of the past. 

    It was fortunate that I lived in an age when they didn’t execute … and when excommunication didn’t mean anything, as it did in the case of Spinoza. After alI, I did exactly the same kind of thing as Spinoza did in his time. 


    But as we approach the 40th anniversary of Kaplan’s yahrzeit we should avoid one of the things Kaplan most detested: smugness and self-satisfaction.  Dr. Eric Caplan observed in one of our recent Kaplan Center webinars that Kaplan expected congregations affiliated with his thought to walk the walk even more than talk the talk. They needed to constantly scrutinize their own institutions and structure, perform a heshbon hanefesh of their individual and communal lives, and observe a high standard of ethical behavior and intellectual honesty.

    •

    Margie Jacobs

    •

  • Educational Innovation Conference

    Keynote/ Cedarbaum Prize Winners

    https://vimeo.com/769466075
    https://vimeo.com/769488269
    Click HERE for slides from Dr. Heller Stern’s keynote presentation

    Innovation Garden Workshops

    https://vimeo.com/771015513
    https://vimeo.com/771013450
    https://vimeo.com/770817138
    https://vimeo.com/769199738/57c1c90ddd
    https://vimeo.com/769538737
    https://vimeo.com/769543790
    https://vimeo.com/769533889
    https://vimeo.com/769623284
    https://vimeo.com/776654594
    Innovation Garden

    November 9 Conference Schedule

    Click on speaker name to view bio, workshop title to view description

    Time (Eastern)SpeakerNotes/Topic
    10:00 – 11:10 AMMiriam HellerKeynote
    11:15 – 12:00 Bec RichmanCedarbaum Prize winner
    12:10 – 12:50 Chuggim Choose 1
    Dvir CahanaJewish Artist of the Week
    Jeffrey Gold & Devorah Jacobson Stolen Beam
    Sarra LevMishmash
    Eliana Light The Deep Dive
    12:50 – 2:00 Break & lunch 
    2:00 – 2:20 Eric CaplanMordecai Kaplan and Jewish Educational Innovation
    2:20 – 3:00 PMMichelle Greenfield Cedarbaum Prize Winner
    3:05 – 3:45 PMChuggimChoose 1
    Caryn AvivRepair & Remedy
    Liora OstroffJewish World History Through the Arts
    Eric Schulmiller Mural of Jewish Living Values
    3:50 – 4:30 PM ChuggimChoose 1
    Deborah Eisenbach-BudnerShabbat School Family Cooperative and Curriculum Treasury 
    Eliana LightThe Deep Dive
    Pam Sommers Tikkun Ha’ir 

    •

    Margie Jacobs

    •

    , ,

  • The Burning of Kaplan’s Siddur

    by Marc B. Shapiro, Ph.D. — Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Chair in Judaic Studies at the University of Scranton

    (We are grateful to Professor Shapiro for permission to republish this piece, and the accompanying materials, which first appeared, as part of a longer article covering other topics as well, on the Seforim blog [seforimblog.com] on September 10, 2014.)

    In an earlier post [on the Seforim blog from June 6, 2014] I referred to Mel Scult’s new book, The Radical American Judaism of Mordecai M. Kaplan. Scult discusses the burning of Kaplan’s siddur at an Agudas ha-Rabbonim gathering on June 12, 1945, at which Kaplan was himself also put in herem. The significance of this event can be seen in that there were over two hundred rabbis in attendance.[23]

    Here is the text of the herem from Ha-Pardes, July 1945.

    [For an English translation of the core of the herem document, click here.]

