PETER S. KNOBEL

We are Jews . We are the latest generation of that national, cultural and religious enterprise known as Yisrael. Our religion is therefore inextricably bound up with the historical religious experience of the Jewish people. We, too, stood at Sinai. We do not and cannot understand ourselves as separate and distinct from the ongoing tradition that, for millennia, we have called Torah . Yes, we are modern, able to look critically at our imperfect tradition. But we are not radically separated from tradition. We hold it, not at arm’s length, but in a powerful embrace close to our heart. Thus, we seek to explain ourselves by constant recourse to our sacred sources; we justify our religious choices by means of argument that is constructed from, expressed through and energized by the texts of our tradition. Our discourse is not chiefly the discourse of science and philosophy, but rather that of Torah and text. We strive to build a religious life that, though it speaks to us as moderns, is unmistakably Jewish in form and

content.

Each of these stories is an account of our religious reality, an attempt to place a general cast of meaning over and around the individual Jewish acts we perform. Each of them provides a satis­factory narrative rendition of a particular approach to Reform Juda­ ism . And, when you get right down to it, the two of them are con­tradictory, incompatible, and irreconcilable.’

Although Professor Washofsky points out that very few in­dividuals identify completely with either narrative, the conflicting narratives do reflect the growing gap in methodology and ideologi­cal unity within liberal Judaism .” In effect, each group speaks a different language, and therefore neither group speaks to the other but instead speaks past the other. As a result, it can be difficult, if not impossible, to achieve a unified stand on controversial issues.’ But even among those who identify with the same narrative, there is always the possibility of disagreement.

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