Communings of the Spirit, Volume III: The Journals of Mordecai M. Kaplan, 1942-1951

By Wayne State University Press

Mordecai M. Kaplan (1881–1983), founder of Reconstructionism and the rabbi who initiated the first Bat Mitzvah, also produced the longest Jewish diary on record. In twenty-seven volumes, written between 1913 and 1978, Kaplan shares not only his reaction to the great events of his time but also his very personal thoughts on religion and Jewish life. In Communings of the Spirit: The Journals of Mordecai M. Kaplan Volume III, 1942–1951, readers experience his horror at the persecution of the European Jews, as well as his joy in the founding of the State of Israel. Above all else, Kaplan was concerned with the survival and welfare of the Jewish people. And yet he also believed that the well-being of the Jewish people was tied to the safety and security of all people. In his own words, "Such is the mutuality of human life that none can be saved, unless all are saved."

In the first volume of Communings of the Spirit, editor Mel Scult covers Kaplan’s early years as a rabbi, teacher of rabbis, and community leader. In the second volume, readers experience the economic problems of the 1930s and their shattering impact on the Jewish community. The third volume chronicles Kaplan’s spiritual and intellectual journey in the 1940s. With candor and vivid detail, Kaplan explores his evolving beliefs concerning a democratic Judaism; religious naturalism; and the conflicts, uncertainties, and self-doubts he faced in the first half of the twentieth century, including his excommunication by the ultra-Orthodox in 1945 for taking a more progressive approach to the liturgy. In his publications, Kaplan eliminated the time-honored declarations of Jewish chosen-ness as well as the outdated doctrines concerning the resurrection of the dead. He wanted a prayer book that Jews could feel reflected their beliefs and experiences; he believed that people must mean what they say when they pray.

Kaplan was a man of contradictions, but because of that, all the more interesting and significant. Scholars of Judaica and rabbinical studies will value this honest look at the preeminent American Jewish thinker and rabbi of our times.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wayne State University Press
• Release date: Oct 6, 2020
• ISBN: 9780814347683

Book preview

Praise for Communings of the Spirit

It is axiomatic that the publication of the third volume of Mordecai M. Kaplan’s journals is among the most significant contributions a press can make to the advancement of American Jewish scholarship. Kudos to the press and to Scult for their efforts.

—Jeffrey Gurock, Libby M. Klaperman Professor of Jewish History at Yeshiva University

Mel Scult continues to reveal himself as a master editor and commentator who has done scholar and layperson alike a great service by allowing Kaplan and the events and issues of a decade to come alive through the writings in this book. This latest volume of Kaplan’s diaries is simply a treasure that will captivate and command the attention of a wide swath of readers who are interested in American Jewish history, thought, and religion.

—David Ellenson, Chancellor Emeritus, Hebrew Union College–Jewish Institute of Religion

Another great gift from the world’s foremost expert on Kaplan and his work. This volume of the Kaplan diaries covers critical decades in his life and reveals his response to the Holocaust, the establishment of the State of Israel, and to his own excommunication. An invaluable source on one of America’s greatest Jewish thinkers and on American Judaism during a pivotal period of the twentieth century.

—Jonathan D. Sarna, University Professor and Joseph H. & Belle R. Braun Professor of American Jewish History, Brandeis University, and author of American Judaism: A History

Covering ten tumultuous years, these excerpts reveal Kaplan championing democracy and battling authoritarianism in geo-politics and religious affairs. We see Kaplan forthrightly accept the opportunities and obligations of America’s sudden emergence as the world’s largest Jewish community and gain further insight into the ways his work was both embraced and attacked. Scult has helped illuminate not only Kaplan but also essential events and personalities from a critical period in Jewish life.

—Deborah Waxman, Aaron and Marjorie Ziegelman Presidential Professor at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College and president of Reconstructing Judaism

Aside from being one of the most influential Jews in twentieth-century America, Kaplan kept an exhaustive diary from about 1904 until the late 1970s. Scult has been expertly excavating Kaplan’s voluminous writings for almost half a century. This third volume comprises diary entries during the war years and the founding of the State of Israel. Scult’s deep knowledge of Kaplan, his felicitous introduction, and his helpful annotations and notes make this a superb study of a tumultuous time in mid-century American Judaism.

—Shaul Magid, professor of Jewish studies, Dartmouth College

Among Kaplan’s many innovative contributions to American Judaism that we learn about from this eagerly awaited third volume of his diaries, masterfully edited by Scult, are the prayer-poems Kaplan composed using the writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson and other modern authors. These liturgical experiments foreshadowed the flourishing of new literary creations that enrich Jewish worship today. I am grateful to Scult for bringing to light these little-known and inspiring compositions, along with the many other fascinating passages contained in this volume.

—Marcia Falk, author of The Book of Blessings: New Jewish Prayers for Daily Life, the Sabbath, and the New Moon Festival and The Days Between: Blessings, Poems, and Directions of the Heart for the Jewish High Holiday Season

Sixtieth-birthday celebration of Mordecai Kaplan. (Courtesy Society for the Advancement of Judaism)

Communings of the Spirit

The Journals of Mordecai M. Kaplan

Volume III 1942–1951

Edited by Mel Scult

Wayne State University Press

Detroit

Published in cooperation with the Reconstructionist Press

© 2020 by Reconstructionist Rabbinical College and the Jewish Theological Seminary. Published by Wayne State University Press, Detroit, Michigan 48201 and the Reconstructionist Press. Introduction and all editorial and annotative material and selections copyright 2020 by Mel Scult. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced without formal permission.

Library of Congress Control Number: 2020939951

ISBN 978-0-8143-4767-6 (printed case); ISBN 978-0-8143-4825-3 (paperback); ISBN 978-0-8143-4768-3 (ebook)

Permission to reprint material from Mordecai Kaplan’s diary has been granted by the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, which owns volumes 1–25 of the diary. Volumes 26 and 27 are owned by Reconstructionist College. Permission has also been granted by the Kaplan family.

