Janaki O’Brien
INTR 342
Prof. Crampton
Resolving Conflict: Reform Judaism and Scientific Thought
The relationship between science and religion is not easy to navigate. On the most basic level, they are viewed as different types of thought. Religion, it seems, deals with the subjective, spiritual realm. Science, on the other hand, seems to deal with facts. It may then appear easy to separate the two realms of thought, and philosophers, theologians and scientists have from time to time attempted to do this. Both science and religion make hypotheses about the fundamental nature of human existence and the nature of the universe, however, and inevitably the claims of each come into conflict. Whether this conflict occurs on a personal level or between opposing institutions, the claims of one often seem to place the other in dire jeopardy. We have seen demonstrations of such conflict throughout history, especially in relation to the Christian faith.
For instance, few people have not heard about the adverse reaction of the
Catholic Church when Galileo propounded his theory of a heliocentric universe.
Even today, we are not free of conflicts that arise when religious doctrine
conflicts with scientific theorizing. A prominent issue is creation, in which
scientific theories about the big bang directly contradict the religious
doctrine of the Christian faith, which understands creation through the story
of Genesis in the Old Testament. It is an oversimplification to pit science and
religion as bitter opposites, but it is undeniable that in many faiths there
exists a continuing conflict between advancing scientific theories and the
religious perspective.
How, then, can one expect to be able to integrate a scientific understanding of
the world with religious faith? Surely it is not impossible. In fact, Reform
Judaism, a sect of Judaism that broke away from more conservative branches
during the period of Enlightenment in the eighteenth century, seems to have
avoided the conflict altogether. They do this neither by ignoring scientific
advancements nor by dismissing their religious heritage as incorrect and
therefore irrelevant. Rather, Reform Jews are able to integrate scientific
advancements into their religious framework. There are several aspects unique
to reform Judaism that enable them to do this. First, it is one of the few
religions that has built a system of reform into their religious doctrine.
(Thus, the name "Reform Judaism" refers not only to the fact that the
religion is altered version of an existing religious tradition, but that the
concept of continual reformation is central to their way of thinking.) They
allow themselves to reevaluate traditional dictates of their religious doctrine
in terms of modern advancements. That does not mean, however, that their
decisions are based merely on arbitrary judgments. Rather, they study and
interpret the Torah, the core of their religious faith, in terms of modern
standards and modern questions. Thus, there need be no bloody revolution of
fissure within the faith every time contemporary advancements necessitate some
sort of change in the religion. In addition, the religious tenets of Reform
Judaism (as is typical of most forms of Judaism) focus primarily on correct
moral action rather than theological debates about more distant events such as
the creation of the universe. The combined attributes of a built-in system for
continual reform that does not neglect basic religious ideals as well as a
focus on moral rather than more ethereal elements of humanity’s relation to God
allow Reform Judaism to avoid the conflict with science faced by many religions
and actually integrate science into their religious understanding of the world.
In a discussion of the integration of Reform Judaism with science, it is instructive to look at the tradition out of which the religion grew, and the ideals upon which the religion is based. Judaism has its foundation in the collection of texts known as the Torah (these are equivalent to the first five books of the Bible). Many of the events described in these books, though, are place and time specific. As Jews began to disperse, and could not perform the tasks precisely as they were delineated in the Torah (for instance, it would may have been impossible for a group of Jews to make sacrifices at the Temple in Jerusalem as the Torah commanded), Jewish rabbis felt that it was necessary to make a few amendments to the Bible. Thus, the requisite animal sacrifices were transformed into worship, the Temple was changed into the Synagogue, and the priesthood became the rabbis. Already, then, we see Jews willing to amend their laws somewhat in light of external changes. To mitigate the fact that they were, in essence, changing aspects of the religion that had been dictated by God, the rabbi’s created the Halacha. The Halacha (meaning "to walk") was a set of moral guidelines derived from the Torah. Jews believed that if they followed the laws of the Halacha, then they would be walking on the right path, or taking the right action in the eyes of God. The most important aspect of the Jewish religion, the one the Jewish people strived to conserve, was the code of moral values.
The creation of the Halacha was only the first in a string of texts inspired by the Torah. In approximately 200 CE, a group of scholars called the tannaim compiled the Mishnah, "the codification of oral law which brought the Mosaic law up to date." Three hundred years later, the Gemara (meaning, roughly, "finishing up") was written. Combined, the Mishnah and the Gemara form the Talmud, which was officially written in approximately 500 CE. The Talmud represents centuries' worth of rabbinic speculation and interpretation of the Torah. A spirit of debate and questioning is imbedded in this document; differing interpretations of the Torah in an attempt to discover the true meaning of the texts has been integral to Judaism from the outset.
