History Repeating Itself

So... yesterday, the Conservative Movement decided that it's okay to ordain gay and lesbian rabbis and to officiate at commitment ceremonies. It looks as though Joel Roth and others on the right wing of that movement are going to bolt.

The Rabbinical Council of America (RCA) is currently deciding whether or not to accept grads of Yeshivat Chovevei Torah (YCT) as rabbis. YCT is the extremely left wing Modern Orthodox seminary which started up recently. Think Edah. Think JOFA. Think CLAL.

Now think back about a century...

About a century ago, the Reform Movement had a bunch of their people bolt after the famous "treyfe banquet", in reaction to the way the movement was speeding away from the Torah. In that case, those who broke away got together with the extreme left wing of Jews identifying as Orthodox and merged into what became the Conservative movement.

This has been coming for some time. There is no difference, either hashkafically or in terms of observance, between YCT/Edah/JOFA/CLAL Jews and UTJ/Roth Jews. The right wing of the Conservative Movement and the far left wing of Modern Orthodoxy are only separated by the labels they use for themselves.

Conservative Jews deny Torah miSinai. Orthodox Jews insist on Torah miSinai. These folks in the middle give lip service to it, and may actually accept it, more or less, but they're kind of fuzzy about it.

I expect they'll call it the Traditional Movement, or something like that. That way they can keep the Mesorati label and make the Conservatives be Shamrani, or some such. I mean, since they're continuing to deny that they're Reform.