The Institutional Theology of Reform Judaism

Three Pillars

Dear readers,

You could write a spirited defense of Reform Judaism on purely theological grounds. Noah Feldman tried to do exactly this in his recent book “To Be a Jew Today,” arguing that Reform theology represents a coherent worldview rather than mere accommodation to secular values. He claims that “Progressive Jews” believe “in a divine moral order whose eternal truths of justice and love unfold in progress through history, rather than being fixed in unchanging authority.” According to Feldman:

What unites Progressive Jews today is the frank recognition and acknowledgment that to be worth maintaining, Jewish life and thought must cohere with our deepest moral commitments. What God wants (however metaphorically or loosely we understand God) cannot be in contradiction to what is just and right. When we see a new moral truth, we know it must be part of the divine order. Moral truth and divine truth are and must be consonant, perhaps even identical.

The argument has some merit and deserves serious consideration. But I don’t buy it.

If we’re all being honest about Reform Judaism, the movement’s theological superstructure (to the extent that it exists) is largely a post hoc rationalization for people who have already decided to dial down their Judaism. The typical Reform Jew didn’t wake up one morning convinced by arguments about progressive revelation and then decide to drive to synagogue on Saturday. He or she wanted to live like other Americans and needed a Jewish framework that would let them do so with minimal guilt.

That doesn’t make Reform Judaism meaningless or hypocritical. But it does mean we should be clear-eyed that the movement is, at its core, a religious framework constructed to accommodate the lifestyle choices that its members were already making.

It’s easy to see this dynamic in the history of the movement’s major policy shifts. It didn’t arrive at the idea of patrilineal descent through rigorous textual study and theological debate. It responded to rising intermarriage and declining synagogue affiliation, and then crafted a theological rationale for counting children of Jewish fathers as Jewish.

The same goes for the rejection of traditional halacha. The movement didn’t start with a robust theological doctrine of individual autonomy and work from there to abandon kashrut observance. American Jews began living like their neighbors, and the movement developed a theology to validate that lifestyle.

Even its social justice commitments, which are often held up as Reform Judaism’s spiritual core, tend to track mainstream progressive politics far more than they reflect distinctive Jewish reasoning. On issues like immigration, climate change, and income inequality, Reform Judaism often mirrors liberal Protestant or secular progressive advocacy, not halachic or biblical nuance.

If your theology always happens to produce the same conclusions your members already hold, then you’re probably not doing theology so much as offering religious legitimation to a preexisting worldview.

And yet… this doesn’t mean that there’s nothing to Reform Judaism as an institution. Despite its reactive theology, I would argue that the movement has backed into three coherent values that genuinely shape its institutions and public identity:

1. Religious Autonomy
   The Reform movement really does believe in individual choice. It rejects religious coercion and insists that meaning must emerge from personal decision.

   In practice, though, the idea of “informed choice” is more aspiration than reality; most Reform Jews don’t have enough of a Jewish education to make deeply informed decisions. Still, the institutional message is consistent: whatever you’re doing, that’s okay — it counts. Put like that, it doesn’t sound so far from Chabad’s approach.

2. Equality and Inclusion
   The movement’s stance on gender equality, LGBTQ inclusion, and racial diversity reflects a sincere belief that these values are religiously non-negotiable. The Reform movement didn’t merely tolerate women rabbis and gay weddings; it embraced them as expressions of Jewish ethics.

   But again, I would be remiss if I didn’t notice that these commitments track seamlessly with the cultural and political instincts of the movement’s core constituency of affluent, liberal, educated, female Americans. Theologically speaking, there’s little tension involved. The movement affirms what its members already believe, and allows them to feel morally affirmed in their religious identity.

3. Tikkun Olam and Social Justice
   Of the three pillars, this is perhaps the most substantive. Reform congregations do invest in social justice programming, and a segment of the movement really is animated by the idea that Judaism commands moral responsibility in the world. But the reach is limited. Most congregants don’t actively participate beyond symbolic gestures. The connection between Jewish life and political activism remains shallow for many. Still, the movement has successfully defined Jewishness as ethically engaged and outward-looking.

So it would probably be accurate to state that Reform Judaism tends to affirm rather than transform. It is what it is. The movement reflects the religious needs of people who were never going to return to halachic Judaism. And that’s exactly why it works to the extent that it does. Most people who drift away from traditional religion simply disappear from religious life altogether. The Reform movement, however, created a way for Jews to remain Jewish in a secular society that places no pressure on them to do so.

Is that “real” Judaism? That depends on your definition. But maybe it’s at least real religion, i.e. a meaning-making enterprise that offers purpose, belonging, and ethical orientation. And the fact that it emerged from practical necessity doesn’t make it less meaningful. Many longstanding religious practices (including plenty in traditional Judaism) have roots in pragmatism, politics, or cultural adaptation.