The historical events leading to the rise of Reform Judaism are complex, but one of the major reasons that reformers felt the need for change was the decreasing accessibility of the Jewish faith in comparison to other religions. The laws and interpretations that had been built up around the Torah had become staggeringly specific; for Jews living in the modern world of the eighteenth century, the rules were almost impossible to follow, and few people had the desire to do so. Reform Judaism was thus an attempt to update Judaism, retaining the moral core founded in the Torah but reevaluating the outdated interpretations found in the Talmud. This willingness to cut out parts of the Talmud was the Reform rabbis' most radical suggestion, and in their early writings they often feel the need to defend the proposition. Wrote Abraham Kohn (who was later poisoned by anti-reform fanatics), "One should not accuse someone of apostasy and irreligiosity who thinks he can prove—what? That the Talmud is occasionally a muddied spring!" Another rabbi, points out that the Talmud itself is a collection of arguments and disagreements. The purpose of these debates, he says, is to gain a clearer, truer understanding of the Torah in the context of a constantly evolving society. "Well, then," he writes, "truth and peace are dear and sacred to us; and therefore we must in no wise allow the right of free investigation and progress along with our times to be abbreviated or stultified."
The argument of the reform rabbis is based on the belief that while the Torah itself is infallible, or contains universal truths, Judaic tradition is not unassailable. In no way did the reform rabbis wish to dismiss the word of God as expressed in the Torah, and they remained committed to the ancient covenant between the Jewish people and God described in that text. In fact, the description of one reform rabbi, Michael Creizenach, is one of the most heartfelt expressions of faith in a religious text that I have come across; he writes, "The purity of it language, the clarity and grandeur of its teachings, the portrayals which leave far behind anything other old nations have to show forth in their myths, must convince even the most ordinary mind that God’s spirit is revealed therein!" The Talmud, however, is used primarily in reference to the daily lives of the Jewish people; the interpretations it contains are debates over how to best continue the precedents laid out in the Torah. Hence, argued the reform rabbis, as the daily lives of the Jewish people changed, the interpretations, too, had to change. Creizenach goes on to explain that while the Talmud is absolutely necessary for the explanation of ceremonial law, the interpretations it contains are not absolutely binding because they are the "the result of human research" and thus "have no claim to infallibility and untouchability." In its most basic incarnation, Reform Judaism is a return to the source, a stripping away of the laws of the Talmud, which represent outdated and irrelevant interpretations of the Torah, and starting anew.
This starting anew, then, involves a continuation of the debates over the meaning of the Torah that have been going on for centuries. The religious doctrine of Reform Judaism is not a static object, but something that is open to, and even requires, discussion. This openness to discussion and debate is reflected in the practice of writing Responsa. In Responsa, an individual gets the chance to ask a group of rabbis a specific question regarding moral behavior. The rabbis then do an in-depth study of the issue itself, and search through the Torah and other textual sources in search of laws and precedents that are relevant to the case. While Reform Judaism is not the only religious sect to employ the use of Responsa, those written by reform rabbis are unique in several respects. First, in researching the questions posed by their peers, reform rabbis do not always give as much credence to tradition as their more conservative counterparts. At times, they even go so far as to dismiss some of the earliest Mosaic laws. The rabbis who founded Reform Judaism included in their creed the following: "We hold that all such Mosaic and rabbinical laws as regular diet, priestly purity and dress originated in ages and under the influence of ideas entirely foreign to our present mental and spiritual state. Their observance in our day is apt rather to obstruct rather than to further modern spiritual elevation." In other words, reform rabbis feel that it is necessary to set aside some of the rules that have typically been central to Judaism. In these cases, they feel that it would be impossible to reconcile tradition with any modern standard of behavior. Such leniency is absent in more conservative sects of Judaism. Second, the conclusions drawn by rabbis in the Responsa are not, as the are in, for instance, Orthodox Judaism, considered doctrine. Reform Jews who consult a Responsa in their search for the correct course of action have a choice to either follow or ignore the advice of the rabbis. This flexibility is due in part to the rabbis’ resistance to declare that any interpretation of the Torah can be absolutely correct. In the Central Conference of American Rabbis’ Responsa regarding the treatment of the terminally ill, the rabbis write, "If this conviction leaves us in doubt to the ‘right’ answer for particular patients, then it is well to remember that moral, religious and halakhic truth can never be a matter of absolute certainty. There will always be more than one plausibly correct answer, more than one possible application of our texts and our values to the case at hand. Our task is to determine the best answer, the one that most closely corresponds to our understanding of tradition as a whole." If reform rabbis are going to declare that past interpretations of Jewish texts may have been incorrect, or are irrelevant to a particular time, it would be erroneous of them to assign any sort of definitive authority to their own declarations.
