Rabbi E. Yoffie - Have You Anything New To Say?

Taken by the Warsaw Heroes of the Ghetto monument.
A Note on this Picture: I was recently able to recover all of my missing photos from my first to months in the land of the Warrior Saws (For those who do not know, after Chanukah of that year, my laptop crashed and then the first few months of this blog were deleted) I hope to post these (almost) never before seen set of photos in the weekly Picture of the Week series.

Over the summer Rabbi Eric Yoffie, the president of the Union for Reform Judaism offered a letter on the Jerusalem Post blog in praise of Chabad. Though overwhelmingly positive, he gave two points of criticism.
Fair Enough.
For those who haven't seen it yet, it can be read here.
Today, it seems, that in light of the praise he has given to Chabad, Yoffie must now balance the scales with a measure of criticism -hence an article in the Reform Judaism Magazine (Self titled as the 'world's largest circulated Jewish Magazine') 'The Good and Bad of Chabad'
Ironically, this article - a verbatim quote of his previous article - does not speak of the Good of Chabad, but merely the bad.
I'm not sure what is odder -to call an article on someone's flaws 'the Good and Bad', or when actually writing the bad, to merely rehash the same tired arguments?
I quote Rabbi Yoffie . . . as he quotes himself:

Unfortunately, other Chabad practices are less admirable. Here are two examples.

In Russia, Chabad leaders have established an alliance with the increasingly autocratic President Vladimir Putin. Such alliances have their purposes, but not when they are used to deny recognition and funding to other Jewish groups. Looking back at the history of eastern European Jewry, we all view with distaste those chapters that involve Jewish groups drawing close to ruling despots so that they can work against other Jews with whom they disagree. We do not need a modern version of that history in the Russian Federation today.

In North America, the issues are very different. Reform, Conservative, and Orthodox synagogues routinely require families that want their child to have a bar/bat mitzvah to meet certain requirements—the son or daughter must attend religious school for a year or more, and the parents must commit themselves to study and congregational worship. The reason is clear: absent Torah learning and familial involvement, the bar mitzvah will be without meaning, an excuse for a party. Chabad centers, however, generally provide a bar mitzah service with few, if any, requirements. Chabad says that no child should be denied a bar mitzvah, and the family—which is usually unaffiliated—may be drawn later into Jewish life. Perhaps. More likely, the lesson is that Judaism is not a serious endeavor and that even the most significant milestones require only a modicum of commitment.

Surely no family should ever be denied membership in a synagogue because of inability to pay. But we should protest when Chabad, or anyone else, becomes a purveyor of Jewish minimalism, lowering educational standards for our children and community.

Chabad's alliance with Putin may not find favor in the eyes of the URJ, but I do not think their worries are as altruistic as they. In truth it is their desire to mold their own empire in the FSU; pulling upon historical symbolism is only to hide their own latent jingoistic ideals . . . One need only look at the actions of the Federations and the Joint to see where Reform pluralism truly lies (Though the Joint and UJC (federations) are not actual branches of the official reform movement, their beliefs -both religious and political -are one).
In Russia the Joint will not help Chabad humanitarian projects out of enmity for Chabad's strength in other matters . . . In other places around Eastern Europe, the coals have been flamed into a fire -one need only look to the perverse bedfellows of the Joint and others that made trouble in Vilna and Prague.

Even more ironic, though, is the accusation that Chabad is 'a purveyor of Jewish minimalism, [that] lower[s] educational standards of our children and community.'

Is not the act of the Reform to minimize? For an organization that recommends sacrificing the limb to save the body, but has in effect severed the head, heart and lungs of our holy Torah, to claim that we lower educational standards is both pretentious and, if I dare say, pathetic.
Who has disavowed the divinity and sanctity of the Torah? Who has allowed mixed marriages performed with clergy members of an opposite religion in churches? Who removed Hebrew as the language of the Judaism -only to reinstate it once the winds of popularity moved from local nationalism to secular Zionism? Who educates Jewish children in an atmosphere devoid of meaning -a Judaism exorcised of its soul?
Rabbi Yoffie -the list goes on.

(Hat Tip: CH.info)

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