Welcome to the Home Work page for JHist '11. Every Monday and Tuesday (or sometimes Wednesday) I'll post some artifact and look for your great questions.
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
Week 9 (Question 3)
How and why did it (really, “they” who founded the movement) choose exactly what to reform?
Some of the things that the reform movement reformed were getting rid of kolnidrei prayer. Allowing people to pray in the language that they speak. Not having to wear a skull cap while praying. Allowed to play a organ on the sabbath, and putting into existence the seven day period of morning. Lastly riding or writing on the shabbos is permitted. They made this movement to show people that your not bad if you do normal things on the shabbos. What I'm talking about is Driving and writing. As long as you keep believing in G-d,G-d doesn't care what you do.
A more synical explanation would be the reformers dropped the unatractivve aspects of judaism. A less synical one would be they were trying to keep up with the changing world.
The motives for the reform movement include wanting autonomy and modernity. The felt that the concepts in Judaism were "out of reach" and wanted to grasp the ideas more. This led to the Movement of Reform. They ratified some things to make the overall concepts more appealing to people without that strong connection. -Aaron Z, Ben K, Zeke M
There are many ways of defining the style of Reform Judaism. There's no one way to choose what to reform; everyone did/does it differently. For example, some could think of Shabbat more as a day of spending time with the family or some might not think of Shabbat as being necessary at all.
The motivations to reform Traditional Judaism were a mixture of both modernizing and correcting traditional Judaism. Abraham Geiger’s reforms, for example, were an attempt to “correct” false beliefs about the divine authorship of the Bible by so-called “shattering the myth.” Similarly, Moritz Steinschneider’s discussion of the importance of Jewish science, which entails critical study of the Bible in the context of secular studies, is highly critical of “these students [who] still attend the old-style lessons on the Talmud and Shulkhan arukh.” In both cases the aims of the specific reforms were to improve Judaism by moving away from antiquated beliefs or methods of study. Aaron Chorin, who abolished Kol Nidrei, shortened the seven-day mourning period, permitted playing an organ, riding, and writing on Shabbat, and allowed prayer services to be conducted in the vernacular, likewise believed his reforms were key to the betterment of Judaism. His essential arguments were that religion must appeal to us and must strengthen, not contradict, our everyday life. To that end, he pushed for the divestment of inessential elements from religion, in order to introduce greater genuineness and devotion and dispel “thoughtlessness” and “caprice” from religion. Thus, as a whole, leaders of the Movement of Reform pointed to sincere motivations when discussing their proposed changes. They appear to have truly believed in their decisions and were not simply trying to make religion “easier” by eliminating many laws. In truth, they could have had ulterior motives to removing practices such as Kol Nidrei; however, regardless, they believed what they were doing was right.
The founders of the movement didn’t have any set plans with what to change and why they decided to change the particular thing that they did cahnge. There was no meeting where the ‘founders’ all got together and decided to start a new movement and decided what to change. This movement, along, with many other movements in history, was an evolving organism that was started, but then it was constantly changing.
The founder’s intent, to have a religion that is changing with the times in order to more accessible and understanding to the general masses, implies that “they” didn’t choose what to reform. In order to do the afore mentioned, they have to mirror the culture and ideologies of the worlds ‘general will’. The founders couldn’t plan what direction the ‘general will’ would take the populace in ten, five, or even one year. It can be argued that the founders had a goal but no specific plans to get to the goal, for the means to achieve the results they want are constantly changing.
What they did reform close to the date of the founding was what they thought necessary in order to get the general populace excited and willing to serve god.
Some of the things that the reform movement reformed were getting rid of kolnidrei prayer. Allowing people to pray in the language that they speak. Not having to wear a skull cap while praying. Allowed to play a organ on the sabbath, and putting into existence the seven day period of morning. Lastly riding or writing on the shabbos is permitted. They made this movement to show people that your not bad if you do normal things on the shabbos. What I'm talking about is Driving and writing. As long as you keep believing in G-d,G-d doesn't care what you do.
ReplyDeleteAri and I worked together on this
ReplyDeleteA more synical explanation would be the reformers dropped the unatractivve aspects of judaism. A less synical one would be they were trying to keep up with the changing world.
ReplyDeleteJonny, Ami, Joey
The motives for the reform movement include wanting autonomy and modernity. The felt that the concepts in Judaism were "out of reach" and wanted to grasp the ideas more. This led to the Movement of Reform. They ratified some things to make the overall concepts more appealing to people without that strong connection.
ReplyDelete-Aaron Z, Ben K, Zeke M
There are many ways of defining the style of Reform Judaism. There's no one way to choose what to reform; everyone did/does it differently. For example, some could think of Shabbat more as a day of spending time with the family or some might not think of Shabbat as being necessary at all.
ReplyDeleteRose, Noah, David
The motivations to reform Traditional Judaism were a mixture of both modernizing and correcting traditional Judaism. Abraham Geiger’s reforms, for example, were an attempt to “correct” false beliefs about the divine authorship of the Bible by so-called “shattering the myth.” Similarly, Moritz Steinschneider’s discussion of the importance of Jewish science, which entails critical study of the Bible in the context of secular studies, is highly critical of “these students [who] still attend the old-style lessons on the Talmud and Shulkhan arukh.” In both cases the aims of the specific reforms were to improve Judaism by moving away from antiquated beliefs or methods of study. Aaron Chorin, who abolished Kol Nidrei, shortened the seven-day mourning period, permitted playing an organ, riding, and writing on Shabbat, and allowed prayer services to be conducted in the vernacular, likewise believed his reforms were key to the betterment of Judaism. His essential arguments were that religion must appeal to us and must strengthen, not contradict, our everyday life. To that end, he pushed for the divestment of inessential elements from religion, in order to introduce greater genuineness and devotion and dispel “thoughtlessness” and “caprice” from religion. Thus, as a whole, leaders of the Movement of Reform pointed to sincere motivations when discussing their proposed changes. They appear to have truly believed in their decisions and were not simply trying to make religion “easier” by eliminating many laws. In truth, they could have had ulterior motives to removing practices such as Kol Nidrei; however, regardless, they believed what they were doing was right.
ReplyDeleteThe last post was for Nathan, Tani, and me.
ReplyDeleteThe founders of the movement didn’t have any set plans with what to change and why they decided to change the particular thing that they did cahnge. There was no meeting where the ‘founders’ all got together and decided to start a new movement and decided what to change. This movement, along, with many other movements in history, was an evolving organism that was started, but then it was constantly changing.
ReplyDeleteThe founder’s intent, to have a religion that is changing with the times in order to more accessible and understanding to the general masses, implies that “they” didn’t choose what to reform. In order to do the afore mentioned, they have to mirror the culture and ideologies of the worlds ‘general will’. The founders couldn’t plan what direction the ‘general will’ would take the populace in ten, five, or even one year. It can be argued that the founders had a goal but no specific plans to get to the goal, for the means to achieve the results they want are constantly changing.
What they did reform close to the date of the founding was what they thought necessary in order to get the general populace excited and willing to serve god.
the post from sharie is from ben z and joey
ReplyDelete