How Did a Reform Rabbi Become an Orthodox Jew
by Michael Arsers, Jewish Action Magazine, Summer
1999
[GUEST POST BY MR. COHEN]
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My journey from Reform to Orthodox Judaism has taken
many unusual turns.
Perhaps the most unusual is that, despite living in
Jerusalem and Brooklyn,
it was not until I arrived in Peoria, Illinois, that I
became a baal teshuvah
[newly Orthodox].
How did a Reform rabbi become an Orthodox Jew? I
need to begin by explaining how I became a Reform rabbi. My upbringing was totally in the Reform
movement, but it was not what I would now to be consider typical of Reform
Judaism. My family was active in a
unique Reform congregation.
It was a congregation where most of the members were
deeply involved and where Jewish education was taken seriously. I went to
Hebrew School three days a week and attended Friday evening services regularly.
I went to [summer] camps run by the Reform movement and when I went to Israel
for the first time, my Hebrew was quite good and I felt myself to be a fairly
knowledgeable Jew.
I remember the first time I went to an Orthodox
synagogue in Israel. I decided very quickly that it was not for me. I spent an
entire year in Jerusalem, never once questioning who I was or making any
attempt (except for my one and only trip to a synagogue) to explore the
possibility of Jewish life in Israel. I had many Israeli friends and basically
lived as a secular Israeli. The same thing is true of my second year in Israel
as a first-year rabbinic student at HUC-JIR. Again, I spent a whole year in
Jerusalem, not once thinking that there was any reason to look at any other
kind of Judaism.
The truth is that I was firmly rooted in Reform and,
based on my experience, felt that it was serious, it not more serious, than
Orthodoxy. I believed that Orthodoxy was out of touch with the modern world and
represented an attempt to freeze Jewish life in a moment of history, while
Reform Jews were actively engaged in making choices that integrated Judaism
with modern life.
My wife and I moved to Brooklyn and lived on the
border of Flatbush and Boro Park for two years, while I attended HUC-JIR in New
York. To make a long story shorter, let’s say that it was pretty much the same
as my two years in Jerusalem.
Despite the fact that I did study a little Talmud
with our neighbor's son (who was a yeshivah student) to prepare for
class, I never found myself interested in any exploration of the Orthodox
community in which we were living. I spent one week laying tefillin in
an Orthodox synagogue (as a class assignment) and quickly gave it up. We went
only to the Reform temple on Friday nights.
So what changed things for me? After three more
years in (Reform) rabbinical school in Cincinnati and four years in the
graduate program, I was still a strong Reform Jew. After the birth of our
second child, I decided to leave the Ph.D. program at HUC-JIR and took a
position as a rabbi in a Reform congregation in Peoria, Illinois.
Before I begin to recount the factors that caused me
to look at things so differently, let me first say that the Jews in Peoria are
wonderful people. They have been extremely nice to me and they are trying hard
to keep Jewish life going in a small mid-western city, Also, I do not believe
that the faults that I found with Reform Judaism are in any way unique to
Peoria. What I observed there has been confirmed by surveys and by my conversations
with colleagues in larger communities.
Almost immediately, I discovered that only a tiny
pro-portion of our (Reform) congregation had any kind of serious involvement
with Judaism. Very few members even thought of themselves as religious Jews.
Clearly they were looking for something, as they had joined -- but it was a
minimalist Jewish identity that had mainly to do with having a Bar or Bat
Mitzvah.
I discovered that most people knew almost nothing
about Judaism. Except for Rosh HaShanah,
Yom Kippur, Chanukah and the first
night of Passover, most holidays were observed only by a small fraction of the
congregation. We had to employ all kinds of gimmicks to get people to come.
Usually it meant giving their kids a part in the service.
And then there were the demographic issues. I became
very disheartened when I saw the large numbers of inter-married couples and the
high percentage of children who thought they were Jewish because of
"patrilineal descent".
