Why I Am A Reform Jew

Growing up at Keneseth Israel, my Reform community in suburban Philadelphia, I took for granted how lucky I was.

My interfaith family was welcomed without question.

Torah was taught as sacred story, a source of wisdom whose values should inspire our lives.

I had amazing rabbis – Lance Sussman, Peter Rigler, and Stacy Rigler – who encouraged questions and nurtured curiosity. They exemplified the Torah’s demand to pursue justice. We marched against the genocide in Darfur, fed the hungry, and collected donations for hurricane victims. We went to DC together to learn how to advocate and lobby our representatives as one collective voice.

And the Reform Movement opened the Jewish world to me.

At Camp Harlam, I discovered a Judaism beyond the walls of the synagogue, a Judaism filled with friendship, music, joy, and the freedom to begin finding a Jewish identity of my own.

Through KIFTY, our temple youth group, and NFTY, the North American Federation of Temple Youth, I became part of a community of young Jews stretching across the region and the country. It offered me my first opportunities to lead and showed me that Judaism was something we could help create, not merely something adults handed down to us.

I served as a madrich, a teen leader, in our religious school  – as our teens serve at Beth Shir – and eventually became a teacher, working alongside the people who had once taught me.

The movement connected me to Israel. It sent me to travel through the country and later to spend a semester studying there during high school. It gave me the chance not only to learn about Israel, but to live there, wrestle with it, and begin forming a relationship with it for myself.

You might notice a blue print of programming from my upbringing that’s Already at Beth Shir: camp - we had 30 kids at Newman last summer, NFTY and teen programs - this year we will take our kids on the same DC trip I went on 20 years ago, madrichim in our religious school, travel to visit Jewish communities around the world, resilient relationships with our Israeli family.

And through all upbringing at my beloved KI, no one questioned my love of cheesesteaks. No one questioned whether I belonged because I did not believe in God, at the time, or because we really loved celebrating Christmas with my mom’s family.

The movement gave me a place for my whole self to belong before I fully understood what I believed. It gave me teachers who took my questions seriously, opportunities to lead before I knew I was a leader, and a Judaism that challenged me to turn what I learned into how I lived.

For many years, I took all of that for granted.

But since I’ve been at Beth Shir, I’ve been asked something I honestly hadn’t given much thought to: What is Reform Judaism? Sometimes the question comes from someone raised in a different flavor of Judaism. Sometimes it comes from someone who has spent their entire life in a Reform synagogue. Sometimes it comes from our non-Jewish members who have never been a part of a Jewish community before and are looking to get their footing.

There are admittedly some easy, stock answers. Reform Jews always play guitar.  Reform Judaism is egalitarian. We welcome everyone as a member of our community, including interfaith families and LGBTQ Jews. We pray in a mixture of Hebrew and English. We believe in personal autonomy and make religious choices through knowledge. on Shabbat and use electricity. We bring modern scholarship into our study of Torah. All of that is true – but it’s not the whole puzzle.

A few months ago, Maili and I traveled to Portland. Naturally, we made our pilgrimage to Powell’s Books and spent a couple hours exploring. Eventually we wandered over to the Jewish books section and on a bottom shelf, I found a worn and tattered copy of a book I immediately recognized: Why I Am a Jew by Edmond Fleg.

Published in France in 1927 before being translated to English in couple years later, it’s totally reasonable that you may not know Fleg’s name; but you may know his words. A portion of his famous poem appears in our prayer book, and starts: 

I am a Jew because the faith of Israel demands no abdication of my mind.

I am a Jew because the faith of Israel requires all the devotion of my heart.

I am a Jew because in every place where suffering weeps, the Jew weeps.

I am a Jew because at every time when despair cries out, the Jew hopes.

I’ve long been inspired by this poem, but the book is an interesting work bigger than the poem itself. He begins it with a striking introduction:

“I am asked why I am a Jew. It is to you, my grandson, who are not yet born, that I would make my reply…When will you read what I here set down? About 1950, 1960? Will people still read in 1960? What form will the world then take? Will the mechanical have suppressed the spiritual? Will the mind have created a new universe for itself? Will the problems that trouble me today exist for you? Will there be any Jews left?”