Wayne State University Press

Leonard N. Simons Building

4809 Woodward Avenue

Detroit, Michigan 48201-1309

Visit us online at wsupress.wayne.edu

With gratitude for the generous support of

Miriam Eisenstein and Carol Stern

Daniel and Karol Musher

David and Ruth Musher

Susan Beckerman

Donald and Arlene Shapiro

Jane Weprin-Menzi

Jack and Kaye Wolofsky

Herb and Marcia Weller

Mordecai M. Kaplan Center for Jewish Peoplehood

To my brother Allen Scult, who helps me be my best philosophical self

Contents

Foreword

Preface

Introduction

Chapter 1. January 4, 1942–April 24, 1942

Chapter 2. April 30, 1942–July 31, 1942

Chapter 3. August 6, 1942–October 23, 1942

Chapter 4. October 24, 1942–March 21, 1943

Chapter 5. March 22, 1943–August 17, 1943

Chapter 6. August 23, 1943–August 7, 1944

Chapter 7. September 14, 1944–April 17, 1945

Chapter 8. April 18, 1945–September 4, 1946

Chapter 9. October 13, 1946–March 16, 1948

Chapter 10. March 17, 1948–April 10, 1950

Chapter 11. May 19, 1950–June 10, 1951

Time Line of Kaplan’s Life

Glossary

Index

About the Authors

Foreword

To be really free means to be honest with oneself and with one’s peers. For Mordecai M. Kaplan, it was only through the free, unfettered search for oneself that people were able to be religious, to explore their identity, and to orient themselves to their community and to the world. His diary is a moving, authentic record of his own religious quest.

Many people think that Kaplan’s approach to religion was much more of the head than of the heart and that he tended toward a scientism that today seems quaint at best. And yet in the prime of his life and three years before nuclear weapons became known, Kaplan wrote that science has not made for a better and a happier world.¹

And many people think that Kaplan’s Reconstructionism was intended as a radical venture on the fringes of mainstream Judaism. And yet as the diary makes clear, Kaplan is in an important way a centrist looking to establish a middle path between the rigid legalism of Orthodoxy and a then near–Orthodox Conservative movement on the one hand and, on the other, classical Reform’s rejection of much of the core of Jewish tradition.

Some assert that Kaplan’s Reconstructionism entails belief in a God as different from the God of our ancestors as was Spinoza’s God. And yet note that here, as so often in his published and unpublished writings, Kaplan speaks not of God but of a conception of God. At the same time, one might say that Kaplan is the sociologist-become-theologian (a meta-theologian), even though his theology is complex, multilayered, personal, and surprisingly philosophical.

As Dr. Mel Scult suggests in his preface, Kaplan’s journals reveal the author’s obsessive tendencies. Kaplan was obsessed with trying to solve the fundamental problems of the Jewish people in the modern world. He was devoted to documenting, in detailed diary form, the central events in his own long and productive life as well as his reactions to the momentous events that befell the Jewish people in that period. As a result, we have a virtual concordance to the history of the Jewish people through most of the twentieth century. Read in conjunction with Kaplan’s published writings, as they should be, the journals complete our picture of Kaplan’s life and work.

As volume 3 of Kaplan’s journals takes its place alongside volumes 1 and 2 as required reading for everyone interested in the past, present, and future of American Judaism, all of us at the Mordecai M. Kaplan Center for Jewish Peoplehood salute our colleague Dr. Scult for his magnificent work. We think that Kaplan would have been as grateful as we are.

Daniel G. Cedarbaum

President and Executive Director of the Mordecai M. Kaplan Center for Jewish Peoplehood

www.kaplancenter.org

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1. Interview with Mordecai Kaplan, 1972.

Preface

¹

Mordecai Kaplan was a compulsive diary keeper who started the process in 1904 and was still writing in the late seventies.² His journal may be one of the longest diaries in existence. (Twenty-seven large, accountant-type volumes of three hundred pages apiece is perhaps greater than Pepys or Emerson.) If Kaplan is the compulsive diarist, I suppose one might say I am the compulsive reader. I discovered the diary in my initial meetings with Kaplan in 1972. That was forty-six years ago. The diary has engaged me for so long a period because it is the authentic witness to his continuous search to make sense of the world, of religion, and of Judaism with only a minimal verification from the tradition. (Tradition has a vote but not a veto, he famously stated.³) Even more than that, the diary seems, in a sense, to be the virtual repository of his self. It is as if we are inside his mind. At one point, he writes of himself and the diary, On the other hand, I do not possess the ability to externalize my personality [my self] by means of song, story, poem or painting. . . . In my frustration, I turn to writing in this journal as the only means left me to externalize and render transferable that aspect of my being I experience as my soul, self or reason.⁴

I have been working with Kathryn Wildfong of Wayne State for many years, and I want to thank her deeply for her consistent support and her very valuable advice. I want to acknowledge the support of the Mordecai M. Kaplan Center for Jewish Peoplehood for this and many other Kaplan projects. I am also deeply indebted to those individuals who have contributed toward the publication of this volume. My brother Allen Scult, professor emeritus of Drake University, has been and continues to be my most important intellectual other and a constant friend and faithful supporter of this and other Kaplan projects.

A few matters of style—some significant others minor. Where there are isolated numbers in bold curling brackets in the text itself, they refer to pages in the original diary. The diary is not a finished product and was not prepared for publication. Some sentences are awkward. In many cases, I leave them that way. Charles Silberman said that he could never quote a complete Kaplan statement. There were simply too many subordinate clauses. Kaplan did not fix up the diary for publication. It was essentially private, although it is clear that he certainly expected it would be published.⁵ There is a very positive aspect to the casual, private aspect of the diary. The Kaplan of the diary is much more readable and engaging than the published Kaplan, which is more familiar. We are very fortunate that he never fixed up the diary. It has the attraction of the deeply felt and the spontaneous.

On a more mundane level, readers should be aware that Kaplan did not write in the diary every day. Often he wrote long entries covering a number of days, and thus the date of an entry does not necessarily indicate when the event being discussed happened. When different subjects are treated on the same day, I have entered them separately.

Kaplan frequently introduced Hebrew expressions in the text. These are written out in transliteration followed by Heb. and a translation. Kaplan did not look up the source when he quoted from a traditional work. There are times when he misremembered and misquoted a source. I have noted where he misremembered. Kaplan rarely gives the exact source of Hebrew expressions, and wherever possible I supplied these. I am very much indebted to Ittai Hirschman for the identification of many Hebrew expressions. In some cases, my son, Rabbi Joshua Scult, supplied the source. I am of course also indebted to Sharon Polsky, who typed much of the material in this volume.

