The Radical American Judaism of Mordecai M. Kaplan

Mel Scult

Description

The pragmatic Judaism of a revolutionary Jewish thinker

https://vimeo.com/195406527

Mordecai M. Kaplan, founder of the Jewish Reconstructionist movement, is the only rabbi to have been excommunicated by the Orthodox rabbinical establishment in America. Kaplan was indeed a radical, rejecting such fundamental Jewish beliefs as the concept of the chosen people and a supernatural God. Although he valued the Jewish community and was a committed Zionist, his primary concern was the spiritual fulfillment of the individual. Drawing on Kaplan's 27-volume diary, Mel Scult describes the development of Kaplan's radical theology in dialogue with the thinkers and writers who mattered to him most, from Spinoza to Emerson and from Ahad Ha-Am and Matthew Arnold to Felix Adler, John Dewey, and Abraham Joshua Heschel. This gracefully argued book, with its sensitive insights into the beliefs of a revolutionary Jewish thinker, makes a powerful contribution to modern Judaism and to contemporary American religious thought.

Acknowledgments
Preface

Introduction
1. Excommunications: Kaplan and Spinoza
2. Self-Reliance: Kaplan and Emerson
3. Nationalism and Righteousness: Ahad Ha-Am and Matthew Arnold
4. Universalism and Pragmatism: Felix Adler, William James, and John Dewey
5. Kaplan and Peoplehood: Judaism as a Civilization and Zionism
6. Kaplan and His God: An Ambivalent Relationship
7. Kaplan's Theology: Beyond Supernaturalism
8. Salvation: The Goal of Religion
9. Salvation Embodied: The Vehicle of Mitzvot
10. Mordecai the Pious: Kaplan and Heschel
11. The Law: Halakhah and Ethics
12. Kaplan and the Problem of Evil: Cutting the Gordian Knot
Conclusion

Appendix: "Thirteen Wants" of Mordecai Kaplan Reconstructed
Notes
Selected Bibliography and Note on Sources
Index

Sujets

• Jewish Studies
• Philosophie et théologie
• Reform
• Theology
• Judaism
• Religion

Informations

• Publié par: Indiana University Press
• Date de parution: 29 novembre 2013
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780253010889
• Langue: English

Extrait

THE RADICAL AMERICAN JUDAISM OF MORDECAI M. KAPLAN
THE MODERN JEWISH EXPERIENCE
Deborah Dash Moore and Marsha L. Rosenblit, editors Paula Hyman, founding coeditor

Mordecai M. Kaplan in his office at the seminary.
Courtesy of the Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary
THE RADICAL AMERICAN
JUDAISM OF
MORDECAI M. KAPLAN
MEL SCULT
INDIANA UNIVERSITY PRESS
Bloomington Indianapolis
This book is a publication of
INDIANA UNIVERSITY PRESS Office of Scholarly Publishing Herman B Wells Library 350 1320 East 10th Street Bloomington, Indiana 47405 USA
iupress.indiana.edu
Telephone orders 800-842-6796 Fax orders 812-855-7931
2014 by Mel Scult All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system without permission in writing from the Publisher.
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences-Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1992.
Manufactured in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Scult, Mel.
The radical American Judaism of Mordecai M. Kaplan / Mel Scult.
pages cm. - (The modern Jewish experience)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-253-01075-9 (cloth : alk. paper)
- ISBN 978-0-253-01088-9 (e-book)
1. Kaplan, Mordecai Menahem, 1881-1983.
2. Reconstructionist Judaism. I. Title.
BM755.K289S395 2014
296.8 344-dc23
2013019522
1 2 3 4 5 19 18 17 16 15 14
As for me, I shall behold thy face in righteousness.
Psalms 17:15 *

