The Movement for Reform Judaism

There are many disadvantages to being small. I am, of course, referring to the Jewish population being small — only 14 million worldwide, only 270,000 in Britain. It makes resources a problem and leaves us perpetually anxious about our future, our viability, our very continued existence. But it does have one enormous advantage. It gives me endless opportunities for name dropping. I may be a religious leader of only 42 people but I get invited to all the best places.

So it was that I trouped off to Lambeth Palace ten days ago to see my chums Rowan and Cormac. Jonathan wasn’t there but sent your old friend Alan Plancey. The Archbishop had decided on a personal interfaith initiative and had invited around 30 of the usual suspects — Christians of every shade and hue, Muslims, Sikhs, Hindus, Buddhists, even a Baha’i and a Jain.

We were given drinks on arrival, allowed to schmooze and network and then a buffet supper of quality and quantity more typical of EDRS celebratory kiddushim than my past experiences of Christian gatherings, where food tends to be thought of as beside the point. After an hour we sat round in a large circle and the Archbishop addressed us at some length. What he said was, essentially, that there are a number of core issues out there in the world — issues around the beginning and ending of life, the environment, governmental attempts to infringe freedom through laws against terrorism and, in the discussion someone added, human rights in general. Despite what the media believe, each faith tradition, he said, has rich resources for tackling these issues and we should do it together, taking religion out of the private domain to which it is in danger of being relegated and providing a clear and united religious voice at the very heart of society and the public debate.

I was enjoying this — the Archbishop is a brilliant and engaging man, it was quite revealing to hear the underlying music of his feelings about government and the press, and the view that the religious voice is integral to society and the public-political debate is very Jewish — Isaiah, today’s Haftarah.

He then opened things up for a discussion in which the accents from the Indian Sub-Continent — Muslim, Hindu and Sikh — were particularly prominent. People were both enthusiastic and deferential. Resources turned into shared values — ‘we all share the same values’, speaker after speaker said. And then came the laments — for the erosion of old-time religion, for the threat that society poses to community and family and generous offers to hold the Archbishop’s vestments whilst he took on, on everybody’s behalf, the press, the government and the wicked and destructive forces of modernity.

I was going to speak, but we ran out of time and by the time I’d driven back across the river to North London where proper people live I was glad I hadn’t said anything. By the time I got home I’d composed a letter in my head which was typed and sent the following morning.

To The Most Reverend and Right Honourable the Lord Archbishop of Canterbury, Dear Rowan (how’s that for Premier League name dropping!).

I thoroughly enjoyed last night and particularly appreciated the buffet supper — it was really nice to be fed so well.

I found the discussion most interesting and stimulating. I was actually glad I didn’t get the opportunity to speak because what I would have said would have been inappropriate at that particular point in your initiative. But I would like to share with you three reflections.

First, although you referred to the resources available in the different faiths, a lot of people seemed to go down the line that we share values and can therefore take a clear and united stand against the forces of secularism and modernity. I am never totally sure whether we do share values — the sanctity of life, concern for the environment, human rights — or whether these are generalities emptied of substance. That is probably too negative and cynical but my point would be that we are far from readily agreed on the detail of the operation of those values . In fact, isn’t one of the characteristics — revelations? — of our time to do with uncertainty, complexity, conflicting values and of the sheer difficulty of the ethical challenges with which God confronts us? Isn’t it the task of the faiths to try to teach the world that issues are complex, that they cannot be reduced to sound bites, that subtlety is necessary, that teasing out truth or fragments of truth takes time and trust, that people and their beliefs can be modified by dialogue without losing integrity, that people may come to differing conclusions yet still retain mutual respect and the task of the State is to make space for those differences? Isn’t that how religious dialogue differs from political debate?

The letter went on to make two other points but you’ll be glad to hear that I want to restrict myself this morning just to the first.

You may have been asking yourself what all this has got to do with Shavuot which is, after all, what we’re here for. Well, it actually has a great deal to do with Shavuot.

