"I lift my lamp beside the golden door!" vs. Little Neck Clams (on the half-shell)

"Please stop saying  'We’re not kosher.' Nobody is kosher.  Say 'we don’t keep kosher', say 'we eat everything', say 'we live for bacon.'   But whenever you say 'We're not kosher', you sound like a cannibal saying  'we won't eat members of our family,  but we'll eat other people, no problem.'" 

--humorist Dov Berger

Emma Lazarus,  “The New Colossus”

 

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

“The Pittsburgh Platform” – Reform Movement, 1885

1. We recognize in every religion an attempt to grasp the Infinite, and in every mode, source or book of revelation held sacred in any religious system the consciousness of the indwelling of God in man. We hold that Judaism presents the highest conception of the God-idea as taught in our Holy Scriptures and developed and spiritualized by the Jewish teachers, in accordance with the moral and philosophical progress of their respective ages. We maintain that Judaism preserved and defended midst continual struggles and trials and under enforced isolation, this God-idea as the central religious truth for the human race.

2. We recognize in the Bible the record of the consecration of the Jewish people to its mission as the priest of the one God, and value it as the most potent instrument of religious and moral instruction. We hold that the modern discoveries of scientific researches in the domain of nature and history are not antagonistic to the doctrines of Judaism, the Bible reflecting the primitive ideas of its own age, and at times clothing its conception of divine Providence and Justice dealing with men in miraculous narratives.

3. We recognize in the Mosaic legislation a system of training the Jewish people for its mission during its national life in Palestine, and today we accept as binding only its moral laws, and maintain only such ceremonies as elevate and sanctify our lives, but reject all such as are not adapted to the views and habits of modern civilization.

à 4. We hold that all such Mosaic and rabbinical laws as regulate diet, priestly purity, and dress originated in ages and under the influence of ideas entirely foreign to our present mental and spiritual state. They fail to impress the modern Jew with a spirit of priestly holiness; their observance in our days is apt rather to obstruct than to further modern spiritual elevation.

5. We recognize, in the modern era of universal culture of heart and intellect, the approaching of the realization of Israel’s great Messianic hope for the establishment of the kingdom of truth, justice, and peace among all men. We consider ourselves no longer a nation, but a religious community, and therefore expect neither a return to Palestine, nor a sacrificial worship under the sons of Aaron, nor the restoration of any of the laws concerning the Jewish state.

6. We recognize in Judaism a progressive religion, ever striving to be in accord with the postulates of reason. We are convinced of the utmost necessity of preserving the historical identity with our great past. Christianity and Islam, being daughter religions of Judaism, we appreciate their providential mission, to aid in the spreading of monotheistic and moral truth. We acknowledge that the spirit of broad humanity of our age is our ally in the fulfillment of our mission, and therefore we extend the hand of fellowship to all who cooperate with us in the establishment of the reign of truth and righteousness among men.

7. We reassert the doctrine of Judaism that the soul is immortal, grounding the belief on the divine nature of human spirit, which forever finds bliss in righteousness and misery in wickedness. We reject as ideas not rooted in Judaism, the beliefs both in bodily resurrection and in Gehenna and Eden (Hell and Paradise) as abodes for everlasting punishment and reward.

8. In full accordance with the spirit of the Mosaic legislation, which strives to regulate the relations between rich and poor, we deem it our duty to participate in the great task of modern times, to solve, on the basis of justice and righteousness, the problems presented by the contrasts and evils of the present organization of society.

 

An essay on MyJewishLearning.com notes: “The Central Conference of American Rabbis, the rabbinical arm of the Reform movement, issued a new Statement of Principles during its 1999 Pittsburgh conference. Known as the “new” Pittsburgh Platform… the new set of principles was hotly debated among leaders of the movement in the months before the conference. Two camps emerged: 1.traditionalists who represent a new wave of rabbis and laypeople seeking greater adherence to Jewish ritual and 2. classicists who reject attempts to inject more ritual into daily practice.

Rabbi Richard Levy, a leader of the traditionalist wing, drafted a platform that advocated the observance of kashrut (Jewish dietary laws) and mikveh (use of the Jewish ritual bath). However, the final version of the platform was substantially altered from Levy’s draft.”

In fact,  the new statement does not mention kashrut or “Keeping Kosher” at all. It doesn’t even mention food.  Can you imagine that?  A group of Rabbis got together to talk about what Judaism is about  and food wasn't even mentioned! 

MONKEY BREAD: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5cUsrviZdc

BEEFY PASTRY: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zm2C2E6P1vU