Monday, July 18, 2011

Torah: What is the View of Reconstructionist Judaism?

By Linda Levin, Kehillah Chadashah President

Recently, our Reconstructionist Congregation was the recipient of two Torot from members of Beth Shalom Congregation, Chiel and Olga Wind and Marty and Eileen Levine. While it is unfortunate that these donations were the result of Beth Shalom closing, our Congregation is grateful and appreciative for these donations. We are a new community (Kehillah Chadashah) and these Torot will live on and breathe new life into our Congregation.

The donations of these Torot caused me to think about how Reconstructionist Judaism views Torah and I came across an article by Rabbi Lester Bronstein from Bet Am Shalom Synagogue in White Plains, NY that he wrote for the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College called A Crash Course on Reconstructionist Judaism.

This is how he explained it:

“Torah tells us that the Torah was dictated by God to Moses, and then transmitted through the generations. Reconstructionist Jews see the Torah as the Jewish people's response to God's presence in the world (and not God's gift to us). That is to say, the Jews wrote the Torah. But that is not to say that the Torah is merely a human creation. It is a response to the sacred. It is an attempt to convince an entire people to view everyday life in a sacred way. The essential Torah consists in the truth deep within [the] stories, a truth that radiates a picture of a society based on courts of justice and on social empathy. God didn't write that Torah, since God does not write per se. But God is everywhere in the details of it.”

For the full article and what Rabbi Bronstein eloquently explains regarding the Reconstructionist beliefs on Prayer and Ritual and Mitzvot, go to this link:
http://www.rrc.edu/resources/reconstructionist-resources/what-reconstructionist-judaism.