By Rabbi Michael Shire

For those of you who don’t know me, I grew up in the Liberal Movement in Birmingham, was one of the founders of ULPSNYC (now LJY-Netzer), attended the first Kadimah and Senior Kadimah, served Barkingside (now part of ELELS) as my first pulpit and then led High Holy Days for Dublin and then Oxford for 20 years. I worked as Director of the joint Centre for Jewish Education for both Movements and then as Vice-Principal of Leo Baeck College. I have been a member of both Rabbinic bodies. I left the UK for Boston in 2011. I currently lead the fundraising effort for a funded student scholarship at Leo Baeck College from the North American LBC alumni.

I believe passionately in the merger of Reform and Liberal Judaism – into one Progressive Judaism for the UK – conceptually and I would like to share my reasoning. I would also like to comment on the ‘why’.

The merger of two Jewish religious Movements of Common Cause is going to be of enormous significance to Jewish life in the UK. It opens doors to a wider constituency with greater outreach and offers access to a contemporary living Judaism with our welcoming rabbis and cantors for acceptance, inclusion and equality. Judaism in the UK will be served in a whole new way bringing vitality, creative spirit and contemporary religious experience to Jews, those Jewishly adjacent and the searching non-Jew.

The founders of both of our Movements and the subsequent generations of rabbis and now cantors believe Judaism to be primarily a religious expression of a Peoplehood. That is an essential mission of both our Movements and together we widen and deepen that mission. It answers an existential need in a post-rationalist society and can make a major contribution to be a blessing to all peoples in the UK. (Genesis 12:2)

We offer a Torah that highlights the gifts of Shabbat and the Festivals as a means to mindfulness and connection using our age-old spiritual practices. We teach a commitment to social welfare for all and tikkun where repair is needed. We emphasize access to Jewish living with equity and inclusion. We search for Jewish responses to the challenges of our time and environment. Does this not speak to the needs of people all around us who can look to a Progressive Judaism for values and vision?

We brought into our synagogue communities rationalist and existentialist theologies, prayers and music that speak to the heart and soul, compassionate and loving acceptance for healing and comfort. We offer a Rabbinic Judaism that is welcoming, flexible and creative with a Prophetic Judaism that is not afraid to speak truth; to be radical and forward in navigating change in order to nurture the hybrid Jewish family, those whose gender or sexuality has been marginalized and the God given capacities of neurodiverse people. Both our Movements commit to this sacred work of justice and inclusion.

Rabbi Michael Shire with his family, including mum Ruth, at Birmingham Progressive Synagogue

There is yet one more unseen theological and ideological benefit to becoming a pluralist Progressive Movement. Pluralism requires each one of us to examine and contrast our beliefs and truths in the light of the other. This suggests that truth is shared and partial in any one ideology. We can celebrate and rejoice in our differences, knowing that we offer a more complex and considered perspective on life and living. We can build on our differences knowing that our joint fellowship is one that is worthy of the challenges of complexity and the benefits of choice. Our religious lives become enhanced in God’s diversity.

It is incumbent upon us to honour the legacy of our past as separate Movements but perhaps more importantly to ensure that our founders’ vision, hope and aspirations of a vital, renewing and compelling Jewish religious life will endure, flourish and ‘leaven’ future generations of Progressive Jews.

I write this during Shabbat V’yakahel.

וְהַמְּלָאכָ֗ה הָיְתָ֥ה דַיָּ֛ם לְכׇל־הַמְּלָאכָ֖ה לַעֲשׂ֣וֹת אֹתָ֑הּ וְהוֹתֵֽר׃ {ס}
The work was sufficient for all that was needed to do and it was too much.
(Exodus 36:7)

R.Kalonymous Kalman HaLevi Epstein (1753-1825) of Krakow in Ma’or Va’shemesh writes also in a time of great change in the Jewish community:

“How can there be sufficient די and yet too muchהותר ? The explanation is that there was such a level of generosity in the donations for the Mishkan that there appeared to be an extra level of holiness beyond what was needed for the moment”.

This surplus holiness is that left over from our founders to complete the work that was sufficient. They were so abundant in their gifts to us that we can do even more with the gifts we have inherited. We have been called upon in this moment to be the fulfilment of this extra special mission and to bring this surplus holiness to shine in our merged Progressive Movement, so that what was sufficient will now be even more of a blessing with “greater sanctity, love, awe and fiery devotion” (Ma’or VaShemesh Vayakhel)