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The Movements – Revelation Rabbi Darren Kleinberg 1. Orthodox Judaism Maimonides (1135‐1204). The Thirteen Principles of Faith. 8. I believe with complete faith that the entire Torah that we now find in our hands is the same one that was given to Moses, out teacher, peace be upon him. Excerpt taken from: The Artscroll Siddur Maimonides. Commentary to the Mishnah. The eighth fundamental principle is that the Torah came from God. We are to believe that the whole Torah was given us through Moses our Teacher entirely from God. When we call the Torah “God’s Word” we speak metaphorically. We do not know exactly how it reached us, but only that it came through Moses who acted like a secretary taking dictation. He wrote down the events of the time and the commandments, for which reason he is called “Lawgiver.” There is no distinction between a verse of scripture like “The sons of Ham were Cush and Mizraim” (Gen. 10:6), or “His wife’s name was Mehetabel and his concubine was Timna” (Gen. 36:39, 12), and one like “I am the Lord your God” (Ex. 20:2), or “Hear, O Israel” (Deut. 6:4). All came from God, and all are the Torah of God, perfect, pure, holy and true. Anyone who says Moses wrote some passages on his own is regarded by our sages as an atheist or the worst kind of heretic, because he tries to distinguish essence from accident in Torah. Such a heretic claims that some historical passages or stories are trivial inventions of Moses and not Divine Revelation. But the sages said that if one accepts as Revelation the whole Torah with the exception of even one verse, which Moses himself and not God composed, he is referred to in the verse, “he has shamed the word of the Lord” (Num. 15:31), and is heretical. Every word of Torah word of Torah is full of wisdom and wonders for one who understands it. It is beyond human understanding. It is broader than the earth and wider than the sea. Each man must follow David, anointed of the God of Jacob, who prayed: “Open my eyes that I may behold wonders out of your Torah” (Ps. 119:18). The authoritative commentary on the Torah is also the Word of God. The sukkah we build today, or the lulav, shofar, fringes, phylacteries, etc. we use, replicate exactly those God showed Moses which Moses faithfully described for us. This fundamental principle is taught by the verse: “And Moses said, ‘Thus shall you know that the Lord sent me to do all these things, and that they are not products of my own mind’” (Num. 16:28). Excerpt taken from: Twersky, Isadore. A Maimonides Readers. New York: Behrman House, 1972.pp 420‐
421. The Movements – Revelation Rabbi Darren Kleinberg 2. The Reform Movement "The Pittsburgh Platform" ‐ 1885 We recognize in the Bible the record of the consecration of the Jewish people to its mission as the priest of the one God, and value it as the most potent instrument of religious and moral instruction. We hold that the modern discoveries of scientific researches in the domain of nature and history are not antagonistic to the doctrines of Judaism, the Bible reflecting the primitive ideas of its own age, and at times clothing its conception of divine Providence and Justice dealing with men in miraculous narratives. "The Columbus Platform" ‐ 1937 Torah. God reveals Himself not only in the majesty, beauty and orderliness of nature, but also in the vision and moral striving of the human spirit. Revelation is a continuous process, confined to no one group and to no one age. Yet the people of Israel, through its prophets and sages, achieved unique insight in the realm of religious truth. The Torah, both written and oral, enshrines Israel's ever‐growing consciousness of God and of the moral law. It preserves the historical precedents, sanctions and norms of Jewish life, and seeks to mould it in the patterns of goodness and of holiness. Being products of historical processes, certain of its laws have lost their binding force with the passing of the conditions that called them forth. But as a depository of permanent spiritual ideals, the Torah remains the dynamic source of the life of Israel. Each age has the obligation to adapt the teachings of the Torah to its basic needs in consonance with the genius of Judaism. Adopted in San Francisco ‐ 1976 Torah ‐‐ Torah results from the relationship between God and the Jewish people. The records of our earliest confrontations are uniquely important to us. Lawgivers and prophets, historians and poets gave us a heritage whose study is a religious imperative and whose practice is our chief means to holiness. Rabbis and teachers, philosophers and mystics, gifted Jews in every age amplified the Torah tradition. For millennia, the creation of Torah has not ceased and Jewish creativity in our time is adding to the chain of tradition. Adopted in Pittsburgh ‐ 1999 Torah We affirm that Torah is the foundation of Jewish life. We cherish the truths revealed in Torah, God's ongoing revelation to our people and the record of our people's ongoing relationship with God. We affirm that Torah is a manifestation of ahavat olam, God's eternal love for the Jewish people and for all humanity. We affirm the importance of studying Hebrew, the language of Torah and Jewish liturgy, that we may draw closer to our people's sacred texts. The Movements – Revelation Rabbi Darren Kleinberg We are called by Torah to lifelong study in the home, in the synagogue and in every place where Jews gather to learn and teach. Through Torah study we are called to mitzvot, the means by which we make our lives holy. We are committed to the ongoing study of the whole array of mitzvot and to the fulfillment of those that address us as individuals and as a community. Some of these mitzvot, sacred obligations, have long been observed by Reform Jews; others, both ancient and modern, demand renewed attention as the result of