koberstein
Active member
REFORM JUDAISM AROSE IN GERMANY IN THE EARLY 1800s BOTH AS A
reaction against what some Jews regarded as Orthodox rigidity and backwardness,
and as a response to Germany's new, more liberal political climate----a climate
that seemed to be open to Jews who were willing to drop traditions that isolated
them from their German neighbors. Of the three pillars of Judaism----God, Torah,
and peoplehood----Reform radically altered the last two.
Most significantly, it dropped the belief that the Jews are a people. Rather, argued
the movement's leading thinkers, Judaism is only a religion: Jews have no special feelings
of kinship with other Jews, particularity not for those living in other lands.
With regard to Torah, or the Jewish law, Reform's earliest changes largely consisted of
reforming the synagogue service. In light of the movement's opposition to peoplehood and
Jewish nationalism, prayers for a return to Palestine were dropped. In addition, some prayers
were recited in German, and the rabbi gave a sermon in that language as well.
Strangely enough, the German sermon vexed the Orthodox leadership to no end; some
Orthodox rabbis even tried to influence the German government to ban such sermons
because they supposedly constituted a forbidden religious innovation. The Orthodox
lost that battle: Not long thereafter, many of their own Rabbis were giving talks in German.
In order to elevate the aesthetic experience of prayer, the Reform services often were
accompanied by an organist, Since traditional Jewish law opposes the playing of instruments
on the "Sabbath", this innovation particularly inflamed traditional Jews.
The contemporary Reform theologian Jakob Petuchowski has compared nineteenth-century
Reform Judaism to a train station leading some alienated Jews back into the fold while
simultaneously taking others on the road from Judaism to Christianity.
reaction against what some Jews regarded as Orthodox rigidity and backwardness,
and as a response to Germany's new, more liberal political climate----a climate
that seemed to be open to Jews who were willing to drop traditions that isolated
them from their German neighbors. Of the three pillars of Judaism----God, Torah,
and peoplehood----Reform radically altered the last two.
Most significantly, it dropped the belief that the Jews are a people. Rather, argued
the movement's leading thinkers, Judaism is only a religion: Jews have no special feelings
of kinship with other Jews, particularity not for those living in other lands.
With regard to Torah, or the Jewish law, Reform's earliest changes largely consisted of
reforming the synagogue service. In light of the movement's opposition to peoplehood and
Jewish nationalism, prayers for a return to Palestine were dropped. In addition, some prayers
were recited in German, and the rabbi gave a sermon in that language as well.
Strangely enough, the German sermon vexed the Orthodox leadership to no end; some
Orthodox rabbis even tried to influence the German government to ban such sermons
because they supposedly constituted a forbidden religious innovation. The Orthodox
lost that battle: Not long thereafter, many of their own Rabbis were giving talks in German.
In order to elevate the aesthetic experience of prayer, the Reform services often were
accompanied by an organist, Since traditional Jewish law opposes the playing of instruments
on the "Sabbath", this innovation particularly inflamed traditional Jews.
The contemporary Reform theologian Jakob Petuchowski has compared nineteenth-century
Reform Judaism to a train station leading some alienated Jews back into the fold while
simultaneously taking others on the road from Judaism to Christianity.
