Rearranging the Chairs on the Deck of the Titanic

There is an ongoing spiritual holocaust taking place right at this very moment. Right here in America. One that I have been lamenting for quite some time now. One which became overtly apparent after a Pew Research survey was made public a few years ago. One which seems to be getting worse by the day, despite the best efforts of many to stop it.

Jews in this country are abandoning their Judaism at a record rate. That an estimated 70% or more of non Orthodox Jews are intermarrying still sounds shocking – even after all the years since that statistic was made public by Pew. And that doesn’t even take into account Jews that did not intermarry but still could not care less about their Judaism. I shudder to think what the actual combined percentage of Jews there are like that.

A lot of people in (and some out of) Orthodoxy blame heterodox movements on this phenomenon. I understand why they feel that way. I would put it slightly differently. Heterodoxy did not create this problem. But they have clearly accelerated it. Not willingly. In both the case of Reform and especially Conservative Judaism the goal was to perpetuate it. But the exact opposite of what their innovations intended is what has happened. And is still happening.

Reform Judaism is not my focus here. They have long ago discarded any legitimate claim at authenticity be rejecting the very essence of Judaism itself. Mitzvah observance. Added to this is how they now define who is and is not a Jew. A method as ridiculous as saying the a football player can be defined by being a baseball player. Their numbers might be growing. But they are not growing as Jews. Some might be Jewish by virtue of being born of a Jewish mother. But increasing numbers of them do not have that distinction.

It is the Conservative Movement that I want to focus on. Their leaders did not want to abandon observance. But they did believe it could be modified to fit the times. They therefore innovated certain leniencies to accommodate those who had for the most part abandoned Mitzvah observance either out of ignorance or ‘necessity’. Or the desire to simply fully assimilate into an American culture made difficult by Halacha.

The effect of these innovations was an eventual wholesale abandonment of Halachic observance by vast numbers of Conservative Jews. Mostly without any guilt. It has only taken a few generations for these Jews to see little difference between themselves and their fellow non Jews. That made it possible to find no reason to be Jewish at all. The one concept so often preached by Conservative leaders is Tikun Olam – or repairing the world via working for social justice causes like civil rights. But that is a worthy goal all by itself. You don’t have to be Jewish to work for social justice.

Furthermore, whereas Israel was once a rallying point for all non Orthodox Jews - today that is hardly the case anymore. In fact there is more animosity toward Israel (or at least its political leadership) by non observant Jews than at any time since its creation over 70 years ago. 

Gone is Israel as a cohesive factor among most American Jews. For far too many, Israel is not even on their radar as an issue. Why should it be? Why should a Jew that doesn’t even care about his Judaism care about a Jewish state? Especially one they see being commandeered  by people observing the very rituals they have been taught are unnecessary. And in some cases even consider unethical! The Israel of the idealistic socialist secular founders that created the Kibbutz which ‘made the desert bloom’ has been replaced by a nation increasingly being ruled by what they see as religious terrorists.

If this isn’t a spiritual holocaust, I don’t know what is.

The Conservative Movement still holds on to the illusion that they are a Halachic movement Even though they make no demands upon their members to observe Halacha even while they maintain the necessity of doing so in theory. This is one of the primary reasons their movement is dying. 

Yet another sign of this is being reported in the New York Jewish Week: 

Unfortunately, that senior executive was right then. And he’s even more right now.

Here’s the thing. Reform Judaism itself is in my view an integral part of the spiritual holocaust. Conservative Judaism – though trying to survive as identifiably Jewish is failing miserably. It must seem to their leaders that the only hope for survival as a movement is to re-locate to Israel and establish legitimacy there. so they can minister to a population of traditional but not fully observant Jews that actually care that they are Jewish. 

That is not going to happen as long as the religious population there continues to grow and fight them on it. The 2 Charedi parties (UTJ and Shas) now have an unprecedented combined 16 Keneset seats.

What can we as Orthodox Jews do about this spiritual holocaust? I believe that all we can really do is to try and reach out to those Jews that have shown at least some interest in their heritage. One assimilated Jew at a time. And teach them about the beauty, ethics, and morality of a of a Jewish lifestyle based on authentic Halachic observance. Mostly by example - modeling such behavior. 

This does not mean banging them over the head with all the minutia of Halacha. What it does mean I think is to show them what an observant lifestyle can look like. And what it can do for them spiritually. One Mitzvah at a time. When they are ready.

Other than that, I would argue that what hasn’t worked till now… ‘ain’t gonna work in the future’. The idea of conserving Judaism by abandoning or ignoring ritual observance is a failure of monumental proportion. I think the best and brightest minds in the Conservative Movement (such as Professor Jack Wertheimer) already know that. 

I would therefore once again urge all those that might identify as Conservative Jews and care at all about preserving their Jewish heritage – to come home to the Judaism of their forefathers. Give it a try. It is through that heritage that the Jewish people have continued to - not only survive, but to grow and thrive.