Individuals are identified fully the first time they are mentioned. After that, a full identification can be found in the glossary. Glossary identifications are much fuller than the text notes. Because individuals are identified in the notes only the first time they are mentioned, as the diary proceeds, the attentive reader might want to consult the glossary to identify a particular individual. I have taken the liberty of repeating certain identifications of other items, since I do not expect readers to remember other entries where the item might be mentioned.

Kaplan does not hesitate to write negatively about people, but he did not want these negative comments known. In deference to that conviction, where there is a strong negative comment, I will put in only the person’s initials. Anyone desiring to find out the full name may consult the diary itself online or at the Jewish Theological Seminary (JTS).

It should be remembered that Kaplan is not a great writer, and some of his expressions are jarring and not felicitous. I have only corrected his spelling.

In cases where a word is obviously incorrect—of instead of to and so on—I have corrected the original text without any indication. If he misspelled the name of a person, I have silently corrected the spelling.

Minor figures are not always identified. Individuals with very common names (e.g., Michael Cohen) are often not identified unless they are well known.

Though I have attempted to be precise about when Kaplan is speaking and when he is quoting, this is not always clear in the original text. A question mark after a word means it is not clear in the original text. Sometimes I have written the words not clear. Three dots ( . . . ) refer to a break in the middle of a sentence. Four dots mean skipped material. A line in the text indicates skipped material. Square brackets indicate an insertion by the editor. Parentheses indicate Kaplan’s insertion.

I sometimes supply first names in square brackets.

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1. I recently discovered another early diary of Kaplan’s entitled "Communings with the Spirit." This series is entitled Communings of the Spirit. In order to be consistent, we have retained the earlier title. The earlier title is, of course, theologically significant.

2. The original of the diary may be found in the archives of the Jewish Theological Seminary. It is also online at www.kaplancenter.org. The last two volumes of the diary are at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College.

3. Many have asked me about the origin of this famous statement. In its original form, one may find it in Not So Random Thoughts (New York: Reconstructionist Press, 1966). There Kaplan gives us The ancient authorities are entitled to a vote, not a veto (263).

4. See the introduction to volume 1 of this series for more on Kaplan and the diary. Communings of the Spirit: The Journals of Mordecai M. Kaplan, vol. 1, 1913–1934, ed. Mel Scult (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2001), 31–55. For the particular quotation here, see Communings of the Spirit, 1:439.

5. For more evidence on this issue, see the introduction to volume 1 of Communings of the Spirit.

Introduction

The fundamental question about diary keeping is, Does it reveal or does it conceal? The answer is that it does both of these at the same time. On the one hand, we hear from Thoreau, who did not start keeping a diary until Emerson suggested it. My diary is says I to myself, Thoreau tells us. On the other side is Oscar Wilde, who in The Importance of Being Earnest gives us the following:

Algernon: Do you really keep a diary? I’d give anything to look at it. May I?

Cecily: Oh, no. You see, It is simply a very young girl’s record of her own thoughts and impressions, and consequently meant for publication. (act 2, part 1)

It was an open secret at the Jewish Theological Seminary (JTS) that Mordecai Kaplan kept a diary; his very scholarly colleagues on the faculty all wondered what he was saying about them. The seminary where Kaplan worked for over fifty years controlled the Conservative movement to an astonishing degree. At the center of Conservative Judaism throughout our period was Louis Finkelstein, who would rule with an iron fist if he were allowed. Kaplan represented a countervailing force both politically and religiously. The diary contains much material on the seminary that will not be found anywhere else. Because of Kaplan’s position, we are allowed an unparalleled vantage point from the inside. For those who have an interest in the seminary, there is a large trove of material in this volume dealing with Finkelstein and colleagues.

Diaries are wonderful because they contain the keys to unlock the real reactions to a particular moment in time. As a consequence, we are continuously surprised by the difference between the way we perceive an event of long ago and the way we find it in a diary. Take, for example, Kaplan and the bat mitzvah of his daughter Judith in 1922—a world-class event, we would say, and yet Kaplan hardly mentions it. He felt it was obviously needed, and yet on some level, it was taken for granted. No rhapsody here about the rights of women and the need for their liberation. Just the deed.¹

Or on a more public level, take the dropping of the bomb on Hiroshima. We are obsessed with the horror, but Kaplan experiences primarily the joy that it will mean to end all the killing. Or take the whole war and the Nazis and the killing of the Jews. We are preoccupied by the horror of the Holocaust, and though Kaplan has a strong sense that Hitler is in the process of trying to eliminate the Jews, he does not really dwell on the awfulness of what is happening. What concerns him is how to defeat Nazism and how to make sure it will never happen again. His response is that we, the Jewish people, and all of humanity will only be saved from fascism through the spread and strengthening of democracy. There is much in this volume about the virtues of democracy and the way it will fit into the lives of the Jewish people and all peoples.

Before I detail some of the amazing entries during these very eventful years, I will outline the life of Mordecai Kaplan that frames his diary.²

Mordecai Menahem Kaplan (June 11, 1881–November 8, 1983) was born in Sventzian, Lithuania. He was the son of Rabbi Israel Kaplan, a prominent Talmudic scholar, and Anna Nehama Kaplan. At the age of eight, Kaplan immigrated to America with his family. They lived in New York City, and later Kaplan attended the City College of New York (graduated 1900) and Columbia University. In 1902, Kaplan received rabbinical ordination from the JTS.

In 1909, he was invited by Solomon Schechter, the head of the JTS, to become principal of its newly created Teachers Institute. He enthusiastically accepted the position, having suffered a number of years as the rabbi at Kehilath Jeshurun, an Orthodox congregation in New York City where he had been serving since 1903.