Many of the congregants were only accepted as Jews
by the Reform movement,
but were not part of the Jewish People.
Despite my Reform upbringing, I was passionately
committed to the unique importance of the Jewish People and the State of
Israel. When I realized how many of our congregants would not be accepted as
Jews in Israel due to traditional Jewish laws, I was devastated. I started
arguing with my colleagues that Reform was on a path to complete separation
from the rest of the Jewish People and besides, with so few of them seriously
committed to religious life, what kind of Jewish future would this be?
After two years in Peoria, I saw the problem, but I
didn't know what the solution could be.
I can remember sitting in a restaurant
with one of my colleagues, eating a treif [non-kosher] meal and
vehemently warning him that Reform Judaism had no future in Klal Yisroel [the
Jewish People as a whole] and that most Reform Jews would fade out of existence
in the next few generations.
The power of Torah study is truly remarkable. I
continued to be interested in [Torah] learning and someone lent me some study
tapes for Masechet Shabbat in the Mishnah.
I sat down to start learning the Mishnayot.
What I discovered had a tremendous impact on me.
The issues of concern in the Mishnah
seemed to be totally removed from anything I knew, or anything I had heard
of.
Here I was a [Reform] rabbi, and I did not know that
it was forbidden to carry on Shabbat,
which is what the Mishnah was primarily
discussing.
For the first time, I began to question whether
Reform was indeed a continuation of historical Judaism. As I read and studied
more, I came to see that Reform was a dramatic break with the past, not the
next step in its historical evolution as I had believed.
But I still didn't know what the central difficult
was until I read an article by Yeshayahu Leibowitz in which he argues that halachah
[Torah Law] is not just an aspect of Judaism, but THE defining aspect.
Many of my colleagues had called Reform
"non-halachic Judaism:" I now knew that term to be an oxymoron. But
what was I to do? Most people who become
observant can still make a living -- but its not so easy when you're a Reform
rabbi! We were keeping strictly kosher and I was Shomer Shabbat [Sabbath
observant] as I could be. For two years I still continued to serve the Reform
congregation. We sort of lived as Marranos: secretly I had become Orthodox, but
very few people knew.
I wanted to find a job where I could live openly as
an Orthodox Jew, but I couldn't find anything suitable. I had started davening
[praying] at the traditional congregation in Peoria and when they heard that I
wanted to leave my Reform congregation, they asked me to become their rabbi.
And that is what I have been doing for the past three years. My new
congregation has been extremely warm and welcoming. They even had to overlook
their by-laws to hire a rabbi with Reform semichah [rabbinical ordination].
Ever since I was a child, I have yearned to be a
religious Jew and take part in building the Jewish future. With the help of the
Chicago Torah Network, I have learned that the Orthodox community is not stuck
in the past, but is vibrant and dynamic; and it's the only hope for the Jewish
future.
As I write this article, my wife and I are making the decision to move
to Chicago so that I can learn [Torah] more intensely, and hope to be able to
get Orthodox semichah [rabbinical ordination].
I haven't written here about the challenges to our
family life
which resulted from my transformation, but with G-d's help,
things
have worked out. My son is a freshman at the Skokie
yeshivah and my two
daughters are also making the adjustment.
My wife is rediscovering much of what she lost from her past
as the
daughter of traditional Tunisian Jews who grew up in Israel.
I believe that as
Orthodox Jews our lives are richer, more committed to G-d,
and more securely
rooted in the Jewish past and in the Jewish future.
MICROBIOGRAPHY:
Michael Arsers is the spiritual leader of Congregation
Agudas Achim in Peoria, Illinois,
and runs a home remodeling business with his
wife, Pnina.
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Please also read: If Daniel Were Alive Today by Mr. Cohen:
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PLEASE help by
making
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FourCupsOfWine@gmail.com.
THANK YOU!!
____________________________________________________________
How Joshua Reback Converted to Orthodox Judaism
(after having been raised with Conservative Judaism):
www.ou.org/jewish_action/06/2009/encountering_orthodoxy/
____________________________________________________________
Israel is being
buried-alive under an avalanche of media bias and false accusations.
