TORONTO — Rabbi Bradley Shavit Artson says he loves that Conservative Judaism is “a diverse, raucous, big tent.”

Rabbi Joel Meyers [Frances Kraft photo]

The dean of the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies at the American Jewish University (formerly the University of Judaism) in Los Angeles was in Toronto last week to join fellow senior leaders of the Conservative movement, Rabbi Jerome Epstein, executive vice-president of the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism (USCJ –the umbrella for about 700 Conservative synagogues in North America), and Rabbi Joel Meyers, executive vice-president of the movement’s Rabbinical Assembly, on a panel to discuss “Why I am Conservative Jew.”

The event, held Sept. 15 at Beth David B’nai Israel Beth Am Synagogue, was organized by the USCJ’s Canadian region.

Until the question-and-answer session, the panelists did not directly address recent issues in the Conservative movement in Toronto, where three of its largest synagogues – Adath Israel Congregation, Beth Emeth Bais Yehuda Synagogue and Beth Tzedec Congregation – ended their affiliations with the USCJ earlier this year following 15 months of negotiations between congregational representatives and the New York-based USCJ.

The main issue was value received for USCJ membership dollars, but ideological differences between more traditional congregations here and liberal elements in the movement have become increasingly apparent in the last few years over issues such as egalitarianism and ordination of openly gay rabbinical students.

In response to a question about the possibility of creating a “Masorti community” in Canada similar to ones that exist in South America, Israel and Europe, Rabbi Artson said, in part, that “it is always easier to fix what you’ve got than to invent something, as though nothing was already on the ground.

“The vitality of Canada is important to the movement as a whole,” he said. “Don’t walk away from an outstretched hand. Take it. Grasp it, and then let’s educate each other about what we need from each other so we can be our best.”

Rabbi Meyers said that he and his colleagues recognize that Canada has its own culture and that it is not the United States.

“Our job is not to flatten each other into mirror images of ourselves,” said Rabbi Artson during his address, referring to Conservative Jewish communities in Los Angeles and Uganda.

“I assume there are certain parallels between Judaism as practised in Los Angeles and Judaism as practised in Toronto,” he continued. “My job is not to tell you that L.A. Judaism is better. My job is to understand the needs and the dynamics of your community well enough so that I can help you become great, authentic, true to the path of Torah as your community needs to walk it.”

At the Ziegler school, he noted, there are egalitarian and non-egalitarian students.

“We don’t just argue about trivia. We argue about big, important things,” said Rabbi Artson, referring to the Conservative movement as a whole. “That’s what family is. There’s no ideological litmus test to be in a family. You’re just family, and we need to model that in the world.”

Rabbi Meyers said that Conservative Judaism has taught him “that Judaism is an evolving religious civilization… It’s a traditional Judaism which possesses a willingness nevertheless to examine tradition and to refine and even amend it, something very difficult but very necessary.”

As well, he said that the denomination is halachic, Zionist, and committed both to learning and to caring for the greater society. It is “an especially authentic way of being Jewish.”

Rabbi Epstein, who grew up in the Conservative movement,  said that he is a Conservative Jew in large part because his parents were, and also because of his experiences in United Synagogue Youth (the denomination’s youth movement, commonly known as USY), and at Camp Ramah.

He said that after high school, however, he was “intrigued by the lack of boundaries of Reform Judaism, and at other times I was engaged by the firm boundaries of Orthodoxy.

“But ultimately I decided that Conservative Judaism spoke most eloquently to me because of its values around Jewish living, around Halachah, and around mitzvot.”

Although he said there is “a wide spectrum of diversity in Conservative synagogues, and many do not yet practise what we preach and stand for,” Rabbi Epstein asked rhetorically what would be accomplished by demanding 100 per cent observance.

His own synagogue, years earlier, helped him understand “what Ihad to do [to grow in observance] not by dictate but by patient teaching,” he said.

He noted that there is room for improvement in terms of integrating young people who want to replicate Camp Ramah or USY experiences in their synagogues.

There are resource people and material available to help congregations become more welcoming, he told the audience of some 250 people.

However, he added, congregations must be willing to change.

Rabbi Philip Scheim, who moderated the discussion, asked whether there are limits to pluralism, and what those limits are.

Rabbi Artson said that “any decisions we make are made through the filter of Torah.”

One hundred years from now, he noted, our descendants will have that responsibility.

He said there are also “emotional limits” among Conservative Jews, who tend to be small-c conservatives.

“By and large, our movement likes retaining the tradition as traditionally as possible for as long as possible.”

Aside from “sex and gender” issues, Rabbi Artson said, there’s “overwhelming consensus” on halachic issues.