    The sentence immediately before the text of the herem clearly implies that the burning of the book was part of the ceremony (and see also Ha-Pardes, Nov. 1945 p. 23). Thus, Jeffrey S. Gurock and Jacob J. Schacter had good reason to write as follows:

    Scult, Judaism Faces the Twentieth Century, p. 420, n. 38, suggests that the act of book burning was unintentioned and not directed by the rabbinic leaders themselves, but all evidence cited above points to the contrary. This was clearly an official act, sanctioned by those assembled as a fitting and appropriate conclusion to a most serious and solemn deliberation.[24]

    Zachary Silver, who has recently written a very nice article on the episode, available here, writes as follows:

    Mel Scult’s biography of Kaplan mentions that the event occurred, but he does not believe that Agudat HaRabbanim burned the book as part of the formal ceremony. Rather, he says that the burning occurred incidentally at the back of the room. However, Agudat HaRabbanim’s documents illustrate that it was a previously scripted formula. [25]

    This burning of a Jewish book, coming so soon after the end of the Holocaust and so much at odds with the American tradition of freedom of expression, horrified both Jews and non-Jews. The fact that the excommunication and burning were covered in The New York Times only made matters worse, and everyone assumed that this was an officially sanctioned action of Agudat ha-Rabbanim.

    In writing about the event in his diary, Kaplan referred to “rabbinical gangsters who resort to nazi [!] methods in order to regain their authority.”[26] He later publicly stated as follows:

    It is just too bad that men who call themselves rabbis should in this day and age resort to the barbarous procedure of outlawing a man without giving him a hearing, and to the Nazi practice of burning books that displease them. God save us from such leadership and from the disgrace it is likely to bring upon Jews.[27]

    Responding to the horror aroused by the book-burning, Agudat ha-Rabbanim publicly declared that it had nothing to do with this action. It claimed that the burning was done independently by one of its members. Silver writes:

    The Union of Orthodox Rabbis later disavowed responsibility for the book burning, claiming that the event was not a scheduled part of the ceremony but rather the act of one rabbi from the audience who acted on his own, after the service was completed. This version seems unlikely, however, since the article about the excommunication in HaPardes, the unofficial magazine of Agudat HaRabbanim, gives specific justification for the book burning as part of the ceremony and does so in halakhic terms. The more likely scenario is that, after witnessing the heated public reaction, Agudat Harabbanim chose to disavow responsibility for burning the siddur as a face-saving public relations move. Thus, by saying that the burning was not part of the planned activities, the Union of Orthodox Rabbis could attempt to refocus public attention on the greater issues of the heresy of Kaplan and the Conservative movement, rather than on a particularly unsettling segment of the ceremony, which itself evoked memories of Nazi ritual book burnings. Of course, the uproar implies that Agudat Ha-Rabbanim did not realize that most Americans would be troubled by a book burning in 1945 – a lapse of judgment that would manifest the extent by which the Union of Orthodox Rabbis had lost touch with contemporary currents in American culture.[28]

    Years after the event, R. Norman Lamm reflected on the book burning.

    If we want to win people over to Orthodoxy, we need to present ourselves as measured, mature, and moderate people with deep faith and the right practice, but we do not insult others and we do not damage or condemn them. Coming out with issurim [decrees that forbid particular actions] against everyone else is like another Fatwa. When I was younger there was a heretic by the name of Mordecai Kaplan, and the Agudas Harabbonim had this whole big book burning party. I thought it was ridiculous to have a book burning in the twentieth century. It didn’t make anybody decide to become more religious observant. Nobody who was reading his books said[,] “If important Orthodox rabbis burned them, we’re not going to read them.” If anything, it aroused interest in people who otherwise would not have wanted to read these books. But in addition, what it accomplished was that it got people to look at the Orthodox as fanatics. That’s no way to make friends and win people over to Orthodoxy.[29]

    What we see from what I have quoted is that there is agreement that it was Agudat ha-Rabbanim that sanctioned the burning of the siddur.[30] Silver adds, “It is unclear who actually burned the siddur, as the report in HaPardes uses the passive voice.”

    In fact, we do know who burnt the siddur, Based on this information, we can also determine that the other point that “everyone” knows, that it was Agudat ha-Rabbanim that sanctioned the burning, is incorrect.

    In 1945 The Jewish Reconstructionist Foundation published a booklet, A Challenge to Freedom of Worship. I don’t know why, but this is a very rare publication. I have therefore uploaded it here. From this booklet, you get a sense of the great ill-will produced by the excommunication of Kaplan and the burning of his siddur. This is what appears on the very first page of the booklet.

