6: Finding God through the “leap of action”

10/12/18 • 11 min

Both Mordecai Kaplan, the rationalist, and Abraham Joshua Heschel, the mystic, believed that Judaism compels us to make the world a better place. Kaplan was committed to the ethical practice adopted by the Jewish People throughout our history, while Heschel’s social activism was motivated by a prophetic imperative: transforming God’s will into action. Louis Finkelstein, the influential Chancellor of JTS, also stressed the importance of action, recognizing the unique role of the Jewish community in his time and place.
Further reading
Abraham Joshua Heschel, God in Search of Man, 3-4, 167, 184-199
Louis Finkelstein, “Tradition in the Making,” “The Things that Unite Us,” in Waxman, Tradition and Change, 187-197, 313-324

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5: American Judaism in the mid-20th Century

In identifying the aspects of Judaism that he considered compelling for modern American Jews, Mordecai Kaplan focused on the human part of Judaism: community and folkways, rather than commandments and spirituality. In contrast, JTS professor Abraham Joshua Heschel sought to reawaken American Jewry to the power of mystery and the imperative to respond to God’s presence in the world.
Further reading:
Mordecai M. Kaplan, Judaism as a Civilization, (3-15, 173-208, 431-435);
The Meaning of God in Modern Jewish Religion, Chapter 1
Abraham Joshua Heschel, God in Search of Man, 3-4, 167, 184-199

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7: Hearing women’s voices and moving “from path to pathlessness”

Jewish feminism has been a major influence on Conservative Judaism since the 1970s. Judith Hauptman, professor emerita at JTS, has brought her deep knowledge of rabbinic literature to developing new positions on women’s halakhic obligations. Mara Benjamin is soon to publish a book that uses her own experience of motherhood as a lens on Jewish ethics. A further example of innovating out of a thorough understanding of the tradition comes from Arthur Green, who syntheses Kaplan and Heschel into a naturalist mystical theology.
Further reading
Hauptman: “Women and Prayer: An Attempt to Dispel Some Fallacies,” (JUDAISM, Winter 1993) https://ohelayalah.org/wp-content/uploads/article.pdf
Mara Benjamin, The Obligated Self: Maternal Subjectivity and Jewish Thought (2018)
Arthur Green, “Rethinking Theology,” Radical Judaism, 1-15