55. For a discussion of the Pittsburgh Platform see Walter Jacob ,(ed.) The Changing World of Reform Judaism- Pittsburgh Platform in Retrospect, Pittsburgh , 1985, pp. 104 ff. The full text of the meeting has been reproduced there. Also Sefton D. Temkin,“The Pittsburgh Platform- A Centennial Assesment,” Journal of Reform Judaism, Fall 1985, Vol. 32, No. 4, pp.1 ff.; Dana E. Kaplan (ed.), Platforms and Prayer Books, New York , 2002.
PLATFORM
In view of the wide divergence of opinions and the conflicting ideas prevailing in Judaism today to such an extent as to cause alarm and feeling of uncertainty among our well-meaning coreligionists and an appalling religious indifference and lethargy among the masses, we, as representatives of Reform Judaism , here unite upon the following principles:
1. While discerning in every religion a human attempt to grasp the Infinite|§ and Omnipotent One and in every sacred form, source and book of revelation offered by any religious system the consciousness of the indwelling of God in man,|= we recognize in Judaism the highest conception of God and of His relation to man-|& expressed as the innate belief of man in the One and holy God , the Maker and Ruler of the World, the King, the Father and Educator of the Human Race, represente in Holy Scriptures as the faith implanted into the heart of the original man an arrived at in all the cheering brightness by the forefathers, the inspired prophets. singers and writers of Israel , developed and ever more deepened and spiritualize into the highest moral progress of their respective ages and under continua struggles and trials, defended and preserved by the Jewish people as the highes treasure of the human race.
2. We prize and treasure the books comprising the national library 0| Israel preserved under the name of Holy Scriptures, as the records of Divine| Revelation and of the consecration of the Jewish people of this mission as priests of the one God ; but we consider their composition, their arrangements and thei entire contents as the work of men, betraying in their conceptions of the world 0 shortcomings of their age.
3. While finding in the miraculous narratives of the Bible childlik conceptions of the dealing of Divine love and justice with man, we today, II common with many Jewish thinkers of the Spanish era, welcome the results 0 natural science and progressive research in all fields of life as the best help©
mE AB A