Reconsidering our labels

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Crossposted to RJ.org.

Let me propose to you today that, by God, we Reform Jews need a new name. Keep reading for more.

Names are important to us Jews. God gets different names ascribed to him throughout the Torah and many believe each name to be reflection of God’s different aspects, the idea that when God does thing X, his name is Y, and when he does thing A, his name is B. And if he were to repeat A later, B would be his name again. But there is one inaccessible, inpronouncable name of God, which we are told is his all-important real name. This could be compared to the fact I might be called Blogger when I blog and Shaliach Tzibur when I lead services, but truly my personal name is David.

Ben Dreyfus (known when he blogs by the name BZ!), preeminent proponent of the liberal, pluralistic Jewish world, has recently posted a discussion of a certain name at his excelent blog, Mah Rabu. In the post, which everyone should go read, he applauds today’s Beliefs column in the New York Times. In the column, writer Peter Steinfels questions the way in which we have all accepted two blurrily-defined versions of the word “orthodox.”

I’ll leave the discussion of the word “orthodox” to Ben’s excellent post, which, really, everyone should go and read now. Meanwhile, I will turn my attention toward another label that we often encounter in the world of Jewish denominationalism: Reform

First, it is interesting that no one to the left of Orthodox Judaism has had any large beefs with the far right-wing co-option of the term orthodox. The word, from Greek, literally means “correct belief.” And only those on the far right make any claim that they have stumbled acorss the correct way of believing. On the left, we are often more content to say that we like they we each do things and mostly leave other Jews to do things their own way.

Our name, Reform, has its origin in the wish of a few German Rabbis, over a century ago, to push Judaism through a complete reformation, much like that of Martin Luther. Isaac Mayer Wise, in his having originally named the official North American body of our movment the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, showed his intention to form a totally new and reformed version of Judaism, which all American Jews would buy into. Clearly, that desire did not quite pan out for him. Here we sit, many years later, with a vastly different, though perhaps equally left-leaning ideology, and a new name as of 2003: the Union for Reform Judaism.

Because we have essentially abandoned the idea of a total reformation of Judaism, and since we have abandoned the search for any unified reformed form of Judaism for an ongoing personal process of ritual and ethical trial and error, I propose that our name has been outmoded by our own evolving intentions.

I propose an alternatives: Progressive.

Progressive, I propose for three reasons: First, I propose it in the interests of international solidarity. With the exception of a thriving enclave in Great Britain, every other “Reform” Jewish group in the world calls itself Progressive. For examples, see the World Movment for Progressive Judaism and Israel Movement for Progressive Judaism.

Second, it shows our intent not to re-form one static form into a new, different, yet still static form, but to keep moving forward and to continue to try new things and to evolve into new things and ideas.

Third, it’s great in Hebrew! The Hebrew word Mitkadem is often used by our sister movement in Israel. At its root is the Hebrew for forward or onward, Kadimah. I like that.

So there.

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