Kaplan remained at the JTS, the center of the Conservative movement, training rabbis and teachers until he retired in 1963. As the first director of the Teachers Institute, he laid the foundations for Jewish education in America. Working closely with Samson Benderly, the director of the Board of Jewish Education in New York City, he helped train all the educational leaders of the next generation.³ Kaplan and Benderly were good friends, although Kaplan was critical of Benderly’s secularism. Kaplan suffered from a feeling of isolation, but we might say that Benderly was his best friend. When the Teachers Institute was situated in what is now called the East Village, Benderly and Kaplan frequently met for lunch.⁴

Rabbi Israel Kaplan, Mordecai Kaplan’s father. (Courtesy Hadassah Musher)

Kaplan’s emphasis on community led to the founding of the first Jewish Center, the pool with a shul and a school. It was truly the embodiment of Judaism as a civilization. As a consequence of the conflicts between Kaplan and the Orthodox leaders of the center, Kaplan left in 1921, moved down the street, and established the Society for the Advancement of Judaism (SAJ).

Kaplan was a strong personality and a demanding teacher. For many years, including the period covered in this volume, he taught homiletics and Midrash (classical rabbinic homilies) to rabbinical students at the seminary in addition to a course in the philosophies⁵ of Judaism. Critical of his colleagues who seemed to be concerned only with scholarly issues, Kaplan dealt with the central religious questions that troubled his students. His own graduate studies, in which he had concentrated on sociology, led him to formulate a religious ideology that emphasized the link between religion and experience. The primacy of experience remained a central concept for Kaplan in his analysis of religion and Judaism (see diary entries for November 14, 1936, and July 9, 1940, in Communings of the Spirit, vol. 2). Because experience changes, religion changes; therefore it is important, Kaplan believed, to find ways in which beliefs and rituals could function in the modern era as they did in the past. To do this, one might need to change a ritual, dropping it completely, or reconstruct it by substituting something new.

Kaplan’s major work Judaism as a Civilization,⁶ published in 1934, has become justly famous. This seminal volume was the crowning achievement of Kaplan’s career, and within its pages, he addressed many of the serious challenges facing Judaism at that time and in ours. By redefining Judaism as a civilization rather than a religion, Kaplan radically shifted the whole discussion about what it means to be a Jew. If Judaism is a living civilization, then it is obviously constantly evolving, and no one belief or dogma is necessarily permanent. Being the pragmatist that he was, Kaplan understood that change is the iron law of life, as he would say, and traditions require continual reconstruction if they are to remain vital. One might regard this epoch-making work of 1934 as without rivals at that time. Abraham Joshua Heschel had not yet arrived on the scene, and Martin Buber was not known in America. For the liberal non-Orthodox, there was only Kaplan.

Throughout the thirties, Kaplan continued to teach at the seminary and to lead his congregation, the SAJ. In 1935, with the help of his son-in-law Rabbi Ira Eisenstein, he also established the Reconstructionist, a biweekly that became a major intellectual organ within the Jewish community at midcentury.

Kaplan once said that he had four reasons for the bat mitzvah—referring, of course, to his four daughters. Young women continued to become bat mitzvah, but quite surprisingly they never came up for honors after that. Kaplan himself was ready for the full equality of women in the synagogue and to have them regularly called up to the Torah, but in the twenties, the congregation was not ready. He apparently did not want to pressure his congregants on this issue. (Though he had no trouble with other issues.) The members of the SAJ were subject to the culture of their time, and it took many years for women to acquire equality in the non-Orthodox denominations.

Regarding the bat mitzvah, after 1922, it depended on the family. If the family wanted a bat mitzvah, they would have it, but it was not automatic for every girl of twelve and a half. Kaplan strongly favored the general equality of women, as one sees through his support of the Twentieth Amendment to the Constitution, which gave women the vote. He spoke about this issue when he was a rabbi at the Jewish Center, which was Orthodox and hence had congregants who were against the equality of women. There may have been many who were unhappy with his support for the equality of women at the center.

In 1950, the SAJ began calling up women to the Torah, giving them equality in the Sabbath rituals. Kaplan fully realized the importance of the occasion. In the diary, he notes,

This morning the SAJ inaugurated in its religious services the practice of calling up women to the Torah. I had all the time been in favor of this innovation, but it has taken all these years of effort on Ira [Eisenstein]’s part finally to have the congregation pass on it. . . . Of those called up this morning—to the reading of the last third of the Torah portion—four were women. Judith was called and Lena [Kaplan’s wife]. Lena was in a state of nerves last night for fear that she would forget the benediction or not chant it properly. Ira introduced the reading of the Torah with a few remarks about the innovation and Rabbi Harold Weisberg delivered the sermon. His subject was the meaning of femininity and masculinity from a historical point of view in general and in Jewish life. It was a brilliant talk. . . . The main point he made was that the innovation of calling up women to the Torah should be seen in the context of the changes which have taken place in the status of women and that the status of the Jewish woman reflects the status of the non-Jewish woman. He touched upon the varying conceptions of the function of the woman in relation to family life and careerism and their effect on sex relations.

We had an unusually large attendance at the services. The introduction of the innovation must have brought the people. The music and the prayers were in keeping with the spirit of the service, which many found to be inspiring.

I have no doubt that if we Jews did not have our hands tied by tradition and were free to bring together the best in music and poetry and prose recitals to be found on recordings, interspersed with a talk of the kind we heard this morning, that religious services would be able to compete with the thousand and one moronizing attractions of the radio and television. (December 2, 1950)

One would expect a diary to be very personal, but Kaplan’s is not. The diary is more a record of his philosophical and religious thinking rather than about himself. And yet sometimes we do get insight into Kaplan the private man. He tells us, for example, that he is very emotional and cries a lot (see diary entry for May 26, 1947), or he reflects on his splendid mediocrity (see diary entry for August 19, 1948), or the way he experiences his everyday life (he works hard and enjoys it but is lonely; see diary entry for August 28, 1948).

Although Kaplan was a loving husband and father, the family does not often enter the diary, though at times we sense his deep familial devotion. On the occasion of his sixty-eighth birthday, he writes the following: I thank God for my darling daughters, my sterling sons-in-law, and my sweet grandchildren. My prayer is that Lena’s health improve and that all apprehension concerning it be dispelled. (Kaplan’s wife was in the hospital at this point.) We do not often see him relaxing, but once in a while, he did, as when he and his grandson went to the ball game (see diary entry for June 29, 1950). He noted with great joy the bar mitzvah of his grandson Daniel Musher: This has been one of the happiest days of my life. All the circumstances pertaining to the celebration of Daniel’s Bar Mitzvah occasion combined to make it thrilling (February 24, 1951). On granddaughter Miriam’s bat mitzvah, he was equally joyous and proud: "Last Sabbath we celebrated Miriam’s becoming Bat Mitzvah. She read the entire Pentateuchal portion (the first section of Kedoshim) and the Haftarah. Her reading was masterful in voice, expression, and poise. The synagogue was packed" (May 16, 1951).

