Also read    "Is It Time..." an interview with Rabbi Richard Levy    and "This is Not the Way"    by Rabbi Robert Seltzer

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Much has changed in the Jewish world since the Central Conference of American Rabbis issued its Centenary Perspective 100 years after the founding of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations and the Hebrew Union College. Then as now we have been a movement of varying beliefs and practices, strengthened by our diversity yet increasingly in search of common themes that can deepen the religious life of the Reform community. We do not attempt to legislate a code of belief or conduct for Reform Jews, nor presume to advocate a single mode of religious expression for all. As Reform Jews we are open to the entirety of our tradition, commanded to engage in the study and practice that will embody that tradition in a manner appropriate to our different situations.

As rabbis dedicated to a Reform Judaism that can transform through holiness the lives of individuals, the Jewish people and ultimately humanity, the CCAR offers these responses to those who seek to know: Who Are We Reform Jews—where are we going, what can we believe and what can we practice—at a significant moment in Western history, the dawn of a new century.

First: Created by the Holy One, We Are Seekers After God

Reform Judaism embraces the story of the Jewish people which tells of three great encounters with God: Creation, our standing together at Sinai, and our redemption from Egypt. These encounters, re-enacted throughout the Jewish year, lead us to seek our own relationships with God, however different our beliefs, experiences and questions may be. Based on traditional liturgies and our movement’s creativity, we pledge to create texts and worship environments that will enable us as individuals and communities to drink deeply from the Fountain from which our lives spring, and regularly to praise, thank, celebrate, petition, sing to, argue with and cry out to the Ribono shel Olam, the Great One who presides over all time and all space.

Second: Having Stood at Sinai, We Respond to the Call of Mitzvot Amid Modernity

Standing at Sinai, the Jewish people heard God reveal the Torah. Through study, we become aware of God’s mitzvot, commandments, that call to us even though we live in modernity. In the worldview of Reform Judaism’s founders, modernity was the center, the scale on which we measured what was valuable and enduring in Jewish practice and belief. Looking back at a century which has witnessed some of the greatest gifts and the most awful consequences of modernity, we proclaim that the mitzvot of the Torah are our center, and Judaism is the scale by which we shall judge the modern world.

Though all the mitzvot are open to us as to all Jews, the Reform movement believes that changing times affect the way we understand the mitzvot. We respond to the call of Torah in two ways: out of the ever-growing body of interpretation by Kenesset Yisrael, the eternal community of the Jewish people, and out of our individual understanding of what is holy in our own time. Study, prayer and reflection on our actions will help us offer informed responses to the Torah’s call to do God’s will in our days. Such responses will help us transform a life too often lived exclusively in a state of chol, ordinariness, into a life filled with kedushah, with holiness. We want to deepen the Jewish content of our lives not only to enrich our own existence, but to enhance the quality of the communities and the lands in which we live. Reform Judaism calls us to help transform our culture and our world.

Third: We Were Redeemed from Egypt to Help Repair the World

Central to the calling of Reform Judaism from its inception has been a commitment to the prophetic task of tikun olam, increasing the spiritual dimensions of our material existence in ways that can repair our shattered world. In our learning, in our daily striving to increase the holiness of our existence, in the private and public spheres of our lives, we pledge to work for the cause of the poor and oppressed as the Torah commands us, and for the protection of the earth and all the creatures God vouchsafed to us. Mindful of our own redemption from Egypt, we commit ourselves to help redeem the new century in modernity, striving to transform it into a realization of Israel’s great messianic hope for the establishment of truth and justice, for moral and spiritual discipline, compassion and integrity, and at long last, a world repaired, a world at peace.

Fourth: We Are Committed to Shabbat, Which Elevates Our Work and Frees Us From It

To strengthen our calling, we commit ourselves to observance of the mitzvot of Shabbat, which our tradition has seen as mey-eyn olam ha-ba, a foretaste of the world to come, a world transformed. Standing at the climax of the week, Shabbat and its holiness inspire us to bring the highest moral values to our weekday labor and our interactions with other human beings. Shabbat also liberates us from the obligations which our work places upon us that we may focus on our obligations to God.

Shabbat offers us the opportunity to participate in the sanctity of our synagogue community and to sanctify our homes through shamor, the mitzvot of refraining from ordinary weekday acts, as well as zachor, the mitzvot of welcoming the special Shabbat rituals into our lives.

Fifth: We Are Committed to Learning and Seasonal Celebration

An informed response to the call of the mitzvot requires a disciplined commitment at every stage of our lives to learn Torah in the widest sense—biblical, rabbinic, medieval and modern texts, history, literature, philosophy, art, music and dance; and by encouraging our children and our friends to learn and interpret these with us.

Because Torah needs to be studied in an environment of kedushah, we commit ourselves to steer the course of our lives by creative celebration of the seasonal festivals and the other commemorative days of our calendar, delighting in the special foods and observing the somber fasts that nourish our modern souls. We will celebrate the seasons of our personal lives as well, through traditional and creative rites of entrance into the brit, God’s covenant, for girls and boys, at stages in children’s maturation, at marriage, at other milestones in the adult life cycle, at creative ceremonies of commitment to those closest to us, for healing, and in death. Conscious always of our mortality, we are committed to filling our days with the joy of living as Jews.

