The Ink Is Not Yet Dry

Deborah Pardo

February 8, 2004

"In the words of Torah, we hear our ancestors' experience of the divine. We communicate with generations and perhaps on occasion we hear Torah as the word of God refracted through human speech."

Those words from Kol Haneshamah, the Reconstructionist prayer book, reflect the perspective of many who attend the Society for the Advancement of Judaism Reconstructionist synagogue. The attendees view the central ritual of the service - the reading of the biblical scroll and ensuing discussion of it -- as an opportunity to partake in the historic and present communal experience of the Jewish people.

"It links you with people in the congregation, with the community around the world and with those who have been reading it for thousands of years," says Myra Zuckerbraun, a member of the congregation for more than 20 years.

The ritual is a symbolic representation of the biblical story, which describes the giving of the Mosaic Law over 3000 years ago to the Israelites who had been liberated from slavery in Egypt. The book of Exodus depicts the Israelites accepting the commandments of their God given to them in the wilderness of Sinai. In traditional synagogues, the Torah service is a kind of re-enactment of that story where the congregation reaffirms its obedience to divine law. Reconstructionist congregants, such as Zuckerbraun, sense the drama and the learning experience of the ritual, but they reject the divine revelation of the law believed by those affiliated with Conservative or Orthodox Judaism.

"We don't treat it [the Mosaic Law] like a sacred cow," says Joshua Boettiger, a rabbinical student from the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College in Philadelphia interning at the synagogue.

He says that members of the Reconstructionist movement do not adhere to a word-for-word divine revelation of the text. Yet, many do believe in a divine inspiration filtered through a human lens.

In this Reconstructionist synagogue right after the scroll is chanted in Hebrew, various members present their opinions of the reading through discussion. For them, it is an invitation to wrestle with the text, says Boettiger.

They perceive holiness in the multitude of voices that created the text and through those who continue to create new meanings, he says. Each year, as the same text is re-read, congregants bring new insights to the dialogue. As people evolve in their thinking, they approach the text in a fresh manner, Zuckerbraun says.

"In Reconstructionism, people are encouraged to use the ritual in two ways," says Richard Hirsh, the executive director of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association. "To hear what their ancestors thought and discovered about God, value, and meaning, and then to use the same thing to think about their own position on some of those things."

While the Song of the Sea was being chanted - a song of victory after the Israelite exodus -- Boettiger says he was personally carried back to the ancient period. Other congregants say they don't think about the past context.

The founder of Reconstructionist Judaism, Mordecai Kaplan, encouraged new interpretations and a development of Jewish law that would meet the needs of modern life. He motivated people in the present day to cooperate with those who wrote the biblical laws, narratives and poetry by adding their own thoughts to the text.

The belief in divine authority or inspiration of the biblical text marks the essential difference between Orthodox or Conservative Jews and Reconstructionists (as well as Reform). For Reconstructionists, the biblical teachings and laws are something that unite the past and present Jewish community, but are not mandated by God. Reconstructionists, (like Reform), as opposed to Orthodox or Conservative Jews, consider the commandments as custom rather than as binding law that they must follow.

"If you go to the Manhattan Jewish Center [Orthodox synagogue] down the street, says Athena Shapiro, one of the congregants, "you'll find a very different meaning behind the Torah service."

Reconstructionists are motivated by the customs of the community and not by divine revelation, Hirsh says. Custom plays a very strong role in society and social structures. It is often more important to people than laws that are mandated, he says.

"Every family has its customs and if you don't follow them it's a major crisis," he says.

To spark Saturday's discussion, the rabbi asked the congregation about the importance of the Israelites' crossing of the sea after their liberation from Egypt. Clara, a congregant stood up. She contrasted Israelite life in Egypt to the journey out of Egypt. The text describes the nation as passive or silent during a series of plagues that had struck Egypt and that eventually helped lead to their freedom. She says the exodus gave the Israelites the opportunity, for the first time, to participate in their redemption. They left their homes in Egypt, took their belongings and crossed the sea.

As each person drew him or herself into the conversation, the rabbi and the rabbinical student intertwined commentary from Jewish philosophers and ancient rabbis. Although the leadership guided the discussion, they allowed for simple and complex responses from the congregation.

It was a call for all to participate and interpret the story that had been read aloud.

Like the founder of the movement, they see the text as ongoing revelation where they can still engage in its meaning, Boettiger says. For reconstructionists, "the ink [of the scroll] is not yet dry."

Reporter Deborah Pardo may be reached at dep2103@columbia.edu.

(Updated May 1, 2004)