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Assuming Mantle, New Chancellor Proclaims Movement’s Centrality
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More in NewsThis week, Arnold Eisen assumed the chancellor’s mantle at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, the Conservative movement’s flagship seminary in New York. The school’s seventh chancellor, Eisen replaced Ismar Schorsch, who helmed the institution for 20 years. On the eve of his inauguration, the Forward’s Rebecca Spence sat down with him for a wide-ranging interview on the state of the denomination.
Rebecca Spence: This job is a change for you: You were previously a professor of Jewish culture and religion at Stanford University in Palo Alto, Calif. What aspects of your experience do you hope to apply to JTS?
Arnold Eisen: In Palo Alto, the various denominations work very well together, which is the experience I hope we can re-create in New York. You can’t try to get people to be Conservative Jews by putting down other kinds of Jews.
RS: But what about people who put down the Conservative movement? How do you respond to critics who say it’s time for the movement to “call it quits”?
AE: If the Conservative movement did not exist or went out of existence tomorrow, I would be spending a lot of time with my friends trying to resurrect something very similar to it. It’s an intellectual approach; it’s an approach to observance; it’s an approach to [Jewish law]. It’s not just comfortable to me because I was born in it; it’s to me the most intellectually viable and spiritually exciting way to be a Jew. Unfortunately, for a long time the movement has not trumpeted this. It’s done a very poor job, I think we all admit, on message — so much that not only many Conservative Jews but many rabbis don’t know what Conservative Judaism is. They just know it’s not Reform and it’s not Orthodox.
And by the way, if the movement did, God forbid, go out of business, Orthodoxy and Reform would be major losers. We need this center; we need what we have to offer, just as I think we need Orthodoxy and Reform. I don’t think there’s any alternative to having these movements.
RS: In regard to Reform and Orthodoxy, some observers have claimed that your movement is “bleeding people on the left and bleeding people on the right.” Do you agree? And if so, how could you address that? In other words, does the big tent make sense anymore?
AE: The tent metaphor is not great, because the key is what people do with each other inside of it. How does a person on the left of the Conservative movement on one issue relate to a person on the right of the Conservative movement on that issue, and hopefully a person on the “left” on one issue is going to be the person on the right on a different issue. They’re going to come to see that they benefit by this diversity of view on a variety of subjects. That’s what makes us stronger. But if we just sit inside the same tent together, no, that’s not enough.
RS: That brings me to the gay issue. Last December, after years of wrenching debate, the movement’s law committee passed a rabbinic opinion allowing for the ordination of gay and lesbian rabbis and sanctioning same-sex unions. Do you think that process was handled properly?
AE: Since I’m one of the main people who handled it, I’d have to say I think it was handled properly.
RS: But what about those who say the movement should have addressed it earlier?
AE: First of all, I think the process at JTS was a very good process, was a very inclusive process, was a very careful process. Second of all, what I’ve learned from talking to people who disagreed with me about these issues over the last three or four months is that there’s a lot more that unites us. The key thing is what we do [now]. How do we handle ourselves in the next several years? Do we put front and center all the things that made people proud to be Conservative Jews? If all you read about is what divides us, well, of course people are going to be upset, and some are going to leave. [But] that’s not my experience the last few months.
RS: Observers have pointed out that the movement comes up short when it comes to funding and attracting the attention of philanthropists. Just a couple of weeks ago, for example, the New York area’s only Conservative Jewish high school, the Metropolitan Schechter high school in Teaneck, N.J., had to close its doors right before the start of the school year when a major donation fell through. Is there a way that you can address that?
AE: Who has institutions which are adequately funded? I’m serious.
RS: But a number of people — for example, parents of students at the closed Schechter school — have told me: “This doesn’t happen in Orthodox schools. People in Orthodoxy would never let this happen.”
AE: That’s just not true empirically. It may be the sense that people have. It’s sad when any school closes, and we all know that day schools are extremely expensive and that’s why communities have been devoting more and more resources to them. But synagogues are also fantastically expensive, as you know, and look at all the flourishing synagogues, and the flourishing camps, and the flourishing Schechter schools. Is there enough money? No, there’s not. I hope that JTS can double its income. But come on, I don’t find myself facing a bleak future because of a lack of resources. I really don’t think that money is our problem right now. It may be a problem at a particular institution, at a particular time — and yes, of course, it’s very sad — but movementwide, no. I think the money will follow the vision.
RS: Do you have any specific ideas that you’d like to see implemented?
AE: Yes. We have an initiative that is being launched as we speak, the Mitzvah Initiative, being launched this Rosh Hashanah. Beginning next fall, every single arm of the Conservative movement will be engaged in grass-roots discussion about Mitzvah. The importance of this is it’s not some chancellor or JTS or group of rabbis telling Conservative Jews, “This is what mitzvah means,” and, “These are the 10 mitzvot you have to do in order to be a Conservative Jew.” It’s a movementwide, bottom-up discussion, which I think is going to increase people’s sense that “Yes, I really do belong in this movement; this is a movement I’m proud of.”
Comments
Prof Eisen gave an interview to the Jerusalem Post of December 4, 2006. He gave an analysis which, frankly, is quite bleak. He claimed that one million American Jews are "active" (which I understand to mean "committed to Jewish life"), and another one million could become "active" (apparently through educational endeavors) - leaving a future Jewish community of about two million ("...most of them we lose"). Prof Eisen tried to present the sad forecast in a kind of positive light ("The answer to assimilation and intermarriage is not in numbers, but quality"). Now, obviously, no one really knows what will be. In Jewish tradition, prophecy ended with the destruction of the Temple. Yet, it is difficult to understand that such an important and worrisome analysis about the future of Jewry wouldn't come out somewhere in an interview with the Forward. Should I assume that Rebecca Spence hadn't read the interview with the Jerusalem Post?
