The Chosen People in America: A Study in Jewish Religious Ideology

V. Conservatism, Orthodoxy, and the Affirmation of Election

v Conservatism, Orthodoxy, and the Affirmation ofElection ~E "UNRECONSTRUCTED" of the Conservative movell .~ent-the source of Kaplan's special frustration and ever the butt of his sarcasm--engaged throughout the second generation in an often futile search for middle ground. Kaplan at times exaggerated the evasions and confusions attendant on their effort: lion the one hand," he would say, "you had Reform. On the other, you had Orthodoxy. And on both hands-the Conservatives."! However, Conservative interpretation of chosenness does lend credence to Kaplan's conviction that the hoped-for terra firma simply could not be discovered . Conservatives could not stand for Reform's reinterpretation of election as universalist ethics or merely historical uniqueness. The Conservative commitment to halakhah as law, revealed, in some sense, by God to Jews and only Jews, was the movement's proclaimed reason"for existence. Neither, however, could Conservatives stand with Orthodoxy in silent affirmation of election, assuming the doctrine on every page of commentary as "unformulated dogma" in need of no justification. Indeed, Orthodoxy was distinguished from all other movements in this period by virtue of being an insular and predominantly first-generation community, and as such largely immune to the external pressures upon chosenness that affected other movements. Even when "modern Orthodox" spokesmen such as rabbis Joseph Ber Soloveitchik or Samuel Belkin felt constrained to legitimate Orthodoxy in terms of philosophy or America, Hasidic and other "ultra-Orthodox" Jews did not. Against the dramatic foil of Orthodox silence, then, Conservative rabbis practiced and repracticed the art of cautious reaffirmation through manifold reinterpretation. They ended up nowhere in particular , but somewhere in-between. 99 100 • THE "SECOND GENERATION" That was precisely the point-and not only for Conservatism. With the elite at the Jewish Theological Seminary seeking to retain loyalty to halakhah while achieving greater flexibility in its revision, and congregationallaymen seeking to adapt Orthodox forms and observance to their new urban and suburban environments, the Conservative aim was more to stake out such middle ground than to build upon it according to a carefully conceived blueprint. One had to be seen-and to see oneselfas standing between the extremes. In the second generation in general, what had been a rather systematic theology of chosenness in Jewish tradition, and remained so for the Orthodox, became what we have called a rhetoric in Reform, an ideology in Reconstructionism, and something of all three among the Conservatives. Before proceeding to the latter's attempts to locate a via media on the issue of election, I want to consider in some detail the language in which their reinterpretations of chosenness, like those of non-Orthodox rabbis generally, were couched. Having done so, we will be able to examine the sermons and essays of the rabbis with greater understanding. The Language of American Jewish Thought We misread American Jewish thought on chosenness if we regard it as an attempt at theology: the systematic elaboration of tradition in carefully formulated concepts, rigorously argued claims, and ideas logically interrelated one with another. For reasons already noted, theology was not possible during the second generation. Nor, with few exceptions , was it even contemplated. Coherent answers to the questions on the rabbis' minds were simply not available at a time of such social and philosophical upheaval. Reform, reconstruction, and selective conservation were strategies of response, barely adequate to the drastic changes in Jewish life that had provoked them.' They could not offer new visions of Jewish life for laymen, undergirded by cogent philosophical argument for the elite. Nor could the rabbis, few of whom were well trained in philosophy, and many of whom lacked adequate grounding in the halakhic and philosophical materials of their tradition, have provided sustained theological argument in the best of times. They certainly did not seek to do so now. Their first priority was not to produce theology but to address, in the most effective way possible, the immediate needs of their congregants, needs which congregants confronted as human beings (e.g., sickness and death), as Jews, and as American Jews subject to the particular political, social, and intellectual pressures of their troubled time and place. Theology, then, was not the rabbis' principal tool, and indeed it has not been the predominant means by which any of the world's religions, The Affirmation of Election • 101 including Judaism, has ever engaged the awesome questions which threaten human meanings in any time and place. Other, more...