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Reform Judaism - Some Questions and Answers
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9. Is Reform Judaism an halakhic movement?
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 Rabbinic Judaism developed a code of law or practice, halakhah, which sought to express revelation in the details of everyday behaviour, as a blueprint for Jewish conduct. For many centuries, though to a lesser extent in recent times, that code of law was dynamic and responsive. We acknowledge the halakhic system as a towering creation and a dominating aspect of our inheritance. It was, however, founded upon an understanding of the origins of Torah we no longer share and developed by the use of principles we no longer find convincing. Furthermore, we do not believe that any system of externally imposed law is fully adequate to enable each Jew today to express their relationship with God and other human beings.
Reform Judaism recognises that we are all autonomous, thinking, choosing individuals. But we do not exist in a spiritual or social vacuum. Once we affirm our Jewishness, we affirm berit, the covenant, that binding agreement between God and the Jewish people. From that covenant flow obligations, mitzvot and a response to every aspect of life, a way of journeying through life, which the halakhah sought to express. It is our responsibility to balance our own needs and perceptions with due consideration for the wisdom of our tradition. We are obliged to consider the implications of our actions on the Jewish community and people of which we are a part. We are duty bound to listen for the purifying, ethically probing voice of God. It is out of that responsible autonomy that our Jewish path through life emerges.
In the process, we may understand differently the foundations of halakhah and may question the adequacy of law itself but, nevertheless, we assign a strong presumption in favour of the halakhic tradition. We recognise the significance of individual judgment and conscience but individuals have equally to recognise that they exist as part of a tradition and community that have much to teach them. Above all, we affirm that it is when individuals come together in community, acquiring knowledge of our Jewish tradition by exploring and studying issues under the guidance and instruction of rabbis, that authentic patterns and standards of Jewish behaviour continue to develop.
So, are we halakhic? If you mean, do we subscribe to a single blueprint given at Sinai and expressed in what some call the halakhah, the answer is no.
For us, halakhah is and must be transformed from an externally imposed legal system to the responsible, disciplined, pluralistic and rabbinically guided response of individuals and communities to their covenantal obligations. It is not a straightjacket fashioned and imposed by others but a chosen, mitzvah-strewn path through life, reflective of Jewish learning and under constant maintenance and renewal. In that sense, we are a profoundly halakhic movement.
Acknowledgement: ‘What is Reform Judaism' by Rabbi Tony Bayfield.
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