Traditional Morality for Jewish Reform Congregations

This blog is in favor of a return to traditional morality for Jewish Reform congregations. We take as our ideal the Reform Responsa up to and including that of the late Rabbi Solomon Freehof. Though Reform Jews believe that the Torah's ritual laws are not obligatory for us, we have always considered ourselves obligated by Mussar or Ethical Laws.

The Torah speaks of homosexual acts as Toevah, "an abomination," strongly indicating that it is an ethical offense. It is the duty of the Jew, whatever his theological persuasion--Orthodox, Conservative or Reform--to witness to Torah as revelation from God and its moral teachings as binding on all mankind. If we fail in our witness we bring upon ourselves malediction.

Reform Judaism is modern in the sense that we came to believe that our Gentile neighbors, through their acceptance of the Hebrew Bible, had much more in common with us than previously recognized. The walls of the ghetto had fallen and it was time for Jews to enter the mainstream of society. As long as that society was Biblically moral, and we all shared a similar faith in the Five Books of Moses, then there was a basis for not letting ritual impediments prevent our association and common intercourse. Especially in America, with its strong Puritan ethos, was this the case. The ritual requirements of Judaism were seen as optional or even as enhancements to our faith, but no longer obligatory in the same sense as the moral commandments.

Today, however, religion is under attack by secular humanists. They are undermining our society with false utopian ideas. Reform Judaism has been critically undermined by representatives of this secular humanist political agenda. The purpose of this blog is to take part in the cultural war on the side of traditional, Biblical moral values.