CCAR RESPONSA
5764.3
May A Jew Join The Society of Friends?
She’elah
A member of my congregation has sent me the following query. .In addition to belonging to our synagogue, I have also been attending Quaker meeting for several years. I would like to know if the synagogue would have a problem with me becoming a member of the Society of Friends. Granted the Quakers have a background in Christianity, the meeting for worship on Sundays is not a church service and Quakers do not have clergy. We simply sit in silent prayer for an hour and give ministry when we feel moved to speak.. What should be our response? (Rabbi David Wirtschafter, Burlingame, CA)
Teshuvah
Liberal Judaism affirms the value of religious pluralism in our society. Our understanding of pluralism allows us to engage in interreligious dialogue, participate in interfaith worship that is
respectful to all faiths involved, and occasionally borrow non-Jewish patterns and styles of worship and adapt them to our own distinctly Jewish worship.[1] That understanding, however, also presumes the existence of real and essential differences, distinctions, and boundaries between religious faiths and faith communities. Judaism, therefore, is different from other faiths in its commitments and practices, and it is frequently the task of rabbis to call our people’s attention to this distinctiveness and the boundary lines that define our unique religious tradition
That is exactly the rabbi’s task in this case. We cannot affirm or support the desire of this congregant to join the Society of Friends.[2] Judaism makes exclusive religious demands of us: one cannot successfully be a practicing Jew and, simultaneously, a communicant of another religion.[3] The congregant might respond that Quaker worship, which lacks a verbal liturgy and contains no formal and required Christological references, is not truly Christian in nature and does not qualify as “another religion.”[4] This argument fails, however, because the Quakers by virtue of history and doctrine are unquestionably a Christian sect.[5] The Society of Friends was founded in England by George Fox (1624-1691), whose distinctive message was based upon the New Testament conception of the “true light.”[6] Thus, “the Lord hath opened to me by His invisible power how that every man was enlightened by the divine light of Christ.”[7] Quaker worship dispenses with a verbal liturgy precisely in order that the individual might contemplate this “divine light,” the presence of Christ within.[8] That the Quakers conduct their worship in silence is therefore evidence of the presence of Christ–and not his absence–in their meeting. To put this another way, Quakerism is a thoroughly Christian theology even though the Quaker service makes no explicit reference to Jesus.[9]
The short answer to this question, therefore, is “yes”: the synagogue most definitely would “have a problem” with the congregant’s decision to join the Society of Friends. In saying this, we do not mean to imply that the synagogue ought to sever its ties with one who is, after all, a Jew and a member of our community. We would hope that, through continuing discussions and contact with fellow congregants and the rabbi, this individual might discover that the tradition of Jewish worship offers the very sort of spiritual satisfaction that he or she is seeking.[10] Our point, rather, is that we as a Jewish community cannot grant our explicit or implicit approval to this request.
NOTES
- Some opinions hold that such adaptation runs counter to Jewish law. They refer to the practice of chukkat hagoyim, the imitation of non-Jewish customs, which is prohibited under the Rabbinic interpretation of Leviticus 18:3; see BT Sanhedrin 52b and Avodah Zarah 11a, along with Yad, Avodat Kokhavim 11:1. We would note, however, that this prohibition has never been regarded as absolute. For discussion and sources, see Teshuvot for the Nineties (TFN), no. 5751.3, pp. 159-164 ( ). Two important rabbinical rulings on this subject are R. Yitzchak bar Sheshet Perfet (14th-15th cent. Spain-North Africa), Resp. Rivash, no. 158, and R. Yosek Kolon (15th-cent. Italy), Resp. Maharik, no. 88.
- The term “join” does not necessarily indicate a formal act of conversion to the Society of Friends or to any other religious group. A given denomination might not require an explicit rite of passage of its new members, and it might not demand that its members regard the denomination as their exclusive religious affiliation. From our perspective, none of this matters: the difficulty begins when a Jew seeks to “become a member” of a Christian sect, however that sect defines membership.
- We have stressed this point in a number of responsa. We do not officiate at the berit milah of a child whose parents intend to raise him simultaneously in two religious traditions (Questions and Reform Jewish Answers [QRJA], no. 109; ). Similarly, a child raised simultaneously in two religious traditions does not qualify for Jewish status under the “patrilineal descent” doctrine of the Reform movement and therefore may not be prepared for Bar/Bat Mitzvah (Contemporary American Reform Responsa [CARR], no. 61, ; QRJA, no. 88, and TFN, no. 5754.3, pp. 263-264, ).
- The implication is that a Quaker service is more akin to an exercise in meditation, which is not necessarily antithetical to Jewish belief and practice. See CARR, no. 169 ( ) on the distinction between acceptable and unacceptable meditative practices within a Jewish context.
- See, for example, Faith and Practice: The Book of Discipline of the New York Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends (2001 ed.), , p. 7: “The Religious Society of Friends arose from personal experience of direct spiritual encounter with God as revealed in Jesus Christ.” See also the website of the Friends United Meeting, “an international association of Friends Meetings and Churches, organized for more effective Christian ministry, outreach and evangelism” (
- See John 1:7-9.
- J. L. Nickalls, ed., Journal of George Fox (Cambridge, 1952), 33. Given the religious ferment in England during the days of the Protectorate and the Restoration, this was hardly a non-controversial idea. In suggesting that every person might attain perfection by obeying the inner light of Christ, Fox set himself firmly against the Calvinist dogma of predestination, which lay at the core of Puritan belief, as well as against Roman Catholic and Anglican practice. See Michael Watts, The Dissenters: From the Reformation to the French Revolution (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978), 186-204.
- John Dillenberger and Claude Welch, Protestant Christianity (New York: Scribner’s, 1954), 118-121.
- As we have noted on several occasions, a prayer or a hymn may be authentically “Christian” even if its text makes no explicit references to Christ. Thus, it is inappropriate for a Jew to recite the “Lord’s Prayer,” even though the text of the prayer does not mention the name of Jesus; CARR, no. 171 ( ). See also TFN, no. 5752.11, pp. 21-22 ( , on the hymn “Amazing Grace.”
- For example, Judaism does not reject meditation per se; see the responsum cited at note 4. Indeed, many teachers and streams of our tradition have understood prayer as a profound and intense spiritual, emotional, and intellectual experience. A case in point is the Musar movement, born in 19th-century Lithuania. The “Musarniks,” in the words of a leading scholar of that movement, found prayer “an opportunity for comprehensive spiritual development: concentration of thought, energizing of the emotions, contemplation of the wonders of creation and the greatness of God, and the strengthening of faith and trust in God’s goodness.” The liturgy in some Musar yeshivot was recited very slowly, “as though one were counting out coins,” so that the worshiper could mentally associate the words of the sidur with important religious and ethical concepts; Dov Katz, Tenu`at hamusar (Jerusalem, 1982), 2:176. We might also cite the turn toward meditative practices in some contemporary Jewish circles. Our own Union for Reform Judaism sponsors a “meditation kallah,”a yearly retreat that “focuses on authentic Jewish meditative practices that support the deepening of Jewish spirituality and identity” (see ). This is not to say that these approaches to prayer are exact parallels to the Quaker style of worship, but instead to suggest that one need not go outside the Jewish tradition to find tendencies in worship that emphasize quiet yet intense contemplation.
If needed, please consult Abbreviations used in CCAR Responsa.