Reform Judaism - Advocates and a Critic
The leading figure of the Reformed Society of
Israelites was Isaac Harby (1788-1828), who led its secession from
its mother congregation (Beth Elohim, Charleston, S.C.), prepared its
prayer book, and gave voice to its philosophy and purpose in an
address delivered before the Society on November 21, 1825. It can be
found in A Selection from the Miscellaneous Writings of the Late
Isaac Harby Esq., Charleston, 1829.
What is it we seek? The establishment of a new
sect? No; never ... the abolition of the ancient language and form
of Jewish worship? Far from it .... Every prayer, every ceremony,
calculated to add dignity to external worship and warmth to true
devotion was the ardent wish of members who compose your society.
Our wish is to yield every thing to the feeling of the truly pious
Israelite; but to take away everything that might excite the
disgust of the well informed Israelite. To throw away rabbinical
interpolations; to avoid useless repetitions; to read or chant with
solemnity; to recite such portions of the Pentateuch and the
prophets, as custom and practice have appointed to be read in the
original Hebrew; but to follow such selections with a
translation in English, and a lecture or discourse upon the law,
explanatory of its meaning, edifying to the young, gratifying to
the old, and instructive to every age and every class of society.
Be the promised land what it may ... yet are we
contented ... to live in America; to share the blessings of
liberty; to partake of and to add to her political happiness, her
power and her glory; to educate our children liberally; to make
them useful and enlightened and honest citizens; to look upon our
countrymen and brethren of the same happy family worshiping the
same God of the universe, though perhaps differing in forms and
opinions.
We have here the earliest American expression of Reform
Judaism - practical adaptation to the religious needs and
sensibilities of the present and future generations of Jews who are
at home in America. A generation later, when American
Jewry was vastly increased and radically altered by the influx of
Jews from Germany, Bernhard Felsenthal issued a call for the
organization of a Reform Jewish congregation in Chicago, Kol Kore Bamidbar (A Voice Calling in the Wilderness), Chicago, 1859.
Writing in German, and in a manner consonant with Jewish Reform in
Germany, Felsenthal declared:
The sources of universal religious truths are:
Nature about us-the universe; Nature within us-the
life of the spirit and the history of mankind. The sources of
specifically Jewish principles are the history of Judaism and its
confessors....
The only dogma which we consider binding upon
all our members is: Absolute freedom of faith and of conscience
for all....
Every Israelite has the right and the duty to
himself to search the sources of religious truth with the aid of
his God-given intellect. For truth is not inculcated from without,
but rather from within outward, shines the light of divine
truth....
A religious law which is not rooted either in
the spiritual or physical nature of man is binding only so long as
it continues to exert a sanctifying influence on head and heart, on
character or conduct....
The subtitle of Kol
Kore Bamidbar (A voice calling in the wilderness) is “On
Jewish Reform.” Bernhard Felsenthal, then serving as secretary
of Chicago’s first Jewish Reform Society, called for religious
reform in synagogue usage, liturgy, and ritual. He later became a
leading Reform rabbi and one of America’s early Zionist
leaders.
B. Felsenthal, Kol Kore Bamidbar ( A voice calling in the
wilderness), Chicago, 1859. Hebraic Section.
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Elijah M. Holzman, by trade a scribe, by avocation
a satirical polemicist, makes Reform Judaism the target of his barbs
in his twenty-eight-page pamphlet Emek Refa'im (Valley of the
Dead), New York, 1865. It is the second Hebrew book, other than
biblical or liturgical works, published in America, It may well be
the first written here to be published, for the one that preceded it,
a commentary on the Ethics of
the Fathers, by an immigrant itinerant preacher, may well have
been written in Europe. Not so this volume. Its theme is Reform
Judaism in America; its villains are Rabbis Isaac
Mayer Wise, Max Lilienthal, and Samuel Adler. The title is a play
on the Hebrew words refa im which can also be read as rofim, doctors. He suggests that the rabbis who call themselves Doctors
are the death of Judaism. In an
English foreword, he synopsizes his argument:
A sect has arisen in Israel who attempt to form
a new code for public worship, embracing instrumental and vocal
music. Choristers composed of male and female voices, Israelites
and non-Israelites, erasing the name Synagogue and substituting the
word Temple. The whole of these changes emanating from men who call
themselves Doctors, and who are in fact destroyers of all that is
sacred; their lips move in sanctity, and deception is in their
hearts.
The English synopsis does not begin to convey the
rich scholarly satire of the Hebrew, which is full of biblical
allusions, puns, irony, and word play. Though the author wrote that
an English translation was "now in Press, and will shortly
appear," no such edition appeared, for a successful translation
would have been a tour de force of literary creativity.
Anti-Reform polemics
in nineteenth century America took many forms; sermons, lectures,
articles, editorials, debates -ideological and recriminatory.
Surely one of the most interesting weapons forges is this small
volume of scholarly satire, utilizing biblical verses and
Talmudic logic shaped and twisted for thrust and parry to attack
and ridicule - all for “the sake of heaven.” The author, a
professional scribe with a penchant for waging “the battles of
the Lord” is a skilled antagonist, his rapier thrusts now and
again finding their marks. What gives this volume special
bibliographic distinction is that it is the first Hebrew book
published in America dealing with the contemporary scene.
Elijah M. Holzman, Emek Refa’im (Valley of the Dead),
New York, 1865. Hebraic Section.
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Sources: Abraham J. Karp, From
the Ends of the Earth: Judaic Treasures of the Library of Congress,
(DC: Library of Congress,
1991).
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