View source for Criticism of Conservative Judaism

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{{Criticism of Judaism}}
'''Criticism of Conservative Judaism''' is widespread in the [[Orthodox Judaism|Orthodox Jewish community]], although the movement also has its critics in [[Reform Judaism]] and in other streams of Judaism{{Citation needed|date=November 2022|reason=Need some more general sources to provide evidence for the criticism from all areas}}.  While the [[Conservative Judaism|Conservative movement]] professes fidelity to Jewish tradition, it considers ''[[Halakha]]'' (Jewish [[religious law]]) to be a dynamic process that needs reinterpreting in modern times. The criticism by Orthodox Jews and traditionalists within the movement itself revolves around the following:

* Conservative Judaism, or some of its [[Conservative responsa|decisions]] and [[Conservative Halakha|positions]] does not follow halakha, according to many Orthodox Jews, because:
** The legal analyses of its [[Committee on Jewish Law and Standards|rabbinate]] [[Deconstruction|deconstruct]] or manipulate [[Mitzvah|religious obligations]], rather than being faithful to and fostering respect for them;
** It issues "emergency decrees" in the absence of legitimate emergencies, rather than following a legitimate, faithful, or reverential approach to halakha; 
** Its decisions consistently lead to more lax, rather than stringent or balanced observance; 
** It generally makes communal decrees through a council of (often lay) leaders, rather than relying exclusively on Talmudic scholars, resulting in decisions reflecting popular opinion rather than scholarship; and
** Accommodating the values and likeness of the broader society has taken precedence over a dedication to the internal integrity of halakhic sources.

Critics also claim that the legal analysis of the Conservative movement tends to be ideologically driven, resulting in intended outcomes to such an extent that it is outside the bounds of traditional halakhic analysis.

==Criticism from Orthodoxy==
From [[Haredi Judaism]] perspective, criticism is exemplified by Rabbi [[Avi Shafran]] of [[Agudath Israel of America]]. Shafran wrote in 2001 that the Conservative movement's leaders "trample" halakha while proclaiming fealty to it. He argued that the movement was a failure because nearly three-quarters of Conservative Jews said that they [[Who is a Jew?|consider a Jew]] to be anyone raised Jewish, even if his or her mother was a gentile—the official Reform position, rejected by Conservative leaders as nonhalachic.<ref>Safran cited a study of Conservative congregants conducted by the [[Jewish Theological Seminary of America|Jewish Theological Seminary’s]] Jack Wertheimer in 1996. Shafran also noted that only about half of Conservative [[B'nai Mitzvah|bar and bat mitzvah]] receptions were [[kosher]], by any standard.</ref> Shafran further argued that Conservative Judaism "movement is not honest" because, though stating its commitment to halakhah (Jewish law), it approved the [[Ordination of women#Judaism|ordination of women]] based on a commission containing mostly laypeople and only one Talmud scholar. Shafran stated that the movement should have relied on the [[Talmud]] faculty of JTS.<ref>Shafran also stated that the decision was made against faculty wishes. He cited Rabbi [[Daniel Gordis]], former dean of the [[University of Judaism|University of Judaism’s]] [[Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies]] for stating that “the Conservative Movement allows its laity to set its religious agenda.”{{Cite web |url=http://www.jewishamerica.com/ja/features/ConLie.cfm |title=The Conservative Lie |accessdate=13 January 2009 |date=February 2001 |publisher=Moment Magazine |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20090129182155/http://jewishamerica.com/ja/features/ConLie.cfm |archivedate=29 January 2009 }}</ref><ref>[[Avi Shafran]], [https://web.archive.org/web/20060106063953/http://www.momentmag.com/archive/feb01/feat2.html "The Conservative Lie"], ''[[Moment (magazine)|Moment]]'', February 2001.</ref> Similarly, in 2006, Rabbi Shafran criticized the decision by the Conservative movement's [[Committee on Jewish Law and Standards]] to adopt a [[responsum]] liberalizing its position on homosexual conduct. Shafran repeated his assertion that the Conservative movement, despite its "claim of halachic integrity", did not follow the "true halachic process".<ref>Avi Shafran, [http://jta-vip.mediapolis.com/cgi-bin/iowa/news/article/20070101Conservativedecisio.html "Conservative vote chance for halachic Jews to go Orthodox"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070321131742/http://jta-vip.mediapolis.com/cgi-bin/iowa/news/article/20070101Conservativedecisio.html |date=2007-03-21 }}, [[Jewish Telegraphic Agency]], December 7, 2006.</ref>

Moreover, Rabbi [[Avi Weiss]], an [[Open Orthodoxy|Open Orthodox]] rabbi on the left wing of Orthodox Judaism, also characterized the differences between Orthodox and Conservative Judaism in a manner critical of the Conservative approach:

:Despite variations in style and approach, the system that we hold as holy sets us fundamentally apart from our Conservative co-religionists whose vision of the Jewish legal process is so very different in each of these three fundamental areas of Halakha: ''[[Torah|Torah mi-Sinai]]'' ["Torah from Sinai", the belief that the Torah was given by God to Moses on Mount Sinai], rabbinic interpretation, and rabbinic legislation.

