7/25/2025

Jewish Identity in a Modern World

Until the 18th century, one could argue that all Jews were Orthodox.

One might have been more or less observant, but there was a consensus on what Judaism meant as a religion. Any individual might have been less practicing, or not practicing at all, but everyone agreed on what it meant to practice Judaism religiously.

Jewish law, or Halacha, was the defining framework for what it meant to be a practicing Jew.

But when Jews were emancipated beginning in the 1700s and allowed to integrate into broader society, they suddenly faced a huge dilemma.

They wanted to become cultured, to be welcomed into society, to be a renaissance people like all others. But there they were, practicing archaic laws and behaving in outdated ways that would be laughed at in the modern world they so longed to join.

And so emerged the various schools of thought that today make up the many communities of Jewish life.

Reform suggested that Halacha had no place in the modern world. They taught that Judaism evolves as a religion and that Halacha was no longer relevant. Instead, the focus should be on the social and ethical mitzvot of the Torah. The archaic practices and beliefs were seen as having little significance. Sinai was reduced to myth, and the Torah to the work of man. It was no longer binding and did not require the adherence of a religious Jew.

The Conservative movement disagreed vehemently. They felt that Reform had discarded too much of what it meant to be Jewish. Our ancestors died by the sword and were burned at the stake for believing in the divinity of the Torah. They were not going to do away with that so quickly.

So they found a middle ground: keeping the core fundamental beliefs and principles of the Torah, while also finding compromises and ways to make Jewish practice and Halacha easier to accommodate and more palatable to the modern person.

But the Orthodox felt that this would be a slippery slope. They were concerned that beginning to find compromises would inevitably lead to more compromises, and that would lead to assimilation and the slow, eventual disintegration of the fabric of Jewish identity that had kept Jews alive as a people since the beginning of time.

So they decided there would be no compromises at all. They would keep Halacha as it always had been observed. And if that made it harder for them to enter the modern world, then so be it. It was a price they were ready to pay to keep Judaism strong in their families. And so they were called Orthodox—committed to keeping things as they always had been, without change.

Which of these groups is right, and to what extent they were right, only history will be able to tell.

Chabad is its own category in that it is a community without labels, and its participants might subscribe to any or none of these religious identities. The most beautiful thing about Chabad is that it's likely the only place in the world where you'll find atheist, agnostic, Reform, Conservative, Orthodox, and Hasidic Jews sitting around the same Shabbat table.

But the policies of Chabad as an organization, and the rabbis and their families who lead Chabad communities, are always Orthodox. So the structure is Orthodox, but the community is without labels.

I thought about this as I read this week's parsha, the double portion of Matot-Masei.

Matot refers to the tribes of Israel: “These are the tribes (matot) of Israel,” the parsha begins.

Masei goes on to list the many journeys (masei) these tribes journeyed through in the desert.

But it's fascinating to note that the word the Torah uses here for the tribes of Israel is Matot.

Matot is a word used here for tribes, but its literal meaning is something else entirely. Matot means "sticks."

Why were the tribes of Israel referred to as sticks?

It then occurred to me that the names of this week's parsha really encapsulate the struggle, the dilemma, and perhaps a hint to the solution, of the challenge Jews faced in the last 300 years.

Masei means journey. We need to acknowledge that Jews are on a journey — that we evolve as a people, and that we no longer live in the shtetl. We live in the United States of America, and in our case, the great liberal land of Martha's Vineyard.

But on the other hand, we need to remember that the tribes of Israel are called "Matot"- sticks.

We need to stand strong. We need to be proud of our principles and beliefs. We can’t cave or surrender our traditions just because they’re unpopular or inconvenient. We could, of course, but then we risk losing our character as the tribes of Israel.

The tribes of Israel, we are taught in this week’s parsha, are on a journey. They are emancipated. They live in liberal societies. But the tribes of Israel, teaches us the parsha, are also sticks. They stand strong and proud. And they don’t cower under pressure.

Rabbi Tzvi Alperowitz