Shavuot focuses on the core, originating event of Judaism — the giving of the Torah at Sinai. Now I’ve just used the words ‘core’ and ‘originating’ from which you can reasonably infer that I think Sinai is important, fundamental. If you were to say to Rabbi Smith or me, do you think that the account of Sinai in the Torah is of a real, defining experience — I am certain we would both answer ‘yes’. If you were to ask us was God present in that event, that experience, that understanding that the words portray, describe — I am certain we would both answer ‘yes’. But if you were to say to us do you regard that Torah from which we have just read as identical to what Moses heard, received; if you were to ask is the Torah extra-historical, beyond scientific and literary analysis, something other and inerrant (all terms and phrases to be found in the writings of the leading exponents of mainstream orthodoxy in this country) we would hesitate and say it isn’t so simple, it’s much less clear cut, much more uncertain and complex than that. Do we believe in Torah min haShamayim ? Yes, but differently from Edgware United or Edgware Adas.

We would say that about the nature of Torah and we would say the same thing about its content, about its details. There is no doubt that we can find in it — particularly as it has been thought about, delved into, explored through commentary — the source of our deepest values. But applying those values to the immensely complex and detailed problems posed by the modern world — issues surrounding the beginning and ending of life, of the environment, of freedom and security, of human rights — there we also find uncertainty, complexity and spiritual, moral and intellectual dilemmas and challenges.

It is as if God is saying to us: Up to recent times, I let you think that you could tease out My will and be certain about what to do and how to behave in every situation both ritual and ethical. But I am now upping the anti. I am still here. My revelation is still present and ongoing. The sources available to you grow richer and richer. But now you are going to have to recognise the extraordinary complexity of My world, My diverse peoples and faiths and the challenging dilemmas that each of you is going to have to face in turning Sinai into the core resource for engaging with and living in My modern world.

On Tuesday I was driving home from giving a talk in Oxford and listening to the Bush-Blair Press Conference live from Washington. It was fascinating how, on the surface, there was a simple commonality of language and values — eradicating poverty in Africa, debt relief, supporting the spread of democracy, concern for the environment — and yet underneath the genuinely shared language and values was huge uncertainty and complexity and disagreement about the application of those values to detailed action for social justice.

It isn’t easy being a Reform rabbi or a Reform Jew. We are rooted in a tradition apparently with clear and precise answers. We live in a world in which the sound bite rules. Yet God speaks to us of uncertainty, complexity and subtlety and the need to tease out what will only at best be fragments of truth, of the need to work with others both of our own faith and other faiths where understandings will only be partial and where there are certain to be differences. Conveying the challenge, the excitement, the authenticity of that to people who would prefer clarity, simplicity and sound bite answers they can take or disregard at will — that’s a huge and never ending challenge to Reform Judaism.

Which is a pretty uncomfortable note on which to end on this beautiful, celebratory day. But there is a brief footnote.

Before I gave that talk in Oxford on Tuesday, I had supper with some old friends, Marcus and Mary Braybrooke. It’s alright — there’s no scope for name dropping there though they are a remarkable couple. Marcus is an Anglican clergyman who combines book writing with pastoral skills and genuine intellectuality with social and interfaith action like few people I’ve ever met. Mary is a tireless medical social worker.

They were asking me about what I am doing and I began to talk about my excitement at the Reform Movement’s courage and imagination in taking up the 2020 Vision — in commissioning research to find out where people are and what their deepest needs are; in trying to shift focus from established institutional priorities to reaching out and engaging people wherever they are; in seeking to spend more time supporting people in exploring their Jewish identity and their search for meaning and purpose in life. I used our analogy of the health service and trying to do what it has failed to do, namely break out of a self-serving, bureaucratic straitjacket and connect the resources to the needs of the patients.

Mary’s face lit up with recognition. Marcus was instantly excited and engaged because it all resonated with his experience and frustrations as an Anglican clergyman. At that moment I realised something.

What seems utterly impossible within a Christian world of 2 billion people, within an Anglican church with a worldwide communion of tens of millions, might just be possible on the small scale of our British Reform Movement which offers real possibilities for the engagement and personal support that individuals need if they are to face up to uncertainty, complexity and spiritual and moral dilemmas.

Maybe being small is not all bad and can provide a context for doing things which a much larger scale would make impossible. After all, the Torah was not given to tens of millions and tells us that we are the least, the smallest of peoples. But I do wish Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor wasn’t seven foot six!

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