Though it does not appear in this volume, readers may be interested in the whole controversy regarding Kaplan’s New Haggadah, published in 1941 with its many changes (see the diary entry for March 24, 1941, Communings of the Spirit, vol. 2).⁷

Heavily influenced by the Utilitarians and William James, Kaplan called himself a functionalist. He was ready to pursue the path most likely to make religion and particularly Judaism functional in the American setting.⁸ Kaplan’s New Haggadah was quite radical for its time. In an effort to modernize, Kaplan omitted the plagues (because they were miracles), inserted Moses as a prominent part of the Passover liturgy (he is not found in the traditional Haggadah), and omitted the chosenness formula completely (Kaplan rejected chosenness for ideological reasons).⁹ Most importantly, Kaplan’s New Haggadah shifted the emphasis of Passover from a celebration of God’s power in redeeming the Israelites to a celebration of freedom. This emphasis was certainly much needed in 1941 and has come to dominate the contemporary understanding of the holiday. It may very well be that Kaplan’s excommunication was due as much to his 1941 Haggadah as to the 1945 prayer book.

The period covered by this volume is dominated by World War II and the establishment of the State of Israel. Kaplan, of course, commented on these events, but for him personally, the most challenging event was his excommunication by the ultra-Orthodox in June 1945.

Those who know Kaplan’s life even minimally know that in 1945 he was excommunicated by the ultra-Orthodox and that his newly published prayer book was publicly burned at the excommunication ceremony, which took place in the Hotel McAlpin, situated opposite Macy’s department store in Herald Square.¹⁰ It is quite ironic that this hotel at the time of the excommunication was owned by Joe Levy, the owner of Crawford Clothes, a strong Kaplan supporter and a member of the SAJ (see diary entry for November 24, 1948). The bizarre episode of the excommunication is fully reflected in this volume.

The ultra-Orthodox—today we would call them Haredim—were deeply disturbed on a number of accounts. First of all, and most importantly, in the 1945 prayer book, Kaplan replaced the chosenness formula (asher bakhar banu—who has chosen us), which he rejected, with another formula less well known but nonetheless taken from the traditional liturgy (asher kervanu le’avodato—who has drawn us near to his service). In addition, the language affirming that the Torah was given to Moses on Mount Sinai was omitted, as was the formula that expressed the hope of a personal messiah. All references to the resurrection of the body and to the sacrificial cult were likewise omitted. Nonetheless, it should be emphasized that the Kaplan prayer book appeared in April 1945 and the excommunication was enacted in June. From the records of the event and from these facts, it seems clear that the Haredim were harboring hateful feelings toward Kaplan’s work from the time his New Haggadah appeared.

Kaplan, of course, was stunned by the excommunication. Although this ritual was commonly used in the Middle Ages by Jewish communities to deal with dissidents, it has rarely been used in recent times. It is a well-known tale in the Conservative community that on the day that Kaplan heard about the herem (excommunication), his most famous colleague, Professor Saul Lieberman, would not greet him when they entered the elevator at the JTS, where both of them were on the faculty (see diary entry for June 16, 1945). Kaplan in all naïveté thought that he had offended Lieberman in some way but found out later that it was because of the excommunication. Kaplan later wondered whether to give copies of the prayer book to his colleagues at the seminary, many of whom strongly opposed changes he made. When he asked Chancellor Louis Finkelstein what he should do, Finkelstein said he need not bother to distribute his prayer book.

That summer saw a flurry of activity, including an interview by the New York Times, a request to Einstein that he issue a statement of support for Kaplan (he refused), and perhaps even more importantly, a letter from the three senior members of the seminary faculty (Saul Lieberman, Alexander Marx, and Louis Ginzberg) published in the Hebrew periodical Ha’doar (September 24, 1945) severely criticizing Kaplan but stopping short of supporting the excommunication.

Our heart goes out to Kaplan, whose reaction to the whole episode is indicated by the following statement:

What a shattering effect this exhibition of moral degeneracy on the part of men who call themselves rabbis has upon me I can hardly express. All my efforts depend upon faith in the Jewish people. With so much corruption wherever I turn, I find it exceedingly hard to carry on the struggle for Jewish survival. Truth to tell, I experience neither the sufferings nor the consolations of a martyr. (June 16, 1945)

Public Events and the War

Kaplan’s thinking about the war and his reaction to Nazism centered on the issue of democracy. It is well to remember that though Jewish leaders were aware of Hitler’s program of genocide, they did not know the details as we do now. They were concerned about the war, but the Holocaust was not yet an obsession as it is with us. In thinking about the war, Kaplan concerned himself with the ways in which Nazism differs from democracy. The war led him to be a fierce supporter of democracy; he even thought it should be turned into a religion. One might say that we have here an early advocacy of civic religion.

What America needs, or any country [needs] that expects to live by the democratic order, is to do for the democratic order what Germany has done for Nazism. There is no hope for the democratic order unless it can be made into a religion. (Saturday, July 25, 1942)

Summing up his thought about the religion of democracy, Kaplan often referred to his favorite verse in the scriptures, which he felt was the best indication of what the Torah was about:

The contribution which Judaism has made and should continue to make to democracy and the American way of life is best summarized in the motto enunciated by the prophet Zachariah. Not by might nor by power but by my Spirit saith the Lord of Hosts, and to add the supplement of Hillel’s famous summary of Judaism, the rest is commentary, go and learn. (Thursday, December 24, 1942)

Kaplan often pondered how it could be that Germany, the most advanced country in the West, could descend into a vicious barbarism. It is almost as if it has two souls, he tells us—the rational and the irrational living together. He notes,

Both individuals and groups must reckon with this dual or polar aspect of mentality—rational and irrational, kind and cruel, selfish and cooperative, etc. Unless we are constantly on the watch to keep the evil phases of our nature within necessity to control, it is liable to undo all the good it may have taken generations to achieve. (August 12, 1942)

