Jeff Kaplan, UF Hillel's program director, posted a message with doubts about the value of pluralism (click here to read it). This is my reponse to him:
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Dear Jeff,
This is a long answer to a very provocative post, so bear with me...
One of the things I am most passionate about our Jewish tradition is its respect for multiple (and sometimes competing) claims for truth.
- In midrashim, one of the oldest forms of interpreting our sacred Torah, the expression "דבר אחר", "another opinion", is repeated over and over and over, bringing different interpretations in conversation with each other;
- The Talmud is basically a record of sages holding opposing opinions and debating them, sometimes reaching a common conclusion, sometimes not;
- One of the most traditional forms of publishing a chumash (the five books of Moses) is called Mikra'ot Gedolot, and it presents different commentaries side by side with the Biblical text: the opinions of Rashi, Ibn Ezra, Rashbam, Ramban, Seforno and others. The amazing thing for me is that these commentaries will quite often disagree with each other – even Rashbam will frequently argue with the words of his grandfather, Rashi.
In the Jewish tradition, we don’t sweep these different perspectives under the carpet, we rather bring them to the forefront and thrive in learning from multiple points of view. As you can see, the Jewish tradition has always been very pluralistic in nature.
Pluralism is not about blending opinions and erasing differences; it does not require everyone to agree, or to hold to the same values. Pluralism is about honoring the differences, bringing them to talk to each other and growing from their encounter. Jewish pluralism is neither about asking egalitarian students to go to a minyan with a mechitzah nor about forcing Orthodox students to go to a minyan in which men and women pray side by side. Pluralism doesn't even require students to give up on their belief that a mechitzah is "the most egregious symbol of an 'oppressive and antiquated Judaism.'" (just to quote the way you defined a possible position.)
What Jewish pluralism, at its most elementary level, does ask from our students (and from us as part of the Hillel staff) is to recognize that Jewish choices very different from their/our own are also legitimately Jewish and belong in our building. A more sophisticated implementation of pluralism creates the space for people holding different opinions about the mechitzah (or the role of women in religious life) to talk with sincere curiosity about each other's point of view.
That does not mean that Jewish pluralism cannot have boundaries - the truth of the matter is that we always have them and it is very healthy to make these boundaries explicit. What are the positions that, if held by someone, would place him/her outside our tent?
At the Rabbinical School of Hebrew College, the decision was made when the program was created eight or nine years ago that it would be pluralistic, yet religious and egalitarian. This decision, with which I don't necessarily agree, in practice prevented Orthodox and Secular students from joining our program. Despite that, it brings together an amazing breadth of opinions that makes for very interesting, sometimes challenging and difficult, conversations. Most of the time, you will find multiple perspectives on any subject you propose at our Beit Midrash (hall of study) - but the unifying factor that brings all of us together is our commitment to learning from each other and in holding the premise that we all have a seat at the table.
Another very good reason to be pluralistic is that it is much more engaging that settings in which everyone agrees. This week in school, for example, we heard about Israel from Danny Gordis and from Naomi Chazan, very different perspectives that illuminated our own and were very really thought-provoking!
Some years ago, before I started studying at Hebrew College, I learned a text that presented the process of Revelation at Sinai as a projection of the "Heavenly Torah" (a mystical object that God keeps for Godself) into our human reality. If you remember your physics' classes from high-school, projections depend not only on the object being projected (the Heavenly Torah, in our case) but also on the surface on which the projection is being cast (in our metaphor, the people present at Sinai served as the surface.) The fact that they were all different from each other made Revelation different for each one of them and for each one of us, perhaps the source for the honoring of different perspectives in our Jewish tradition. God did not ask people to get rid of their differences so everyone could receive the same message, rather God took advantage of the variations on the "projecting screen" to give us a more vibrant, colorful and engaging Torah than we would have had otherwise.
Likewise, our student denominational groups don't need to disperse for our Hillel to be truly pluralistic; they are co-responsible for the richness of the Jewish experience we provide to our students. As long as we all agree in honoring the different perspectives we bring to our Shabbat dinner table after services are over, our disputes will all be "for the sake of Heaven." (*) Let them continue and let's celebrate them!
(*) A famous text from Mishnah Avot 5:17 states that "Any dispute which is for the sake of Heaven, shall in the end be of lasting worth; but that which is not for the sake of Heaven, shall not in the end be of lasting worth."
