ASK THE (REFORM) RABBI - A Review of 'Reading Reform Responsa'

Reading Reform Responsa: Jewish Tradition, Reform Rabbis, and Today's Issues by Rabbi Mark Washofsky (CCAR Press, 2024)

This book could open your eyes to a Reform Judaism you may not have realized existed – faithful to tradition, Jewishly learned, and in its own way connected to Halacha. For there is an inclination – at least in my neck of the woods – to denigrate the Reform as the stream that makes it up as they go along.

Since its inception in 1873 by Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise in Cincinnati, American Reform has gone through massive changes, for instance, from anti-Zionist to non-Zionist to staunchly pro-Zionist. Likewise, in matters of ritual and observance. Reform has proceeded from willfully anti-Orthodox – from davka not kosher, davka not Shabbat observant, and davka universalism over Yiddishkeit to something else entirely.

Today's Reform takes a measured approach to kashrut. Many Reform Jews avoid overtly treif food; the movement strongly encourages observing Shabbat, including candle lighting, and it is explicitly committed to Jewish peoplehood, Israel, and Zionism.

Politically, as the most assimilated of the three remaining branches of organized US Judaism, Reform has been buffeted by the winds of woke, and its idea of pro-Israelism is stretchy. But my impression is that post-October 7th – and in the wake of the tsunami of anti-Israelism and antisemitism that has swept America – Reform Jews, though still progressive at the DNA level, may be rethinking some of their woke conceits.

I don't think anyone knows how many Reform pulpit rabbis are pro-Zionists (probably most) and how many recently ordained are unabashedly in the Palestinian Arab camp. Lately, there were headlines connecting Rabbis for a Ceasefire to the Reform movement.  Yes, these business-class clerical activists include Reform rabbis, but the driving force behind what is a Jewish Voice for Peace front group are holy women associated with the Reconstructionists. 

It is undeniable that Reform and Conservative rabbis are active with J Street, whose raison d'etre is an Israeli withdrawal to the 1949 Armistice Lines. This group brands itself as pro-Israel but has been working to limit military aid to Israel and endorses House Members who oppose funding the Iron Dome. Not long ago, J Street was shamed into pulling its endorsement of Jamaal Bowman. But it continues to collaborate with a cadre of other House members even as they work to undercut support for Israel in Congress.

In fairness, Orthodoxy, too, began in opposition to Zionism. Nowadays, the mainstream ultra-Orthodox in America are mostly non-Zionist, not anti-Zionist. The responsa of the Orthodox sage Rabbi Moshe Feinstein showed him to be less than keen on Zionism. For instance, he opposed displaying an Israeli flag in synagogues. That said, today's Agudah Israel of America (with which Feinstein was associated) is staunchly pro-Israel even as it remains ideologically non-Zionist. Reb Moshe died in 1986, and as far as I know, he never visited Israel. It is hard to predict how his thinking might have evolved.

In Reading Reform Responsa, Rabbi Mark Washofsky, the Solomon B. Freehof Professor of Jewish Law and Practice at Hebrew Union College, makes the case that Reform is engaged with Halacha – to be understood as the laws and guidelines for Jewish living – and that it is futile to debate whether Reform is a "halachic" movement. For in the process of developing their decisions, Washofsky and other Reform rabbis engage with Halacha. And they have been doing so since the earliest days of the Central Conference of American Rabbis, the movement's rabbinical body. Washofsky explains that the "word [Halacha] is likely derived from the Hebrew root ה-ל-ך, hei-lamed-chaf, 'to walk,' as in 'the way that one should walk, the path that one should follow.'"

Washofsky is plainly on to something when he explains that "responsa, like all texts, are products of a particular time and place, displaying the influence of the social, political, and cultural environment in which they are written."

For this book, he has selected a dozen or so responsa, "a representative sample," which he uses to explain what responsa is and how Reform and Orthodox responsa differ. He does not have much to say about Conservative responsa. Parenthetically, the US Conservative Rabbinical Assembly ruled in 2023 that "Use of an electric car per se is not a violation of Shabbat as long as the driving is not for non-Shabbat purposes."

All responsa are "questions about Jewish religious practice" that individuals and communities submit as inquiries to a rabbi or, in this instance, to the Central Conference of American Rabbis. These tend not to be easy problems, for if they had an obviously correct halachic answer, they would have been resolved at the pulpit level. What makes the responsa Reform in particular is that the replies are "composed by Reform rabbis for an audience of progressive Jewish readers" who share the same religious, social, and aesthetic sensibilities.

The responsa Washofsky selected reads like a cross between tightly argued legal briefs and literary essays. The authors' goal – and I think this is true across denominations – is to persuade, not dictate. We may think of Reform as institutionally hierarchical, but it is theologically decentralized. "The responsum is an 'opinion,' but it is almost always an advisory opinion," Washofsky writes.

Rabbi Solomon Freehof (1892-1990) anchored modern Reform in the responsa tradition. He chaired the movement's responsa committee (in effect serving as Reform's posek) and collated its work. Washofsky lauds him as a pathbreaker, even if he doesn't always agree with Freehof's conclusions.

For the Orthodox, Washofsky explains, "the meaning of the Torah does not evolve but is eternal and unchanging: the meaning of the text lies objectively (if implicitly) there, between its lines, and our task as students of Torah is to 'turn the Torah over and over again' (Mishnah Avot 5:22) until we discover it.'" 

