THE FUTURE OF HAVURAH JUDAISM

...And, second, the problems which we noticed in the various other denominations— and especially the issue of inconsistency—have become our problems as well...

...The second, by David Feldman, the recognized authority on sex and sexuality in Jewish law, is a succinct summary of the traditional precepts and attitudes toward sex, including the familiar references condemning adultery, homosexuality, most forms of birth control, and abortion (except where the mother's life is in danger...

...Accordingly, Catalog II deals with some of the most awkward, complex and sensitive themes of Jewish and human life, including divorce, medical ethics, adoption, singleness, and the handicapped...

...don't jangle your change in shul), and then going into great detail on structure and content of the daily service...

...We see, then, a conscious attempt at discussion of those areas—or some of them, at any rate—in which halachah and modern Orthodoxy pose a challenge to Havurah Jews...

...But it illustrates as well the difficulty of the effort in the face of the powerful pull of the halachah...

...Nonesense...

...The section on the,synagogue brings up an interesting ideological issue...

...They want the relationship between themselves to be relatively predictable...

...Actually, all that Green does in his discussion with regard to halachah is to concede that, at least on this issue, it is neither authoritative nor particularly useful for him...

...If often fails to generate the more accurate concept that repentance is the property of all, that observant Jews may be as much in need of t'shuvah...

...The unstated assumption here is that the right for women to wear these previously male-oriented religious articles is universally understood and accepted—the passage, after all, appears without further comment—and that the only remaining issue may be the aptness of acting on this right in a particular social or religious situation...

...With the publication of The Second Jewish Catalog, which is far more than a simple extrapolation from its predecessor, we can be confident that the trend will be further accelerated...

...In a discussion of the term ba'al t'shuvah (a person who is repenting, turning back), Moshe Waldoks makes the important point that the term itself is misleading in common usage, for "it suggests that the Jew from a nonobservant background is the prime target of the t'shuvah process...

...But the most striking achievement of the new volume is that, despite the background of commercial success against which it was written, it is as unspoiled, as intimate and as joyous as Catalog I. And because it attempts to accomplish far more (even though it is not wholly successful in every case) it is a more important work as well...

...Two of the guests, a newly married couple remote from any connection with Jewish life, were made distinctly uncomfortable by the juxtaposition...

...So, for example, in the section on synagogue behavior, we find a truly amazing passage, to the effect that "women should use their own sensitivity and discretion to guide them in the matter of wearing t'fillin or tallitot...

...Authors feel free to illustrate their observations with personal experience and advice and occasionally, as in the chapters on divorce and adoption, these discussions are so personal and poignant that they overshadow everything else in the chapter...

...Such an approach will surely displease the genuine halachist on the one hand, and the utter libertarian on the other...

...Perhaps...

...indeed, even those in the vast middle regions may well be uncomfortable with so direct and realistic an assessment of the issue...

...On this subject the Catalog offers three discussions...

...But to her friends, who are somewhat removed from Jewish life and observance, this was a puzzling contradiction...

...Havurah Judaism (I have chosen this name arbitrarily) is an outgrowth of several of the more intensive havurah groups of the late 1960's and early 1970's, especially Havurat Shalom Community in Boston...

...It tends to equate the acceptance of ritual practices with t'shuvah itself...

...But for all my admiration for this effort, The Second Jewish Catalog leaves me with an uneasy feeling...

...But now, with the publication of The Second Jewish Catalog, two things become clear...

...In fact, had they done so, the product they created might not have caught on, for surely no small part of its success is due to its intimacy and its honest naivite...

...In the first instance, a couple I know set up a household prior to their decision to get married...

...The book reflects a more mature set of concerns on the part of the editors and writers...

...The first is a brief introduction by Herschel Matt, who observes that the sexual revolution is not inherently either good or bad, but is a morally neutral fact that can be related to in various ways...

...But the alternative, it seems to me, is the current free-floating gravity-less space in which things float around, almost at will, coming to rest when they bump up against a solid surface...