the unique context of our own times. We bring Torah into the world when we seek to sanctify the times and places of our lives through regular home and congregational observance. Shabbat calls us to bring the highest moral values to our daily labor and to culminate the workweek with kedushah, holiness, menuchah, rest and oneg, joy. The High Holy Days call us to account for our deeds. The Festivals enable us to celebrate with joy our people's religious journey in the context of the changing seasons. The days of remembrance remind us of the tragedies and the triumphs that have shaped our people's historical experience both in ancient and modern times. And we mark the milestones of our personal journeys with traditional and creative rites that reveal the holiness in each stage of life. We bring Torah into the world when we strive to fulfill the highest ethical mandates in our relationships with others and with all of God's creation. Partners with God in tikkun olam, repairing the world, we are called to help bring nearer the messianic age. We seek dialogue and joint action with people of other faiths in the hope that together we can bring peace, freedom and justice to our world. We are obligated to pursue tzedek, justice and righteousness, and to narrow the gap between the affluent and the poor, to act against discrimination and oppression, to pursue peace, to welcome the stranger, to protect the earth's biodiversity and natural resources, and to redeem those in physical, economic and spiritual bondage. In so doing, we reaffirm social action and social justice as a central prophetic focus of traditional Reform Jewish belief and practice. We affirm the mitzvah of tzedakah, setting aside portions of our earnings and our time to provide for those in need. These acts bring us closer to fulfilling the prophetic call to translate the words of Torah into the works of our hands. In all these ways and more, Torah gives meaning and purpose to our lives. Excerpts taken from: http://ccarnet.org/documentsandpositions/platforms/ 3. The Conservative Movement Conservative Judaism affirms its belief in revelation, the uncovering of an external source of truth emanating from God. This affirmation emphasizes that although truths are transmitted by humans, they are not a human invention. That is why we call the Torah torat emet. The Torah's truth is both theoretical and practical, that is, it teaches us about God and about our role in His world. As such, we reject relativism, which denies any objective source of authoritative truth. We also reject fundamentalism and literalism, which do not admit a human component in revelation, thus excluding an independent role for human experience and reason in the process. The nature of revelation and its meaning for the Jewish people, have been understood in various ways within the Conservative community. We believe that the classical sources of Judaism provide ample precedents for these views of revelation. The Movements – Revelation Rabbi Darren Kleinberg The single greatest event in the history of God's revelation took place at Sinai, but was not limited to it. God's communication continued in the teaching of the Prophets and the biblical Sages, and in the activity of the Rabbis of the Mishnah and the Talmud, embodied in Halakhah and the Aggadah (law and lore). The process of revelation did not end there; it remains alive in the Codes and Responsa to the present day. Some of us conceive of revelation as the personal encounter between God and human beings. Among them there are those who believe that this personal encounter has propositional content, that God communicated with us in actual words. For them, revelation's content is immediately normative, as defined by rabbinic interpretation. The commandments of the Torah themselves issue directly from God. Others, however, believe that revelation consists of an ineffable human encounter with God. The experience of revelation inspires the verbal formulation by human beings of norms and ideas, thus continuing the historical influence of this revelational encounter. Others among us conceive of revelation as the continuing discovery, through nature and history, of truths about God and the world. These truths, although always culturally conditioned, are nevertheless seen as God's ultimate purpose for creation. Proponents of this view tend to see revelation as an ongoing process rather than as a specific event. Excerpts taken from: Emet ve‐Emunah: Statement of Principles of Conservative Judaism (1988/90). http://www.icsresources.org/content/primarysourcedocs/judaism/ics_psd_jar_emetveemunah.pdf 4. Reconstructionist Judaism Torah: Tradition tells us that the Torah was dictated by God to Moses, and then transmitted through the generations. Reconstructionist Jews see the Torah as the Jewish people's response to God's presence in the world (and not God's gift to us). That is to say, the Jews wrote the Torah. But that is not to say that the Torah is merely a human creation. It is a response to the sacred. It is an attempt to convince an entire people to view everyday life in a sacred way. Yes, it is intriguing to apply the tools of history, science and chronology to the Torah. These vehicles give us the historical and natural context of the Torah. But they don't give us the essence of the Torah. The essential Torah is neither the tidal explanation for the parting of the sea, nor the geological definition of the primordial flood nor the cosmological identification of "let there be light." The essential Torah consists in the truth deep within these stories, a truth that radiates a picture of a society based on courts of justice and on social empathy. God didn't write that Torah, since God does not write per se. But God is everywhere in the details of it. Excerpts taken from: The Jewish Reconstructionist Federation. http://jrf.org/showres&rid=728