Heritage Florida Jewish News - Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice

Dear editor:

The big news is that the Reconstruction Movement has a new leader who is gay [Heritage Florida Jewish News, April 5]. Rabbi Klein does not think that synagogue worship is all that important, and he was disappointed to find the College Hillel wasting valuable time with religious services on Saturday mornings. The students could be doing more important things to save the world. Really?

It is interesting that the article about Mr. Klein points out that there are 100 Reconstructionist congregations and 300 Reconstructionist rabbis. Thus, 200 of these rabbis must be active as community organizers or leaders, but whom do they lead, and where to?

The definition of rabbi in the American Heritage Dictionary is a scholar qualified to interpret Jewish law. To do so, one would expect such a person to share the Jewish belief regarding the origin of these laws. When asked whether he believed in a Master of the Universe, the founder of the Jewish “Civilzation” (which is Reconstructionalism), Mordechai Kaplan gave a response that was even less comprehensible than the Pantheism of Baruch Spinosa.

On a more pragmatic level, it is well known that the declining birth rate is rapidly reducing the number of Jews, both in Israel and the Diaspora. Should Jewish young people be led by someone who will never father a Jewish child?

David G. Danziger

Winter Park