As I’ve written previously in this space there are good reasons that liberalism in politics and religion most often go hand in hand among Jews and they aren’t necessarily the ones that seem most obvious such as shared views on morality or religion in the public sphere. There are deeper linkages between political ideology and theology.

I often say with tongue only partially in cheek that wherever possible — in discussions with those new to Judaism — I try to discuss life rather than religion. Ultimately a discussion of religion if it is to get to the essence of things must be about how to view life and human nature because that is what religion exists to teach us about. As Dr. Isaac Breuer put it Judaism is anthropology much more than it is theology which is just a pithier version of something his grandfather Rav Hirsch said: that in the main Torah comes to teach a Jew not about how things look in Heaven but how they ought to look in his heart and in his home.

And the same is true albeit on a far more mundane level of politics which at the end of the day isn’t really just about this policy or that one but about the nature of human societies and their citizens. Arguments that on the surface appear to be about theology are thus often really about something deeper albeit unexpressed; and the same is true of political discourse.

Let’s apply this understanding to the question of why the heterodox Jewish movements are as the old bon mot has it just the left wing of the Democratic Party with holidays added. First an axiom: To be a modern liberal (as opposed to a classical one) is to be unabashedly utopian.

This utopianism is formed by several related precepts: that humans are inherently good; that people and societies are on a historical trajectory of becoming ever more good with the Enlightenment playing a critical role in accelerating that ascent to moral heights; and that the evil men do is most often attributable to circumstances external to them e.g. poverty imperialism — but that do not corrupt their essential goodness regardless of however many millions of corpses may result. Suffice it to say that utopianism is the unified field theory of political liberalism which helps explain just about every position it takes on matters both domestic and foreign from the welfare state and nanny state to the coddling of dictators and nuclear disarmament from global warming to feminism.

But Judaism dissents. And because it is the handiwork of the very Author of human nature it speaks with incomparable authority when it posits that man is a complex alloy of good and evil or as Chazal express it a being comprised of three angelic qualities and three animalistic ones. The mitzvos are not just man’s best hope but the only one because their goal is l’tzareif es habriyos to refine the dross of egoism and base drives that are an intrinsic part of the human makeup and if not addressed will undermine any possibility of a happy and meaningful life. (This is emphatically not to say that Judaism somehow accords in all respects with the views of contemporary conservatism a topic for another day.)

But when one’s first political allegiance is to this utopian way of seeing the world what must perforce happen to one’s religious beliefs? They must be updated of course so as to conform to one’s worldview. The mitzvos must transmogrify from a system of Divine commands that man desperately needs in order to empower his higher self to best his lower one and become truly human into a vastly streamlined set of suggestions — a smorgasbord of options — that suspiciously resemble the editorial positions of the Nation and Mother Jones. From this Jews are free to blithely pick and choose what they’re “comfortable” with to employ a term that’s all the rage in the heterodox world.

But mitzvos as tools for domesticating man and sublimating his inclinations toward evil? Please that’s so 1000 CE or thereabouts. And that term “evil” is a Bush-ism; Need we say more?

To put it differently I can pinpoint the moment I knew Barack Obama really meant his pledge during the 2008 campaign — never fulfilled like so many others — to meet with all the world’s tyrants — Ahmedinejad Castro Kim Jong-il et al — without preconditions. It was when I read about a 2004 interview in which a religion reporter had asked Obama if he believed in the concept of sin to which he replied that he did. To the next question “What is sin?” he responded that it’s “being out of alignment with my values.” When objective moral standards for which one is accountable not to oneself but to Another don’t exist they can’t really be demanded of him either can they?

But this is of course precisely the kind of talk that is rife in the Reform movement whose recently retired leader wrote that he determines which mitzvos of the Torah he’ll perform by asking himself about each one: “Do I feel commanded in this mitzvah?” The problem with that statement isn’t that it contradicts all of Judaism although of course it does. It’s that it’s so detached from psychological reality that it so wildly contradicts everything we adults know about the wiles of human nature and way each of us becomes an Einstein when it comes to egotistic self-justification. In other words forget about religion; the problem is the inability to get real about life.

The other day I came across a piece entitled “The Best of Times The Worst of Times for Women Rabbis” bemoaning the shocking reality that women clergy-folk have a far more difficult time than men landing Conservative pulpits; in the larger ones they’re almost nonexistent. It’s a classic example of the intertwining of self-delusion in the political and religious realms and feminism is the perfect area for this to occur. If there’s any contemporary issue in which the Pollyannas reign supreme it’s discussions about gender: The delusions abound about the nature of men the nature of women and the nature of interactions between the two.

The writer interviewed two female deans at Conservative seminaries. One was asked: “Are there differences between male and female rabbis?”

I think there are differences between people. There are societal assumptions about women and men that may cause them to act in particular ways. The presumptions are that women are kinder and more compassionate and cry more easily that men are tougher and stronger.  

Then her colleague chimes in about “grappling with the specifics of the system”:

$$c$$For example what should a woman rabbi wear? “I still feel uncomfortable wearing tefillin” Rabbi [sic] Peretz said. “All my images of people wearing tefillin still are male images. No matter how I put my tefillin on they always seem to fall off. The whole idea of being girded in leather feels very male. And also like anybody else I’m concerned about how I’ll look for the rest of the day. I want to look professional and tefillin always flatten my hair.”$$c$$

But not to worry she “still she wears them” because “it’s important. They have become a symbol for me that the mitzvot are not about me but about interpreting the divine will.” Not about the Divine will itself mind you just about “interpreting it.” But it’s reassuring to know the mitzvot aren’t about her.

Next a third clergy-lady speaks up:

I used to think that there were inherent differences between men and women as rabbis but I no longer do. I was part of the very first generation of rabbis to be ordained … and … there was a feeling that women would bring something different to the pulpit; it was a feminist essentialist argument. Now I think that men can bring those so-called female qualities … and women can bring … qualities we stereotypically think of as male.…

But wait she’s not done:

I think that we still are plagued with a kind of transference that happens with congregations and rabbis. For many people it’s more comfortable when it happens with men. Men have a hard time bonding with a woman rabbi and women feel competitive with her.

So there aren’t any inherent differences between rabbis of different genders but lots of them between male and female congregants. Those stubborn “societal assumptions between men and women” just refuse to go away; perhaps we need Chinese-style reeducation camps.

Finally the writer quotes an ordained female social activist:

I’m not sure that the problems women rabbis are having are separate from the issues women are having everywhere. The real issue is with women in power in the Jewish community. Women head very few charitable organizations in general but in the Jewish community they head almost none. So a piece of what’s going on is that women are still struggling with a society that does not support them.

Someone ought to invite her for a tour of the frum community. But beware: that’s the one where the heads of charitable organizations successful businesswomen and stay-at-home mothers all sit in the back.