Orthodox or Conservative?

[Levite]

Originally Posted by Jayhawker Soule

And I as well - one that does not denigrate my practice and the practice of millions of my fellow Jews with terms like "total degradation".

There is room for an enormous amount of halachic difference and divergence in Judaism. Room for a huge number and variation of minhagim.

But there is not room for intermarriage. There is not room for one specific sector of the Jewish People deciding unilaterally and without any precedent in tradition to make a fundamental and completely game-changing alteration to basic Jewish identity-- one of the very few things that, historically, all Jews had been able to agree on.

What a person does in their home in regard to kashrut, prayer habits, giving tzedakah, sexual behavior, or just about anything else ultimately affects only themselves, or at most, themselves and their spouse and/or immediate family. But intermarriage and patrilineal descent affect the entirety of the Jewish People, now and for generations to come. The Reform movement had no right to produce a doctrine of patrilineal descent and to accept interfaith marriages and still call such marriages Jewish, or children of Jewish fathers and non-Jewish mothers Jews. Doing so is absolutely beyond the pale: if such changes were ever to happen, they had to be made with consensus throughout the Jewish People. It screws those children, and it screws the rest of us, because we can no longer have any potential place of agreement on fundamental Jewish identity while these things are in play.

I may find things like eating cheeseburgers or not fasting on Tisha b'Av or never saying brachot outside of shul distasteful and unfortunate, but ultimately, those are the kinds of things that aren't necessarily my business, and which can be bruited about, discussed, and hashed over at all our leisure. They are problematic for the tradition, not for people uneducated to the tradition or who reject key parts of the tradition: and we can ultimately agree to disagree. So some of us won't eat at the houses of others: fine, there are ways around that. So some of us won't go to the shuls of the others: fine, that was always the way it was. But intermarriage and patrilineal descent are fundamentally different: I called them degrading to Jewish identity because it is literally true. They are eroding the boundaries of Jewish identity, causing confusion, and labelling as Jews people who are not Jewish.

I have had to explain this, trying to find words of adequate compassion and empathy, for young students who were told their whole lives they were Jewish, but suddenly, on entering Conservative or transdenominational Jewish programs, they find they are not, and they naturally enough feel lied to and betrayed, as well as confused. I have had to explain this to people who came to me to get married, only to find out that one of the partners is not actually Jewish, despite what they had been told, and have had to arrange quickie conversions to spare these people the pain of having to put off their wedding to deal with their unexpected identity crisis. I dread the thought of what my son might have to go through some day, if he falls in love with a nice girl who thinks she's Jewish, and has to deal with her sudden discovery that she either needs to convert or find a new man (or, God forbid, if she refuses to convert and he shrugs and decides that despite the traditions and values with which I will be raising him, he doesn't care about marrying a Jew).

This could so easily have been avoided. Everything else could have been dealt with slowly, in dialogue, over the course of decades or even centuries. But this makes everything a thousand times worse.

90% of what I disagree with in Reform Judaism, I am willing to keep my mouth shut about, or shrug it off to elu v'elu, or to disagree respectfully in debate. But these two things are inexcusable, and it would be dishonest to say anything else. There are things which are inexcusable in every movement-- although in the Conservative movement, most of those things are inexcusable omissions, rather than commissions-- but intermarriage and patrilineal descent are the most toxic elements in Liberal Judaism by a wide, wide margin, not to mention that in an atmosphere of lack of education and assimilation, toleration of intermarriage and promulgation of patrilineal descent amount to the biggest violation of lifnei iver lo titen michshol (do not place a stumbling block before the blind) that I could ever imagine.

If you find that offensive, that is unfortunate. It doesn't make it less the case.

[TheKnight]

Originally Posted by Levite

Sure, sure, premarital sex leads to mixed dancing. I get the idea. But I refuse to accept the premise that the choices are rejection of halachah and lack of Jewish education and traditional observance versus decent Jewish education without decent secular education, traditional observance only in regard to a very specific set of traditions and customs, and acceptance of halachah in its narrowest, strictest and most ossified form.

I refuse to consign observance and tradition to Haredi zealots, and I refuse to stand by and accept complete assimilation and total degradation of Jewish identity from the Jewish left. I will demand a third option, and try to create a third option; and I will be unashamed both of taking good ideas, precedents, and inspiration from whatever movement or Jewish community they are to be found, and of distancing myself from toxic and radical movement either to left or to the right.

Hmm. Well said.

[SimoneQuinn]

I wanted to add one little thing if I could. Consider this scenario.

