Abraham Joshua Heschel, in his essay “A Time for Renewal,” asks: Who is a Jew? And he answers: “A person in whose life Abraham Avinu would feel at home, a person for whom Rabbi Akiva would feel a great affinity, a person of whom the Jewish martyrs of all ages would not be ashamed.” And he asks again: “Who is a Jew? A person whose integrity falters when unaffected by the knowledge that something wrong has been done to another person. A person for whom God is a challenge, not an abstraction. A person who knows how to remember and keep alive what is sacred in the history of his people and who treasures the promise and vision of a better world in the days to come.”

And Heschel asks again: how have we survived as a people when we had no power, no allies, no friends, no territory, no visible organization to keep us intact, loyal, and whole? And he answers: “The wisest answer to our survival lies in the saying that God, Israel, and the Torah are one.”

The problem, according to Heschel, lies when our Judaism is supported by only one of the three pillars. For classical Reform Judaism, the essence of Judaism is represented by ethical monotheism, and they do not attach importance to the Torah and Israel. For them, Jewish ethics are the true expression of Judaism, and their Jewish practice is centered on that paradigm. Although they now support and recognize the importance of the State of Israel in Jewish life, that is not what gives their Judaism its identity, much less fulfilling the mitzvot, since from the beginning they declared that fulfilling halacha is optional and not obligatory.

For secular Zionist Jews, Israel is the most important thing, and they put God and the Torah in the background. Virtually nothing related to religion is taught in their schools. The State of Israel is the most important thing, and the contribution of our sages to Jewish thought throughout history is seen as naive and simplistic. For them, true Judaism emerges when having a land becomes the most important factor in Jewish identity.

For ultra-Orthodox Jews, the most important thing is the Torah, which they equate with the Shulchan Aruch, a manual that lists in detail all the commandments that every Jew should follow and that leads them to a life where religious conduct is the only thing that matters. They forget the part of agadah, which represents the Jewish soul, which is at the heart of these commandments and is the message that God placed in the mouths of the biblical prophets. For ultra-Orthodox Jews, the existence of the State of Israel not only means nothing to their identity, but, on the contrary, diminishes it, to the point of opposing its existence.

The identity of the Conservative or Masorti Jew, from its beginnings, is based on a practice of halacha that does not forget aggadah, recognizes the importance of history in the evolution of the Jewish people, supports the existence of the State of Israel, and places ethical monotheism as a fundamental part of its identity. It is a Judaism that is supported by the three pillars: God, Israel, and the Torah. Without a doubt, Abraham Avinu, in the Masorti world, would feel right at home.

By: Marcos Gojman.

Bibliography: “Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity,” Essays by Abraham Joshua Heschel.