Progressive Judaism must interrogate progressivism.

Progressive Jews often insist on assessing Judaism through the lens of progressivism, but the reverse could save progressivism from itself.

photo: Sandra Seitamaa/Unsplash

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This is a guest essay written by Benjamin Kerstein, an Israeli-American writer based in Tel Aviv and Recipient of the 2024 Louis Rapaport Award for Excellence in Commentary from the American Jewish Press Association.

You can also listen to the podcast version of this essay on Apple Podcasts, YouTube Music, YouTube, and Spotify.

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Progressive Judaism is often defined by the fact that it subjects Judaism to the interrogation of progressivism.

That is, progressivism serves as the critical framework used to assess Judaism in terms of progressive values like secularism, gender equality, anti-racism, inclusion, diversity, and other progressive principles.

This dynamic is not new. It has existed for centuries in various forms. In fact, Judaism has always subjected itself to the scrutiny of other traditions, including Hellenistic culture, Aristotelian philosophy, Islamic theology, the French Enlightenment, and so on. Progressive Judaism itself can be traced back to the Haskalah (the Jewish Enlightenment) and the Reform Judaism movement, which emerged two centuries ago.

In today’s progressive Judaism, however, a slightly different dynamic is at play. Most progressive Jews honor their Jewish heritage and genuinely seek a “way in” to it, without compromising their other values. The problem is that, for the most part, progressivism dominates this process. It is almost always progressivism that interrogates Judaism, rather than vice versa. Unfortunately, Judaism is often found wanting.

This is new. When Sephardic rabbi and philosopher Maimonides¹ examined Aristotelian philosophy, he did so through the lens of Judaism rather than Aristotelianism. He believed that Judaism was a quintessentially philosophical religion and, therefore, more than qualified to examine the Greek philosophical tradition critically.

His predecessor, Saadia Gaon, took this approach even further, as he was equally devoted to the Jewish mystical tradition and the philosophical tradition. It is not a coincidence that he wrote a fascinating commentary on the Sefer Yetzirah (a work of Jewish mysticism).

By failing to place Judaism on an equal plane with progressivism, many progressive Jews miss a valuable insight: The ancient ways can sometimes be superior. They have survived for a reason.

One example is Judaism’s emphasis on a kind of collective loyalty, asserting that “all Israel is responsible for one another.” This means that Jews are obligated to care a bit more about other Jews than the rest of humanity.

To progressives, deeply rooted in humanism and egalitarianism, this is often deeply offensive. Progressive Jews, too, are often offended and make a great show of caring about non-Jews and universalist values as much or even more than they care about Jews.

As an abstract ideal, this may or may not be admirable. What is certain, however, is that Judaism recognizes something progressivism does not: For a tiny minority, universalism is simply impractical.

In Judaism, caring a bit more about one’s own people, one’s own tribe, is not an expression of chauvinism or racism, but a survival strategy. Jews care more about each other because, if they don’t, nobody else will. “If I am not for myself,” as the Jewish sage and scholar Hillel the Elder said, “who will be for me?”

Certainly, Hillel also said, “If I am for none but myself, what am I?” But his assertion that we should be for ourselves is elementary common sense. Without it, in a world of billions of non-Jews, the Jewish tribe would simply be swept away.

Moreover, a purely universalist approach has been thoroughly tested, and it failed. The Jews of pre-Holocaust Europe often cared far more about all humanity than about the Jews specifically. In the end, it didn’t help them. They were abandoned by all humanity and slaughtered. This was not the fault of those universalist Jews, but it does demonstrate that their approach was simply not a viable survival strategy.

Today, we are witnessing the danger of such universalism in its most extreme form. Many factions of non-Jewish progressivism have collapsed into outright genocidal antisemitism, and progressive Jews are being forced to ask some very uncomfortable questions.

Some have simply given in, taking a passionate stand against their own tribe, though this is relatively rare. Most wish to remain Jews and oppose antisemitism. But they have yet to begin to interrogate progressivism in Jewish terms. That is, they have yet to ask: If progressivism cannot accept the Jews, then what is it really worth? Does it actually have the right to interrogate anything?

Progressive Jews have the right to reach their own conclusions, but they are obligated to ask the questions. And these questions lie at the heart of Judaism, because Judaism has always interrogated. It has always asked: “Will not the judge of all the earth do right?” This suggests that the Jewish interrogation may be more valuable than the progressive interrogation.

Oddly enough, the privileging of progressivism in its relationship to Judaism also contradicts one of the most fundamental principles of progressivism: its insistence on “diversity.”

This principle inherently endorses the right to be different. Yet Judaism has always, from the beginning, insisted on its right to be different. The Jews have remained “a people that dwells alone.” Judaism asserts that, as the great Zionist intellectual Albert Memmi put it, “To be is to be different.” Progressive Jews must acknowledge that progressivism is often prepared to accept this principle regarding everyone but the Jews, and they must struggle with the meaning of this dereliction.

Ironically, this dereliction not only threatens the Jews. It also threatens progressivism. Judaism advocates speaking truth to lies in order to achieve a kind of moral self-purification. This is always an imperfect process — we are all human, after all — but there is immense value in it.

Indeed, progressivism claims to acknowledge this, with its valorization of “speaking truth to power.” But progressivism is very bad at acknowledging that it too has power, and it must accept other people’s right to speak truth to it. In this regard, Judaism does not hesitate, as it has never hesitated.

Progressivism often struggles to comprehend that this process of parrhesia, characterized by direct and courageous speech, is not only acceptable but could also be highly beneficial to itself. After all, ideologies and movements thrive on self-criticism. It is crucial to prevent the rise of dogmatic fanaticism, a concerning trend among progressives today that threatens severe consequences.

In other words, a more assertive progressive Judaism could lead to a better progressivism. A progressive movement that is willing to be examined by an ancient tradition and, at times, find itself lacking. Ironically, it will be Judaism’s insistence that to be is to be different that will save progressivism from itself.

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1. He became one of the most prolific and influential Torah scholars of the Middle Ages.