Wednesday, November 09, 2005
Because Conservative Jews can't read Hebrew?
From Gil Student's blog:
The gist seems to be that Orthodox Jews are strict constructionists of "Torah" as a "national Constitution," and Conservative Jews aren't. Additionally, they may believe (gasp!) that both the oral and written Torahs weren't literally given directly to the hand of Moshe. Therefore, Conservative Judaism is a "religion," it just isn't Judaism, and thus, Conservative Jews can't be [Orthodox] rabbis.
I feel a huge wave of loss going through the Conservative Jewish community now. Really... :-D
UPDATE: The original author (R. Bechhofer) replied in a comment that he didn't translate it himself because it was written for a Hebrew journal, and he didn't have a chance to translate it. I still think this is funny.
Technorati tags: Conservative, Orthodox, Judaism
R. Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer writes about why he thinks it is inappropriate for a Conservative Jew to be ordained as a rabbi. I am assuming that he left it in Hebrew intentionally so I will not translate it.
The gist seems to be that Orthodox Jews are strict constructionists of "Torah" as a "national Constitution," and Conservative Jews aren't. Additionally, they may believe (gasp!) that both the oral and written Torahs weren't literally given directly to the hand of Moshe. Therefore, Conservative Judaism is a "religion," it just isn't Judaism, and thus, Conservative Jews can't be [Orthodox] rabbis.
I feel a huge wave of loss going through the Conservative Jewish community now. Really... :-D
UPDATE: The original author (R. Bechhofer) replied in a comment that he didn't translate it himself because it was written for a Hebrew journal, and he didn't have a chance to translate it. I still think this is funny.
Technorati tags: Conservative, Orthodox, Judaism
