A Long Island attorney and judge with whom I had a learning seder many years ago once remarked that it’s a pity Judaism doesn’t have a law similar to the federal Lanham Act which regulates trademark use and unfair competition. If it did he said the Reform movement would be liable to multiple counts of prosecution for its usurpation of the name Judaism.
Imagine after all how Reform would fare in the “real” world where hard-and-fast rules reign supreme in contrast to the fuzzy anything-goes realm of religion. Along comes the Reform movement of which Professor Jacob Petuchowski a leading Reform theologian wrote in 1992 that “one realizes that… late-twentieth-century American Reform Judaism… is first and foremost a ‘Jewish’ form of institutionalized secularism the successor as it were of those Jewish groups of an earlier time that specialized in rejecting and fighting religion not least the one they had inherited from their own ancestors.” Would this religiously anarchical movement’s attempt to pass itself off as the millennia-old faith of Judaism stand a moment’s chance in the world of science and law where accountability and rigorous standards matter more than “feeling comfortable”?
Or think of a highly esteemed professional sport with a multitude of rules and a venerable history say golf that decides that declining interest and the difficulty of the game necessitate radical changes to its rules (which in golf’s case go back to 1744) as a way of bringing in millions of new golfers. If you thought it could never happen you probably missed the New York Times of April 18 2014:
Golf has always reveled in its standards and rich tradition. But increasingly a victim of its own image and hidebound ways golf has lost five million players in the last decade…. People under 35 have especially spurned the game saying it takes too long to play is too difficult to learn and has too many tiresome rules.
Many of golf’s leaders are so convinced the sport is in danger of following the baby boomer generation into the grave that an internal rebellion has led to alternative forms of golf with new equipment new rules and radical changes to courses. The goal is to alter the game’s reputation in order to recruit lapsed golfers and a younger demographic.
Among the changes being discussed and implemented are a widening of the hole to 15 inches about four times its current size; allowing do-over shots known as mulligans; and permitting golfers to remove balls stuck in sand bunkers. Reigning US Open champion Justin Rose has been using a 15-inch hole “to reintroduce the game to his five-year-old son who rejected the game recently after he had tired of failing at it.” The “budding rebellion also includes changes to gear and equipment” including the creation of a “nonconforming golf ball engineered to neither slice nor hook.”
And lo and behold the strange three-winged Jewish bird called multi-denominationalism has landed on the golf links too. Let’s try an exercise (with hints generously provided) called “match the quote to the denomination”:
Ted Bishop president of the Professional Golfers Association (although his ownership of a large Indiana golf complex might also have something to do with it) says: “We’ve got to stop scaring people away from golf by telling them that there is only one way to play the game and it includes these specific guidelines. We’ve got to offer more forms of golf for people to try. We have to do something to get them into the fold….” Former Reform head Eric Yoffie’s standard for observing any given mitzvah was to ask himself “do I feel commanded?” Does Bishop too plan on advocating that golfers be credited with a birdie based on whether they “feel they’ve sunk one”?
On the other hand Thomas J. O’Toole Jr. another golfing big takes a more nuanced approach that seeks to “conserve” tradition while embracing change. “We think the charm of the game is a single set of rules. But we applaud strategic thinking that brings people to golf. We shouldn’t be narrow-minded.” Mr. O’Toole said alternative ideas were “not golf as we know it ” but he said he believed they were a way for people “to embrace the game so they would ultimately come play golf.” Sort of like permitting driving to one’s suburban temple for Shabbos services — but in a golf cart.
And then there’s the stubborn traditionalist holding on irrationally to a bygone world. “ ‘I don’t want to rig the game and cheapen it ’ said Curtis Strange a two-time United States Open champion…. ‘I don’t like any of that stuff. And it’s not going to happen either….’ ”
Then there’s former star golfer Dottie Pepper who says she hopes the coming changes will make the sport more inclusive of women who are also quitting the game: “Women feel isolated on the golf course so we have to encourage them to make it a group thing. Build a social experience. That’s what men do.” She sounds like the golfing parallel to that fourth also-ran “Judaism is a civilization” denomination the one whose motto is “there is no G-d and Mordecai Kaplan is His prophet.” Or maybe she fills the “Orthodox” women’s tefillah group slot.
So there we have it. Judaism has been conquered for the cause of comfort by the pluralistic hordes and now it’s golf’s unfortunate turn to be rendered a shell of its former self.
Tennis anyone?

STAY STRONG My friend Rabbi Yehudah Heimowitz e-mailed to say that my assertion two weeks ago that the duo of Eytan Kobres of which I wrote are not descendants of a mutual “Zeide Reb Ayson” isn’t exactly true. He was alluding to the Gemara (Bava Basra 15a) that teaches that Avraham Avinu also bore the name Ayson. Indeed the forefather of us all is referred to by that name in many places in the Jewish liturgy such as the Selichos and Hoshanos and the tefillos of the Yamim Noraim.
Why did Avraham merit to be called Ayson meaning “strong one”? There’s an explanation given by the Avnei Nezer of Sochatchov which during my time in the kiruv field many years ago I actually kept framed on my desk. In his work Ne’os Deshe the Sochatchover cites a midrash that expounds the verse in Bereishis (12:2) in which Hashem promises Avraham “veheyei brachah — and you will be a blessing.” The midrash states: “Don’t read the word as brachah but as breichah (a pool of water). Just as a pool purifies the impure so too will you Avraham bring near those far from Hashem.”
The Avnei Nezer explains that Hashem blessed Avraham with the ability to positively influence people in the surrounding society without being negatively influenced by them in turn just as a mikveh purifies the impure but is not itself rendered impure in the process. This he continues is why Avraham was called Ayson. He possessed the strength of conviction and of character to reach down and pull others up to his spiritual level while taking care not to be pulled down in any way by them or to compromise on his beliefs and way of life.
Those working in contemporary kiruv know that’s no mean feat and that the cautionary words of the midrash are as relevant today as when they were written. People want to be liked and accepted as mainstream and if one isn’t entirely comfortable in his own skin as a fiercely proud frum Jew one who walks with the Tannaim on his right and Amoraim on his left in a world of relative spiritual and moral Lilliputians it can be tempting to cut corners and to water down one’s words and deeds.
The temptation to do so is only magnified by the tendency to convince ourselves that our halachic leniencies and hashkafic circumlocutions are for the sake of Heaven in order to draw even more people under the wings of the Shechinah by showing them how normal we are and how compatible Judaism and modernity can be. But Hashem doesn’t ask us to win adherents to His cause; He can take care of expanding the ranks of His cause on His own or not as He sees fit. All He asks is that we do His Will.
Avraham faced this very test time and again. It was part of the nisayon of the Akeidah and of bris milah too. But Avraham the Strong — Ayson — stood his ground. And we his descendants need to ask ourselves in this area as in all others in the words of the midrash: “When will my actions come in contact with those of my forefathers Avraham Yitzchak and Yaakov?”