Two Kaplan Quotes
26 February 2008 - 21 אדר א' 5768 by Huw
Both of these quotes were written as critiques of Jewish Orthodoxy, but I think they speak to Christian Orthodoxy too. Not just Big-O Eastern Orthodoxy, but all the Little-o orthodoxies that are showing up all over the place with upper-case letters any way: “Orthodox Anglicans” and “Orthodox Presbyterians”, etc. Both of these are quoted in Dynamic Judaism: the Essential Writings of Mordecai Kaplan.
The salvation of Judaism cannot come either from Orthodoxy or from Reform. Orthodoxy is altogether out of keeping with the march of human thought. It has no regard for the world view of the contemporary mind. Nothing can be more repugnant to the thinking man of today than the fundamental doctrine of Orthodoxy, which is that tradition is infallible. Such infallibility could be believed in as long as the human mind thought of God and revelation in semi-mythological terms. Then it was conceivable that a quasi-human being could hand down laws and histories in articulate form. Being derived from a supramundane source, these laws and histories, together with the ideas based on them, could not but be regarded as free from all the errors and shortcomings of the human mind. Whenever a tradition contradicts some facts too patent to be denied, or falls below some accepted moral standard, resort is had to artificial interpretations that flout all canons of history and exegesis. The doctrine of infallibility rules out of court all research and criticism, and demands implicit faith in the truth of whatever has come down from the past. It precludes all conscious development in thought and practice and deprives Judaism of the power to survive in an environment that permits of free contact with non-Jewish civilisations.
There are, no doubt, a few who manage to acquire a high degree of modern culture and even to achieve distinction in some branches of modern knowledge without finding themselves intellectually at variance with Orthodoxy. They belong to those who see no need for welding tradition and experience into a unitary organised mental background. They willingly subscribe to the medieval principle that Torah and philosophy have nothing to do with each other, because it saves them a great deal of mental bother. But such is only a small eddy in the main current of Jewish life.
From A Program for the Reconstruction of Judaism in The Menorah Journal 6:4 (Aug 1920).
Nineteenth-century Reform in German had aimed at the following three objectives: (1) the substitution of a rationalist attitude to tradition for the on based on unquestioning faith, (2) the elimination of those religious observances and prayers which emphasised the particularistic aspect of Judaism, and (3) the shifting of emphasis from the legalistic to the prophetic aspect of Judaism. To counteract that threefold program, Orthodoxy proposed a program of its own, which called for the following: (1) faith in the supernatural origin of the written and oral Torah, (2) maintenance of all traditional observances and forms of worship, and (3) the continuance of the study of Torah in the traditional sprit. This program was intended to rule out any possibility of compromising with modernism. In practice, however, Orthodoxy did not shut out completely all tendencies that conflicted with tradition.
The entire style of thought in Reform bears the imprint of Protestant theology and philosophy. Jewish Orthodoxy, on the other hand, clearly reflects the style of thought characteristic of Catholic theology. That may explain in party why Orthodoxy attained its greatest strength in the Catholic part of Germany. The reaction of the Orthodox Jews against the modernist emphasis upon reason and the spirit of the times was very similar to that displayed by the Catholics among whom they lived. The spokesmen of Orthodoxy maintained that to recognise the primacy of reason was to place oneself outside of Judaism. They maintained that the authoritative character of traditional Judaism should be sufficient to validate whatever demands it makes on the Jew. Those demands, they argued, are intrinsically meant to be a challenge to whatever happens to be be the spirit of the times, rather than a concession to it. For (Rabbi) Samson Raphael Hirsch, the essence of modernity is the humanist assumption that salvation consists in the achievement of happiness and self-perfection. That assumption, according to him, is morally and spiritually untrue.
From The Greater Judaism in the Making.
Although these quotes contrast a “protestant” Reform Judaism with a “catholic” Orthdooxy, I think Christianity had to wait until the latter part of the 20th Century to arrive at that apotheosis of the Reformation, “Progressive Christianity”. And, when I (in a later post) cite Kaplan’s critique of Reform Judaism, I think it makes a more apt parallel to talk about parallels with the Progressive Christianity of a Jack Spong or Andrew Greeley than, eg, the simple Protestantism of a Billy Graham or a Rowan Williams.
Ah yes,
Another triumphalistic screed from the era of Logical Positivism! This was quite typical of the attitude of the cognosceti in the 1920’s. See, for example http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logical_positivism
Note that Logical Positivism questioned all metaphysics as having much of any meaning. That is precisely what your quote above is doing. Logical Positivism actually lasted quite a long long time, all the way until the latter part of the 20th century.
Post-modernism destroyed Logical Positivism as partaking of some of the same errors as the metaphysics it decried.
I never read these as screeds - remember tone is in the reader’s head. So while your comment sounds very dismissive I recognise that tone to be in my head! Thanks for the link, btw: I’ve never had “positivism” quite well explained to me.
Bear with me for a while: I’m going some where. Kaplan was the founder of Reconstructionism so I don’t think he was quite “destroyed” by post-modernism.
“There are, no doubt, a few who manage to acquire a high degree of modern culture and even to achieve distinction in some branches of modern knowledge without finding themselves intellectually at variance with Orthodoxy.”
I just finished reading Decoding the Universe: How the New Science of Information Is Explaining Everything in the Cosmos, from Our Brains to Black Holes by Charles Seife, and I found NOTHING in either the macro, quantum, or meta-physics he explains that would run contrary to an orthodox faith. This includes multiverses, alternate or parallel worlds. Instead I found much there to support (or bear out) scriptural truths.
“They belong to those who see no need for welding tradition and experience into a unitary organised mental background.”
See above. The search for a unified theory does not threaten religiosity except where religiosity is misplaced, or science is misguided, or even misquoted by its own exponents.
“They willingly subscribe to the medieval principle that Torah and philosophy have nothing to do with each other, because it saves them a great deal of mental bother.”
Wasn’t the medieval when the scientific was natural philosophy and thoroughly intermingled with religion, mystery, alchemy, and superstition?
“But such is only a small eddy in the main current of Jewish life.”
I need to call BS on the closing paragraph.
This early sentence: “Whenever a tradition contradicts some facts too patent to be denied, or falls below some accepted moral standard, resort is had to artificial interpretations that flout all canons of history and exegesis.”
Seems a sweeping generality. I get the feeling he is not discussing observational facts, ie., earth rotating around the sun, but some social behavior, or other discrepancy with histories: fable vs. historical figure, such as Ruth…
First sentence is a funny study in itself isn’t it? Isreal, judaism is recorded as always wanting to find salvation “within itself” in some form or another, rather than repent and face the mystery of God, and yet always its salvation is by God’s hand.
I think this just mirrors the rebellion of the human heart.
THe Orthodox Faith he is referring to here is a fundamentalist sort: literal 6 day creation, the world only 5768 years old, etc.
I think “Salvation of Judaism” refers to the saving of it - not “salvation” as Christians understand it. There is, of course, no such thing in Judaism. He is suggesting that neither the radical fundamentalism of Orthodoxy nor the “toss-everything-out” liberalism of Reform is the right way to go forward. I’ve said the same thing in a Christian context: neither adherence to dead tradition just because it’s tradition nor rejection of tradition just because it’s tradition is the right way to go forward.
You’re citing a mediaeval *Christian* period. Jews were not part of that movement.