- According to letter writer Tom R. Hornstein of Mercer Island, WA,
"it was Silver who persuaded the Reform rabbinate to abandon its
anti-Zionist stance, and to formally declare its new position in the
Columbus Platform. Silver also coordinated Zionist lobbying of the UN
to champion the creation of the State of Israel....David Ben Gurion
referred to [Silver] as "the greatest and most courageous Zionist
fighter in American Jewry." (page 7)
- The Pittsburgh Platform said that "the views and habits of modern
civilization" should determine which Jewish ceremonies are appropriate.
It stated that "all the Mosaic Rabbinical Laws on diet, priestly
purity and dress [having] originat[ed] in ages and under association of
ideas altogether foreign to our mental and spiritual state....no longer
impress us with the spirit of priestly holiness, their observance in
our day being apt to obstruct rather than enhance and encourage our
moral and spiritual elevation as children of God." (page 12)
- The 1937 Columbus Platform stated in part: "Within each area of
Jewish observance Reform Jews are called upon to confront the claims of
Jewish tradition, however differently perceived, and to exercise their
individual autonomy, choosing and creating on the basis of commitment
and knowledge." (page 13)
- Rabbi Levy's proposed "Ten Principles" states in part: "Standing at
Sinai, the Jewish people heard God reveal the Torah. Through study, we
become aware of God's mitzvot, commandments, that call to us even
though we live in modern society....Though all the mitzvot are open to
us as to all Jews, the Reform movement believes that changing times
affect the way we understand the mitzvot. We respond to the call of
Torah in two ways: out of the ever-growing body of interpretation by
Kenesset Yisrael, the eternal community of the Jewish people, and out
of our individual understanding of what is holy in our own time.
Study, prayer, and reflection on our actions will help us offer
informed responses to the Torah's call to do God's will in our days.
Such responses will help us transform a life too often lived
exclusively in a state of chol, ordinariness, into a life filled with
kedushah, with holiness." (page 14)
- Rabbi Akiva. (page 20)
- According to author Jenna Weissman Joselit,
a. "advocates of kashrut turned to science in an effort to show the
practice made empirical, medical, and nutritional sense. At the 1911
International Exhibition of Hygiene, Detroit physician N. E. Aronstam
concluded that the Jewish dietary laws were 'in accordance with the
doctrines of modern sanitation and its regulations compatible with the
dictates of hygiene....The Bible...is the pioneer of the sanity
sciences of today."
b. "Jewish cookbooks sentimentalized kashrut, associating Jewishness
with the steaming, fragrant vapors of the kitchen-here was Kitchen
Judaism in the purest sense of the term....Family recipes handed down
over the years conjured up memories of a romantic past."
c. Moredecai Kaplan advocated an affective approach to food. He said:
"If the dietary folkways are capable of striking a spiritual note in
the home atmosphere, Jews cannot afford to disregard them."
d. Perhaps the greatest inducement to keeping kosher, says Joselit,
was the growing availability of mass-produced kosher food items. "In
the teens and the twenties, hundreds of ritually permissible
foodstuffs, from soup to nuts, began making their way from the factory
to the table." Large companies like Proctor & Gamble and General Foods
added kosher products to their lines, and small, family-owned
businesses like Horowitz Bros & Margareten prospered. (pages 30-31)
- Orson Welles. (page 32)
- Micah 6:1-8. As Reform Judaism author Carol Orsborn observes, "In
the Hebrew scriptures, this is the setting for the delivery of God's
message to Micah: God's call to do justice, to love mercy, and to walk
humbly with thy God....These words, reminders of what our covenant with
God demands of us as Jews, are not warm and fuzzy. They are not simply
slogans intended to make us feel good as we enter the temple gates.
Judaism holds us accountable to God when we least expect it. Micah
exhorts us to keep our agreements with God, no matter how uncomfortable
that may be." (page 40)
- A written reflection to one's children and grandchildren on the
lessons one has learned through the years. Says RJ author Rabbi Jack
Riemer, "The custom of writing a final letter in which one endeavors to
distill a lifetime of learning for one's children as a legacy of the
spirit has continued down through the centuries. Examples can be found
in the Talmud and medieval and modern Hebrew literature." (pages
44-45)
- S. Y. Agnon. Shmuel Yosef Agnon said the sources of his
inspiration were sacred scripture, medieval Jewish sages, and nature.
One of his books, A Book That Was Lost and Other Stories, has been
chosen as one of two inaugural volumes recommended as part of the UAHC
Significant Jewish Books program. The other is Back to the Sources,
edited by Barry Holtz. (page 60)
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