\These web sites can help
refute those biases and false accusations:
***********************************************************
PLEASE HELP DEFEND ISRAEL FROM UNFAIR MEDIA:
***********************************************************
http://advocacy.ou.org/
www.algemeiner.com
www.camera.org
www.HonestReporting.com
www.memriTV.org
www.MythsAndFacts.org
www.TheIsraelProject.org
www.aish.com/jw/mo/4-Reasons-Why-the-Media-is-Biased-against-Israel.html
********************************************************
PLEASE HELP SUE THE TERRORISTS IN COURT:
********************************************************
www.IsraelLawCenter.org
www.TheLawFareProject.org
*************************************************************
PLEASE HELP FIGHT ISRAEL-BASHING ON-CAMPUS:
*************************************************************
www.AcademicEngagement.org
www.CameraOnCampus.org
www.CampusFairness.org
www.DavidProject.org
____________________________________________________________
OTHER BLOG POSTS BY MR. COHEN:
Quick Bible Quotes from Joshua and Jeremiah:
http://shilohmusings.blogspot.com/2016/11/guest-post-joshua-chapter-23-verse-12.html
https://shilohmusings.blogspot.com/2016/12/guest-post-jeremiah-chapter-17.html
Rambam Rejected Childless Messiah:
http://shilohmusings.blogspot.com/2016/08/rambam-rejected-childless-messiah-by-mr.html
Why Muslims Hate Jews:
https://shilohmusings.blogspot.com/2016/12/guest-post-why-muslims-hate-jews.html
https://shilohmusings.blogspot.com/2017/01/guest-post-moynihan-1982.html
Forgotten Muslim Oppression against Jews:
https://shilohmusings.blogspot.com/2017/01/guest-post-forgotten-oppression.html
Seven Times Stronger
(a quick quote about American anti-Semitism during the Holocaust):
https://shilohmusings.blogspot.com/2017/01/guest-post-seven-times-stronger.html
How a Reform Rabbi Become Orthodox (true story):
http://shilohmusings.blogspot.com/2016/07/how-did-reform-rabbi-become-orthodox-jew.html
Sephardic Jews Reject Reform Judaism:
https://shilohmusings.blogspot.com/2017/07/sephardim-reject-reform.html
https://shilohmusings.blogspot.com/2017/08/guest-post-persian-rabbis-decree.html
Greek NYC Jews and Syrian NYC Jews:
http://shilohmusings.blogspot.com/2016/03/greek-jews-syrian-jews.html
How to Convict the New York Times:
https://shilohmusings.blogspot.com/2016/11/guest-post-how-to-convict-new-york-times.html
https://shilohmusings.blogspot.com/2016/11/guest-post-nyt-erases-israel-from-map.html
http://shilohmusings.blogspot.com/2016/03/guest-postnyt-vs-israel.html
Why Pray for Tzahal-IDF:
http://shilohmusings.blogspot.com/2016/04/guest-post-why-pray-for-idf.html
How to Pray for Tzahal-IDF:
http://shilohmusings.blogspot.com/2016/09/how-to-pray-for-tzahal-idf.html
Why Israel’s 1967 Borders are Undefendable:
https://shilohmusings.blogspot.com/2017/03/guest-post-why-1967-borders-are-suicide.html
____________________________________________________________
Do Palestinians Want a Two-State Solution?
by Daniel Polisar, PhD in Political Science
https://mosaicmagazine.com/essay/2017/04/do-palestinians-want-a-two-state-solution/
Articles Refuting the so-called “Two-State Solution”:
www.algemeiner.com/2017/10/08/the-two-state-solution-is-holding-israel-hostage/
https://mosaicmagazine.com/picks/2017/06/when-it-comes-to-territorial-compromise-israel-doesnt-have-a-choice/____________________________________________________________