...We are attracted to liberalism, but also seek to maintain a strong link to Jewish tradition and history...

...The other episode is similar...

...Like many of the Catalog's writers, Green has a strong inclination in favor of Jewish mysticism, and it is that perspective which leads him, first, to call for the opposition of any attempts by society to demystify sex...

...Feldman also mentions that John Calvin was astonished at not finding in the Torah any explicit reference to sexual relations between unmarried and consenting adults...

...But the growing number of Jews who find such eclecticism appropriate to their lives and values maintain that the spectrum along which American Jews have learned to cluster in direct proportion to their degree of Jewish observance is simply too one-dimensional...

...How will Havurah Judaism deal with a Jewish institution which it so recently viewed as an obstacle to meaningful spirituality...

...If Havurah Judaism is inconsistent to those who do not share its values and aesthetic sensibilities, then Catalog II is its proper text...

...That is not an evil wish...

...In Catalog I, just three years old, the hostility (both explicit and between the lines) toward the organized community in general and the synagogue in particular was clear...

...The conflict remains a conflict, settled sometimes one way, sometimes the other, but rarely synthesized...

...It has been influenced by the liberalism of Reform, the social relevance of Re-constructionism, the intellectual-ism of Conservative Judaism, and the traditionalism of Orthodoxy, as well as the spiritual energy of Chassidism...

...But most—myself included—are part of a fifth, as yet nameless, denomination in American Jewish life...

...Most of the members, writes Richard Israel, "have settled into comfortable patterns of behavior...

...it is surprising how infrequently this is actually stated in Catalog II, although it is often implied...

...It is not that Havurah Judaism believes that premarital sex or smoking grass are significant Jewish rituals, not at all...

...And as we have looked at the connection between the institutions and the life-styles they purport to describe, we have noticed—and who could not?—wide discrepancies and a good deal of inconsistency...

...Certainly they are under no obligation to conform to my tastes and predelic-tions...

...The effort is to have things both ways: to make a pretense at deference to halachah on the one hand, while responding to a different set of values on the other...

...Since its inception, Havurah Judaism has been growing steadily, and is no longer the secret of a self-chosen two hundred...

...Very often, this boils down to halachah...

...I am concerned that Havurah Judaism has developed its own set of inconsistencies, and Catalog II intensifies that concern...

...In fascination and humility, I found myself spending a moment tracing each one with my finger...

...For Yom Kippur she makes a motion of beating on the chest, although in Israeli sign language, apparently very food-oriented, the holiday is indicated by covering the mouth...

...For when all is said and done, it appears that halachah does, at least for the editors of the Catalog, exert a compelling and even authoritative force...

...Catalog I, in retrospect, was a fairly simple reaction against the growing commercialization and plasticity of so much of modern Judaism...

...It is one thing to know that Hebrew Braille exists, but quite another to encounter a full page of it in this book...

...He proposes, instead of the absolute extremes, a kind of moral sliding scale, in which, "some where near the middle, neither glorified nor condemned, would be the relationship of two consenting persons, treating one another with decency, fulfilling the biological aspects of one another's love needs, while making no pretense at deeper intimacy...

...In keeping with the norms of his community, the man insisted upon a kosher home, and his friend complied...

...We are made more fully human," he writes, "by the fact that this act, shared with us by the animal kingdom, can be raised in our consciousness to the rung of raza de-yi-huda—the sublime mystery of union...

...The new conciliatory attitude is most evident in a chapter whose very title is reminiscent of the tension which still remains: "How to Survive in Your Synagogue...

...But two recent incidents have helped me to realize that what makes sense from the inside is often impossible to understand from the outside...

...And, at least in this sense, Havurah Judaism is liberal, for it does not regard ha-lachah as the sole authority for Jewish behavior...

...Obviously, this kind of eclecticism will be—and is—dismissed by many Jews as self-indulgent...

...And perhaps it really is too early to institutionalize these things...