Not only democracy but the necessity to work together at all levels become abundantly clear, and Kaplan waxes eloquent in thinking about it:

The main effect of the present crisis is to shift the goal of all our efforts from the individual to the collective, from the I to the we. We hardly need to be reminded that no man is alone now, that our safety lies in cooperation and in the pooling of all our resources. This applies not only to the individual, the family, the organization, but also to the state or the nation. No matter how strong a nation, it cannot hope to find safety in isolation. One thought at the fore— / That in the Divine Ship, the World, / Breasting time and Space, / All Peoples of the globe together sail, / sail the same voyage, are bound to / the same destination (Walt Whitman, Old Age Echoes). (August 18, 1942)¹¹

Kaplan’s belief in democracy was so strong and so deep that at times his attitude toward economic issues became clearly socialist (see diary entry for March 22, 1943). In addition, as a religious corollary, he quotes the moving and very contemporary statement from Horace Kallen that democratic freedom is the right to be different (June 1, 1943). Kaplan’s loyalty to America ran deep, and like most Jews, he was devoted to Roosevelt. He was staggered by Franklin D. Roosevelt’s death:

I was stunned. It was as though the whole order of things was reversed; as though a blitz struck us. So much did this one man become part of the sense of security which the American people has of late come to experience. (April 12, 1945)

Kaplan thought much about the purpose of the war and believed that it was not just about defeating the Nazis. It must also be about establishing a system of international law so that the peace would be permanent. In his words, This war must be fought with the purpose of finally establishing a durable peace based on a better and a warless world. That purpose calls for the political reconstruction of international relations and for the economic reconstruction of wealth (April 17, 1943).

On the strengthening of international law, Kaplan states the following:

By the same token will it be necessary to translate the right of each nation as a unit to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness into the machinery of law. This implies the establishment of a world government.¹² Though each nation will retain a measure of independence and equality corresponding with those to be accorded to the individual citizen, it will have to surrender that part of its sovereignty which has to do with foreign affairs to a higher authority to be vested in a super-national body. Only international law backed by international sanctions will render the coming peace permanent. (November 25, 1943)

Kaplan reminds us that it was through the reporting of Ernie Pyle that we became fully aware of the realities of the war:

There is the war of maps and logistics, of campaigns, of ballistics, armies, divisions, and regiments—and that is General Marshall’s war. Then there is the war of homesick, weary, funny, violent, common men who wash their socks in their helmets, complain about the food, whistle at Arab girls, or any girls for that matter, and lug themselves through as dirty a business as the world has ever seen and do it with humor dignity and courage—and that is Ernie Pyle’s war.¹³ (January 25, 1945)

Zionism and Israel

Kaplan followed the events in the Yishuv (the Jewish community in Palestine) closely, and as one might expect, he strongly opposed the terrorist activities against the British (see diary entry for September 27, 1947), especially regarding the assassination of the Swedish diplomat Count Folke Bernadotte. Regarding the assassination, Ira Eisenstein preached that while we do not condone, we do not condemn. Kaplan was unhappy with the sermon and thought it unfortunate in not condemning the violence.

He was, of course, overjoyed when the UN passed the partition plan in November 1947.

Saturday, November 29, 1947

It is a long time, indeed, since we Jews have had occasion as we do tonight to sing: la’yehudim ha’yitah orah ve’sasson ve’simcha ve’kar¹⁴ [Heb., For the Jews it was a time of happiness and joy, gladness and honor (Esther 8:16)]. At 5:25 this evening the U.N. finally adopted the partition plan by a vote of 33 to 13. Baruch atah adonai she’heheyanu ve’keyamanu, ve’higianu la’zman ha’zeh [Heb., Blessed art Thou oh Lord Our God who has kept us alive, sustained us, and brought us to this time]. Considering the dreadful finality that an adverse vote might have had in that it would have put an end to all our hopes of resuming life as a nation in our homeland and would have rendered futile all efforts to keep Judaism alive in the diaspora, we should thank God in the benediction of the gomel prayer [prayer for deliverance].

Kaplan’s reaction to the founding of the Jewish state was complex. Of course, he was thrilled, and yet he worried.

May 14, 1948

In fifteen minutes from now a new Jewish state will officially come into being. The mental and physical agonies of birth are beyond those suffered by any people known to history. May God grant that it will not be stillborn . . .

No words of my own could possibly express any better the feelings that storm in my heart at this moment. . . . The new state has been parented by the U.N. with the U.S. as its father, and the Soviet Republic as its mother is sent forth by them into the world as a castaway, but God will say to this state as he said to the one of old, be’dameych hayi [Heb., Live despite your blood].

This is 5:30 pm. Judith and Ira just phoned telling me Truman issued a statement at 6:01 p.m. (New York time) recognizing the Jewish state. It is simply impossible for me to describe how I feel at this moment. Again and again. Baruch she’heheyanu ve’keyemanu la’ zman ha’zeh [Heb., Blessed (are you o Lord) who has kept us alive and sustained us to this time].

Kaplan, the dedicated Zionist, was of course very happy when Israel was admitted to the UN, but he was not uncritical of the new Jewish state: While we Jews have every reason in the world to rejoice over this culmination of the Zionist movement, we should not forget that Israel can never become the Zion restored that our forefathers for the last two-thousand years yearned after. Sooner or later the truth that ‘you can’t go home again’ must be borne in on us. Let us not wait till it is too late to do anything about it (May 11, 1949).

Kaplan’s difficulty with the concept of nationalism is perhaps indicated by his proposal that the Reconstructionist platform change its policy from the support of nationalism to the support of peoplehood. Kaplan did not use this term in Judaism as a Civilization. It was certainly due to the exaggerated nationalism of the war period and Kaplan’s desire to differentiate Jewish nationalism from Nazism with its strong racial content that he adopted the term peoplehood (see diary entry for March 25, 1949).

