Kaplan Blog

Read Kaplan's Diary

Victoria Cangelosi — Fri, 19 Nov 2010 10:47:21 -0500

The JTS has digitized Mordecai Kaplan's diaries. You can read them here.

To read the diaries in hardcover or paperback, click here for Mel Scult's Communings of the Spirit.

Judaism as a Civilization: Mordecai Kaplan's 1934 Classic is Back

Tue, 09 Feb 2010 16:14:56 -0500

Mordecai Kaplan's masterpiece continues to captivate readers three quarters of a century after its initial publication. Judaism as a Civilization is garnering national attention in part due to a January 28 piece by Diane Cole in the Wall Street Journal, titled Invented the Bat Mitzvah, Rejected a Supernatural God. Cole delivers a succinct recap of Kaplan's life and challenges, and explains why Judaism as a Civilization remains relevant today.

The Jewish Reconstructionist Federation is proud to have partnered with the Jewish Publication Society to reprint the book that inspired the birth of the Reconstructionist movement. Many consider this work to have contributed more than any other to the shaping of contemporary North American Judaism. JRF is grateful to Mel Scult, Kaplan's principal biographer, for providing this edition with a new introduction. This edition is dedicated to one of Kaplan's closest and most influential disciples, Rabbi Jack Cohen, in celebration of his 90th birthday.

You can order the book from the Reconstructionist Press's online bookstore: here. Affiliate members receive 20% off after checkout. You can also order copies from JPS.

The Kaplan Blog

Rabbi Shai Gluskin — Wed, 07 Feb 2007 13:27:23 -0500

Grainy image of Mel Scult and Mordecai Kaplan meeting in 1972.The Kaplan Blog brings to the web a small portion of the material which will be used in the second volume of Communings of the Spirit: the Journals of Mordecai M. Kaplan edited and with introductory material by Dr. Mel Scult. Dr. Scult is providing us with a unique opportunity to look over his shoulder, so to speak, as he interacts and compiles the material for the next volume.

Image of Dr. Mel Scult and Rabbi Shai GluskinWe are presenting Dr. Kaplan's entries seamlessly integrated with the other materials presented on this web site as if they were just written. We hope this format will help readers to reflect on the relevance of Kaplan's comments for today. We encourage readers to comment on the entries by engaging with Kaplan in a "dialog." For each entry Dr. Scult will be the first to respond.

Mordecai M. Kaplan (1881-1983), founder of Reconstructionism, is perhaps the preeminent American Jewish thinker and rabbi of our times. Obsessed by the need to modernize Judaism in order to save the Jewish people, Kaplan confided his impressions, wrestled with his conscience, and recorded his experience in his journal with passionate intensity and uncommon candor. Kaplan's journals consist of some Some 10,000 pages and twenty-seven volumes.

Head shot of Dr. Mel ScultMel Scult is a professor of Judaic Studies at Brooklyn College and a professor of History at City University of New York, Graduate Center. He is the author of Communings of the Spirit: the Journals of Mordecai M. KaplanHe is the co-editor of Dynamic Judaism: The Essential Writings of Mordecai Kaplan and The American Judaism of Mordecai Kaplan, and author of Judaism Faces the Twentieth Century: A Biography of Mordecai Kaplan. He also wrote the introduction for Kaplan's The Meaning of God in Modern Jewish Religion.

Dr. Scult is a member of the West End Synagogue in New York. His Web site is www.melscult.org.

Kaplan Quotes Hasidic Story from Buber

Mel Scult — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 15:29:27 -0500

Andy Warhol Image of Martin BuberAt the beginning of each volume of Kaplan's diary (of which there are 27) Kaplan recorded quotations from books he had been reading and which he especially liked. He once wrote in the diary that people should be known by what they quote.

In the following quotation we see Kaplan quoting from Buber’s collection of Hasidic tales. Buber and Kaplan were very different but Kaplan did appreciate much in Buber’s philosophy and the Hasidic tales were certainly part of the legacy of Buber which Kaplan wanted to pass on.

A rabbi once told the following tale:

"In my youth when I was fired with the love of God, I thought I would convert the whole world to God. But since I discovered that it would be quite enough to convert the people who live in my town, and I tried for a long time but did not succeed. Then I realized that my program was still too ambitious, and I concentrated on the persons in my own household. But I could not convert them either. Finally it dawned on me: I must work upon myself, so that I may give true service to God. But I did not accomplish even this."

