It still amazes Steven Sisskind, a West Los Angeles entrepreneur, to find himself wrapped in a prayer shawl, swaying back and forth in communion with God.
"If someone had told me four years ago that I'd be going to temple every Saturday, I would have told them they were crazy," said Sisskind, 34, who for years abandoned Judaism altogether. "But it's really become a crucial part of my life."
What makes Sisskind's spiritual search notable is where it led him: Not to the Orthodoxy of his grandfather, but back to the Reform Judaism he grew up in--a movement that has been transforming itself in his lifetime from a haven for religious cynics into a sanctuary for the spiritually minded.
Dichotomized Progress
Two centuries after it was born as an alternative to Orthodox Judaism, the Reform movement, the most popular among American Jews, is embracing many of the strictures it had jettisoned.
When 600 Reform rabbis launch their annual convention in Anaheim on Sunday, they will press for adherence to kosher dietary laws, stronger observance of the Sabbath and a host of other traditions that Reform Jews once largely abandoned in favor of individual choice.
But even as the Reform movement pulls back toward tradition--a move that risks alienating many adherents--it also is forging out along the progressive edges of religion.
Nothing symbolizes the dichotomy better than the new Reform prayer book the rabbis are writing. Although it will include more Hebrew prayers and Jewish rituals than ever in the movement's history, it also will remove gender references that imply or say that God is male.
Other issues on the agenda for the Reform rabbis: whether and how to perform same-sex unions, and whether to condone or condemn assisted suicides.
The Central Conference of American Rabbis is not expected to vote on any of these matters until it meets again in 1999. Even then, the principles adopted most likely will end up as suggestions for congregants, not requirements.
Yet by confronting the forces of traditionalism and progressivism, the rabbis are shaping the future of their movement. Both forces have been building steadily among Reform Jews for about 30 years, and have accelerated in the past decade as Jews show new interest in what their heritage has to offer spiritually, and leaders seek to keep Judaism alive in the complex modern world.
The struggle toward and away from tradition mirrors the pendulum of world history as it has swung between assimilation in one era and multiculturalism in another.
Reform Judaism was born in the late 1700s during the Age of Enlightenment, as some European nations extended new civil rights to Jews, who up to that point had been forced to live in ghettos and were banned from many universities and professions.
In their eagerness to step across the ghetto threshold into larger society, an era of nationalism and assimilation was born. Many Jews chose to drop traditions that had set them apart from the mainstream. Men doffed fringes and head coverings. On their Sabbath, Jews worked, shopped and joined the activities of the larger world that traditionally were forbidden from Friday evening to Saturday evening. And they dropped the kosher laws that kept them from eating in most restaurants.
Out of this desire to join in was forged the Reform theology: that Jewish ritual traditions are not binding on Jews as long as they live ethical lives.
That theology gave rise to a new emphasis on social justice as central to leading a good Jewish life. In the United States, Reform Jews became leaders in the civil rights movement and in causes from environmentalism to nuclear non-proliferation.
Even the synagogue services of this new movement took on a more formal, churchlike tone. Much or all of the Hebrew was eliminated, and organs were installed for music during services.
But ethnic differences now are more accepted and more popular, making Jews increasingly comfortable with the traditions that mark them as members of a distinct and ancient culture.
Reform Jews have been taking a new look at the old ways. Self-denial and time spent reflecting no longer seem like outmoded traditions. In the separation of meat and dairy foods, in the enforced day of rest, many Jews now see a path toward spiritual meaning.
"At the outset of the movement, Jews really wanted to participate in modern society: in the professions, in land ownership, in the universities, and literally come out of the ghetto," said Rabbi Elliot Stevens, executive secretary of the Rabbinic association.
"Now that we are truly out of the ghetto, we are not afraid to emphasize our Judaic heritage."
It is part of a nationwide taste for all things spiritual that has attendance swelling at houses of worship.
