AboutRabbi Barry Dov Lerner Expertise Write to me with questions about Jewish customs and law, history,
philosophy and tradition for answers from a Conservative perspective or conversion. I am a graduate of The Jewish Theological Seminary and a member of the Conservative Rabbinical Assembly. Having served in congregational pulpits since 1970, I now am President of the Foundation For Family Education, Inc. a non-profit educational endeavor. I established it to create new formats of hands-on programs and provide free educational downloads at www.jewishfreeware.org. In addition to general informational questions I welcome your questions about programs for social action, outreach to dual-faith families, inter-faith clergy projects, healing services, education for conversion, adult education for the congregation and the community. If you have questions about Informal and Formal Education I am ready to share my extensive experience with Youth Activities, Camping and Religious School/Hebrew High School on a congregational, community and national/international level.
Experience I have served on the National Youth Commission for more than 25 years and serve on the Boards of the Conservative Zionist movement MERCAZ and the World Council of Synagogues. I have always dual-families and taught candidates for conversion with a great sense of fulfillment. I am very proud of 25 years on the Jewish camping staff of Camps Ramah. My greatest source of pride is my family! Ask me about them, please!:-)
Question Are Conservative and Orthodox Judaism related to the ancient Pharisees and the rabbinic judaism of today? If so, how are they related?
Answer Dear Chris,
Thanks for writing.
This is a very "big" question and you will find varying answers depending upon whom you ask.
As a Conservative Rabbi, it is my reading of history that both the modern Conservative and Orthodox movements are modern, arising in the 19th / 20th centuries in Europe in response to the origin of the Reform movement.
Regarding the Pharisees, they are the largest political/scholarly group to survive the destruction of Jerusalem, even as the Babylonian Jewish community flourished as did other smaller Jewish communities. For the next 1800 years the descendents of those Jews flourished and were oppressed, survived and fled, flourished again or merely survived - always with a core of Jewish law and life that was regularly evolving, changing, growing, responding to both the tradition and the current conditions.
Prior to the modern period, therefore, there have been various interpretations of the Jewish heritage depending upon the locale, the historical conditions of the community including some which contemporaries and later history considered cultic, strange if not heretical.
There are some who will propose that modern Orthodoxy is exactly the Jewish tradition implemented by Moses, but I leave to you the task of asking various Orthodox Rabbis which particular interpretation of Orthodoxy is that unique religious path.
I would urge you to read an academic history of that period to come to your own conclusions. Check out the history of Judaism in brief form in the Encyclopedia Judaica in the library.