...Completing this chapter are illustrations depicting the signs for several Jewish words and concepts which introduce the reader to a whole new linguistic dimension of Judaism...

...It is simple enough a statement, but apparently it is far easier to act on such a premise than to articulate it...

...They were producing, or so they supposed, an internal document...

...Indeed, one critic remarked bitterly that from reading it you might conclude that the primary items on the Jewish agenda were candle-making and yarmulkes...

...The Catalog raises the issue which now faces Havurah Judaism in the light of its recent popularity: is it not time that those who find the halachah an inadequate surface begin to pave a more systematic alternative...

...as the nonobservant Jew...

...But things have since changed drastically, and it is now recognized, even by their fiercest proponents, that the havurot—as significant as they may be—are probably not going to appeal to masses of people...

...Some sections of the book deal with problems caused by particular halachic rulings, while other sections, involving parallel kinds of problems, cite halachah without comment, as though there were no conflict...

...The authors of the Catalog were ingenuous, writing their chapters less as explanations for the Jewish public than for their friends and colleagues...

...The effort to achieve an organic integration of various facets of Jewish life and tradition, to see the entire Jewish people as one entity, to concentrate on the ties which unite us rather than to emphasize that which divides us—this movement is catching on with people of all ages, in communities all across North America...

...Green's article illustrates the efforts of eclectic Judaism to stake out a sensitive middle ground...

...It is at this point that I am reminded again of my unmarried friends living together...

...But it is the third article, by Arthur Green, which really deals with the problem on a personal level, and attempts to come up with a possible answer...

...Or again, in the section on divorce, the Catalog recommends a more lenient policy toward the aguna—the woman whose husband has disappeared with no proof of death—than that allowed by halachah...

...Sexuality at its fullest is brimming with religious kavvanah (purpose): this is a teaching we would be fools to ignore...

...Catalog II is divided into five general areas: life cycle (by far the most significant section, and also the longest, taking up some 40 percent of the book), study, synagogue and prayer, the arts, and something called The Jewish Yellow Pages...

...In their introduction, the editors suggest that there is now "more concern with proper ways to act rather than the simple how-to of doing Jewish things—more attention to the community, less to the self...

...Except when it doesn't, which makes for the problem...

...But in some other areas there is a different approach...

...Philadelphia, The Jewish Publication Society...

...Accordingly, the book emphasized the physical aspects of Jewish life, and provided a guide for the construction of various Jewish objects...

...Catalog III, with a still greater concern for ethical and societal issues, will be published in another year or so...

...For me, as for many Jews who grew up in the past two decades, the traditional denominations suggest institutions and organizations, with only a minimal relationship to the lives and practices of their members...

...Postbiblical commentators have rushed in to fill the gaps of that interesting omission...

...The article, and several others, is patently slanted, in the sense that it takes a different position from that of the halachah...

...This is also made clear by the list of writers, for Catalog II includes several "establishment" types, and even, in one case, an outspoken early enemy of the havurah movement...

...In effect, Green argues that by going even part of the way toward fulfilling traditional expectations in the area of sex, we can make an intelligent compromise with traditional values...

...This last item (which coincides with a new Schocken book of the same name), consists of an alphabetical listing of Jewish goods and services in the United States and Canada, ranging from synagogue architects through conversion societies, and including mikvehs (there are five in Georgia), ha-vurot (including one called B'nai Chelm in Texas), and even a listing for t'fillin polish...

...It is the only game in town, and everything else must be defined by its rules...

...There are various places in the book where halachic Judaism is simply taken for granted, as when, for example, we are told without further comment that the witnesses to a divorce must be observant males over thirteen, or . that after the bar mitzvah the child puts on t'fillin daily...

...Leaving aside the consideration that such a symbol excludes women, or that it is old-fashioned, there is the problem that (perhaps intentionally) the same sign also stands for a grabby person...

...This last is handled deftly by Joel Rosenberg, who opens the area wider than most people might have thought possible...

