Subj : Re: The universe
To   : Bob Eyer
From : Joshua Lee
Date : Mon Jan 08 2001 07:36 am

-=> Bob Eyer wrote to Joshua Lee <=-

 >it's substance, has been challenged.  Judaism focuses more on
 >behavior, it doesn't have a "statement of faith".

 BE> What about the proposition 'God exists'.  Doesn't Judaism have
 BE> faith that God exists?

I, as an Orthodox Jew, say yes. Ask someone of the Reconstructionist
or Humanist movements though and you'd get a different answer; both
of them are atheistic (well, I guess you could be an agnostic Recon.)
alleged forms of Judaism. In fact, at one time, the Conservative
movement housed the Reconstructionist one; Mordechai M. Kaplan,
it's founder, taught, as a teacher of Reconstructionist theology,
at their "rabbinical seminary" for many decades; and my own beloved
father was converted by a Reform affiliated Reconstructionist.

You won't, however, see an Orthodox Reconstructionist; Mordechai
M. Kaplan started out as a Rabbi at an Orthodox synagogue which
fairly promptly kicked him out. Legend has it, however, that
Mordechai Kaplan continued to lay tefillin daily in spite of his
claim that Judaism was merely arbitrary "folkways" of a
"Jewish civilization" rather than a religion.

Of course, some thinkers long before MM Kaplan who were personally
observant, such as Moses Mendelsohn, did claim that Judaism was
a religion without belief requirements. It is noteworthy, however,
that none of Mendelsohn's disciples were observant and that all of
Mendelsohn's grandchildren (such as Felix) were baptized and
married non-Jews. The ultimate consequence of Judaism without
Jewish thought is Judaism without a soul; and a body cannot
live without a soul.

                       JBL

.... Nachal Novea Mekor Chochmah
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