My grandfather would be considered Jewish by standards here, yet he never cared for, or followed HaShem his entire life. He married my grandmother and never required her to convert- he let her raise their children (my mother included) in basically a Christian household. The fact that he was Jewish was put away into a closet and never spoke of. Us grandchildren never knew, until just a couple years ago when clearing out their house. We were never told.
Then you have myself, who has discovered the untruth of Christianity, I desire nothing more than to follow Hashem with all my heart. And yet, I would be the one considered out of the fold just because the line goes from great-grandmother, to grandfather, to mother, to me. Because of that one male in the line. How is this fair, how is this right, when I am the one who believes and knows and follows.

(I know you know the details, Levite. This comes from the pain in my heart also.)

S.


eta: Please fill me in on what a quickie conversion is. lol

[Tarheeler]

Originally Posted by SimoneQuinn

How is this fair, how is this right, when I am the one who believes and knows and follows.

That's not much different that someone with no family lineage who believes. Both begin with no knowledge of Judaism, both have never participated in ritual or prayer, yet both feel drawn to Judaism and want to be part of the Jewish people.

To me, a proper conversion directed by a rabbi seems appropriate in both cases.

And, from what I've read, a "quickie" conversion would be an extremely truncated process of converting someone who has an established line to Judaism.

[Levite]

Originally Posted by SimoneQuinn

I wanted to add one little thing if I could. Consider this scenario.

My grandfather would be considered Jewish by standards here, yet he never cared for, or followed HaShem his entire life. He married my grandmother and never required her to convert- he let her raise their children (my mother included) in basically a Christian household. The fact that he was Jewish was put away into a closet and never spoke of. Us grandchildren never knew, until just a couple years ago when clearing out their house. We were never told.
Then you have myself, who has discovered the untruth of Christianity, I desire nothing more than to follow Hashem with all my heart. And yet, I would be the one considered out of the fold just because the line goes from great-grandmother, to grandfather, to mother, to me. Because of that one male in the line. How is this fair, how is this right, when I am the one who believes and knows and follows.

(I know you know the details, Levite. This comes from the pain in my heart also.)

S.


eta: Please fill me in on what a quickie conversion is. lol

You know I sympathize, Simone. But every society, every culture needs to have some defining parameters about who is part of the culture and who isn't, otherwise identity becomes blurred, and it becomes unclear who people are, and what responsibilities in the society and to the other people involved in it are. Judaism has been matrilineal at least since the time of the Rabbis of the Talmud, and probably for a fair chunk of time previous to that.

I'm not saying that we couldn't potentially change that fact, but that (1) doing so would have to involve a consensus of the authorities of all the Jewish People, not just a segment of them; and (2) if there were an appropriate time to make such a radical and fundamental change, it would not be when we are trying to survive a massive crisis of assimilation, when we are being hit from both sides by undereducation and intermarriage, and far too few Jews actually know anything about our traditions and our sacred texts and our responsibilities as Jews.

I am not unaware, or unsympathetic, that having firm boundaries inevitably results in some people being inconvenienced or even feeling hurt. But not everyone can be pleased, and when our fundamental identity as the Jewish People is at risk, that is a price that has to be paid, no matter how unfortunate it might be. In either case, whether we have firm boundaries or weak boundaries, people are going to be hurt: the only thing it seems that we can do is pick the way that ensures our national integrity at the same time.

In any case, a quickie conversion is something that can happen when a person comes to a rabbi already demonstrably knowledgeable and familiar with Jewish texts, traditions, and practices, and it is known that they have been living an observant Jewish life already for some time; but for one reason or another, this individual has either been unable to complete the process of conversion, or it was interrupted for some reason, or there was a problem with their original conversion that has just come to light. In such a case, most Conservative and Modern Orthodox rabbis will abbreviate the conversion process, only requiring the formal declaration of taking on the covenant and abjuration of other religions, immersion in the mikveh, and hatafat dam brit (ritual rededication of the circumcision scar) in the case of a man. Rather than taking months or years, this conversion can been done in a matter of days, so such a conversion is usually performed when the individual meets the above criteria, and there is some reason demanding haste, like an impending marriage or birth, or something similar.

[jazzymom]

Originally Posted by Tarheeler

That's not much different that someone with no family lineage who believes. Both begin with no knowledge of Judaism, both have never participated in ritual or prayer, yet both feel drawn to Judaism and want to be part of the Jewish people.

To me, a proper conversion directed by a rabbi seems appropriate in both cases.

And, from what I've read, a "quickie" conversion would be an extremely truncated process of converting someone who has an established line to Judaism.

Yes a conversion that requires no study is for those who have been raised Jewish and are a part of a Jewish family and community. I also think that the Rabbi in the community one is raised in would offer anyone wanting to undergo conversion that option.


This covers many of those raised as patrilineal Jews. They understand that when they marry they may need to undergo conversion to marry someone in a movement that does not accept patrilineal descent.

Any other conversion requires a period of study and I believe that is in any movement.

