Reform Judaism

The platform of 1885 and the statement of principles of 1999 were both adopted here by Reform rabbis.

Chalitzah presupposes a levirate obligation this movement does not recognise, so it has no occasion to perform it.

The 1885 Pittsburgh Platform explicitly rejects Mosaic and rabbinical laws regulating diet, priestly purity and dress as no longer binding and apt to obstruct modern spiritual elevation.

The Pittsburgh Platform rejected by name all such Mosaic and rabbinical laws as regulate diet, holding that they fail to impress the modern Jew with a spirit of priestly holiness and that their observance obstructs rather than furthers spiritual elevation. This was a written founding decision, not a lapse.

Musaf was removed from the service because it petitions for the restoration of the Temple and its sacrifices, and this movement holds that the sacrificial worship is not to be restored.

The laws of family purity fall under the same rejection of the Mosaic and rabbinical laws concerning purity, stated in the same paragraph of the platform.

The redemption of the firstborn presupposes a priestly caste this movement does not treat as carrying standing privileges.

Reform Judaism's 1999 Statement of Principles grounds religious authority in individual autonomy rather than in a posek's ruling, a formal rejection of binding halakhic decision-making as the traditional posek exercises it.

The 1885 Pittsburgh Platform rejects belief in bodily resurrection, affirming instead the immortality of the soul.

Reform Judaism abolished the priestly distinctions, holding that a hereditary priesthood belongs to the sacrificial system that ended with the Temple and has no place in a Judaism of ethical monotheism.

The Pittsburgh Platform of 1885 set aside the rabbinic legislation on diet, purity and dress as belonging to a stage of the people's history that had passed, which is precisely the material this code arranges.

The small fringed undergarment was set aside with the rest of the ceremonial law, as a form the platform of 1885 judged foreign to the mental and spiritual state of the modern age.

Felix Adler was a Reform rabbi's son trained for the Reform rabbinate, and founded the Society for Ethical Culture after concluding that ethics could stand without theism.

Founded by Sherwin Wine, a Reform rabbi, on a liturgy from which references to God were removed.

The clause thanking God for not having made us like the nations of the lands was taken out, and that excision is the change Reform prayer books are most often identified by.

Shortened, said in the vernacular beside the Hebrew, and its petitions for the ingathering and the restored sacrifices removed or rewritten.

Reform Judaism convenes courts for conversion while holding that halakhah informs rather than binds, which is a different account of what the court is doing.

The nineteenth century synagogue brought in the organ and the mixed choir and set the cantor's part in four-part harmony, which is exactly what the tradition it grew out of would not do on a Sabbath.

Classical Reform removed the head covering from worship as a custom rather than a law, and read its abolition as a statement about the ceremonial law generally. Its return since the later twentieth century is by choice, and open to women and men on the same terms.

Early Reform prayer books dropped the Aramaic annulment of vows and kept the melody, and most Reform congregations have since put the words back, so the service carries a text it once deliberately did without.

Reform practice counts adults of either sex and does not treat the quorum as a condition without which the service cannot proceed.

The prayer shawl is worn in Reform congregations as a personal practice freely chosen, not as an obligation binding on the worshipper, and it is worn by any adult without regard to sex.

Classical Reform set the phylacteries aside with the rest of the ceremonial law as a form belonging to another age. Their use has returned in some congregations as a personal practice freely taken rather than an obligation received.

Reform Judaism removed the prayers for the restoration of the Temple and its sacrifices from its liturgy, and holds the site as a memorial rather than as a place awaiting rebuilding.

Reform Judaism contests the exclusion of egalitarian prayer from the main plaza. A government agreement in 2016 to establish a permanent mixed section was suspended the following year and has not been implemented.

Israel's covenant is affirmed as a distinctive ethical vocation and partnership with God, per the 1999 Statement of Principles, replacing the Pittsburgh Platform's earlier, more exclusivist reading.

The covenant is affirmed as a continuing relationship, with the ethical and prophetic obligations retained as binding and the ritual ones left to individual conscience.

Classical Reform set the mystical literature aside with the rest of what it read as medieval accretion, though later Reform thought has recovered parts of it for personal practice.

Reform holds that the legal codes record how earlier generations answered their own questions and do not bind the present, so the code is studied rather than obeyed.

The doorpost marker was kept where much else was set aside, being a sign of the Jewish household rather than a ceremonial obligation of worship.

Reform Judaism ordained Sally Priesand in 1972, the first woman ordained by an American seminary, and Regina Jonas had been privately ordained in Berlin in 1935.

The horn is sounded on the new year in Reform congregations, and it survived the classical reforms where much of the ceremonial did not.

