What is Reconstructionist Judaism?
Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan, who founded the Reconstructionist school of thought,
made a profound and indelible mark on the American Jewish community. He sought to
make Judaism more alive, more relevant, more permeating, more understood, and more
'lived,' and offered as a solution to the ' synagogue community center,' an all-encompassing
Jewish-life venue which Congregation Beth Emeth is rapidly and proudly becoming.
The synagogue center -- and all that it represents, implies, calls for, and offers
-- is to be a focal point of our 'Jewish lives,' permeate into our 'secular lives,and
ultimately transcend certain perceived divides between them. Aiming to balance the
demands, luxuries, and benefits of living in a secular society with the beauties,
obligations, and inspirations of living fully Jewish lives, Kaplan offered a contemporary,
reconstructionist understanding of Judaism as the 'evolving religious civilization
of the Jewish people.' This philosophy infers the continued subtle reshaping of our
people's faith and traditions in our own day, a practice which has characterized
the Jewish People over the many centuries of its existence; an understanding of the
sovereignty of God as an acknowledgment of the paramount importance of social righteousness,
of our accountability for our actions, of a higher law and authority than one's own
arbitrary will, of our own first-hand experience of that larger life -- which is
God. We embrace this most demanding -- and rewarding -- reconstructionist approach
to living Jewish life, which Kaplan summarized as "...not intended to abet laxity
in ritual observance or indifference to religion [but rather] definitely intended
to motivate in Jews a maximum and not a minimum identification with Jewish life."
Click Here To Visit The Jewish Reconstructionist Federation’s Web Site