You can hear a familiar Jewish anxiety, an existential dread in Fleg’s opening questions, reminiscent of the idea of crisis - of mashber - that I spoke about last night. Fleg is deeply troubled by the overt antisemitism of the 1894 Dreyfus Affair, in which an innocent Jewish Captain in the French Army was accused and convicted of treason. Then, between world wars, and with Jews in flux, Fleg writes Why I Am A Jew to an unborn grandchild in an unknown future.

Nearly 100 years later, in a crisis – a mashber – of our own, I realized I had never examined or written about Why I Am A Reform Jew – and why I believe it’s the movement we need in this moment. So here we go.

I am a Reform Jew because Reform Judaism demands spiritual integrity. In a world filled with performance, posturing, and curated identities, we need a Judaism that demands our rituals and prayers instill our values and expects our behavior to reflect those values.

I am a Reform Jew because Reform Judaism realizes the belief that every person is created in the image of God, b’tzelem Elohim, and builds communities of radical welcome for our entire selves. At a time when many people feel pressured to hide part of who they are in order to belong, we need communities that make room for our many identities, diverse families, questions, doubts, and struggles with tradition.

I am a Reform Jew because Reform Judaism is challenging: we are expected to make choices through knowledge and study, not merely convenient ones. 

I am a Reform Jew because we believe revelation continues today. We need a religious home where ancient wisdom encounters new knowledge, where our understanding of God can evolve, and where voices excluded by earlier generations can reveal Torah we have not yet heard.

I am a Reform Jew because Judaism is best lived in community – locally, regionally, nationally, and internationally. In an age of loneliness and relationships mediated through screens, we need communities that connect us with each other. We need communities that celebrate with us, grieve with us, challenge us, teach our children, and remind us that we belong to a story larger than our individual lives.

I am a Reform Jew because loving Israel must include both devotion and dissent. In a moment when Israel is too often discussed through slogans and absolutes, we need a relationship that’s resilient enough to defend Israel’s existence, cherish its people, confront its failures, and work for democracy, equality, and peace.

I am a Reform Jew because popularity does not outweigh morality. In a frightening time that tempts us to recognize only our own pain, we need a Judaism that protects our people without surrendering our capacity to see the humanity and suffering of others.

I am a Reform Jew because religious communities are not neutral. In a world of injustice and widening inequality, we need communities willing to stand for the stranger, the vulnerable, the dignity of every human being.

I am a Reform Jew because Reform Judaism has the courage to experiment. At a moment when the old answers do not always speak to new realities, we need a movement willing to stand at the meeting place of inheritance and imagination, to try, to fail, to learn, and to create new forms of Jewish life.

I am a Reform Jew because Reform Judaism is not a finished inheritance. It is a living tradition that each generation must receive, question, strengthen, and reshape for the world it inhabits.

This year, for the first time since the pandemic, our Reform Movement will gather for a Biennial in Philadelphia from December 10-13. Our staff will join thousands of Reform Jews from across North America and Israel to study, sing, argue, imagine, and ask what this movement must become for the world we now inhabit. Perhaps most powerfully, we will celebrate Chanukah and Shabbat, adding much needed light to our world.

And, there is something beautiful for me personally about returning to Philadelphia for this gathering, where the Reform Movement first opened the Jewish world to me. It gave me a synagogue that welcomed my family, a camp where I found my Judaism, a community that trusted me to lead, teachers who honored my questions, and experiences across the world that expanded my sense of Jewish peoplehood.

Now I want to return, not only to remember what this movement gave me, but to accept responsibility for what we will give the next generation. And I want you to come with us.

Come with your gratitude and your criticism. Come with your questions and convictions. Come with your concern about what could be lost and your imagination for what we might create. Because Reform Judaism is not something we have merely inherited. It is something we are still building.

