Isaac Meyer Wise's "Failure": The Creation of Reform
Judaism
Sermon, August 6, 2004
Rabbi Bruce Kadden
Sometimes, the line between success and failure is quite thin. And
sometimes, what at first appears to be a failure turns out to be a success.
Such is the case of the effort of Isaac Meyer Wise to unite all American
synagogues into one organization in the second half of the 19th
century. As we will see, his effort failed, but in so doing he created the
institutions that would be the foundation of Reform Judaism in America.
Wise is the most important Jewish leader in the 19th century.
Arthur Hertzberg writes that “His life is the central story of the ‘German Jews’
in America, from their arrival until the immigrant generation was totally gone
around 1900, the year of Wise’s death.”
Wise was born in a small town in Bohemia in 1819; he received a traditional
Jewish education, first in cheder, then in yeshivot, and was on
track to becoming a rabbi. The Hapsburg government, however, insisted that
would-be rabbis first obtain a university degree; Wise studied at the University
of Vienna, but apparently never finished his degree. It is unclear whether he
was ever officially ordained as a rabbi.
Nevertheless, when he came to the United States in 1846 he assumed the
title. Most American synagogues were led by a Chazan and also often
arranged for the services of itinerant lay preachers who would use the title of
“minister.” Wise’s oratorical skills earned him invitations to speak in a
number of congregations and eventually a full-time position in Albany, New
York.
Although Wise was at first cautious about making changes to basic Jewish
practice, he was outspoken in his criticism of Jews engaging in business on
Shabbat. In response, the synagogue leadership fired him, an act he considered
illegal. When he attempted to occupy the pulpit on erev Rosh Hashanah, he got
into a fist-fight with the President and was arrested for trespassing. (Ah, for
the good old days!) His supporters created a new congregation for him where he
felt free to implement significant changes to the liturgy and Jewish practice.
These included mixed seating, organ music and choir and eliminating prayers
which yearned for the rebuilding of the Temple and the restoration of the
Davidic kingship.
According to Hertzberg, Wise’s “one consuming passion” was “to make the Jews
absolutely at home as equals in America.” Indeed, he hoped to develop what he
called a Minhag America, an American tradition for praying and practicing
Judaism. While he began this quest in Albany, it would come to fruition in
Cincinnati, Ohio, where Wise was elected as spiritual leader of B’nai Yeshurun
Congregation.
In Cincinnati Wise published a new prayer book, which he called Minhag
America. In deciding which prayers to include and which to eliminate, he
believed that “doctrines inconsistent with reason are no longer tenable.”
Furthermore, since Wise believed that Jews were “American citizens and
Israelites by religion” he eliminated references to Jewish nationalism and the
hoped-for return to Zion.
Wise’s first attempt to bring together the leadership of American
congregations was in 1855 in Cleveland. He hoped that the rabbis would be able
to define American Judaism and organize a permanent religious body encompassing
all synagogues. However, Wises’ reputation as a reformer led many traditional
Jewish leaders to stay away. Isaac Leeser, who had attempted to convene such a
meeting as early as 1841, attended, but left when he realized that Wise was
straying far from traditional Jewish practice. Other leaders, such as Rabbi
David Einhorn, did not even attend, because they envisioned even more radical
changes than Wise did. In 1856 he published his own prayer book, Olat Tamid,
which changed the liturgy far more dramatically than Wise’s
Nevertheless, Wise did not give up on his dream of creating a united body of
all congregations, as well as a seminary to train “teachers, ministers, and
rabbis” for American congregations. By staking out the middle ground between
the Orthodox and the radical reformers, Wise hoped convince those on the fringes
that coming together in one organization was more important than their ritual
differences.
Wise tried again in 1873 to create a union of congregations. In July, 34
delegates met in Cincinnati, representing congregations in the Midwest and
South. Whether the exclusion of the more traditionally oriented congregations
from the East was by design or happenstance is not clear, but those who did
gather were more homogeneous and thus found it easier to agree on religious
matters.
Thus, the Union of American Hebrew Congregations (recently renamed the Union
for Reform Judaism) was established with its primary goal as the creation of a
rabbinic seminary. From its inception, the UAHC allowed each congregation to
establish its own traditions, without interference from the parent body, a
principle that has endured to this day. That position --and the intentional
avoidance of using the word “Reform” in the names of these institutions-- were
designed in hopes that more traditional congregations would join. Indeed, large
Eastern congregations such as the Reform Temple Emanu-El in New York and the
more traditional Mikveh Israel in Philadelphia soon became members.
By 1878 more than 100 congregations had affiliated, representing a vast
majority of American synagogues. It appeared that Wise might achieve his
dream. But two developments in the 1880s would change things. First of all,
beginning in 1881 hundreds of thousands of Eastern European Jews would come to
American shores. They were more traditional than the Jews who had come from
Germany, and –at least initially—less interested in assimilating into American
culture.
And in 1885 a gathering of Reform Rabbis would create the Pittsburg Platform
which affirmed the radical direction that Reform Judaism was heading. Together,
these developments ended any chance that the UAHC would represent all of
American Jewry.
We might therefore rightly conclude that Isaac Meyer Wise failed. He was not
able to create an organization uniting all Jewish congregations in the United
States. Yet the organization he did create, the Union of American Hebrew
Congregations has become one of the great institutions of American Jewish life,
bringing together more synagogues with more Jewish members than any other
organization. And the Hebrew Union College has, during its century and a
quarter of existence, produced not only rabbis, but also cantors, educators and
communal service workers to lead the American Jewish community.
We can learn from Wise’s experience that although we do not always succeed in
accomplishing what we set out to do, our efforts sometimes have significant
unintended consequences. Furthermore, Although Wise failed to bring together
all Jewish groups, he realized that for the American Jewish community to be
strong and effective in dealing with major issues, we need some sort of unified
leadership. Although it seems like today there are more Jewish organizations
than ever, efforts continue to bring together disparate voices. The Conference
of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, for example, brings
together the leadership of the most important Jewish institutions to coordinate
efforts to support Israel, fight anti-Semitism and help oppressed Jewish
communities around the world.
Finally, Wise’s failure should help us realize that it is healthy to
disagree, that it is good to have many different approaches to Judaism. Judaism
has never been monolithic; historically there were Pharisees, Sadducees and
Essenes some two thousand years ago; Karaites who challenged the rabbinic
leadership for many centuries during the early Middle Ages, and more recently
Chasidim and Mitnagdim in Eastern Europe. Today we not only have Reform,
Conservative, and Orthodox Judaism with all its sub-groups, but also
Reconstructionism, Renewal, and Humanistic Judaism. This great diversity is
part of the strength of Judaism and the Jewish people. Efforts to bring
together diverse Jews end up stifling creativity and harming the organic
development of Judaism.
We should therefore be grateful for Isaac Meyer Wise’s failure to create an
organization representing all of American synagogues, for it not only brought
about the creation of the UAHC and HUC, which allowed Reform Judaism to flower,
but also assured that Judaism would encourage creativity and change, assuring a
plurality of approaches to the Jewish religion.
[back to list of sermons]
[back to top] |
