Rabbi Elliot Cosgrove
February 10, 2007

When I, along with 5000 other members of the Conservative movement, was asked to fill out an opinion survey on the subject of gay and lesbian ordination, I was of two distinct minds.

The survey was commissioned by Chancellor Elect Arnold Eisen and conducted by Steven Cohen, the foremost social scientist of American Jewry, with the Co-Sponsorship of the Rabbinical Assembly and the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism. The results of the recent survey were made public this past week, and were prefaced by Eisen with the following explanatory note: “Our intent was and is to know what Conservative Jews — rabbis and cantors, educators and executives, board members and students — think about the matter before us: admitting and ordaining/investing openly gay and lesbian students in the rabbinical and cantorial schools.”   While the findings of the study are still being interpreted, initial results of the survey’s results reveal an overwhelming margin of the Movement support gay ordination.

So why the two minds?

First, the good.  At this critical and transformative moment, when the Conservative movement is welcoming new leadership, sorting out its stance on the divisive issue of homosexuality and asking searching questions on its place in the landscape of contemporary Jewry, Chancellor Eisen should be applauded for encouraging an open conversation.  Such gestures towards transparency and denominational conversation will yield immeasurable good will from the entire movement.  I, like many of my colleagues, appreciate the simple gesture of “being asked” what we think as our movement treads cautiously into new terrain.  The arrival of the survey, Chancellor Eisen’s year long “listening tour,” have come like a breath of fresh air, reinvigorating a stalled quest for ideological consensus and coherence amongst Conservative Jews.  If this survey is emblematic of Eisen’s leadership style as Chancellor, then, many would argue, this first step is an altogether exciting indication of things to come.

And yet as a Conservative Rabbi, I could not help but question the very act of filling out such a survey.  With every question, I found myself wondering whether the exercise itself ran contrary to the classical model of Jewish legal decision making.  To put it bluntly, opinion surveys, the treasured tools of social scientists, are perhaps the antithesis of religious decision makers.  Just consider the parasha that we read this morning.  The entire system of Jewish law is contingent on the powerful religious dogma that God’s will was revealed at Mount Sinai with the Israelites responding “We will do and we will hear.”  I assure you, when God was considering the content of the Torah, there was no polling data, no listening tour, no survey results.  You may be well familiar with the famous Talmudic sugya (b. Shabbat 88a) in which God suspends Mount Sinai over the heads of the Israelites “Kafah aleihem et ha-har ke-gigit.”  The Israelites were given the choice of whether to accept the law or to refuse and the mountain would fall.  Coercive – perhaps, effective – absolutely.

And the student of Judaism knows full well that this week’s parasha is not merely the source of all subsequent Jewish law, but the paradigm by which Jewish law has come to be understood.  Halakha, the rules and regulations by which a Jew ‘walks’ through life, operates on the sacred premise that the entirety of Jewish legislation, from its biblical to talmudic sources, through hundreds of years of codified law and teshuvot, derive their authority from their initial transmission from God to Moses at Mount Sinai.    Often cited is the self authorizing rabbinic dictum that “Even what a veteran student will one day set forth before his teacher was already said to Moses at Sinai.” (b. Megillah 19b) Thus while any historian of halakha can readily identify its dynamic nature and responsiveness to historical context, the entire system is contingent on the powerful religious dogma that the Word and Law of God was revealed at one moment and is unchanging and eternally applicable. 

And so while Eisen makes clear that the polling data will not dictate policy, but simply serve as one of many deciding factors, I could not shake the worrying feeling that the survey results may become the dog wagging the tail called halakha, a turn of events which is, to put it bluntly, out of whack with the natural order of things. As Eisen moves from the “campus” to the “seminary,” he must remember that the difference between a social scientist and a religious leader is a big one, the least of which not being, the difference between giving descriptive assessments and offering prescriptive leadership responsive to but not beholden to a laity.  If this survey is emblematic of Eisen’s leadership style as Chancellor, then, many would argue, this first step is an altogether ominous indication of things to come.