Our goal is not simply to perpetuate the movement. The goal must be to build a Judaism capable of bringing more connection, more holiness, more justice, more resilience, more compassion, and more courage into the world.

Which brings me to a conversation I had on Thursday morning with Beth Shir Shalom’s friend, Rabbi Galit Cohen-Kedem the rabbi of Kodesh v’Chol in Holon, near Tel Aviv.

For a few years now, Rabbi Galit has been invited to teach at a girls’ yeshiva, a place of intense Torah learning by observant women. It is something of a “meet the Reform woman rabbi” experience. And each year, she offers them the same answer to the question we have been exploring this morning: What is Reform Judaism?

She begins with the opening of Mishnah Shabbat, an early attempt of the rabbis after the destruction of the temple to teach how one observes Shabbat.

You might expect them to begin with Shabbat 101: lighting candles, making Kiddush, or the story of God resting on the seventh day. Instead, they begin with the laws of carrying. 

According to Jewish Law, or halacha, on Shabbat one may carry an object within a private domain, like a home, but one may not transfer an object between a private domain and a public one.

So the Mishnah imagines a house. Inside stands the homeowner. Outside stands a poor person looking for food or tzedakah. But according to the laws of carrying, it's hard to help.

The text considers every possibility of trying to help this person. Who reached across the boundary? Who picked up the object? Who completed the transfer? Who is liable? Who is exempt?

It is intricate legal reasoning that might cause your eyes to glaze over. But, some Judaisms become so absorbed in the details that we miss the scene the rabbis placed before us: a person in need standing outside our window.

Before we light candles, make Kiddush, or eat challah, perhaps we are meant to ask: can we truly have Shabbat while someone outside our home remains hungry? Can Shabbat begin if we’ve neglected to care for the vulnerable in our midst? 

After every legal question has been answered, the poor person is still standing there, hungry and in need. Caring for that hungry person is more important than who carried what between which domains.

That, Rabbi Galit tells the students, is Reform Judaism.

Not watered down Judaism. Not Judaism-lite. Not a movement that rejects ritual or abandons tradition. Reform Judaism is a movement that refuses to allow ritual to distract us from the world that it is meant to transform.

Which also happens to be the message of the Haftarah from Isaiah we read this morning. In Isaiah’s time, the people are pious. They fast. They bow their heads. They perform every ritual expected of them, and then they wonder why God appears unimpressed.

And God chastises them over their empty ritual: “Is not this the fast I desire: to unlock the fetters of wickedness, to let the oppressed go free, to share your bread with the hungry, and to take the poor into your home?”

God does not reject fasting because ritual is meaningless. God rejects ritual that has been emptied of meaning. God cares nothing for a fast that leaves the world exactly as unjust as it was before we began. God cares nothing for prayer that rises from our lips while suffering remains invisible to our eyes. God cares nothing for the laws of carrying on Shabbat while we ignore the vulnerable.

And I believe the movement most suited to work towards that divine vision from Isaiah is Reform Judaism.

A movement grounded in tradition and reaching toward the future;

a movement that refuses to ignore the brokenness of the world around us and demands we do our part in healing it;

a movement that maintains our summer camps to let our kids explore Judaism on their terms;

a movement that invests in Israel and fights for our values there;

a movement that invests in its professionals and lay leaders to make us better at every level of our organizations;

a movement of inclusion that welcomes all and fights for their rights;

a movement whose liturgy attunes us to ourselves, our history, and our purpose.

A movement that asks us:

Did our worship make us more courageous?

Did our study make us more empathic?

Did our acts of service bring holiness and healing to the world?

Did our education make our children kinder and more resilient?

Did our community add light amidst darkness?

Did our Judaism help us see the person outside the window?

That is the Reform Judaism we are building together at Beth Shir Shalom. 

That is the Reform Judaism we will continue developing in Philadelphia with thousands of reform Jews and their communities- and I really hope you’ll join us.

That is the Reform Judaism our moment and we ourselves need.

Gmar Chatimah Tovah!