The recent convention of the Conservative movement’s Rabbinical Assembly illuminated a central tension within the movement.
The key issue: whether the ultimate authority on Jewish law is the individual rabbi or whether responsibility for halachic interpretation rests with a more centralized committee.
The topic was the central focus of the convention’s official speeches, meetings of unofficial “rump” groups and behind-the-scenes debates.
This tension has arisen within the movement, as it does periodically, out of last year’s debate on the role of gay men and lesbians in Conservative Judaism.
Speakers from within the R.A. with all points of view spoke their piece at the convention, held in Los Angeles from March 21 to 24, as did leaders from the movement’s other arms.
And while different speakers weighed in on the intricacies of interpreting Jewish law, Rabbi Ismar Schorsch, chancellor of the Jewish Theological Seminary, lambasted them all.
He berated the assembled rabbis for being out of touch with their congregants and focusing on issues such as sexuality while intermarriage and continuity should be their primary concern.
R.A. President Rabbi Gerald Zelizer replied to Schorsch’s remarks by saying that the position of the JTS leadership “unfortunately isolates the seminary from the living Jewish context even more. The Rabbinical Assembly, thank God, has enough human resources to deal with both continuity and sexuality.”
Zelizer added: “I regret that JTS has elected not to be a partner on a study on a basic, eternal, God-given issue, which could bring the seminary from only an ivory-tower institution into the living religious context in which rabbis live.”
He was referring to the Commission on Human Sexuality, created at the 1992 R.A. convention and charged with assessing the needs of Conservative Jews regarding sexuality, as well as examining Judaism’s views on sexuality and sexual ethics.
Zelizer also resented the intrusion by the third arm of the Conservative movement — the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism — into what he saw as an internal R.A. issue.
The leadership of the United Synagogue — the movement’s lay arm — sent a letter to presidents of Conservative synagogues prior to the R.A. convention, urging them to tell their rabbis that they support the authority of the movement’s Committee on Jewish Law and Standards.
The committee is the central body which takes up questions about Jewish law and, after debate and consideration, presents the movement with its positions.
That letter from the United Synagogue on an internal R.A. matter was, said Zelizer, beyond “the boundary of organizational propriety.”
The tug-of-war over halachic authority within the Conservative movement has been waged periodically since the law committee was founded in 1927.
Because Conservative Judaism is committed to interpreting tradition in the context of modernity, to formulating positions not on either end of the spectrum and to understanding Jewish law in light of its historical context, its positions are nuanced and subject to disagreements over interpretation.
Most of the R.A. convention’s major speeches addressed the issue of halachic authority and the rhetoric volleyed by several speakers included direct jabs at their ideological opponents.
In the view of Rabbi Gordon Tucker, a member of the law committee and former dean of the JTS rabbinical school, “the distinctive and delicate balance between the (committee) and the mara d’atra (individual rabbi in each community) allows for religious and halachic creativity locally, where the need for it arises and where its authenticity can best be evaluated.”
Wrote Tucker, in a historic overview of the tension which was distributed to the attending rabbis, the principle of mara d’atra “is a precious resource indeed, and it should not be lightly dismissed for the sake of an elusive ‘uniformity’ which will disappoint tomorrow those whom it satisfies today.”
The current fight is related to the contention of some rabbis that positions held by the movement are not sufficiently sensitive to the real-life needs of Conservative congregants.
It also grew out of last year’s most controversial issue — whether or not openly homosexual men and women are fit to serve as rabbis and in other positions of Jewish leadership.
Last year, after much debate and wrangling on the law committee, which is composed of 25 voting members from the R.A. and five non-voting members representing the United Synagogue, the primary position adopted was that sexually active homosexuals are not permitted to be rabbis because their behavior violates Jewish law.
The position was written by Rabbi Joel Roth, who is stepping down June 30 from his position as dean of the rabbinical school.
The related issue of whether Conservative rabbis can work as spiritual leaders of gay and lesbian synagogues was raised at the 1992 R.A. convention, where members voted that they may, indeed, serve those congregations.
Some members of the Rabbinical Assembly, primarily those opposed to change in the legal status of gays and lesbians, felt that the decision made in resolution form by the members of the R.A. was a subversion of the halachic process and undermined the authority of the law committee.
That rump group, led by Roth, met during the convention here to discuss their strategy to ensure that the central authority of the law committee is reconfirmed.
Other rabbis feel strongly that this group is attempting to limit the authority that each rabbi possesses as mara d’atra.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
