Questions for Debate on Wednesday 10/23/13

Amanda Aussems

Debate Questions to Ask

Posted to Blog

Debate for Alternatives to Reform

October 23, 2013 (Wednesday)

Question for Conservative View “Positive-Historical Judaism”:

• Zacharias Frankel believed that Judaism was “positive”, divinely revealed, and therefore could not be changed but by rabbinic approval.  Yet he also believed that Judaism developed within history (290). How did this view aid in the idea of moderate alterations and continual reinterpretations of Judaic practices?

Question for Neo-Orthodoxy View:

•  What were the meanings/ significance of the terms Mensch-Jissroeïel and Torah im derekh erets? How did these terms help to enforce how Samson Raphael Hirsch’s form of Judaism was entirely different from the traditional Orthodoxy that came before it?

Question for Ultra-Orthodoxy View:

•  Why would reforming, where Jews who wished to proclaim their loyalty to a nation and be engaged in civic ways of life, but remain true to Judaism, be seen as a threat to the traditional Judaic way of life? What was the true fear of reform for the Ultra-Orthodoxy view of Judaism; loss of traditional religion or loss of bond between Jews?