...As its name would indicate, the Catalog is not a prescriptive text, but a compendium of offerings and possibilities...

...Then there is the issue of the dominance of Orthodoxy, which is also dealt with in a very progressive way...

...And in matters of Jewish observance, the solid surface is, and remains, halachah...

...The editors of the Catalog are under no obligation to speak for the Havurah community, and they make no claim to do so...

...Feeling alienated from the conventional structures, we withdrew from them, retreating into a more private Jewish style, establishing, in some cases, havurah groups and other forms of prayer, study, and community...

...The trouble with ah eclectic Judaism is that one person's eclecticism may not be another's...

...They point out that Jewish life is not only a question of observance, but of Jewish history, culture and society as well...

...It only means that your average synagogue goers are not likely to be engaged in the Grand Quest...

...Or, in other words, halachah is not the only measure of the good Jew...

...The section on study includes a long chapter on Jewish education, material on toys and games, summer camps, teaching the Holocaust, and an excellent chapter on how to give a d'var Torah...

...Lynn Gottlieb, who serves as rabbi to a deaf congregation in New York, provides a moving and illuminating introduction on what it means to live in a world without sound...

...They are married people looking for areas of stability in a too-complicated world...

...REVIEW THE FUTURE OF HAVURAH JUDAISM WILLIAM NOVAK The Second Jewish Catalog, Sources and Resources, compiled and edited by Sharon Strassfeld and Michael Strassfeld, with editorial help from Mark Nulman, Nessa Rapoport and Levi Kel-man, and illustrations by Stuart Copans...

...Green doesn't draw any analogies, but of course this is exactly what many people do in other areas, like kashrut and Shabbat...

...No one who worked on The Jewish Catalog anticipated its huge commercial success, or realized that this would be the link between a small group and a far larger entity...

...In all fairness, this is neither its purpose not its responsibility...

...464 pp...

...The Havurah community has as yet developed no ideology that would explain its various choices and rejections...

...Even as they were writing their chapters, sales of the first volume were steadily growing to the current figure of almost a quarter of a million copies, and eleven printings...

...Like its predecessor, Catalog II is a pleasure to read or to browse through...

...And then he adds, "If we cannot fulfill the ideal, we can begin to approach it...

...Thus, for example, the section on bris includes a clever little strategy on how to convince the mohel to allow the mother to participate in the service...

...For one thing, you would never know from reading Catalog II that the issues of Jewish women have only recently been raised, for here they appear to be already solved...

...7.50 I Some of my best friends are Orthodox...

...Synagogue and Prayer, the third of the five sections, includes a detailed guide to the synagogue service, starting with basic advice (don't bring your gift to the bar mitzvah service...

...But they are part of modern American life, and neither is inherently in conflict with the principles of liberal Judaism...

...If our society can no longer insist upon the unique aptness of exclusive marital, heterosexual monogamy, we can at least make sure to practice the values of interpersonal responsibility...

...We cannot, Green insists, advocate celibacy for all those who are not in love, for to do so would be neither moral nor practical...

...This is especially true in the very strong chapters on birth and bar mitz-vah, and, in fact, almost the entire section on life cycle...

...The Second Jewish Catalog brings into clearer focus the process by which the first Catalog came into existence...

...Though some of the old critique still holds, it is tempered here by a genuine effort at understanding and reconciliation which replaces the former atmosphere of confrontation...

...Catalog II takes a very different direction...

...accordingly, its chapters are meant to be suggestive rather than comprehensive...

...After chastising Jewish religious organizations for not paying attention to the needs of deaf Jews, Lynn Gottlieb writes of her own experience in dealing with the challenge of putting into sign language the various Jewish words and concepts which have no standardized equivalent...

...Maybe they once did, but by now they have either decided that they were not going to get answers to the big questions, which they have accordingly stopped asking, or (more probably) they have forgotten what the questions were...

...She shares with us some of the personal testimony of her congregants, and helps us to understand why "the least crippling problem of a deaf person is the inability to hear...