Take, for instance, whether it is permissible to ride an elevator on Shabbat and under what circumstances. For the Orthodox, the answer would have been hovering about in the holy texts even before electricity had been harnessed. The Halacha turns out to be…less than clear-cut. Some Shabbat lifts meet the guidelines set by some Orthodox decisors. Others do not. 

In contradistinction, Washofsky writes: "We Reform Jews do not consider ourselves bound to the authority of Jewish law, a corpus of writings mostly composed by an all-male ancient and medieval scholarly elite who did not share the modern and progressive commitments that define our religious outlook." That said, "the practice of Reform, the way we have lived out Judaism on a daily, weekly, and seasonal basis, remains firmly rooted in the Rabbinic (that is to say the halachic) tradition." Washofsky allows that "This sweeping insight may be surprising to many readers."

I came away from reading this book with the sense that Reform rabbis in the Washofsky mold care very much that their Judaism rings authentic. They have moved light years from the 1885 Pittsburgh Platform, which staked out a combatively anti-Orthodox stance. That may have catalyzed Orthodoxy in a more reactionary direction. It stirred the Chatam Sofer (Rabbi Moshe Sofer) to declare, "Everything new is forbidden by the Torah." I attended an elementary school on the Lower East Side jointly named after him and Rabbi Shlomo Kluger, who was a proponent of insularity in the face of modernity. And here I am blogging about Reform responsa!

In any case, successive Reform platforms Columbus (1937), San Francisco (1976), and Pittsburgh II (1999) have made Reform more traditional and conventionally observant while American Orthodoxy has arguably, though not uniformly, moved in a more inward-looking and ultra-Orthodox direction.

In October 1983, CCAR made an irreparable break with convention by embracing patrilineal descent. I get why they did it – rampant out-marriage and a new generation that understood its Jewish identity as a matter of choice and lifestyle. Yet the consequences have been as shattering as when the Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade in 2022. Whatever the technical, historical, or sociological justifications of the patrilineal descent determination, it undermined the peoplehood that Jewish civilization needs to embrace. Washofsky doesn't address this controversial and uncomfortable decision in Reading Reform Responsa.

Instead, the book synthesizes more recent responsa. The appendix contains the full text of all the responsa and a helpful glossary. The issues here include: May the Torah portion be read on a Friday night if there is no minyan on Shabbat? May an Orthodox minyan be granted space in a Reform synagogue? Does one honor a parent's request for cremation? Is it permissible for a bar or bat mitzvah to read from a defective and irreparable Holocaust-era Torah Scroll for its important symbolism? How should we understand what constitutes Sabbath observance and Sabbath desecration? Should congregations display Israeli and or American flags on the Bimah? May they sing Hatikvah? Can a Reform Jew mark Valentine's Day and other secular holidays? Has Christmas become an essentially secular holiday? May one withhold medical information in a job interview? Is it permissible to employ non-union labor in renovating a Reform Temple? May hunger-striking Islamist prisoners in Guantanamo Bay be force-fed?

More than the answers, Washofsky is interested in showing us the process of Reform responsa. Bear in mind that while Reform Judaism is not bound by Jewish law, it does not willy-nilly disregard it. Take the question of honoring a parent's request for cremation. "Reform Judaism does not regard cremation as a violation of Jewish law," writes Washofsky. Classical rabbinic sources were not explicit on the issue, perhaps because cremation wasn't an issue. After the Shoah, cremation became associated with the Nazis. Reform theologians have historically come down on both sides of the issue. The responsa here decides that children are "entitled to uphold their own religious standards against their father's request" to be cremated.

Reform responsa often cites the kind of sources you'd find in Orthodox responsa – Torah, Talmud, Rambam's Mishneh Torah, Shulchan Aruch (Yoreh Dei-ah), and 20^th-century decisors like Rabbi Moshe Feinstein (for example on displaying the Israeli flag). Citing is not following, but it is contextualizing and acknowledging.

Take Shabbat. Unlike the Orthodox, Reform Jews are not constrained on Shabbat from carrying an umbrella on a rainy morning, ripping toilet tissue, or taking a shower. Washofsky reminds us, "We [Reform] have found it more useful to concentrate upon the positive, ritual elements of Shabbat that do strike us as meaningful rather than upon the negative ones that are devoid of significance to us."

What does that mean in practice? For one, the synagogue gift shop should be closed on Shabbat. An already delayed Brit milah should not be held on Shabbat. One responsum found: "The fact that Shabbat' conflicts' with another mitzvah or worthy cause does not mean that it is Shabbat that must give way. Indeed, the reverse is often the case." The Reform rabbis recognize that beyond abstaining from work on Shabbat, there is also a positive obligation to rest. In the final analysis, Reform rabbis like Washofsky want their Shabbat to share commonalities with the Shabbes of other observant Jews. "What does sh'mirat Shabbat even mean in our Reform context?" The answer begins with creating a "Sabbath mood."

This accessible book's principle idea is that Reform responsa are halachic texts. They strive with precedents even if they do not hesitate to overturn them (in how to define "work" on Shabbat, for instance). Their starting premise and aesthetic are non-Orthodox. And they are "Reform" because they are drafted by Reform clergy and aimed at a Reform audience.

If, like me, you are interested in what still binds our tribal people together, you will enjoy - as much as I did - reading this erudite introduction to the place of Halacha in Reform Judaism.