No one ever said rabbis are good at math (although we know one future rabbi that loves a good logic puzzle). Rabbi Yoshi Zweiback and Sara Lee put together a fabulous three-day program entitled, “Visions for Jewish Life in the 21st Century: Perspectives and Issues” and today’s session was on a Reform vision for Jewish life.

Here is our Top 5 of the first day:

1. The 1999 Pittsburgh Principles for Reform Judaism. ooh, ahh…it sounds so official. Rabbi Daniel Schiff started out the day with an analysis of the 1999 Pittsburgh Principles, which he was positive we were all familiar with. Obviously we keep a copy posted on the living room wall of our apartment.

2. O.M.G. - have you ever actually read the 1999 Pittsburgh Principles?! Here is just a sampling of the so-called principles of Reform Judaism: “We affirm the unique qualities of living in Eretz Yisrael, the land of Israel, and encourage aliyah, immigration to Israel.”…we do?

3. If we are making statements that we know to be untrue, it begs the question, are we serious about these aspirations? If we aren’t, why write them down, and if we are, we need to take them much more seriously. Rabbi Schiff relayed a story about how when Franz Rosenzweig was asked if he wears tefillin, his answer was, “not yet.” Rabbi Schiff asked if we are appropriately spending our time writing the platforms and principles of Reform Judaism instead of spending our time living and being Jewish. We do believe, here on Moshe Hess, that there is value in creating a vision and renewing that vision to define each generation as new leadership develops.

4. After pointing out all of the discrepancies of this masterpiece document (we still love you, Richard Levy) we were then challenged to identify three of the principles that we would be willing to affirm as personal Jewish commitments, and flesh out how we would make those principles a reality in our future congregations and/or Jewish Day Schools. This is more challenging than it sounds.

5. At the beginning of the session, 1 out of 5 people in Molly’s small group were open to sending their future children to a Jewish Day School. At the end of the session, after developing the perfect Reform Jewish Day School, 5 out of 5 people were excited about the possibility of sending their future children to a Jewish Day School (still making no promises though). Sneak peek - our ideal Reform Jewish Day School will be part of an interfaith campus with a vegetarian cafeteria.

For the truly bored, you can check out the YII Midyear Colloquium blog (Yoshi loves blogs more than we do).