...And so, not surprisingly, we find in this volume a sincere attempt at detente, and a recognition of the growing interface between the two groups...

...n Although it was never offered as a text for Havurah Judaism, The Jewish Catalog had a great deal to do with the gain in momentum which the movement has enjoyed of late...

...The section on the Jewish blind is equally compelling, and it ends with an entire page devoted to the forty-four symbols of Hebrew Braille...

...First, although we thought we were creating an a«7/-denomination, the style of Jewish observance which has evolved out of the havurah communities has apparently struck a responsive chord among many Jews who do not necessarily think of themselves as alienated from the organized community...

...The other side of the coin, however, involves what seems to me a continual looking over the shoulder to see what the Orthodox will say about this or that problem...

...But this is done with a great deal of apology and caution, and with what seems to me a disingenuous understatement: "Because of our feelings, the tone of the article is perhaps slanted toward a more equitable solution to the aguna problem...

...A good illustration is this frank passage about the difficulty of finding spiritual fulfillment in the American synagogue...

...It is not the fault of the Catalog that no document or institution has yet been developed that will fill this role...

...any ethic that says I am responsible only for myself, but not for the other, is abhorrent to Judaism...

...I am not referring to Orthodox Jews, whose opposition to such practices would be expected, but to completely non-observant Jews who, I am often reminded, still prefer to think of the whole problem in all-or-nothing terms—even if they are at the nothing end...

...This section ends with two strong and unanticipated chapters on the Jewish deaf and blind...

...And the question is whether Havurah Judaism can succeed in carving out a space for itself in which halachah can be taken seriously as a meaningful spiritual guide without being taken as authoritative...

...Well, perhaps the Jewish women's movement has already won its main battles, but if so, I bet some women will be surprised to learn of it...

...Clearly, the authors of The Second Jewish Catalog can make no such claim...

...Ill Overall, I am impressed with the seriousness of Catalog II, and inspired by its moral energies...

...So Lynn Gottlieb had to invent a new sign: people of the Torah...

...they saw no need to explain, or apologize for, the assumptions and biases they carried with them...

...Is that included only because it is a women's issue...

...At a Friday night dinner, a few weeks back, the host led us through a recitation of the appropriate prayers and songs before the meal—after he had passed around a marijuana cigarette...

...Or worse: for example, the standard sign for "Jew" is the motion of pulling on a beard...

...But, in the absence of anything approaching a guiding text of ideology for this kind of Jewish commitment, one naturally looks to the Catalog as a kind of authority by default...

...Their reaction reminded the rest of us that the eclectic style of Judaism with which we have become so comfortable still appears inconsistent—and perhaps distasteful—to people outside our immediate community...

...This section also includes a delightful chart on types of physical movement within the service, as well as a "stand up chart," which lists individual prayers along with appropriate instructions, such as "you stand," "in some shuls you stand," "in very traditional shuls many people stand," and so on, until every possibility has been dealt with...

...The mix of personal advice with halachic and other traditional sources, together with ideas, suggestions, illustrations, photographs, general information and small-print commentary, makes every page inviting...

...Out of these various activities has emerged a new style of Judaism, an eclectic mixture which borrows freely from each of the established branches, and from Chassidism as well...

...They are not searching for what is Absolutely True, at least not anymore...

...At the same time, Havurah Judaism is not at all comfortable with some of the assumptions and most of the practices of Reform Judaism...

...It is interesting, for example, that for all the talk these days about the intersection of traditional values and modern life, there is really only one point in the Catalog where we find any real innovation resulting from this tension, and that is in the section on sex, that area of life in which Jewish tradition and the modern world seem to be furthest apart...

...The movement was born out of a concern for action and experimentation which would have been hindered by too early a theoretical base, and some would argue that it would be best to let things run their course for a few more years before attempting to provide an ideological overview...

...And some are Conservative, and some Reform, and some Reconstructionist...

...It is an integrative kind of Judaism, with no overriding organizational or theoretical structure...