:The belief in ''Torah mi-Sinai'' is, for all Orthodox Jews, the foundation of faith and at the core of the halakhic process. Conservative Judaism does not subscribe to this teaching{{Citation needed|date=November 2022|reason=Do we have definitive evidence that CJ doesn't subscribe officially to this?}}. Moreover, in the area of rabbinic law, we Orthodox—Modern and Right alike—contend that legal authority is cumulative, and that a contemporary ''[[posek]]'' (legal decisor) can only issue judgments based on a full history of Jewish [[legal precedent]]. In contrast, the implicit argument of the Conservative movement is that precedent provides illustrations of possible positions rather than binding law. Conservatism, therefore, remains free to select whichever position within the prior legal history appeals to it. Likewise, we adhere and turn to the wisdom of the most distinguished religio-legal authorities in making Halakhic determinations. Not so the Conservatives. Truth be told, when the Conservative movement faced some of its most controversial "new ''halakhot''", such as the ordination of women, it turned away from its own Talmudic scholars and experts in Halakha, who had almost universally rejected the reasoning on which this new practice was to be based, and who have since virtually all left the faculty of the Jewish Theological Seminary.

:Finally, in understanding the value of rabbinic law legislated by today's rabbis, it must be appreciated that at this juncture in our people's history in [[United States|America]], the Orthodox community is blessed with large numbers of ritually observant Jews. Across the spectrum of Orthodoxy, myriads of people meticulously keep [[Shabbat]] (the Sabbath), [[Kashrut]] (the Dietary Laws), ''[[Niddah|Taharat ha-mishapahah]]'' (the Laws of Family Purity) and pray three times a day. Thus, if a "permissive custom" is accepted, it can become binding. This is not true of Conservatism's constituency, which is generally not composed of ritually-observant Jews. Thus, only in our community if a "permissive custom" is accepted, can it be meaningful.<ref>[[Avraham Weiss]], {{cite web |url= http://www.yctorah.org/component/option,com_docman/task,doc_download/gid,143 |title= "Open Orthodoxy! A Modern Orthodox Rabbi's Creed" |url-status= dead |archiveurl= https://web.archive.org/web/20070928083202/http://www.yctorah.org/component/option%2Ccom_docman/task%2Cdoc_download/gid%2C143 |archivedate= 2007-09-28 }}&nbsp;{{small|(766&nbsp;[[Kibibyte|KiB]])}}, ''Judaism'', Fall 1997.</ref>

==Criticism from Conservative traditionalists==
At the 2006 convention of the [[Rabbinical Assembly]], the Conservative movement's official rabbinical organization, Rabbi [[Ismar Schorsch]] said that the Conservative movement had "lost faith in itself" and "become Reform".<ref name="Forward">Jennifer Siegel, [http://www.forward.com/articles/6796/ "Conservative Rabbi, in Swan Song, Warns Against Liberal Shift"], ''[[The Jewish Daily Forward]]'', March 24, 2006.</ref>

In an interview, Rabbi Schorsch, who was about to retire as [[Chancellor (education)|Chancellor]] of the Jewish Theological Seminary, criticized rabbis and activists who were lobbying to change the Conservative movement's opposition to [[same-sex union]]s and the [[Semicha|ordination]] of gay clergy. He described their methods as using scholarship to overturn halakha rather than to foster appreciation of it.

:If the Conservative movement chooses to do something at the expense of the halachic system, then it's going to pay the price down the road... The erosion of our fidelity to Halacha is what brings us close to Reform Judaism.<ref name="Forward"/>

Rabbi Schorsch made similar criticism two months later in his final [[commencement address]] at Jewish Theological Seminary, in which he spoke of the "malaise of Conservative Judaism", its "impoverishment", and its "grievous failure of nerve". He also criticized the Seminary, one of the chief academic and intellectual institutions of Conservative Judaism:

:In the wake of [[Mordecai Kaplan]]'s wholesale reduction of halakhah to [[Folkways (sociology)|folkways]], the function of history shifted to vindicating change. Ever more identified by the inane mantra of "tradition and change," Conservative Judaism lost access to critical scholarship as a source for religious meaning, with nothing substantially spiritual to replace it. ...

