Jews with Nobody to Worship

To the "polydox, "even Reform Judaism seems right wing

No Jewish community has ever had more distinguished, respected or prosperous members. No Jewish community has experienced less antiSemitism. No Jewish community has enjoyed more religious freedom. Yet American Jewry is in a desperate state of crisis." So says Rabbi Alvin J. Reines of Cincinnati, who is convinced that by the year 2100 the American Jewish community could dwindle from today's 5.8 million to fewer than 1 million--below the point of significance.

Reines is not alone in his pessimism. Jewish survival is a perennial topic at synagogues and social centers. Proposed remedies include greater commitment to Israel, a higher birth rate, a stricter ban on intermarriage and campaigns against proselytizers from other faiths. But Reines, 52, doubts that any of these will work. The problem, he argues, is that American Jews simply do not accept the teachings of traditional Judaism. And without some religion, Jewry will vanish.

But what about Reform Judaism, the liberal branch created to free the Jews from the rigidities of Orthodoxy without stripping away their faith? Reines teaches at a Reform seminary, Cincinnati's Hebrew Union College. Yet he considers Reform Judaism to be only a halfhearted effort at liberalism. The answer, he insists, is "polydoxy," a radically open-ended faith with only one absolute: that there are no absolutes. At the first national meeting of polydox Jews in St. Louis last week, Reines proposed the creation of a Polydox Jewish Confederation to unite the radicals.

Consistent with polydox belief, there was no mention at the St. Louis meeting of God (or, as Reines' writings would have it, "god"). Because many Jews no longer believe in a personal, benevolent deity who revealed himself to Moses, polydox liturgies use vague formulations, such as "the power of creation" or "the flow and force of life." In fact, the polydox hold "services," not "worship services," since they have no particular god to worship.

Newly written polydox texts for children banish Bible stories as unedifying and untrue. Youths are taught that Abraham did not enter the Promised Land be cause of a covenant with God but because of a drought in Ur. Instead of the bar mitzvah (son of the commandments) rite, the polydox now use the baal mitzvah (master of the commandments), signifying that a youngster is able to decide for himself what to do.

While some Jews have turned to Unitarianism, Reines complains that "it's not a religion. It ducks all the questions, the basic problems of the finite condition of the human person, death and so on." Reines regards Ethical Culture, another refuge for defecting Jews, as a way of dealing with ethics rather than religion.

Polydoxy is starting small, though Reines maintains that many Jews subscribe to its beliefs without realizing it. The Institute of Creative Judaism, formed in 1971 to promote Reines' philosophy, so far has enlisted only 75 rabbis and ten synagogues. Congregation Or Ami in Richmond, Va., the first synagogue formed to practice polydoxy, began six years ago with six families and now has 100, many previously unaffiliated with any synagogue. The movement has also spread overseas. Rabbi Anthony Holz, who recently returned from a congregation in Pretoria, South Africa, summarizes his polydox outlook: "Fifty percent of what we know is wrong, and we can never know which fifty percent."

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