200th Aniversary of Progressive Judaism Rabbi Hillel Athias-Robles 16 July 2010

There was a kosher pizza restaurant where I would regularly go to buy Argentinian empanadas. I certainly stuck out and broke the monochromatic balance with my coloured clothes and blue jeans amongst a sea of black fabric. There, the nephew of the owner approached to talk to me. He too wasn’t quite the same as everybody. Even though he donned a black kippah, his pastel shirts were designer and crisply ironed. His trousers were always a bit too tight and tailored for the community’s approval. And he wore the pointiest shoes I have ever seen! Seeing that I too was different, certainly much more than him, he turned to me as a confidante. He told me that he too once wore black hats, tzitzit hanging out, and was a yeshivah boy. The rules, nonetheless, ended up suffocating him. He was now looking for a way out of the social confines that were sometimes more impenetrable than concrete. As a salvation for his soul, he was being sent out on shidduch dates even though he had barely begun his adult life. He was desperate to hear about life outside, about life beyond the ghetto, about university, parties, freedom. He savoured each of my words as if they were honey, as if I was bringing accounts of a far-away Eden or Shangri-La. Our talk became like bread to the hungry child. When the cousin heard our whispered words of heresy, he swiftly came to interrupt us, sent the rebellious youngster to the kitchen, and asked if I could buy for him an Artscroll version of the Talmud so that he could learn English.

This anxiety to leave the ghetto made me think of the important date which we celebrate this Shabbat: the 200th anniversary of Progressive Judaism. This historic moment brought the possibility of new ways to be Jewish. Emancipation and Enlightenment tumbled down the walls of the Shtetl. But before the Reform started, to partake of the bounty the newly available world offered, one had to shed one’s Judaism. As Henrich Heine put it: “The baptismal certificate is the ticket of admission to European culture… My becoming a Christian is the fault of… Napoleon, who really did not have to go to Russia, or of his teacher of geography at Brienne, who did not tell him that Moscow winters are very cold.” The Reform brought with it the promise that one could still be Jewish, walk in the ways of one’s ancestors, yet embrace all the positive things modernity has to offer. This message resounded clearly in the address Israel Jacobson made 200 years ago when he inaugurated the Seesen Temple. He said “be it far from me that I should have any secret intention to undermine the pillars of your faith… or that… I should become a traitor to both our religion and you”. But he continued, in faithful prayer: May we, conscious of our dignity, never forget man, the high destiny of a being whom Thou has gifted with reason and freedom, that the might think for himself, act for himself, and whom Thou didst destine not to be a soulless machine in the plan of Thy Creation.” We now had to use our freedom, to do things because we have thought about them and are convinced at what we are doing. We could no longer become robots to the law.

Over time, many Progressive rabbis have criticised early Classical Reform for being too rational, too dry, too Christian. Some have said that it was mistaken in thinking that the philosophies of the day’s modernity would endure for all generations. We find today American Reform rabbis asking to bring back tradition, not separating any longer between ritual and ethical laws and claiming that they are both as binding. I personally believe that early Reform had to be radical in its ways in order to properly break ties with Orthodoxy, for it to later organically find its balance. Wherever we find our place within the spectrum of Progressive belief and practice, we owe it to the early Reformers for giving us the actual possibility to choose our place within Judaism. Where would we be today without Progressive Judaism and its possibilities? Perhaps Christian, or maybe muttering words of heresy in a kosher pizza shop, too afraid to step beyond the shtetl.