:Our impoverishment is sadly exemplified by the ambivalence toward critical scholarship in ''Etz Hayim'', the movement's new ''[[humash]]''. As commentary, the abridgement of the [[Jewish Publication Society]] Torah Commentary is so eviscerated as to betray not the slightest trace of the plenitude of the original to generate spiritual meaning through empathetic scholarship. As exposition, the end notes, with a few striking exceptions, are spiritually inert. Their rabbinic authors go through the paces without passion, making no effort to extract religious significance from the scholarship being mediated. While Conservative rabbis often chide the research oriented faculty of JTS for allegedly doing just that in their classes, as transmitters of scholarship, the rabbis replicated what they condemn. Ironically, the rare spiritual voice to be heard in the end notes usually emanates from one or another of the academics in the roster. ...

:With history no more than an argument for supersession, the halakhic yoke has lost its lightness. Great scholarship has ceased to energize it as it had in the past. Once, the polarity of truth and faith at the Seminary had made it home for the acme of twentieth-century Jewish scholarship, a venue of ferment and fertility. Faith once moved us to study our heritage deeply, while truth asked of us that we do it critically, in light of all that we know. Willful ignorance was never an acceptable recourse. The interaction set us apart as the vital center of modern Judaism.

:With frequency, fundamental changes come more easily. Our forebearers embraced history to enlarge and enrich Jewish observance; we wield it, if at all, to shrink it. How quickly have we forgotten the bracing spiritual power of [[Gershom Scholem|Gershon Scholem's]] ''Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism'', [[Yehezkel Kaufmann|Yehezkel Kaufmann's]] ''Religion of Israel'', [[Saul Lieberman|Saul Lieberman's]] ''Hellenism in Jewish Palestine'', [[Nahum M. Sarna|Nahum Sarna's]] ''Understanding Genesis'', or [[Jacob Milgrom|Jacob Milgrom's]] commentaries to [[Leviticus]] and [[Book of Numbers|Numbers]]. Our addiction to instant gratification has stripped us of the patience to appreciate any discourse whose rhetoric is dense and demanding. Mindlessly, we grasp for the quick spiritual fix.

:A grievous failure of nerve affects Conservative Judaism. We have lost confidence in the viability of the distinctive polarity that once resonated within. It is not a slick new motto that we need, but a vigorous reaffirmation of the old which gloriously captures our essence. When [[Solomon Schechter|Schechter]] left England in 1902 to head the Seminary, he inveighed against [[History of the Jews in England|Anglo–Jewry]] for its shallow quest for a decorous spiritual Judaism. What the confounding epoch of [[Jewish Emancipation|emancipation]] actually called for, he claimed, was more spiritual Jews. To educate and inspire Jews of such sturdy timbre remains the unaltered mission of a vastly expanded Seminary in an age of pampered and promiscuous individualists contemptuous of all norms. A Seminary true to itself still holds out the brightest beacon for the future of Conservative Judaism.<ref>Ismar Schorsch, [http://www.jtsa.edu/about/communications/speeches/sca.shtml Commencement Address] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070419092452/http://www.jtsa.edu/about/communications/speeches/sca.shtml |date=2007-04-19 }}, 112th Commencement Exercises of The Jewish Theological Seminary, May 18, 2006.</ref>

Rabbi [[David Golinkin]], the chair of the Masorti movement's ''[[Va'ad Halakha]]'' (Israel's counterpart to the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards), criticized the Conservative movement's proposal to liberalize its position on homosexual conduct. He wrote that such a change would "split the Conservative movement in two ... drive away the most halakhically observant laypeople in our synagogues, and ... have a devastating effect on the Conservative movement throughout the world." According to Rabbi Golinkin, if the Conservative movement adopted such a change, most Israelis would see little difference between the Masorti movement (Israeli Conservative Judaism in Israel) and Reform Judaism.<ref name="Prouser">[[Joseph Prouser|Joseph H. Prouser]], [http://www.uscj.org/The_Conservative_Mov7074.html "The Conservative Movement and Homosexuality: Settled Law in Unsettling Times"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070429173219/http://www.uscj.org/The_Conservative_Mov7074.html |date=2007-04-29 }}, ''United Synagogue Review'', Fall 2006.</ref>

Rabbi [[Joseph Prousser]], a member of the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards, also lobbied against the proposal, arguing that its adoption would result in "a fractured Conservative movement" that is "rendered less viable". He wrote that adopting such a change would represent a "failure of moral and religious leadership" and that such a significant change would diminish the Conservative rabbinate's ability to provide meaningful religious guidance to its congregants:

:Such sweeping change in Jewish law will make the Law Committee and the Conservative rabbinate poor role models for our religious charges. If we essentially declare so fundamental a halachic obligation inoperative, based on a minority’s subjective reading of contemporary reality, how can we deny individual Jews unbridled autonomy in determining which demands of Jewish law remain binding and personally meaningful? Jewish law would be rendered unrecognizable—as law—to our laity, and to all but the most erudite and progressive legal theorists. ...