Sixth: We Are Open to Expanding the Mitzvot of Reform Jewish Practice

As we strive to admit a greater degree of holiness into our own lives and those of our communities, we commit ourselves to some mitzvot that have long been hallmarks of Reform Judaism, and, in the spirit of standing at Sinai with all other Jews, we know we may feel called to other mitzvot new to Reform Jewish observance. We also respect the Jewish beliefs of the past, and are open to explore how they may be applied to each new generation’s search. As part of Reform Judaism’s classic belief in ongoing revelation, we know that what may seem outdated in one age may be redemptive in another.

Thus we renew our classic devotion to chinuch, to Jewish education, some of us sending our children to Jewish day schools, others to supplementary schools, but all striving to participate actively in our children’s Jewish schooling. We renew our commitment to tzedakah, to setting aside a portion of our earnings to provide justice for those in need, and to engage in regular acts of gemilut chasadim, showing by our caring presence our love for those in pain.

In the presence of God we may each feel called to respond in different ways: some by offering traditional or spontaneous blessings, others by covering our heads, still others by wearing the tallit or tefillin for prayer. Some will look for ways to reveal holiness in our encounters with the world around us, others to transform our homes into a mikdash me-at, a holy place in miniature. Some of us may observe practices of kashrut, to extend the sense of kedushah into the acts surrounding food and into a concern for the way food is raised and brought to our tables. Others may wish to utilize the mikvah or other kinds of spiritual immersion not only for conversion but for periodic experiences of purification. Some of us may discover rituals now unknown which in the spirit of Jewish tradition and Reform creativity will bring us closer to God, to Torah, and to our people.

In the spirit of early Reform Judaism, we too hope to fulfill our mission as an or la-goyim, a light to the nations we live among, by creating communities of learning, celebration, moral rectitude and respect for diversity.

Seventh: We Are Members of a Holy People, From Whom We Learn, Whom We Can Teach

Seeking to draw from the wisdom of the am kadosh, the people to whom God imparted a particular measure of holiness, we wish to strengthen our ties with Jews from all the movements in Judaism. Reminded that we all once stood at Sinai together, we seek to work together in mutual respect, aware of our many serious differences, trying to understand the motivations that lead to our divergence. While our solutions may radically differ, we all face common problems. If we can only listen to each other, we can learn much.

Perhaps our greatest common concern is the consequences of the successful integration of Jews into our society. While this often seems an invitation to assimilation, our Reform commitment to let Judaism help transform society leads us to see this integration as a challenge to expand individuals’ knowledge and practice of Jewish tradition. Because of Reform Judaism’s openness to Jews from patrilineal and other untraditional backgrounds, we believe that by filling the minds, hearts and souls of seeking Jews, we can assist Jewish life on this continent too fulfill its great potential.

We are cheered that by the close of the 20^th century Jewish life has been reborn across Europe. We pledge to help provide Progressive congregations around the world with rabbinic service, to share insights with each other, and to respect our common membership in Kenesset Yisrael. We promise to be vigilant in helping Jews around the world protect ourselves against renewals of anti-Semitism and other forms of discrimination.

Eighth: Members of a Holy People, We Are Rooted in a Holy Land

After 2000 years of statelessness and powerlessness, the restoration of Am Yisrael, the people of Israel, to its ancestral homeland in Eretz Yisrael, the Land of Israel, represents an historic triumph of the Jewish people and of modern Zionism, which created Medinat Yisrael, the State of Israel. We wish to help create a State which promotes full civil, human and religious rights for all its citizens, and in which no religious interpretation of Judaism takes legal precedence over another. We wish to help the State work unceasingly for a mutual atmosphere of peace, justice and security with Palestinians and other Arab neighbors.

While Israeli and Diaspora Jewry are both creative and vibrant communities, independent yet responsible for one another, we encourage Reform Jews to make aliyah, immigration to Israel, in fulfillment of the precept of yishuv Eretz Yisrael, settling the Land of Israel, in a manner consistent with our Reform commitments. We call upon Reform Jews everywhere to dedicate their energies and resources to strengthening an indigenous Progressive Judaism that can help transform Medinat Yisrael. (Adapted from Reform Judaism and Zionism: A Centenary Platform)

Ninth: Members of a Holy People, We Are Heirs to a Holy Tongue

Seeking holiness, we echo our people’s belief that God endowed the Hebrew language with a particular measure of kedushah. Hebrew binds us to Jews in every land, and especially to our brothers and sisters in the State of Israel. We shall strive to read it, to let it help articulate our prayer and inform our study, to speak it. The more Hebrew we use in our prayer and our study, the more we shall share in the holiness of our people’s heritage.

Tenth: We Are Committed to the Equality of All the People of God

We have all benefited from the growing fulfillment of Reform’s historic promise of equality between women and men. Jewish women and men alike have been strengthened from the admission of women to the rabbinate, the cantorate and other positions of Jewish religious leadership. Listening to women’s voices in our tradition has taught us all a new language to encounter faces of God once hidden from us, new ways to encounter God’s presence in our lives, new ways to relate to each other and conduct our institutions. We shall encourage Jews in all the movements to learn from these voices as well. We all commit ourselves to honor the different contributions men and women can make to our movement and to ensure that the women and men who lead us, whether professionals or laypeople, are able to fulfill their calling with appropriate recognition and respect.

We affirm that all people, regardless of gender, age, belief, physical condition, or sexual orientation, are all created in the image of the Holy One. In whatever ways we can, we shall strive to help all the children of God and all the peoples of God fulfill their divine potential to contribute to a world transformed, the world of our people’s storied dream.

Ken y’hi ratzon. May this be God’s will.

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