Jewish Reconstructionist Federation

Kaplan pioneered ways of reinterpreting and "transvaluing" our traditions.  Indeed, for many reasons he preferred reinterpreting and "transvaluing" our traditional beliefs and myths and rituals.  All the more reason for us to pay attention to those instances in which he advocated outright rejection of past beliefs!

Kaplan was clear that our tradition treated women as inferior to men -- and not merely as "different".  He uttlerly rejected these beliefs, practices, and rituals and exhorted us to create an egalitarian Jewish community.  He was willing to accede to popular pressure to change a little slower than he preferred -- but not as slowly as most of his followers wanted.  He was unwilling, however, to compromise on the goal of an egalitarian community and he was unwilling to give a positive spin to those parts of our tradition that were misceganist and sexist.

Kaplan was a devout Zionist and preached Jewish nationalism.  Yet he was adamant about eliminating the concept of chosenness from our liturgy -- even though he understood that this concept could indeed be transvalued.  He believed that to transvalue this concept rather than eliminate it would be unwise.  Precisely because he advocated Zionism, he knew that it would be risky and unwise to combine 20th century nationalism with traditional beliefs of "chosenness".  He was a universalist.  A parochial nationalism tainted with popular beliefs about being chosen or better than others was unacceptable.  And so he was unyielding about removing references to chosenness from our liturgy.

Similarly, Kaplan rejected the traditional concept of the Torah being revealed to Moses on Sinai (and the derivative belief that what was not revealed to Moses on Sinai was revealed to Rabbi Akiva).  First, it is bad theology.  We don't believe in a God that acts in this way, a God that reveals The Truth for All Time to a single individual and to be the property of a single people.  Secondly, the holiness of the Torah comes from the same source as the holiness of any other text.  The Torah is holy because the Jewish people have made it holy.  (Other peoples also have similar texts that they have made holy.)  But most importantly for Kaplan, this belief is fundamentally unethical and incompatible with living in multiple civilizations.  And here is the essence of one of the most radical elements of Kaplan's thought.  Unlike his former colleaqgues in Young Israel and unlike his colleagues at JTS, Kaplan valued living in multiple civilizations.  Living in a multicultural society was not just something that he was willing to accept as necessary.  Even his view of Jewish civilization in Israel was a vision of a Jewish community living in a multicultural society.  Eretz Israel was to be the place where Jewish civilization would be the primary civilization -- but not the only civilization!  The traditional doctrine of literal and direct revelation by God to Moses of The Truth in the form of The Torah on Mt. Sinai is unethical.  It essentially rejects the concept of a universal God because it maintains that God gave The Truth to one person on behalf of a single people.  And it is incompatible with tolerance and to valuing living in multiple civilizations.  And, like the concept of chosenness, it was, in Kaplan's view, a very dangerous doctrine for a people to maintain at a time of developing a nationalist movement.  Kaplan was right doctrinally.  And, unfortunately, he was right about the dangers such a doctrine posed to Zionism and the future of Jewish civilization.

There are three famous midrashim about Sinai MMK is pointing out that the first two of these are anathema to reconstructioists and Dan Cederbaum is pointing to the third which is essential.
Midrash I: God offered the torah to all other peoples and each of them were prepared to accept part but not all until He (sic) came to B'nai Israel who said we will hear and we will do.
Midrash II: God took the whole mountain and turned it upside down over B'nai Israel and said if you don't accept the Torah I will drop this mountain on your head.(i.e. the Holocaust and the exile are the mountain dropped on our heads)
Midrash III: We were all together at Sinai and not only do I remember being there but I also remember who stood next to me. In other words local units make up the peoplehood of Israel and unite us in our peoplehood.

Unfortunatley the "zot hatorah" in the traditional liturgy mythologises the first two and ignores the third. That is why choosing the second phrase (etz khaim he) rather than the first phrase of the longer paragraph from the pre Birnbaum orthodox prayer books is a better choice, which traditional (this tradition dates from the the period 1880-1940) prayerbooks have chosen.

I believe there was no doctrinal decision in the traditional editing of the paragraph down to one phrase --it simply was the first line. We can choose and have chosen the second line without offending tradition.

Thanks, Rabbi Kaplan. But I think that you should complain to your editor about the heading on your post --believing in "the traditional doctrine of revelation" is not necessarily the same as believing in "Sinai," which many of us do in the same way we "believe" in the Exodus.

Shabbat shalom. -- Dan