By Reeve Brenner
An observant Orthodox Jew lives "by" the Halakha. The committed Conservative Jew lives "with" the Halakha. A practicing Reform Jew considers the Halakha as "guidance not governance," to recall Rabbi Solomon B. Freehof's felicitous phrase in one of his many volumes of Reform responsa. For the present let us identify the Jew -- Orthodox, Conservative or Reform -- by the synagogue with which he or she affiliates rather than by self-declaration.
We must be reminded, however that by other valid criteria an Orthodox Jew may be entirely non-observant and unaffiliated and yet if by self-identification he or she affirms that despite their non-practice, Orthodox Halakha is their preference, that Orthodox Judaism is the correct Judaism, that if were they to affiliate or support a synagogue it would have to be an Orthodox one, and for their life cycle needs it is to an Orthodox rabbi they would turn, and so forth, this Jew is, by a certain logic, also to be defined as Orthodox: a non-practicing Orthodox Jew. And the same holds for the Reform and Conservative non-practicing, non-affiliated Jews.
These various definitions, however imprecise in certain contexts, will nevertheless serve our purposes. For the blurring of the differentiations among the movements is less important than the distinctions, along the edges of the far more controversial issue: who is a Jew? The questions we are addressing here are whether Orthodox, Conservative and Reform Halakha are indeed the same Halakha and whether the formulation "conversion according to Halakha" has any meaning in the Who is a Jew? conflict. To both questions the answers must be given in the negative.
We should first remind ourselves that today, as in most previous times, Judaism as a monolith, a single system of religious thought and behavior does not exist; Judaisms do. Many Jews would maintain that it is this very plurality and diversity of Jewish movements and expressions which enrich our way or ways of life. We are one folk-- of various religious hues and colorations. The rainbow of Judaism metaphor so widely employed, is nevertheless quite appropriate. All the varieties of contemporary Judaism, from Hasidism to Reconstructionism --each precious, authentic, genuine and legitimate-- reflect our religious genius. We are fortunate that many Jewish movements vie for our allegiance and contribute to our culture and ways of life. And inasmuch as we are a single people with different ethnic colorations as well, to our greater good, we are indeed sui generis-- which means that a standard dictionary cannot define for us what we are. Only we can make that determination even as we disagree as to who among us is to render that determination and according to which modern Jewish movement. We, the Jewish people of today, are obliged to decide who is a Jew and what the Jews are. Those of us who are Israeli Jews understand that in Israel, for political reasons, our religious life expresses itself as a polarity, an all or next-to-nothing-at-all; or more correctly Orthodox Judaism on the one side, with those whom we improperly describe as "the religious;" and a secular denial of Orthodoxy by the "non-religious." Or more correctly still, here in Israel a brief piece of the far right of the Jewish rainbow (from super-ultra-Orthodoxy to ultra-Orthodoxy to Orthodoxy) overwhelms the smattering of committed Polydox Jews (with whom this writer identifies). In the Diaspora, in Europe, and the United States primarily, by contrast, a fuller rainbow of Jewish expression and religious life obtains, enriching and allowing alternate choices for individuals.
With regret we Israeli Jews must confess that our Jewish choices are narrow and limited in the extreme. We deserve a better selection from the multihued segments of the rainbow than we currently have. Instinct and intelligence suggest that there should be greater, not fewer, Jewish choices here. Diversity offers the potential for greater unity for the reason that fewer Jews are forced to the sidelines of Jewish life for want of a Jewish spiritual home, not to speak of the opportunity for practicing tolerance, and harmony within diversity. The issue is: shall Judaism proceed here narrowly with a restricted reach from a to c, or shall its range be extended-following its own historical and sociological logic-from a to z with all the nuance and creative variations it could accommodate and give expression?
Judaism is not synonymous with Halakha but Judaism does not exist without it. There are Judaisms in the plural precisely because at the various paths of Halakha. And conversely because of the various ways of Halahka are there Judaisms in the plural. Witness the houses of Shamai and Hillel, two different and conflicting schools of Halakhic philosophy of the past. We should therefore not be surprised that there have always.