Copied from Buber's Hasidic Tales: Saturday, October 2, 1948

Thanksgiving Day 1942 Thoughts on Evil from Kaplan and Steinberg

Mel Scult — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 10:59:39 -0500

Below you'll find a selection which reveals another place in the Kaplan diary where he discusses the problem of evil and the way to cope with it. I noted in the previous selection dealing with Kaplan's reactions to the play on the Diary of Anne Frank that Kaplan's impulse is to always focus on ways to cope with suffering even if we cannot explain it. Here he comments on a sermon by his most brilliant disciple, Rabbi Milton Steinberg.

It was in the middle of the war and Steinberg gave a sermon on Thanksgiving that was astounding to say the least. Steinberg mentions the rabbinic dictum that we should bless the evil along with the good and applies this to the War. Neither Steinberg nor Kaplan knew the full extent of the Holocaust but they knew enough to make the reaction here all the more surprising and provocative.

It is easy to consider both Kaplan and Steinberg naïve in their looking for the positive, but we need the hope that is assumed here in order carry us though our own difficulties both collective and individual.

The center of Steinberg's Thankskgiving sermon was the rabbinic dictum that just as we bless the good we must learn to bless the evil. The blessing which we say at the passing of a loved one is “Baruch Dayan Emet” (Blessed is the Righteous Judge). Steinberg interpreted it to mean that we must learn to discern God in evil as well as in the good, by assuming that there is no evil which does not possess or cannot be made to yield some good. By applying this principle to the war, he argued that it possesses a redeeming element in that it compels us to break the traditional patterns of life thereby rendering human life capable of being molded afresh after our heart's desire.

Kaplan reacts to Steinberg but in reality gives us a reaction not that different from Steinberg. Kaplan's typical attitude toward evil is that it is not "part of the divine." We must find a way to cope with it. Here is the kaplan statement from Kaplan's diary, November 27, 1942. Volume 11f (right at the end).

On the other hand, if we accept the modern rational approach we would have to say, that there is no evil which we should not feel driven by the divine urge in us to redeem. In other words, the divine is in us and not in the suffering itself. The essence of the divine quality consists in not permitting any evil, whether of sin or suffering, to be exempt from the need to discover some potential from the standpoint of the good.

Goodness is our Fortification Against Evil

Mordecai M Kaplan — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 16:54:46 -0400

Mordecai M KaplanDecember 29, 1955. vol 18a.

[Read Dr. Scult's intro first.]

Last night I went with my granddaughter Miriam to see the play Anne Frank. I thought it was marvelously well done, from every standpoint, but it left me extremely depressed. It embittered me against mankind for having made it possible for such a cold-blooded, calculating demonic crime to be perpetrated against millions of innocent men, women, and children to be enacted, and what is worse, to be erased from the conscience—if that crime made the least impression on it.

Because one good and virtuous man like Job was struck by misfortune, a fine poet poured out the vials of his wrath against God. Would such a poet have found words adequate to express his wrath over the myriads of Jobs who were subjected to unspeakable torments of body and mind before their lives were snuffed out in the gas chambers?

Every time I go through such experience, and that happens quite often, I become despondent and feel like—I'd rather not say it. Certainly, all desire to teach and write in the hope of making some dent, or working some improvement in human character, my own included, oozes out of me completely. I am left altogether limp mentally and physically. Such were the thoughts with which I fell asleep last night.

When I woke up this morning, however, the first idea that came to my mind was the statement in Anne Frank's diary to the effect that she had faith in the intrinsic goodness of human beings. That helped me to lift me out of my depressed state of mind. It occurred to me that the reason for Anne’s faith in human goodness was probably the fact of the Dutch couple’s daring to hide the Jews in the attic of their house and obtaining food for them at the risk of their own lives.

That despite all the cruelty which exists in the world there are human beings like that Dutch couple is, or should be, a source of hope and faith. The existence of such goodness is not merely a proof of the existence of God but a veritable manifestation or revelation of God. That is the only plausible basis for the will to make the most out of life and to keep on working and fighting for reason, justice and peace against the most discouraging odds.

