Reply To: what is your definition of?

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#1164011
miamilawyer
Participant

@brisker. As you concede in your statement, the reform of the past (which was notably anti-torah and anti Israel) is dead. This should be celebrated.

The current movement has quite a nuanced view, which can be summarized (very loosely) as follows: kol hakavod if you keep torah, and you should keep the most you can, but its your personal interpretation, you are not bound by the past mesorah, and we interpret around the passages we find problematic.

I am not defending this view, its way outside even my pale, but it is not the view that was fought against so vigorously. No doubt it is not orthodoxy by any means, but it is not the anti-orthodoxy of the past. It has completely changed. It is like when coke changed its formula, you may not like either, but they are different. I also don’t think most know that nuance, so I wanted to clarify. (Heck, I suspect most reform jews don’t even know what the platform is).

I also (but more importantly the entire chabad movement and others) also think your statement is outrageous that it is meaningless for a reform jew to perform a mitzvah. Its this all or nothing that has pushed people away. I know there are sources for it. There are also sources for the value of someone performing even one mitzvah.

And they don’t believe that torah changes, what they believe is that similar to how liberals interpret the US constitution, the meaning changes over time, which is what makes it a timeless document. Again, this is much better than the view of the original reform, and is a step in the right direction.

Anyway, we are to some degree arguing nuance, but the larger point is that the absolute world view you have certainly is not productive to kiruv and that there are many middle ground positions between the two extreme positions (reform is correct) and your position that when they do mitzvoth, it is worthless.

Also, they do not encourage intermarriage. That is just not correct. They accept it bedieved. And in any case, I don’t think its helpful or correct to hold that their doing of mitvos because of a torah they respect is worthless.