The Union of American Hebrew Congregations, the central agency for Reform synagogues, launched yesterday a campaign aimed at reaching a “collective consensus” on religious practice for the 1.3 million members of Reform synagogues in the United States and Canada.
The action came following an address by Rabbi Alexander Schindler, UAHC president, to 3,000 delegates representing 791 congregations, attending the UAHC’s 58th biennial General Assembly here.
Schindler said that despite the recent rapid growth in numbers of Reform synagogues and their memberships, “the quality of affiliation” of many Reform Jews “gives substance to the perception that it is but a religion of convenience, that we need commit or do little, if anything at all, yet we still can call ourselves Jews.”
Schindler said that individual autonomy should not be permitted to become “the central, exclusive concept of Liberal Judaism. “He continued: “The choice of the individual should never be fully unfettered. It should always be an informed and responsible choice.”
To help make possible this informed choice, Schindler said, he was supporting a convention resolution endorsing Reform Jewish day schools, “as a valid educational option.” (See related story, P. 4.)
ELEMENTS FOR JEWISH CONTINUITY
“What we seek,” Schindler said, “are collectively established criteria against which the individual can measure his way. We must create a communal discipline strong enough to assure group coherence and integrity but not so rigid and restrictive that it will stifle the vitality that springs from individual freedom.”
He said that for “Jewish continuity, outer form be given inner substance, that thought be translated into deed. It demands the disciplined observance of our sacred calendar and a determined nurturing of our values. Only such a spiritual bonding – not just a social bonding – will assure our community its power and its future.”
The UAHC leader praised the report of the UAHC Task Force on Religious Commitment, formed at his request two years ago to propose guidelines on the religious obligations of a Reform Jew. He asked the convention to continue the task force “to resolve the tension between authority and freedom, to help achieve Reform Jewish renewal without, at the same time, dampening its brisk vitality.”
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