modern life. The community reconstituted itself and began a struggle for full civil rights while it continued to make numerous changes.
Six mechanisms of change have existed in a parallel fashion, each with a claim to authority but in reality sharing such authority, even if unwillingly or silently. The most widely accepted mechanism was the democratic assembly in which the members or their delegates debated and then settled issues through the vote. This has been widely accepted by the entire Jewish world, though frequently it is not sufficiently decisive.
Equally significant was the independent democratic voice of the people as expressed in the creation of minhagim. They were shaped without discussion and were simply accepted, often against the opposition of portions of the leadership, both lay and rabbinic, yet they have overcome that challenge more frequently than in the past.
Change based upon the notion of historical development and intellectual justification through pointing to similar steps taken in the past have always had a strong intellectual appeal. Initially this came under the heading of progress, but we might better see it as rising to the challenge of new conditions not necessarily representing an improvement on the past.
As new Jewish theologies and philosophies appear, they are seen both as paths to change and ways of systematizing it so that it can be viewed in a broader fashion. The various Reform platforms have used this method, yet only the first Pittsburgh Platform(1885). although officially adopted by no one, captured the essence of the Reform movement from a philosophical perspective. Perhaps its success lay in the fact that it was not the work of a committee, but of a single mind.