Zocher Shabbos

To really understand the realtionship between rank-and-file Conservative Jews and halacha, you need to understand the concept of "Zocher Shabbos."

What's that? Well, back in the days when I was truing to be a Conservative Ba'al Teshuva, I went over to the house of a member of our shul, who I thought was pretty knowledgeable and observant. They were shul regulars (even at the daily minyan), had shabbos dinner every night, kept kosher, had Shabbos lunches, etc. Anyway, one time I was visiting on Shabbos and Isaw this pillar ofthe community perferm an act that was in violation even the laid-back Conservative halacha on the subject. When I expressed my surporsed, he laughed and said, "we're not really 'Shomer Shabbbos,' we're 'Zocher Shabbos.'"

This happened some time ago, and after more life-experience, I see that the concept of "z'chirat Mitza" (that is "remembrance" of the mitzvos) is what seperates the Orthodox from the non-Orthodox on the rank-and-file level, and, indeed is what really sperates the Conservative from Reform, even though the latter two are moving closer together in therms of actual practice.

Here is my classification of the Jewish movements:

The Halachists: The official party line of both Orthodox and Conservative. Of course, the two movements (not to mention subsets within the movements) argue bitterly over what to consider correct halacha. A larger percentage of Orthodocx rank-and-file than Conservative actually try to observe all of the halacha, with varying degrees of success.

The "Zocher mitzvah" Party: This is where the largest percentage of Conservative rank-and-file can be found, plus a larger number of Orthodox-affiliated, larger than the Orthodox establishment would probably care to admit. Many of the more active Reform Jews are also found here. These people accept the "importance" of halacha as the glue that holds the Jewish religion in place. But they have trouble with attempting to observe it because (1) the laws are burdensome, (2) they have serious problems with traditional Jewish theology so they see no good reason to drive themselves crazy trying to keep up with what the rabbis demand, and (3) they may even ethical problems with some of the halachot (e.g. aguna, mamzer, killing all the Canaanites, slavery, even the laws of lashon hara when they're used to shut down crtiticism of community leaders.)

The fellow travelers: These include many of the rank-and-file of all the movements, plus unafilliated Jews who nonetheless do some minimal Jewsish observance. These people are totally secularized, but retain some sentimental attachment to their ethnc heritage. They may accept the leadership position of rabbis whose views are in total opposition to theirs. I would suggest that secukar Israelis who nonethless believe that Orthodoxy is the only true Judaism they would never observe fall in this category.

The "Zocher mitzvah" is the reason hy I believe that the Conservatives will never be swallowed up by the Reform. The zocherei mitzva may believe that it might be OK for people to be lax in their halachic observance, but the shul should do it as a sort of a proxy for the whole, symbolic observance of the "glue" that held together the Jewish people. Reform zochrei mitzva may be the source of the "return to tradition" found at many Reform Temples. Unfortunately, that return is not going to be enough to satisfy the Conservative zochrei mitzvah, so they will continue to support Conservative institutions, despite the fact that the actual observance level amopngt the membership of both is converging.

The Zochrei Mitzva are the backbone of the Conservative movement. It's about all that's left of the "positive-historical" concept, and while it's not fully satisfying, as far as I'm concerned it beats any of the alternatives.