:Lending credence to the notion that a person’s core identity is defined by physical drives and sexual desire represents a failure of moral and religious leadership. Rabbinic discourse that even unintentionally vests [[moral authority]] in the inclination of the individual, rather than in the will of a commanding God, seems a far graver transgression than prohibited, albeit loving, expressions of intimacy between homosexuals.<ref name="Prouser"/>

After the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards adopted the responsum liberalizing its position on homosexual conduct, Rabbi Prouser and three other members of the Committee—Rabbis [[Joel Roth (rabbi)|Joel Roth]], [[Mayer Rabinowitz]], and [[Leonard Levy (rabbi)|Leonard Levy]]—resigned in protest.

==Criticism from Reform Jews==
Rabbi Paul Menitoff, Executive Vice President of the Reform movement's [[Central Conference of American Rabbis]], wrote in a 2004 essay that Conservative Judaism would either merge with Reform Judaism or "disappear".<ref name="Cohen">Debra Nussbaum Cohen, [http://www.thejewishweek.com/news/newscontent.php3?artid=9154 "Reform Leader Predicts Demise Of Conservatives"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20050330085302/http://www.thejewishweek.com/news/newscontent.php3?artid=9154 |date=2005-03-30 }}, ''[[The Jewish Week]]'', March 5, 2004.</ref> Rabbi Menitoff said that the Conservative movement's policies were at odds with the principles of its young adult members on issues such as [[Interreligious marriage#Judaism|intermarriage]], [[Patrilineality|patrilineal descent]], and the ordination of lesbians and gay men—all issues that Conservative Judaism then-opposed yet Reform Judaism supported.<ref name="Cohen"/><ref name="Berkofsky">Joe Berkofsky, [http://www.jewishsf.com/content/2-0-/module/displaystory/story_id/21714/edition_id/441/format/html/displaystory.html "Death of Conservative Judaism? Reform leader’s swipe sparks angry rebuttals"], ''[[J. The Jewish News of Northern California]]'', March 5, 2004.</ref> (The Conservative movement has since liberalized its policy concerning the ordination of gay clergy.<ref>[[Laurie Goodstein]], 
[https://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/07/us/07jews.html?ex=1323147600&en=d9af0c2c2de39221&ei=5088&partner ''Conservative Jews Allow Gay Rabbis and Unions''], [[The New York Times]], 2006.</ref>) To support his prediction, Rabbi Menitoff described Conservative Judaism's dilemma:

:If the Conservative movement capitulates regarding these core differences between Reform and Conservative Judaism, it will be essentially obliterating the need for its existence. If, alternatively, it stands firm, its congregants will vote with their feet.<ref name="Berkofsky"/>

Rabbi Menitoff's essay drew criticism from Conservative rabbis, two of whom described his prediction as "off base"<ref name="Cohen"/> and "wishful thinking".<ref name="Berkofsky"/> Rabbi Ismar Schorsch, then Chancellor of the Jewish Theological Seminary, pointed out that "at the beginning of the 20th century, all the Jewish pundits predicted the demise of Orthodoxy, and they all proved dead wrong. So Rabbi Menitoff has good company in bad predictions."<ref name="Cohen"/>

==Criticism from third-wave feminists==
Some [[third-wave feminist]]s have criticized Conservative Judaism's [[Role of women in Judaism#Conservative Judaism|efforts at integrating women]] as half-hearted attempts at [[egalitarianism]]. Instead of maintaining a traditional approach to worship and treating women as if they were men, what Dr. [[Rachel Adler]] calls "honorary men", some have suggested that the Conservative movement cannot become truly egalitarian until it reinterprets Judaism to reflect the perspectives and experiences of women.

In her 1998 book ''Engendering Judaism: An Inclusive Theology and Ethics'', Adler wrote:

:For many Conservative congregations, counting women in the [[minyan]] and [[Torah reading|calling them up to the Torah]] are recent innovations. But ... egalitarian Judaisms may tolerate women as participants by ignoring their distinctive experiences and concerns as women.<ref>[[Rachel Adler]], 
''Engendering Judaism: An Inclusive Theology and Ethics'', [[Jewish Publication Society]], 1998. p.&nbsp;62.</ref>

==References ==
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{{Conservative Judaism}}

[[Category:Conservative Judaism]]
[[Category:Criticism of Judaism| ]]