The Pittsburgh Platform is the founding statement of American Reform Judaism, declaring the Mosaic legislation binding only in its moral law and rejecting the dietary and priestly rules as belonging to a stage the movement had passed.

Social justice work is treated as the central religious obligation of this movement, and the prophetic writings rather than the legal ones are the ground it is argued from.

The Amidah is said, shortened, and with the petitions for the restoration of the sacrificial cult removed.

Avinu Malkeinu is sung on the High Holy Days.

This movement gave the Bat Mitzvah its equal form, and its congregations were the first in which a girl read from the Torah exactly as a boy did. It also created Confirmation, at sixteen, which exists in no halakhic body.

Circumcision is performed, and this movement trains and certifies mohalim of its own.

Burial is practised and cremation is permitted, which the halakhic bodies forbid.

Reform synagogues retain the professional cantorate, with the Hebrew Union College School of Sacred Music ordaining women cantors since 1975.

The canopy is used.

Circumcision is practised, and this movement additionally recognises patrilineal descent, which no other body here does.

Coming of age is marked by Bar and Bat Mitzvah and then by Confirmation.

Acts of loving kindness are held as obligatory, and this stream places them among the duties it never treated as optional.

Conversion requires study and a public affirmation before a rabbinic court, and this movement does not require circumcision or immersion in every case.

Kabbalat Shabbat is kept and is the best attended service of the week.

Visiting family graves is a widely kept custom.

The evening service is the principal Sabbath service in most congregations of this movement.

Marriage is solemnised by a rabbi, and this movement's rabbis officiate at same sex marriages and, many of them, at marriages between a Jew and a non-Jew.

The Masoretic Text is used as the standard Hebrew text of the Tanakh.

Yizkor is kept, and the memorial service is a fixed part of the High Holy Day worship.

A personal Messiah is set aside for a messianic age of universal justice and peace, per the Pittsburgh Platform's reframing of messianic hope as this-worldly and ethical.

Midrashic literature is read as part of this stream's interpretive and homiletic heritage.

The Mishnah is held as historically and culturally significant rather than as legally binding.

The commandments are held as a claim on the individual conscience rather than as binding law, with the ethical ones retained as obligatory and the ritual ones chosen.

Reform Judaism retains brit milah performed by a mohel, and Reform-affiliated training programs certify women as mohalot.

The Mourner's Kaddish is said, and this movement's custom of the whole congregation rising to say it with the mourners has spread well beyond it.

Naming ceremonies are held for girls as for boys, which was this movement's innovation.

The Sabbath is kept as a day of worship and rest, chosen rather than commanded, and the late Friday evening service was this movement's creation.

The Oral Torah is studied as this stream's own interpretive heritage rather than as revealed and binding law.

Oseh Shalom is sung to close the service.

The Seder is kept widely, and this movement has produced Haggadot that add readings on liberation and on justice.

Prayer is offered in the vernacular alongside Hebrew, with organ and choir, and it is not held to be a fixed obligation falling on men alone.

The prophetic tradition is the centre of gravity here. Classical Reform described itself as prophetic Judaism and made the prophets' demand for justice the test of everything else.

Reform Judaism has ordained women as rabbis since 1972, when Hebrew Union College ordained Sally Priesand, decades after Regina Jonas received an unrecognized private ordination in Berlin in 1935.

The Sabbath is observed as rest and worship without the halakhic categories of forbidden work.

A morning service is held, shortened, and in the vernacular in part.

The Shema is central to the service and is said in Hebrew.

Reform congregations use Torah scrolls written by a qualified sofer to the halakhic standard, even where other Reform practice does not require halakhic observance elsewhere.

The Talmud is held as historically and culturally significant rather than as legally binding, consistent with the Pittsburgh Platform's rejection of ceremonial law's binding force.

The Tanakh is held as foundational scripture, read through modern critical scholarship.

Repentance is retained as central and is the theme around which this stream's high holy day liturgy is built, with the emphasis on ethical amendment.

Repair of the world in its modern sense, as an obligation to social justice, is this stream's signature teaching and the phrase most associated with it.

The Torah is held as foundational scripture, its ritual law read as a human product of its age rather than as eternally binding.

Revelation is affirmed as an ongoing, progressive encounter rather than a single dictated event at Sinai, per this stream's 1999 Statement of Principles.

The Yahrzeit is kept, and the names are read aloud in the congregation.

Yizkor is said on Yom Kippur.

Halakha as instructive rather than binding, with individual autonomy decisive on ritual observance.

Classical Reform anti-nationalism, held until the 1930s: Jews are a religious community and not a nation, and the mission is universal rather than territorial.