I feel like Conservative Judaism does this pretty well.
In Reform Judaism, everyone is in on the joke. Which means there’s no obstacle to overcome, nothing to learn. Reform Jews win no points on Lies-Told-To-Children storytelling night.
Orthodox Jews play the game too seriously. Like, you get a bunch of people who win the game, and they tend to be interesting people who honed an important skill, but far too many don’t get it during their lifetimes. Which means that they have these awful ideas like “we are God’s chosen people” and “the world exists so we can read ancient legal texts”. And that’s a crying shame.
Conservative Jews (at least some of them) are told lies, but they’re expected to eventually see through the lies, and when they do, nobody disowns them, and they come out better people. That’s an important formative experience, and if Conservative Judaism is teaching anything toxic, it’s not too hard to remove. They get some points on Lies-Told-To-Children storytelling night.
Is Conservative Judaism a ‘distinct thing’? I know a few ‘Orthodox Jews’ and one of them seemed (or so my memory vaguely reports) to admit to me that they’d ‘seen thru the lies’, but the others didn’t and I’d expect they would have if this was indeed a “formative experience” in the sense you seem to be implying.
Yes, Conservative Judaism is a distinct movement from Reform and Orthodox Judaism, generally regarded as existing in between the two in terms of theology and practice.
I don’t quite understand the second question: Most Orthodox Jews never see through the lies, so they don’t have that formative experience. But for those who do leave their faith, it tends to be an important part of their identity.
(Note that I don’t really know what percentage of Conservative and Reform Jews believe in God. I do think that the two movements have converged in beliefs and practices to a considerable degree over the last 50 years. Also, this is a very late response: I don’t comment here often.)
Thanks for the info! And no worries about the (very) late response – I like that people fairly often reply at all (beyond same-day or within a few days) on this site; makes the discussions feel more ‘timeless’ to me.
The second “question” wasn’t a question, but it was due to not knowing that Conservative Judaism is distinct from Orthodox Judaism. (Sadly, capitalization is only relatively weak evidence of ‘proper-nounitude’.)
I feel like Conservative Judaism does this pretty well.
In Reform Judaism, everyone is in on the joke. Which means there’s no obstacle to overcome, nothing to learn. Reform Jews win no points on Lies-Told-To-Children storytelling night.
Orthodox Jews play the game too seriously. Like, you get a bunch of people who win the game, and they tend to be interesting people who honed an important skill, but far too many don’t get it during their lifetimes. Which means that they have these awful ideas like “we are God’s chosen people” and “the world exists so we can read ancient legal texts”. And that’s a crying shame.
Conservative Jews (at least some of them) are told lies, but they’re expected to eventually see through the lies, and when they do, nobody disowns them, and they come out better people. That’s an important formative experience, and if Conservative Judaism is teaching anything toxic, it’s not too hard to remove. They get some points on Lies-Told-To-Children storytelling night.
Oh, and Happy Passover.
Is Conservative Judaism a ‘distinct thing’? I know a few ‘Orthodox Jews’ and one of them seemed (or so my memory vaguely reports) to admit to me that they’d ‘seen thru the lies’, but the others didn’t and I’d expect they would have if this was indeed a “formative experience” in the sense you seem to be implying.
Yes, Conservative Judaism is a distinct movement from Reform and Orthodox Judaism, generally regarded as existing in between the two in terms of theology and practice.
I don’t quite understand the second question: Most Orthodox Jews never see through the lies, so they don’t have that formative experience. But for those who do leave their faith, it tends to be an important part of their identity.
(Note that I don’t really know what percentage of Conservative and Reform Jews believe in God. I do think that the two movements have converged in beliefs and practices to a considerable degree over the last 50 years. Also, this is a very late response: I don’t comment here often.)
Thanks for the info! And no worries about the (very) late response – I like that people fairly often reply at all (beyond same-day or within a few days) on this site; makes the discussions feel more ‘timeless’ to me.
The second “question” wasn’t a question, but it was due to not knowing that Conservative Judaism is distinct from Orthodox Judaism. (Sadly, capitalization is only relatively weak evidence of ‘proper-nounitude’.)