Conservative Judaism is the fastest shrinking of the 3 main branches and is moving in the direction of the second fastest shrinking.
It has been said: Reform Jews are LAZY; Orthodox Jews are CRAZY; and Conservative Jews are HAZY. I hope that when the grass-roots discussion of mitzvoth (commandments) gets under way, the Conservative movement will not forget to discuss the Commander (i.e. HaKodesh Boruch Hu) as well.
I have for some time believed that the malaise that we are discussing stems from the definition of the word "Judaism." First, the Israeli point of view, enshrined as I understand it in things like their ID cards, is that being Jewish is a nationality. Sorry, that won't work in America. Note that I didn't say it is right or wrong; just that it won't work. I am an American by nationality and those American Jews younger than I am (65) are saying the same thing. When Jewish institutions try to force them to see themselves as a "nation," they, to use a particularly apt phrase, "vote with their feet."
Second, I think the word "Judaism" should be used the way "Christianity" is used. "Christianity" is not a religion; it is a group of related religions. They often have more serious divisions than we have (for example, Northern Ireland) but the way they use the word seems to work well for maintaining some semblance of commonality of interest and purpose. "Judaism" is similarly a group of related religions. Clearly, in many if not most cases the Orthodox don't see Reform as the same religion as theirs. And I, who try as I said above to see Judaism in religious not national terms, don't see my religion, Reform, as the same religion as Orthodoxy.
Treating "Judaism" as a group of related religions would, among other things, relieve Conservatism from the burden of trying to be the glue that holds everything together (which I think I've shown is impossible which explains why Conservatism isn't doing so well), and let it work toward strengthening its mission and role among our group of related religions.
Professor Eisen is, apparently, a thoughtful and empathic person. However, if this interview is indicative of the course he has charted for Conservative Judaism, CJ is in even deeper trouble than its' most severe critics imagined. Discussions about "what a mitzvah means to me", aside from being infantilizing and juvenile, once again avoid the major problem of CJ - its' almost complete inability to generate any spiritual energy, its' tedium and lameness, and its' failure to provide a tranformational spiritual practice to its' membership. Guilt won't work anymore and neither, increasingly, will bar/bat mitzvah factories; CJ would do itself, and everyone else, a favor if it squarely addressed its' lack of transformational spirituality and honestly looked at whether - or if - these can be remedied. Of course, in this season of cheshbon ha'nefesh, even acknowledging that these issues exist might be a good first step.
Further to Chancellor Epstein's comments, I think it would be a mitzvah if Conservative rabbis would urge their congregants to introduce single men and women to one another, What a great mizvah for the new year!
I hope and prays Chancellor Epstein and Rabbi Myers will urge rabbis to act on this suggestion.
There seem to be two parallel discussions going on re the future of the Conservative Movement. Posters here may wish to go to the other one as well and add their two cents.
I would imagine that David Mollen is right; i.e. American Jews generally define themselves as Americans by nationality. Similarly to Mr Mollen, I will not say if this is right or wrong, good or bad; rather I will only agree with him that this is the reality of identity. However, defining oneself as "American by nationality" and "Jewish by religion" does raise a very unusual situation. The Jewish religion defines the Jews as a people, an ancient nation named "Israel". Any Jewish prayerbook from any movement will readily show this historic self-identification (for example: "...and who is like your people Israel, a unique nation on the earth" or "...you have chosen us from all the peoples, raised us up from all the languages" - and hundreds of other rather blunt statements). So, an American by nationality who believes in the Jewish religion essentially has to ignore the messages and perceptions of his supposed religious beliefs. It is quite a paradox. In reality, there is no contradiction between one's American nationality and one's Jewish religious beliefs simply because the American Jewish community (generally speaking) is not particularly religious.
What planet is Mr. Eisen living on? Conservative Judaism is "spiritually exciting?" Has he attended Conservative services, or worse, a class given by a Conservative Rabbi? And who can say with a straight face that the vapid aging social clubs known as a "Conservative synagogues" are "flourishing"?
The Rambam, Ramban, Rashi, and all the spirtual giants of Judaism over the past two thousand years have understood that a Jew's role in the world is to learn Torah and do mitzvot. A person who keeps Shabbat rejoices every week in God's creation of the world. A person who puts tefillin on his head and arm every morning recognizes that God's Torah and commandments should always be on his mind and in his actions.
Only when a person has a commitment to Judaism borne out of deep knowledge of Torah, appreciation of God's oversight of the world, and dedication to daily learning and keeping mitzvot does Judaism become "spiritually exciting." Such a life is not to be achieved in the Conservative framework.
Would the Rambam, Ramban, or Rashi found Convervative Judaism "intellectually viable"? Obviously not! A movement that claims to have respect for the Torah but whose "teachers" consistently violate its precepts as a movement and individually (for example, the explicit warning not to "take away from the mitzvot" -- a hallmark of the Conservative movement) is not "intellectual" at all. Conservative teachings can only seem viable to someone who is ignorant of both the Oral and Written Torah or willfully blinds his or herself for the sake of a rabbinical title and paycheck.
No one will mourn the death of the Conservative movement, not even Mr. Eisen, because the widespread closing of synagogues in less than twenty years will lead those remaining nonreligious but still self-identifying Jews to visit Chabads and Aish HaTorahs and other kiruv institutions where they will find authentic, inspiring Judaism as God intended it to be (just look in the Torah). Perhaps even Mr. Eisen, when free of awards, fancy titles and unjustified salaries, will be objective enough to accept the yoke of Torah and actually begin to serve Hashem (and not himself).