Many people criticize the Conservative Jewish movement in regards to it’s – poorly understood – decision which allowed Jews to drive to synagogue on Shabbat for the purposes of worship. But while the criticism is sincere, we need to carefully think about the claims made by the critics:
The major criticism is that it supposedly caused many otherwise observant Jews to stop being shomer Shabbat (sabbath observant.) However this position confuses correlation with causation.
In reality, from the 1800’s onward there was a trend of less religious observance and more assimilation. This trend existed in most Jewish communities, across Europe and in the United States. Foe example, even in once heavily Orthodox Jewish communities such as Chelsea, Massachusetts, with over 16 Orthodox synagogues, sabbath observance markedly decreased. (Today Chelsea has just one sparsely attended Orthodox synagogue.) The decision made by theConservative movement’s law committee – the CJLS – wasn’t made until the 1950’s, and it certainly had no overnight effect.
It is clear that compared to observance in the past, the decreased percent of Jewish people who were fully Shabbat observant by 1960 had very little to do with that one responsa. The decreased observance was actually part of a long term social, geographical and economic change, one which both Orthodox and Conservative communities grappled with.
Consider: While Orthodox apologists proudly proclaim that Orthodoxy has a superior hashkafah, educational system, and religious school building program, they have always had equal voice in the American Jewish community. They too have newspapers, advertisements, synagogue growth, and outreach. Yet they have had no effect on the majority of Jewish people living in suburbs.
In the last 50 years Chabad Lubavitch emissaries have made tremendous strides in establishing hundreds of religious communities across the United States. But their effect on improving halakhic Shabbat observance hasn’t been much greater then from the Conservative synagogues. I’m not saying there’s no effect, but most people who donate or go to Chabad events will drive on Shabbat.
Instead of blaming Conservative rabbis for the massive changes in belief and observance since the Enlightenment, it is time for Jews to work together. We must address the practical issues. One of the issues is that a huge change occurred in the American economy, making it almost financially impossible for many people to live in the densely packed urban Jewish communities that once had been affordable.
The economy and geographical home distribution isn’t a matter that one can ignore. We all have met far too many Jewish people who sadly admitted that they never would be able to afford in an observant Jewish neighborhood such as New York City, London, or Brookline, Massachusetts.
Proposal: This is a time for all Jews to dispense with denominational rhteoric, and for us to pull together. We need a Jewish Manhattan kehilah קהילה project. We need Jewish leaders, teens and college students, rabbis, and philanthropists to work together to create large amounts of affordable housing, apartments, small homes, whatever – built specifically for Jewish people who want to live within walking distance of a synagogue.
The only way to make this work is to bring all of the Jewish community on board – Reform Jews, Orthodox Jews, Hasidism, Conservative Jews, Hasidic Jews – secular and cultural Jews. All of us need to work together. We don’t all need to have exactly the same beliefs, but I would hope that our Reform and culturally Jewish brethren would respect us fellow Jews as much as they respect all the other ethnic groups that they proudly stand up for. If the non-Orthodox can work with non-Jews to protect and help Native Americans, Kurds, and other groups, then all the more so it is right and just for them to stand with more traditionally observant Jews who want to live near a synagogue.
A Jewish Manhattan Kehillah Project would also mean making sure that a local supermarket had kosher meat, that a local bakery was kosher, and that a mikvah and eruv would be built.
In The Driver’s Seat: Rabbinic Authority in Postwar America, by Jenna Weissman Joselit
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Urban sprawl is a result of changes in technology (development of public transportation, highways, and personal automobiles) and societal change. Compare the sizes of ancient Rome, medieval Paris, Victorian London, early 20th century Chicago, and modern day Greater Atlanta. Read more The One Weird Rule That Explains Urban Sprawl.
For more on this topic please see
Judaism’s Community Problem – How Hyper-Suburbanization is Hurting the Jewish Future
Rebuilding Jewish Communities: The New Generation, Marc Dreyfuss
References
“Responsum of the Sabbath”, CJLS Responsa, Rabbis Morris Adler, Jacob Agus and Theodore Friedman
(title?), Rabbi Ben Zion Bokser, CJLS Responsa
Full text of “A Responsum on the Sabbath” (PDF document)
Travel on the Sabbath: A statement unanimously adopted by the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards, on 2/17/60
Riding to the Synagogue on Shabbat (OH 305:18), Rabbi David Golinkin, Rabbinical Assembly of Israel/Masorti Movement
Responsafortoday.com/vol4/3.pdf in Hebrew
Conservative Head Calls Sabbath-Driving Rule a ‘Mistake’, The Forward, 11/7/2003
“Reflections on the Driving Teshuvah” by Avram Hein, Spring 2004, “Conservative Judaism
David Fine, Susskind Goldberg, Kassel Abelson, and Ismar Schorsch, Conservative Judaism Vol. 56(3), pp. 21–50.
The Conservative driving teshuvot: Fifty-five years later
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