Introduction from Kaplan biographer and editor of his diaries, Dr. Mel Scult.

Many wonder about Kaplan and the problem of evil. He seems to have no adequate theory about the origins and nature of suffering in the world. The issue of the problem of evil is of course central to any theology and it is complicated. Part of the problem with Kaplan is his innate optimism and the centrality of hope to his ideology. The way his mind worked he was moved to focus on the good in any situation and not on the evil. His first reaction to suffering is to think what can be done to alleviate it.

In our obsession with the Holocaust we continue to look for explanations and understanding. Perhaps at the end of the day, because the suffering is so monumental we will never find an adequate explanation.

In any case, we should understand the way Kaplan‘s mind worked. The selection below illustrates his propensity to look for the good in any situation. He went to see the play The Diary of Ann Frank with his grand daughter and here he muses on Ann Frank’s final optimism with which he identifies. Of particular interest here is the fact that Kaplan keenly feels the pain and suffering of those who perished. His innate optimism which comes out at the end of the selection is bound together with a strong sense of horror at the suffering. For Kaplan hope is of the essence of the divine.

"We-Consciousness" is the Road to God

Mordecai M Kaplan — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 14:21:16 -0400

Mordecai M KaplanWednesday, October 3, 1951

[Read Dr. Scult's intro first.]

Every time I preach a sermon, the substance of which I had given to the men in the sermon seminar, I realize how much more difficult it is to speak from the pulpit than to teach in class. The more important the idea expounded, the greater the difference in the amount of care that has to be given to the development and illustration of it.

When I had distributed to the men at the sermon seminar the outline on How to Seek God, I was sure that I could give a repeat performance of it from the S.A.J. pulpit on Rosh Hashanah, without giving it any more thought.

When the time came for preaching it approached, and I looked over the notes, I realized that, while it succeeded in driving home the thought that we must look to those traits in man which are reflected in the divine attributes of Avinu Malkeynu, Moshiyenu [Heb. Our father our King, our savior ] to give us a sense of the reality of God, and that those traits are still only inchoate and that God is therefore to be sought in the future of man, I had not indicated how we can recognize godhood or divinity when we so experience it.

The need for answering that question led me to discover again, but this time with greater clarity than ever, that the moment we transcend our own egos and identify ourselves with one other person we are on the way toward God. God is thus the reality experienced as we-consciousness, in the same way as the self or soul is the reality experienced as I- or self-consciousness.

But, and this is the most important fact to reckon with, just as the true self or soul is rarely identified or experienced, because of our tendency to treat some particular drives or impulses and their satisfaction as constituting our true self or soul, so we mistakenly regard as the experience of godhood any one of the many self-identifications with others, with family, friends, city, state, nation or class, stopping short, far from the limits of mankind as a whole. All these experiences are valuable as on the way to God, but misleading and a source of evil, when considered as the reality of God. That is fundamentally the implication of the unity of God as proclaimed in our Shema.

Introduction from Kaplan biographer and editor of his diaries, Dr. Mel Scult.

Kaplan was tireless in helping his students even after they became rabbis. Every summer he conducted sermon seminars for Conservative rabbis in order to help them with their High Holiday preaching. He would give them ideas which they discussed together.

Here we see Kaplan being like the rest of us in thinking he can take his notes from the seminars after the passage of a month and simply use them to deliver a Rosh Ha-shannah sermon he had worked on before. Perhaps more importantly , he shares with us a thought from the sermon, that the connections we make with the other are the route to the divine. This thought is much more familiar from Buber or Levinas than from Kaplan but here it is simply and powerfully stated. Kaplan goes beyond the identification with the other and cautions us to remember that such identification is only the beginning of our search for the divine.

We might also note the last paragraph where Kaplan implores us to continue our search for the divine beyond the highest ethical ideals we hold.

Kaplan's Cosmic Curriculum

Mordecai M Kaplan — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 12:46:47 -0400

Mordecai KaplanDecember 8, 1938

The first of the three requirements which Jewish studies must meet in order to qualify for centrality in the school curriculum is the ability to help the educand [student] achieve a cosmic orientation. No education fulfils its function if it fails to enable the child to orient himself cosmically. The need for cosmic orientation is to the human being just as natural as are the needs for health and sustenance. With his extraordinary capacity of memory, imagination and reason, man actually lives in an environment that infinitely exceeds in space and time the one he exists in physically.