In gratitude to Rabbi Neil Gillman, for his generous appreciation,
and to my brother,
Allen Scult, my most significant intellectual Other
* Biblical verse on a stained-glass window at the Society for the Advancement of Judaism, Kaplan s Congregation.
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments
Preface
Introduction
1 Excommunications: Kaplan and Spinoza
2 Self-Reliance: Kaplan and Emerson
3 Nationalism and Righteousness: Ahad Ha-Am and Matthew Arnold
4 Universalism and Pragmatism: Felix Adler, William James, and John Dewey
5 Kaplan and Peoplehood: Judaism as a Civilization and Zionism
6 Kaplan and His God: An Ambivalent Relationship
7 Kaplan s Theology: Beyond Supernaturalism
8 Salvation: The Goal of Religion
9 Salvation Embodied: The Vehicle of Mitzvot
10 Mordecai the Pious: Kaplan and Heschel
11 The Law: Halakhah and Ethics
12 Kaplan and the Problem of Evil: Cutting the Gordian Knot
Conclusion
Appendix: Thirteen Wants of Mordecai Kaplan Reconstructed
Notes
Selected Bibliography and Note on Sources
Index
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
There are always many people to thank when one writes a book, and this book is no exception. I am grateful to Professor David Kraemer, librarian at the Jewish Theological Seminary, for permission to quote from the diaries of Mordecai Kaplan, the originals of which are at the Seminary. I also want to express my thanks to Rabbi Deborah Waxman, director of the Eisenstein Archives at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College, for permission to quote from the Kaplan papers.
I want first to thank people who have edited my work. At the top of the list stands my wife Barbara, whose sense of style and perfection are evident throughout this book. She is a hard critic, but the end product more than justifies the difficulties in getting there. David Lobenstine was enormously devoted in editing this work, and for that I cannot thank him enough. He is the most careful reader that I have ever dealt with, and I am grateful for his skill and effort. Next is Rabbi Richard Hirsh, director of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association. Richard is a good friend and colleague with whom I have spent countless hours on the phone discussing Mordecai Kaplan and the many issues raised by this work. In addition, he has also edited a significant number of chapters in this book. I told Richard rather early on that, in the event of my death or incapacity, I wanted him to finish the book. I have great faith in him, in his writing ability, in his intelligence, and in his knowledge of Kaplan and Reconstructionism. Amy Gottlieb has also edited a number of chapters with great skill and thoroughness. Others who have edited various parts of this work include Robert Seltzer, Barbara Heyman, Marilyn Silverstein, and Baila Shargel. My thanks also go to Professor Lenny Levin for his help in connection with transliterations. Any inaccuracies are my own.
Among my academic colleagues, there are many with whom I have shared my thoughts on Kaplan. Foremost is Neil Gillman. With his help I was able to teach a course at the Jewish Theological Seminary on the philosophy of Mordecai Kaplan. This course mobilized my efforts and motivated me to organize my Kaplan material. The organization for that course is the organization for this book. Arnie Eisen, now chancellor at the Jewish Theological Seminary, has been a friend for a long time. Not only has he been encouraging and supportive, but the conference that he organized at Stanford University in 2004 was a landmark in my career. The conference was devoted exclusively to Kaplan, and the proceedings were eventually published. Professor Robert Seltzer, colleague and long-time friend, has read parts of this manuscript and is always encouraging. I have also shared parts of this book with Professor Shaul Magid of Indiana University, Nancy Fuchs-Kreimer of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College, Yossi Turner of Schechter Institute in Jerusalem, and Rabbi Jack Cohen of Jerusalem, z l. Professor Yehoyada Amir of Hebrew Union College, Jerusalem, has also been consistently encouraging in all my work on Kaplan.
Others who have read selected chapters include Rabbi Shel Schiffman, Jane Susswein, Anne Eisenstein, and Miriam Eisenstein. Both Miriam and Anne have been very generous with their help, and their close-up insights have been invaluable. Paula Eisenstein Baker, a fellow scholar, has also been helpful through the years. I am indebted to the extended family of Mordecai Kaplan, especially Hadassah Musher and her son Daniel, for their support.
In addition to the people named above, I am much in debt to certain individuals who have supported me from the beginning. At the top of this list are Jack and Kaye Wolofsky of Montreal, loyal disciples of Mordecai Kaplan and continually helpful in my work. The members of my congregation, West End Synagogue-A Reconstructionist Congregation, have been unfailingly encouraging over the years. They have afforded me a continuous opportunity to share and refine my ideas. Their positive response is dear to me. I want to single out my WES friends Joe Gurvets and Jerry Posman.
I am profoundly grateful to my fellow board members at the Kaplan Center for Jewish Peoplehood. The efforts and ongoing concern of Dan Cedarbaum, Eric Caplan, and Jack Wolofsky are of fundamental importance in helping people understand the message and relevance of Mordecai M. Kaplan. I want to thank Ellen Kastel, former archivist at the Jewish Theological Seminary, whose help and encouragement I value very much. In addition, I am grateful to the members of my book club with whom I have shared my concerns during the past fifteen years. My Florida friends, Bill, Molly, Henry, Jim, Sherry, and Linda, have been with me over the long haul and their companionship has been extremely valuable.
Last but certainly not least is my brother, Allen Scult, Professor Emeritus of philosophy at Drake University. Allen is my constant conversational other about Kaplan and many other intellectual matters. His suggestions always lift my work to a higher level.
PREFACE
I have been studying Mordecai Kaplan, his life and his thought, continually since 1972. One might reasonably ask, as my wife often has, how someone could remain with one subject for so long. Part of the answer lies in the wealth of material Kaplan left behind. In addition to the books and articles that appeared during his lifetime, there is a mass of unpublished material. The Reconstructionist Rabbinical College in Philadelphia, which I have been affiliated with, houses a very large Kaplan archive, containing box after box of everything from sermon notes to lecture notes, personal letters to comments on the Torah, and much else in between. 1
But beyond the almost infinite paper trail, other, more potent reasons draw me to Kaplan. I have for much of the past six decades struggled to define the exact meaning of my Jewishness. Midway through this journey, Kaplan came along. He told me, both in person and through his books and articles, that being a Jew was not primarily about accepting a particular belief system. Rather, being a Jew was a matter of biography and community. Belonging is more important than believing, as Reconstructionists like to say. 2 His perspective has been revelatory and liberating. If my relationship to the Jewish people is a matter of biography-if my Jewishness, in other words, is a question of my life story and the life story of the Jewish people-then I am free to evaluate any and all traditional beliefs and reject what makes no sense to me. There is no way in which my being a Jew could be undermined.
Within the liberation that Kaplan has fostered, there are other intellectual and philosophical issues that attract me to him. For many years I have been interested in the thought of Friedrich Nietzsche; his ideas about overcoming, or personal transcendence in particular, have