Rhetoric aside, the truth is that it is not an either/or proposition.  Given the choice between a vox populi style of Judaism, dictated by the proclivities of Jewish communities, and a, literally, top down approach to Judaism, dictated by the authority of Mount Sinai – neither is without ample advocates and critics.  More than once in the Talmud a dispute of law is resolved with the dictum "Puk Hazei Mai Amma Davar,” “go see what the people are doing" (Berachot 45a, Eruvin 14b), as if to say that the word on the street is a reflection of the divine word.  And yet, nobody would be so naïve to believe that the law should follow whatever the popular practice was or has come to be. Nobody, not a parent, not a classroom teacher, a businesswoman and certainly not a religious leader would ever dare allow its laity to set its agenda.  But then again, none of these leaders would ever dream of setting their agendas without their laity in mind.

It was none other than the Movement’s founding American ideologue Solomon Schechter who coined the term “Catholic Israel,” as a middling term to steer between these two equally unsatisfying options.  Unlike Reform’s emphasis on personal autonomy and Orthodoxy’s insistence on the indisputable authority of the past, Schechter situated the authority of Jewish decision making in a core, committed group, who, “being in touch with the ideal aspirations and the religious needs of the age…” is best able to formulate the rules and practice of Judaism. There are many flaws to Schechter’s notion of Catholic Israel, some of which Schechter himself was well aware.  But we would do well to recognize the altogether commendable religious instincts that gave it expression.  Faced with the unacceptable proposition that Jewish life either be framed under the shadow of Mount Sinai, or subject to the whims of the individual practitioner, Schechter chose a third path.  It may or may not work for you personally, but one cannot begrudge Schechter for seeking to negotiate a path loyal to his religious and intellectual commitments.

Perhaps more than Schechter could have ever imagined we live in an age where the “sovereign self” reigns supreme.  American Jews, through no fault of their own, live in a world governed by the questions “what works for me?”  From Ipods to personal blogs to Peapod food delivery to Youtube, our age is one where individual consumers are increasingly able to set the terms of how they engage with society.  This week I just read in the WSJ an article explaining the shifting economics of weeknight television, because, given the gift of TiVo people are able to watch what they want, when they want, with or without commercials.  These are not bad things, quite the contrary, in many respects these are wonderful developments – but I can tell you that the Jewish community has found itself applying this same consumerist mentality to its faith.  Indeed long before Eisen and Cohen teamed up for their present survey, the duo co-wrote a book “The Jew Within: Self, Family and Community in America.”  The book, itself a summary of findings of a far-reaching survey of American Jewry, identifies the single greatest challenge to contemporary American Jewry to be how to market an ancient faith to a Jewish community insistent that their faith takes on the same personalist cast as the rest of their lives.

There are no easy answers to these questions.   As Rabbi Yohannan said in the Talmud (b. Eruvin 27b), if someone will be good enough to provide the answer I will gladly take his change of garments to the bathhouse for him.  When it comes to the task of formulating a Jewish expression both rooted in the past and responsive to the present - facile answers will undoubtedly prove to be untenable.  We can argue until we are blue in the face about gay ordination, an important issue to be sure, but it is neither the first, nor the last, nor for that matter the most critical issue facing Conservative Judaism.  The most critical conversation will be found in our ability to formulate a vision for Jewish life that reflects our loyalty to Judaism and the reality of Jews.  In short, the problematic legacy of Schechter remains the commission of Eisen; it was and remains the most intriguing and pressing issue facing American Jewry today. 

I have shared one midrash regarding Mount Sinai, and I would like to conclude with another.  The Midrash (Pesikta De Rab Kahana 12:25) picks up on the fact that while the Torah was given by God to all 600,000 Israelites, God’s first commandment “I am the Lord your God” is framed, oddly, in the second person singular.  The midrash explains that one of the miracles of Sinai was that each Israelite understood him and herself as being addressed personally.  Like the mannah itself, the Sinaitic revelation, though emanating from one source, tasted different to each Israelite, as varied as the number of Israelites present, each according to his or her own capacity.  The midrash is a gentle reminder that long before our days of surveys and social scientists, the Rabbis were already seeking to straddle the competing impulses of Sinai and the sovereign self.  It is a balancing act, that may not be ours to resolve, but as Conservative Jews continues to be our distinctive charge.  And, as you well know, there is no other conversation of which I would want to be a part.