The new JTS Chancellor held a Town Meeting, what is apparently one of many that he has been holding around the country. After he presented his views, he entertained questions from the audience and then asked a question of his own, what can JTS be doing to improve Conservative Judaism for the congregation? (I have paraphrased it as I remember the question). Here is my written answer to Dr. Eisen:
Dr. Eisen -
Thank you very much for holding the Town Hall meeting last night at Beth Shalom. It was good to be able to hear what you had to say.
You asked for suggestions of what problems JTS could help to solve in our communities. To answer that question, I think that one needs to start by looking at where JTS has failed the Conservative communities over the past several decades. If JTS, under your leadership, can start to address those failures, then there will be real success. I see those failures in two areas.
First, JTS has failed to provide the Conservative Jewish community with an answer to why we should believe. Religion is inherently a system of belief in tenets that are not subject to academic or scientific proof. As a scholarly institution that prides itself on academic rigor, JTS has excelled at tearing down the pre-modern edifice on which belief rested. Fields like archaeology, anthropology, sociology and literary and textual criticism have given us wonderful and important insights into our history. As Conservative Jews, we have marvelled in and taken pride in these discoveries and insights. But, as spiritual beings, we have been stripped of the underpinning of belief.
Like you, Heschel is my intellectual, and even more, my spiritual hero. Heschel painted a picture for us of belief that rests first and foremost on a love of G-d. As you said last night, the ideal is that we enter into mitzvot out of a love for G-d and community. When we commit ourselves to observance because it is an expression of our gratitude for G-d's gifts to us and our way of touching the divine, we are achieving our highest spiritual level as Jews. I believe in the Torah as G-d's revelation for Jews not because there is scientific proof that it is G-d's word, but because that is how I, as a Jew, know how to serve G-d. How the Torah came into being is interesting as an academic exercise; why it came into being and what it means to me is the spiritual journey that I travel.
We need Jewish leaders who believe, deeply and passionately, in G-d, Torah and Israel and who can articulate why they believe in ways that are compelling to other Jews. They need to be more than role models; they need to be leaders. We are far too smug about what we know to be false and far too timid to talk about what might be true.
The second area in which I think that JTS has failed the Conservative movement is in creating faith communities. We have many synagogues and congregations, but woefully few true communities. A community is one that comes together to pray, to learn, to socialize, to support, to act, and to live together. How many congregations view their synagogue or center as their second home? How many congregations have a large percentage of their members in the synagogue building on a weekly basis? A congregation is a board, a building, a staff, and dues-paying members. A community is much, much more than that. Are we training our leaders to understand the difference and to work for the latter rather than the former?
One test of a community is how it treats the stranger, the visitor. I used to travel extensively for work and on those occasions when I need to stay over Shabbat, I invariably ended up at Chabad instead of the Conservative shul, because the Conservative shul had no concept of, much less ability to provide, Shabbat accommodations. A community that observes Shabbat together naturally comes to have the ability to provide such facilities for those who happen to find themselves in the community.
The failure of our congregations can be seen by examining the success stories. Every successful Conservative congregation of which I am aware, with my congregation of Agudath Israel as the notable exception, is based in a community with an Orthodox population. If I take congregations such as Beth Ahm in LA or the Conservative Center and Temple in Highland Park, the East Brunswick Jewish Center, the Conservative congregation in Rockville, or a number of other successful Conservative congregations, they all have thriving Orthodox communities as well. It is the Orthodox communities that make it possible for committed Conservative Jews to live in those communities. It is the Orthodox that create and supporet the Kosher marketplaces, build the Eruv, build the Mikvah, and create a public Jewish face that is not ashamed to be seen as religious. The committed Conservative Jew is largely a free-rider on these benefits.
When that Orthodox community does not exist, the Conservative congregation is much weaker. It has a hard time attracting the committed Conservative Jew because for that Jew the needed services that stretch beyond the doors of the synagogue don't exist. This, more than anything, I think is why young people raised in Schechter schools, Ramah camp, and USY find themselves drawn to Orthodox communities. I don't think that it is simply that they have come to believe something different from what they were taught, but because they have been taught that living the life of a committed Jew is important, they have no choice but to find an Orthodox community that can provide the essential services.
In your talk last night, you touched on these themes and for that I am hopeful that your leadership will address these issues. Having read your books, I know that you understand the forces that are at work and that you have spent much time thinking on how to harness them for positive results. I am cautiously optimistic for the future of our movement because you are at the helm.
I wish you the best of luck.