Kaplan was much concerned with the proper balance between the particular and the universal. Though he had strong universal impulses, we must remember that universalism in the political sense has its limits. Kaplan believed in the universalism of the moral code, but he was concerned with one people imposing its religion on another. For example, insofar as the church was concerned, Kaplan believed that its universality was a kind of imperialism:

Instead of claiming to be universal, it [each religion] should recognize its limitations and be satisfied to remain the religion of the particular people or peoples that have grown up in it. A religion should represent the highest aspirations of a particular area of the world population, an area created by common events and associations and outstanding personalities. It should not seek to impose itself on other areas of the world population.

As a pre-condition to such a change in the conception of the way a religion should function is either to recognize that other religions besides one’s own may have been supernaturally revealed or that all religions are the outgrowth of man’s urge to make the most out of his life. (December 29, 1942)

Sometimes Kaplan is absolutely brilliant in his insights and in their formulation. Witness the following: The particular without the universal is blind. The universal without the particular is empty (September 11, 1943).

Though Kaplan is the father of Reconstructionism, during most of his life he lived in Conservative institutions. Thus he was much involved with setting up the University of Judaism in Los Angeles (see diary entry for March 19, 1947).¹⁵ He was also a key person in the founding of Camp Ramah, though he had his doubts that it would succeed (March 25, 1945). He lectured around the country throughout his adult life, and he often records his experiences, noting details about the congregations on his itinerary (April 18, 1946). We often learn much about Conservative congregations of that era. At the same time, we continue to learn about the seminary from the inside (March 7, 1946). There are many entries in this volume concerning Louis Finkelstein, the president of the JTS. Kaplan’s relationship with Finkelstein was complex; indeed, in the early thirties, Kaplan tells us that he suffered from Finkitus. Yet during the forties, the two men managed to come to a mutual understanding and to work together in forging the shape of Conservative Judaism (January 23, 1945). But religiously and philosophically, they were always far apart. Though Kaplan lived his life at the seminary, he was never happy with the Conservative version of Judaism. His language at times highlights the radicalism when he advocated, for example, doing away with acceptance of rabbinism as normative in Jewish life (January 8, 1942). Thus, as Neil Gillman puts it, If Finkelstein had a serious rival for setting the religious tone of the Seminary, it was Kaplan.¹⁶

Generations of rabbinical students at the JTS lived in the Brush dormitory building, but few if any knew the whole story behind the Brush endowment and its origin. Kaplan puts the record straight and gives due credit for the endowment of the dormitory building to Mathilde Schechter,¹⁷ the wife of Solomon, who convinced Brush to leave his money to the seminary (see diary entry for April 6, 1949).

In the course of this volume, we find Kaplan meeting many interesting and prominent people. For example, Kaplan had early contact with Joshua Loth Liebman, the Reform rabbi who later became a famous author. Liebman gave Kaplan a pamphlet to read that thrilled him. It was more truly reconstructionist than anything our own group has put out, Kaplan wrote (May 28, 1942). Liebman and Kaplan kept in touch, and later Liebman gave Kaplan proofs of his book Peace of Mind (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1946). Liebman’s work made the New York Times bestseller lists for over a year and sold more than a million copies. He considered Kaplan his mentor and mentions him in the body of the book. The book generally reflects a Kaplanian approach to religion, and thus Kaplan was very happy with it, although not uncritical on some minor points. But Liebman was the effective popularizer; Kaplan was not (see also the diary entry for August 31, 1942).

Kaplan’s relationship to Abraham Joshua Heschel illustrates his appreciation of the young philosopher. It is well to remember that Kaplan was twenty-six years older than Heschel. Kaplan was the creative liturgist. He suggested that in order to write new liturgy we take an essay or even a book and turn it into a poem-prayer. He does this a number of times. One of the most fascinating examples reflects a Heschel essay. Heschel was brought to the United States by Hebrew Union College, where he taught in the early forties. In 1942, he published an article in the Journal of Religion entitled An Analysis of Piety. Kaplan saw it, liked it, and reached out to the young Heschel. Kaplan immediately set to work and created a poem-prayer based on the essay that he hoped to use for his new prayer book. The poem-prayer is in the diary. He calls it The Pious Man. The Heschel poem-prayer is also found in the 1945 Reconstructionist prayer book (see diary entry for September 19, 1942).¹⁸

Kaplan was instrumental in bringing Heschel to the seminary in 1945, and when he came, Kaplan turned over his classes to the young scholar. Their relationship was warm and appreciative on both sides until Heschel came to the seminary, and then things fell apart. Kaplan attended Heschel’s classes and was disappointed. Heschel, though a profound thinker, was an indifferent pedagogue (see diary entry for November 9, 1945). The Kaplans and the Heschels also socialized from time to time (March 14, 1949). One does not find many public occasions when Heschel criticized Kaplan, but there was at least one. At one point, Kaplan gave a lecture before the seminary faculty that was roundly criticized by Heschel during the question period (November 23, 1949).

Sometimes we learn of Kaplan’s feelings toward a major figure when that person passes away. Such is the case with Judah Magnes, whom Kaplan felt was a saintly figure. He states,

There is no question that he was a rare person. I have never met anyone with as beautiful a soul as his, neither in life nor in literature. As I think of it, he comes very close to what a humanist Christian pictures Jesus to have been. I doubt whether there ever was such a Jesus, but I am sure there was a Magnes. (October 29, 1948)

Kaplan also comments very positively when the biography of Magnes appears some years later:

Presented in all the reach of his influence and the depth of his soul, Magnes looms as a person of gigantic moral and spiritual stature. [Norman] Bentwich’s biography will place him where he properly belongs in the roster of modern Jewish heroes and prophets. (March 25, 1951)

Kaplan, in preparing the siddur, wrote prayer-poems not only on Leo Baeck and Heschel but also on Ralph Waldo Emerson.¹⁹ The reader will find the two Emerson poems that are based on Emerson’s essays in the entry for August 23, 1942. Although these poems did not find their way into the 1945 prayer book, we do find them in a loose-leaf prayer book used at the SAJ in the years before 1945. In that prayer book, the Emerson and the Heschel poems face each other (see diary entry for September 19, 1942).²⁰

We also find some fine Emerson quotations in the diary:

Consider that the perpetual admonition of Nature to us is, ‘the world is new, untried.’ Do not believe the past. I give you the universe new and unhandled every hour. . . . (September 6, 1943)

In addition to Emerson, Kaplan from time to time comments on the great philosopher Spinoza, whom he appreciated but was also critical of:

Too bad that the Jews excommunicated him. He had revenged himself on our people by poisoning with hatred our religious tradition. He makes us out to be an anachronism and Christ a superior personality to any of our prophets, neither of which idea follows necessarily from his rational assumptions about the Bible. (March 14, 1949)

Kaplan also mentions many other prominent persons, including Chaim Weizmann (who came to the SAJ every time he was in New York), Leo Baeck (Kaplan composed a poem based on his major work), Will Herberg (Kaplan realized his significance but had trouble relating to him), and Milton Steinberg (He had the mind of a philosopher, the soul of a poet, and the vision of a prophet; March 20, 1950).

