Counting - and Changing - Our Blessings

By Richard S. Moline
KOACH Director

Praised are You Adonai our God, who rules the universe, making me in the divine image

This blessing is one of the first to be recited every morning in many Conservative synagogues around the world. Most likely, it first appeared in 1946 in the Sabbath and Festival Prayer Book, compiled and edited by Rabbi Morris Silverman, of blessed memory. The "Silverman Siddur," as it became known, was THE prayer book used in most Conservative congregations.

What's remarkable about this blessing is that it replaced two blessings previously found in traditional siddurim – one recited by men ("who has not made me a woman") and the other by women ("who has created me according to His will"). The replacement blessing acknowledged that men and women are created equally in God's image.

It doesn't seem all that remarkable? Of course it doesn't. Not today. But that was 1946 - sixty-three years ago. It was a time when men and women had very distinct and different roles in society, and particularly in religious life. What may seem just and perfectly logical today was incredibly radical in its day. For Rabbi Silverman and the Conservative movement to even entertain the possibility of acknowledging what they thought was an inequity in this and other blessings and prayers was truly groundbreaking.

Egalitarian worship was still an unknown concept to Conservative Jews then. Men and women sat together, but women did not participate in any of the public ritual and there were hardly any women at all involved in synagogue leadership. Even those who acknowledged these changes in the prayer book would still have viewed women's ritual involvement as foreign and possibly just wrong.

Today, of course, it's a lot different. The movement has evolved. Women occupy prominent positions in the synagogue and it is no longer a novelty to see a woman have an aliyah to the Torah or serve as rabbi of the congregation or president of the shul. And while there are still inequities, to be sure, we now simply take these things for granted. We understand that evolution isn't revolution.

More recently, we have grappled with religious challenges related to homosexuality. Major Conservative movement organizations passed resolutions affirming a commitment to civic equality and non-discriminatory practices in synagogue life. However, it wasn't until 2006 that we made official statements regarding the ordination of GLBT rabbis and cantors (http://www.rabbinicalassembly.org/teshuvot/teshuvotssi.html - scroll down to "interpersonal relationships"). Our North American seminaries (the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies and the Jewish Theological Seminary of America) now accept and train members of the GLBT community to serve as members of the clergy.

As expected, there has been controversy – a whole lot different for sure, but my guess is no more or no less than there was when women were granted rights in our religious community. Certainly, the Torah can be read in many ways – we have known this for centuries. Some people accept its authority based on Talmudic dictums and subsequent codes written centuries ago. And there are those who look at Torah and its commentary as history – part of our peoples' narrative, but with no more authority than some modern- day works. With such ideologies, the answers are simple ("yes" or "no"). For those of us who accept Torah as authoritative, but also understand that it continues to be a living, evolving document that may speak differently to every generation (as God spoke differently to different generations in the Torah), simple answers don't come easily.

We can be proud that the Conservative movement takes an intellectually honest approach to Jewish law and Jewish life. It would be a lot easier to say "yes" or "no." But to accept God's authority and understand certain things do need to evolve (even if that evolution happens too slowly for some) is to understand what one of our ancient texts, Pirkei Avot, teaches us about Torah:

Just as the Silverman Siddur took a stand in 1946 that is anything but radical today, I am certain that sixty-three years from now, today's discussions will seem almost trivial. Our role is to continue these discussions – to struggle if we need to, to internalize and to keep turning and turning and turning some more.

Praised are You Adonai our God, who rules the universe, making me in the divine image.

To read more, link to the latest edition of CJ: Voices of Conservative/Masorti Judaism - http://www.uscj.org/Spring_20097962.html

[Posted 5/23/09]