The range of his sensitiveness exposes him to suffering from all manner of calculable to incalculable evils. He is therefore all too easily upset, and all too readily feels himself lost in the windy vastness of his thought world and is accordingly in need of a compass, as it were, to help him regain and retain his bearings.

Comparing life as he finds it with life as he would like it to be, he has sufficient reason to become discouraged. But if he is to go on living without being weighted down by a sense of frustration and despair, he must have some reservoir of faith to draw upon. To that end his education must be so directed that when fears and disappointments begin coming, he is well prepared to meet them. Say what one will about the traditional education, it was just this need that it seemed to fulfill more so than any other. To be sure, it was much easier to meet this need in the past because man's cosmos was comparatively small and simple with the one which he mentally inhabits now, and he was far less critical than he is now of the consolations offered him.

[Kaplan biographer Mel Scult writes: Kaplan had a life-long concern for education. Indeed, he believed it was the primary means whereby consciousness may be altered and religion taught. When we think about Jewish education, we ordinarily think in terms of Jewish identity. Education will help us in saving and strengthening the Jewish people through molding the identity of the student.

There is no doubt that this is true. But we may look at education from a larger perspective, which is what Kaplan does here. Religion in general and education in particular must give each person a perspective on the meaning of their life and on their place in the universe. Traditional religion speaks clearly and directly about this issue when it sees humankind as fulfilling the will of God and this being our primary purpose. If we dismiss the traditional view, what shall we put in its place in terms of humankind’s purpose and our place? The concern for meaning and purpose must be one of education’s primary goals.

The selection above was written while Kaplan was at the Hebrew University. Kaplan spent 1936-1938 in Jerusalem teaching and writing. - Mel Scult]

To Believe in Sinai is Unethical

Mordecai M Kaplan — Fri, 08 Jun 2007 10:09:42 -0400

Mordecai KaplanJuly 11, 1943

The problem of Judaism would not be so acute if the traditional doctrine of revelation were merely obsolete. The trouble is that to cherish that doctrine is as unethical as being guilty of bigamy. To believe that we are in possession of the authentically revealed will of God is incompatible with religious tolerance to say nothing of religious equality.

[Kaplan biographer Mel Scult writes: Kaplan was truly a revolutionary and I would like to maintain that we have not yet begun to understand the radical nature of his theological commitments. The central event of Sinai which we celebrate on Shavuot is not reinterpreted here or put into language that is more acceptable to us. It is rather dismissed as unethical because it assumes the existence of some eternal truth, a doctrine that Kaplan dismisses. Many moderns are in the same situation but they refuse to face it squarely and to see our situation for what it is.

Kaplan challenges us to face the fact that we cannot grasp the eternal and that whatever the basic truths are they are changeable and not the special property of any group. It is not easy to accept such ideas and make them part of a religious commitment but if we are followers of Kaplan that is what we must do. It is also clear that pluralism and tolerance for the beliefs of others is more important to Kaplan than any supposed revelation. . —Mel Scult]

On the Conclusion of WW II

Mordecai M Kaplan — Sun, 15 Apr 2007 15:54:35 -0400

Mordecai KaplanMay 8, 1945

I am entirely unequal to giving anything like adequate expression to the feelings that well up in my heart at the thought that the war in Europe is at an end. If only it were like waking up from a terrible nightmare!

But unfortunately the unspeakable atrocities committed by the insane murderers are too real to disappear with the break of the dawn, and the living victims of the war are too much part of our own lives to be forgotten.

And worst of all, the chances that human beings have learned anything from the war that would render them more human are very slim, indeed.

[As we remember the slaughter of the six million on Yom Ha-Shoah, it is well also to remember that in May of 1945 the war in Europe ended. Kaplan doesn’t comment often on current events. In the current selection we see his very emotional reaction to the end of the War.

Although hope for change is central to Kaplan’s approach to Judaism, we sometimes experience a fundamental pessimism on his part. Deep down he does not expect things to change very much. Of course, it is difficult to live in such a space and Kaplan does not stay there for very long. —Mel Scult]