Here's a comment I left at a Reform Judaism website, in reaction to what the rabbi said.Dear Rabbi ___,
You say the Reform movement takes a "... thousands-year-old tradition to renew it everyday."
May I remind you there is NO tradition of the Reform movement, but rather the tradition of the Orthodox movement - simply because Reform Judaism has no tradition beyond that which remains after two or three generations, which by that time is practically nil. Reform Jews of today are not the descendants of Reform Jewry of the past. Within only 2 or 3 generations, Reformism goes extinct! Starting with a group of Reform Jews, the number of them who remain hugging Torah after 3 generations is insignificant.
If you take this as an accusation, you miss my point. This is not an attack. It is an empirical finding that the chances for assimilation into the Gentile culture and intermarriage is a simple matter of fact. (Researched chart data can be seen here.) The only "tradition", therefore, that you adopt as your own happens to be that which Torah-observant Jews have propagated for over 3 millennia!
Torah at its core is truth, in God's language, אמת.
(This is suggested by the 1st 3 words of Torah, where their last letters spells "truth". The order of these letters is not in order, because, at first sight, Torah truth does not SEEM apparent. But the further you delve into Torah, as its words 2, 3 and 4 represent, the more its truth becomes evident, which is why the last letters of THESE words DO spell "truth" -- in the right order!)
(Another thing about אמת : It comprises the 1st letter of the alphabet, the last one and the middle one -- to signify that Torah-truth remains unchanged ("unreformed") from beginning of time to the end of time.)
I say this only to correct a slight error in your reasoning -- that Reform Judaism has "its own" tradition. It does not. It merely adopts another's tradition, calling it its own, and then reforms it -- or, hollows it out, as its geneology will prove in 4 generations at most. As with any slight error in aim, its downrange trajectory misses the target by a wide margin.
Torah at its core is truth, in God's language, אמת.
(This is suggested by the 1st 3 words of Torah, where their last letters spells "truth". The order of these letters is not in order, because, at first sight, Torah truth does not SEEM apparent. But the further you delve into Torah, as its words 2, 3 and 4 represent, the more its truth becomes evident, which is why the last letters of THESE words DO spell "truth" -- in the right order!)(Another thing about אמת : It comprises the 1st letter of the alphabet, the last one and the middle one -- to signify that Torah-truth remains unchanged ("unreformed") from beginning of time to the end of time.)
I say this only to correct a slight error in your reasoning -- that Reform Judaism has "its own" tradition. It does not. It merely adopts another's tradition, calling it its own, and then reforms it -- or, hollows it out, as its geneology will prove in 4 generations at most. As with any slight error in aim, its downrange trajectory misses the target by a wide margin.
3 comments:
You speak the truth. I wonder if your comment was accepted for pulication.
Addendum:
There always are and have been reformers, but these people never propagate tradition, because they lack genuine Torah as the glue to keep them devoted to its truth forever. They only last as long as any social club, but make a small change in social constraints, in national requirements like war, or whatever natural elements come along to disturb the commonplace, and only Judaism - authentic, observant Torah-true Judaism - can keep the tradition going, no matter how far apart they are scattered, no matter how much oppression they will have to go through.
The use of capital "R" makes it something new.
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