Rabbi Roth Says Rabbi Akiva Would Be Conservative

 After a very, very, very long hiatus, T-Pain is back to blogging.

I never know whether or not to look forward to Erev Nativ, because I feel like when they don't tell us what we're doing Tuesday night, that the program must be bad.  This time they told us that Rabbi Joel Roth was coming to speak to us, and naturally I began to dread the night even before I had left Yeshiva that day.  Who wants to listen to a rabbi lecture for an hour or two on a Tuesday night?  I have other, more important things to do!  Fortunately, I was misinformed about what the night had in store.

The lecture started off with a fiery rabbi standing at the front of the room basically telling us that Conservative Judaism has failed...but it doesn't have to fail.  The successes of the Conservative Movement are beautiful; e.g. Ramahniks, Schechter graduates, List College, etc.  The failures of the Conservative Movement are horrible, and it's because the constituents are unaware of what the Conservative Movement is supposed to be.  Congregants don't seem to understand that the Conservative Movement is the most authentic, halakhic, religious movement today.

The Four Underpinnings of the Conservative Movement:

1. The mitzvot of the Torah are commands.  Most Conservative congregants believe that mitzvot are just good deeds or nice things to do.  The opposite of mitzvah is aveira (sin).  It's not just nice to lay t'filin, but it is wrong not to!


2. The particulars of the fulfillment of the mitzvot can be determined only by authorities of Jewish law.  Often ritual committees overstep their boundaries and Jewish legal duties by making decisions that are not theirs to make.  It is not the job of the ritual committee to decide that a dance company can come set up for a Bar Mitzvah for that night during the day on Saturday.  A Jewish legal authority is not necessarily a Rabbi, but most likely in your Conservative congregation you won't have any of these other than the Rabbi. 


3. Jewish Law is not monolithic, but is subject to legitimate controversy by among its authorities. PLURALISTIC.  There is not always one answer to a question, but an individual cannot make a halakhic decision if there is not controversy between Jewish authorities.  It is debatable as to whether gelatin is kosher, but there is no debate over whether a cheeseburger is.  Think Hillel vs. Shammai.  Both disagreed, but did not call each other goyim, they just had different ways to practice the same customs.


4. Jewish law is evolutionary and needn’t look today the way it did 50 or 500 years ago.  Laws evolve and at the same time remain legitimate.  One cannot however impose American law on Jewish law or Jewish law on American law.  "Evolution is not Revolution".


And finally, the Conservative vs. Orthodox "Chessboard Analogy":
There are certain rules to chess, and as long as you play by the rules, you can move any piece and change the board appropriately.  Halacha is much like this.  When R'Josef Karo compiled the Shulchan Aruch though, the Orthodox movement placed a dome over the board therefore nullifying the ability to change the board pre-Shulchan Aruch.  The Conservative Movement plays chess with the original board, the Orthodox froze the old board, and started a new game.

Rabbi Roth's Erev Nativ lecture was great, and I look forward to having him as a teacher at List College.  He gave me a lot to think about, and I really agreed.  It's hard to belong to a Conservative shul that's much farther left than you think should be kosher, but is still considered within the Conservative Movement.