by Debra Rubin
NJJN Bureau Chief/Middlesex

January 22, 2008

Despite its commitment to personal autonomy, Reform Judaism is at its heart entrenched in Jewish law, according to one of the movement’s top legal authorities.

“When people say Reform Judaism doesn’t believe in Halacha or doesn’t have Halacha, what they mean is that Reform Jews aren’t Orthodox,” explained Rabbi Mark Washofsky, Solomon B. Freehof Professor of Jewish Law and Practice at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Cincinnati.

“It means they are not required to follow rulings handed down by particular rabbis and are freer to come up with their own understanding, but in the context of saying they are seriously Jewish, they have to go back to the same sources all Jews go to.”

Washofsky drove home this point Jan. 4 and 5 during his appearance as the annual scholar-in-residence at Temple Emanu-El in Edison.

In his talks, Washofsky focused on traditional texts related to medicine and the environment.

In a phone interview conducted several days after his Shabbat appearance, Washofsky said most of his talks center on the relation of current concerns to traditional Jewish text.

He deals with such matters as chair of the movement’s Responsa Committee, which provides rabbinical guidance to Reform Jews on contemporary issues.

“Many Reform Jews have the mistaken impression that [Jewish law] has nothing to do with their own lives or their lives as Reform Jews,” said Washofsky. “What I try to do is point out this is not the case. Our form of Judaism is also based firmly on Halacha and halachic tradition. You can’t understand Jewish life without understanding the sources, which are actually much more rabbinic than literal, focusing on what the rabbis’ understanding of the law was.”

The practice of medicine is but one example of how different interpretations can be taken from the same set of traditions and commentary. A typical rabbinic debate, for example, asks whether the practice of medicine thwarts God’s will.

“But the rabbis thought this through and they concluded that the concept of pikuach nefesh, saving a life, took precedence,” said Washofsky.

The Jewish legal tradition also offers perspectives on medical malpractice and physicians’ fees.

“If you take a look at the halachic literature, it gives you a way to think through an issue in a Jewish context,” explained Washofsky. “You can argue with it.”

Modern technology has given contemporary medical practitioners the ability to expand pikuach nefesh in ways the rabbinical sages could never have imagined. However, Washofsky pointed out, it has also presented them with halachic dilemmas not discussed in any rabbinic source.

“Take the issue of organ donation,” he said. “All Jews accept organ donation. In general it is permissible and meritorious and sometimes even close to a mitzva.

“But if, for example, we are not supposed to benefit from the dead, if we are using a cadaver organ, are we benefiting from the dead? If we use organs [from a living donor], how much danger is it morally acceptable for a donor to take upon himself since a person is not supposed to endanger his own life to save another?” Meanwhile, many rabbis disagree on the definition of brain death.

Washofsky finds many younger Reform Jews are turning back to tradition for good reasons, much as their parents had good reason for dropping some of those traditions.

“They understand that the freedom to redesign their own forms of observance did not stop with their parents,” he said. “Things are changing and that’s probably a good thing. Younger Reform Jews seem less committed to carrying on what they saw in their parents’ synagogues. They are willing to innovate and create new things.

“But this has to be linked to some sort of Jewish source of spirituality; it needs to somehow be authentically Jewish,” he added. “And to the extent people feel that way, it is important to go back to the same books Jews have always turned to. They are doing what Jews have always done with Torah when new things come up.”