[Rakhel]

Actually I think the question of SimoneQuinn's claim more lies in where her grandfather was born and when he married, more than that he married a non-Jew.

There are reasons I ask this.

[SimoneQuinn]

Thanks all for the input. I think I just sometimes have to stop for a minute to cry in my beer. Most of my situation delves from being (very happily) married to a Baptist with a Baptist deacon FIL. While they are fairly supportive, any voicing of conversion would have them come running with a full-on intervention (as my friend would say). Or as of right now that is the way it is. And issues come from my mother and her attitude about it all. I'll hang in there, whatever will be, will be.
My grandfather was born in the U.S., his family immigrated from the Alsace-Lorraine area. I believe he married in the early 40's. He served in WW2 and was married at that time.

[Rakhel]

I was kinda wondering if he was a Mischling. A nasty nazi name for a "half-breed," They even had a "test" on how to determine how Mischling a Mischling was. But that takes a way from the thread.

I do understand the author's wanting to distinguish the difference between Conservative and Orthodox and Reform. It drives me nuts too. It's either your Orthodox or you're not. And when you are a "not," you have to be reform.

[dantech]

Originally Posted by Levite

There is room for an enormous amount of halachic difference and divergence in Judaism. Room for a huge number and variation of minhagim.

But there is not room for intermarriage. There is not room for one specific sector of the Jewish People deciding unilaterally and without any precedent in tradition to make a fundamental and completely game-changing alteration to basic Jewish identity-- one of the very few things that, historically, all Jews had been able to agree on.

What a person does in their home in regard to kashrut, prayer habits, giving tzedakah, sexual behavior, or just about anything else ultimately affects only themselves, or at most, themselves and their spouse and/or immediate family. But intermarriage and patrilineal descent affect the entirety of the Jewish People, now and for generations to come. The Reform movement had no right to produce a doctrine of patrilineal descent and to accept interfaith marriages and still call such marriages Jewish, or children of Jewish fathers and non-Jewish mothers Jews. Doing so is absolutely beyond the pale: if such changes were ever to happen, they had to be made with consensus throughout the Jewish People. It screws those children, and it screws the rest of us, because we can no longer have any potential place of agreement on fundamental Jewish identity while these things are in play.

I may find things like eating cheeseburgers or not fasting on Tisha b'Av or never saying brachot outside of shul distasteful and unfortunate, but ultimately, those are the kinds of things that aren't necessarily my business, and which can be bruited about, discussed, and hashed over at all our leisure. They are problematic for the tradition, not for people uneducated to the tradition or who reject key parts of the tradition: and we can ultimately agree to disagree. So some of us won't eat at the houses of others: fine, there are ways around that. So some of us won't go to the shuls of the others: fine, that was always the way it was. But intermarriage and patrilineal descent are fundamentally different: I called them degrading to Jewish identity because it is literally true. They are eroding the boundaries of Jewish identity, causing confusion, and labelling as Jews people who are not Jewish.

I have had to explain this, trying to find words of adequate compassion and empathy, for young students who were told their whole lives they were Jewish, but suddenly, on entering Conservative or transdenominational Jewish programs, they find they are not, and they naturally enough feel lied to and betrayed, as well as confused. I have had to explain this to people who came to me to get married, only to find out that one of the partners is not actually Jewish, despite what they had been told, and have had to arrange quickie conversions to spare these people the pain of having to put off their wedding to deal with their unexpected identity crisis. I dread the thought of what my son might have to go through some day, if he falls in love with a nice girl who thinks she's Jewish, and has to deal with her sudden discovery that she either needs to convert or find a new man (or, God forbid, if she refuses to convert and he shrugs and decides that despite the traditions and values with which I will be raising him, he doesn't care about marrying a Jew).

This could so easily have been avoided. Everything else could have been dealt with slowly, in dialogue, over the course of decades or even centuries. But this makes everything a thousand times worse.

90% of what I disagree with in Reform Judaism, I am willing to keep my mouth shut about, or shrug it off to elu v'elu, or to disagree respectfully in debate. But these two things are inexcusable, and it would be dishonest to say anything else. There are things which are inexcusable in every movement-- although in the Conservative movement, most of those things are inexcusable omissions, rather than commissions-- but intermarriage and patrilineal descent are the most toxic elements in Liberal Judaism by a wide, wide margin, not to mention that in an atmosphere of lack of education and assimilation, toleration of intermarriage and promulgation of patrilineal descent amount to the biggest violation of lifnei iver lo titen michshol (do not place a stumbling block before the blind) that I could ever imagine.

If you find that offensive, that is unfortunate. It doesn't make it less the case.

I agree 100% with what is written here.

and with what Rakhel wrote. I also feel like its either Orthodox or "not"!