Despite Kaplan’s radicalism, he is always helpful when he discusses traditional beliefs. A very fine example is his discussion of the difference in detail between the world to come and the time of the Messiah (see diary entry for October 24, 1942). At the same time, he finds the long-established notion of revelation intolerable. In that vein, he states his opposition to traditional revelation in the following terms: 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 (July 11, 1943).

Withal his rebellion against tradition, we recall that Kaplan was brought up in an Orthodox home, loved his Haredi father very much, and carried deeply within an appreciation for the tradition and its value:

The great value which the religious tradition had for mankind lay not so much in the specific beliefs and practices that it prescribed as in the general orientation that it provided. As a result of such orientation, human beings felt at home in the world. Men struggled and suffered, but they had, so to speak, a roof over their heads. Nowadays, they no longer have that feeling of being at home in the world. The sense of homelessness, of forlornness, dampens all our joys and adds torment to our sorrows. (February 8, 1950; see also June 5, 1950)

Kaplan was forever attempting to reduce the religious life to its constituent elements, as we find here: In my talk I pointed out that the problem of having Jews accept themselves was a problem of believing, belonging, and creating (March 2, 1947).

Kaplan was the sociologist-become-theologian who thinks about God all the time. Of particular interest are statements about God’s presence that hint of the relationship between our inner life and the divine. Speaking about the presence of God, he states,

I refer to the will to make the most of life, the will to exploit to the utmost all its possibilities for growth and happiness. I cannot help regarding it as though it were a single beam of light radiating from some inexhaustible source. That beam of light is the best in each of us. It is our personality. It is what we term I. The inexhaustible source of my will to make the most of life is God. It is the Thou we hail and glorify each time we say Blessed be Thou O Lord our God King of the Universe. (October 3, 1942)

Integration or wholeness is one of Kaplan’s most cherished values. At his finest, Kaplan attempts to keep everything in balance. Our analytical mind breaks things up in order to understand them, but the religious or spiritual mind attempts to see the whole. Kaplan states that the function of prayer is to keep the whole in full view. God becomes a kind of cosmic organizer, holding our strivings in a creative balance (see diary entry for April 24, 1942). A closely related idea connects Kaplan’s own emotional state to his theology: I simply recognize the continual mental turmoil in me as part of a universal process which I identify as God (July 20, 1942). It’s as if God puts him through this turmoil and he trusts in it to guide him to action. The expression of this emotional state is what constitutes prayer. Prayer also connects present to future. It is what carries him from the conflicts of the present to the full potentiality of one’s being in the future.

In reading the diary for this period, one can see the importance of Josiah Royce (1855–1916), Harvard philosopher from the turn of the century, who may have been majorly responsible for Kaplan’s concept of salvation. Kaplan had been reading Royce since 1914 and was particularly excited when he found a passage where Royce sounds very much as if he was commenting on the Shema:

Be as rich and full and strong a self as you can, and then with all your heart and your soul and your mind and your strength, devote yourself to this cause, to this spiritual unity in which individuals may be, and (when they are loyal) actually are, united in a life whose meaning is above the separate meanings of any or of all natural human beings.²¹ (Sources of Religious Thought, NY 1914, pp. 199–201). (quoted in the diary September 15, 1945)

The readers of this volume will experience Kaplan in all his depth and universal relevance. They will experience the many-sidedness of his mind and his concern for the Jewish people. At the same time, he never lost sight of the larger issue of the welfare of humanity in general.

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1. See the March 28, 1922, entry in Communings of the Spirit: The Journals of Mordecai M. Kaplan, vol. 1, 1913–1934, ed. Mel Scult (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2001), 159.

2. For a full account of the life of Mordecai Kaplan, see my Judaism Faces the Twentieth Century: A Biography of Mordecai M. Kaplan (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1993).

3. See the fine work on Benderly by Jonathan B. Krasner, The Benderly Boys and American Jewish Education (Waltham, MA: Brandeis University Press, 2011).

4. For Kaplan during this early period, see the excellent work by Jeffrey S. Gurock and Jacob J. Schacter, A Modern Heretic and a Traditional Community: Mordecai M. Kaplan, Orthodoxy, and American Judaism (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997), as well as my biography of Kaplan, Judaism Faces the Twentieth Century.

5. Kaplan insisted that the course, which was instituted in the early forties, be called Philosophies of Judaism in the plural, indicating that he did not simply intend to use the course as a platform for Reconstructionism.

6. See the latest edition of this work, Judaism as a Civilization: Toward a Reconstruction of American Jewish Life, with a new introduction by Mel Scult (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 2010).

7. See also Deborah Dash Moore, The Democracy and the New Haggadah, American Jewish History 94, no. 4 (December 2009): 323–48. See also Jack Wertheimer, "The Great Do-Nothings: The Inconclusive Battle over the New Haggadah," Conservative Judaism 45, no. 4 (1993): 20–38.

8. For an early statement by Kaplan on functionalism, see Communings of the Spirit, 1:62 (January 13, 1914).

9. For an extended discussion of chosenness and a complete analysis of Kaplan’s ideology, see Mel Scult, The Radical American Judaism of Mordecai M. Kaplan (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2013).

10. For an extended discussion of the excommunication, see my Radical American Judaism, chapter 1, Excommunications: Kaplan and Spinoza. See also Zachary Silver, The Excommunication of Mordecai Kaplan, American Jewish Archives 62, no. 1 (2010): 21–48.

11. It is very interesting to see Kaplan quoting Whitman. For the idea that a religion should be made out of the democratic faith, where Kaplan cites Whitman,