    I first saw this booklet shortly before R. Joseph Ralbag passed away. At that time he was not well and I could not schedule a time to speak with him. However, at my request R. Aryeh Ralbag asked his father some questions about the episode, and I can report the following from the late R. Joseph Ralbag. R. Ralbag did not decide on the spur of the moment to burn the siddur. Rather, he knew he was going to do this ahead of time and even discussed it with his future wife. Yet the other members of Agudat ha-Rabbanim were unaware of his plans until he lit the siddur on fire. In other words, this was an individual act by R. Ralbag and, as Agudat ha-Rabbanim would later state, it was not sanctioned by them. This testimony, from the main protagonist of the event, should finally settle the matter. (Although R. Ralbag denied burning the siddur in the telephone call referred to on the page printed above, this was obviously only said to protect himself after the controversy broke out. As indicated, hundreds of people saw him burn the siddur.[31])

    One more interesting point about this episode is that Rav Tzair (Chaim Tchernowitz) claimed, in the course of an attack against Kaplan’s siddur, that according to halakhah it was forbidden to burn the work.[32] I would be curious to hear what some of the readers make of this.

    שמה שהחכמים גזרו על ס”ת שכתבו מין שישרף, אינו אלא מפני שהשמות לא נכתבו בקדושה, ואפשר שנכתבו לשם ע”ז, אבל בנידון דידן הרי לא את כה”י של קפלן שרפו, אלא את הסידור, שסידר אותו יהודי תמים, שבידוע שלא כוון לשום דבר אחר כשסידר את אותיות השם, ובכן אסור היה לשרוף את האזכרות שבו. ובזה עשו הרבנים שלא כדין ששרפו את הסידור (אולם הם הודיעו שלא גזרו שריפה על הסידור אלא שצורבא מרבנן אחד שרפו על דעת עצמו).

    Footnotes:

    [23] See Zachary Silver, “The Excommunication of Mordecai Kaplan,” American Jewish Archives 62 (2010), p. 23.

    [24] A Modern Heretic and a Traditional Community (New York, 1997), p. 206 n. 14

    [25] Silver, “The Excommunication of Mordecai Kaplan,” p. 40 n. 2.

    [26] Quoted in Silver, “The Excommunication of Mordecai Kaplan,” p. 23.

    [27] Quoted in Silver, “The Excommunication of Mordecai Kaplan,” p. 32.

    [28] Silver, “The Excommunication of Mordecai Kaplan,” p. 24.

    [29] Quoted in Silver, “The Excommunication of Mordecai Kaplan,” p. 39.

    [30] Other sources could also be quoted in support of this assertion. The only source I have found that states otherwise is Simon Noveck, Milton Steinberg: Portrait of a Rabbi (New York, 1978), p. 183.

    On June 12, 1945, a few days after the appearance of the Bublick review, the Union of Orthodox Rabbis of the United States and Canada held a special meeting at the McAlpin Hotel in New York to protest the new prayer book. Attended by more than two hundred rabbis, the gathering unanimously voted to issue a writ of excommunication against Mordecai Kaplan as the principal editor of the prayer book. With solemn ceremony, the entire audience rose and repeated, word by word, the text of the first psalm, after which the traditional ban was promulgated. Immediately thereafter, one member of the group suddenly took a copy of the “new heretical prayer book,” placed it on the speaker’s stand, and set fire to it. The Union later disavowed responsibility for the burning, maintaining that the action had been taken by a single rabbi after the formal meeting was over. All admitted, however, that no effort had been made by those present to prevent the prayer book from being burned.

    The first Psalm begins “Happy is the man that hath not walked in the counsel of the wicked.”

    [31] The page printed above quotes a text from the June 21, 1945 New York Times disavowing R. Ralbag’s action. However, there is no such passage in the New York Times. Perhaps it appeared in the Yiddish Jewish Morning Journal which also covered the event.

    [32] Siddur Tefilah shel To’im u-Mat’im (New York, 1946), p. 4. This work used to be on hebrewbooks.org but was removed. You can now find it here.

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    Hirsch Fishman

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