The Responsa are an example of the way in which Reform Judaism has built in methods of evolving along with scientific innovation. The Torah provides the foundation for the answer to any question that comes before the rabbis. By adhering to the basic religious tenets outlined in the Torah, and extending those tenets to include a modern perspective, the rabbis are able to come up with answers to problems that could not possibly have been imagined in the time in which the text was written. The specificity of the Responsa to the modern era, and the acknowledgement that their judgment is not absolute means that Reform Jews are not tied down to a overarching, unbending doctrine that is resistant to scientific discovery. By opening the doors to questions about how to be a Jew in the face of changing science, Reform Judaism does more than allow science and religion to coexist; it enables Reform Jews to integrate a scientific understanding of the world with a religious one.
In the Responsa on stem cell research the rabbis write, "Our chief
hope, then, is that our teshuvah (response) will suggest a fruitful way for us
as Reform Jews to think and to talk about the moral issues connected with stem
cell research. In that way, it may prove helpful to us as we continue our
discussions and debates over this latest development in medical
technology." The rabbis concede that the issues surrounding science are not
static but actually ever-changing, and seem to encourage debate and discussion.
Clearly, debate is not a sign that the religion is under attack, but rather
that the Jewish people are gaining an ever-increasing understanding of the
Torah and its dictates in relation to their lives. The spirit of debate leads
to Reform Judaism’s dynamic nature, changeability and willingness to reappraise
past tradition.
This dynamism is not the only aspect of Reform Judaism that sets it apart and
enables it to avoid conflict with advancing scientific principles. Unlike many
other religions, Judaism is almost exclusively concerned with the daily lives
of its followers. The primary focus of the teachings from the Torah regard the
path of correct moral action. Typically, conflict between scientific theory and
religious doctrine arises when the dictates of the two types of thought
overlap. To take up an aforementioned example, both science and Christianity
propose an explanation for the creation of the universe. Obviously, there seem to
be discrepancies between these two proposals, leading to the inevitable
conflict. Say the word "creation" to a Christian, and he will
probably have a lot to say. The same is not true of Reform Jews. In Reform
Judaism (as in some other sects of Judaism), there is little focus on elements
such as creation or the involvement of God in natural systems. God is involved
in the religion as an object of worship; his primary relationship is with
humanity. His relationship with the rest of the world is not considered as
crucial. Thus, Reform Judaism rarely encounters the problem of tradition
clashing with scientific theories; the systems studied by science are not of
tantamount importance to Reform Jews. This is why, in the Responsa, we see the
rabbis responding to questions of how to act morally (and in the Jewish
tradition) in light of scientific advancements; they do not question the
validity of the advancements themselves.
A willingness to dismiss certain aspects of the claims about the natural world in the Torah (in which, after all, the story of Genesis is included) was affirmed early in the Reform movement. In 1885, a group of rabbis put together "The Pittsburgh Platform," in which is included the following statement: "We recognize in the Bible the record of the consecration of the Jewish people to its mission as priest of the one God, and value it as the most potent instrument of religious and moral instruction." In other words, they affirm the importance of the Torah in establishing the relationship between man and God, and in establishing a moral code for the Jewish people. The platform continues, "We hold that the modern discoveries of scientific researches in the domains of nature and history are not antagonistic to the doctrines of Judaism , the Bible reflecting the primitive ideas of its own age, and at times clothing its conception of Divine Providence and justice dealing with man in miraculous narratives." The rabbis, by asserting that the details of the stories in the Bible that conflict with modern thinking can be dismissed as irrelevant to modern religious practice, neatly take care of any conflicts that might arise between science and religion. Why, though, are the reform rabbis able to do this so easily? If resolving the conflict between science and religion were only a matter of writing the stories in the Bible off as inconsequential, why have Christian leaders not done the same thing? The answer lies in what is relevant to each religion. In Christianity, man’s place in the universe is largely defined by the way in which he came into being. In addition, the spirit of flexibility and reform, while not absent in Christian thought, is not as heavily emohasized. The fact that the Jewish person’s relationship is largely defined by his day to day moral actions (his daily fulfillment of the covenant with God), and not by stories of creation or other natural processes means that it is far easier for him to dismiss as irrelevant some details of stories such as the creation stories found in Genesis.
Reform Judaism successfully navigates the complex relationship between science and religion. By including in their doctrine a mechanism capable of advancing the tenets of religion at the same pace as the advancement of modern science, Reform Judaism is able to remain relevant to its followers. In addition, by responding to scientific advancements not as antagonisms but rather as challenges to the moral values of the religion, Reform Judaism is able to integrate scientific and religious thought. The aspect of Reform Judaism I find most striking, though, is the fact that despite its progressiveness, the religion is still fundamentally tied to a strong faith in God and the search for truth. It is as though by peeling away the layers of interpretation that had been built up around the Torah, the word of God, Reform Jews were able to discover a religion that is purer than any of its predecessors, one that strives to benefit its people while not losing sight of the faith that binds them to one another and to God.
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