Tuesday, August 26, 2025

TeachingTorah to Reform and Conservative Children

Igros Moshe (Y. D. V #38) Question Teaching Torah to the daughter of a Conservative Rabbi and other children of Conservative Jews in a class. You feel It is necessary to explain to them the great damage done by Conservative rabbis even though this will cause them embarrassment  by saying their fathers are evil people and cause them to cry and possibly leave the school. But you feel if you don’t tell them they will think that the Conservative approach is a valid Jewish one. So your question is how to deal properly with this. Answer I think you need to deal with this intelligently and explain that there is one Torah that was given to all Jews at Sinai through Moshe in written form while the details were transmitted orally and that this is attested to in the Talmud and commentaries. Furthermore you need to convey the idea that the Conservative and Reform religious faith is false and is heresy, however not to use words like evil or wicked. She already is aware that the Orthodox claim that the faith of the Reform and Conservative is heresy but she will surely object to the terms evil or heretic and thus saying such is not beneficial or productive  Furthermore these terms have acquired a new meaning. They used to simply indicate a person who has transgressed a mitzva but now they are understood to mean a bad or cruel person. Therefore it is not appropriate to call her father or other Conservative or Reform by these terms In fact you should first explain what a rasha connotes in the Torah. Nonetheless you need to explain that the faith of the Reform and Conservative is not  true  without using the terms such as rasha. 


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