Differentiate between pluralism as a fact and as a value. Perhaps also – between legitimacy (i.e., legal permissibility, even in a social and not only juridical sense) and validity (in the sense of truth). The acceptance of pluralism, whether as fact or as value, must not be equated with ethical or religious relativism, the proposition that because there are many kinds of "things" or points of view, and that all have an equal right in a democratic society, that they are necessarily equally valid. I accept pluralism as a religious value only within clearly circumscribed parameters. Otherwise, pluralism slides off into nihilism. Many Orthodox Jews react all too predictably to issues of current controversy – but the non-Orthodox have no monopoly on openness, thoughtfulness, and profound reflection. What is the prevailing view here, in this hall, on the following array of topics: "Who is A Jew?" / The Mormon Center in Jerusalem / Soccer Games in Israel on Shabbat / Civil Marriages in Israel / Interfaith Services in the United States / Abortion / Arranging Reform Services in a Synagogue in Cracow, the seat of one of the most eminent halakhists of all time whose rulings made the Shulchan Arukh acceptable to Ashkenazi Jewry, etc., etc. One of the not-so-unspoken themes of this conference is: Opposition to religious legislation in Israel. Other than pious rhetoric, I have heard no clear formulation of how to keep Israel Jewish, no substitute for the wholesale rejection of all the profound thought that has gone into religious Zionism from the days of Reines, Kalisher, and Kook to our own day. If the Orthodox sin on the side of authoritarianism, vesting too much spiritual power in the decisions and judgments of the gedolim, their consensually accepted halakhic decisors, then too many non-Orthodox Jews would deny authority in matters spiritual to mere mortals, effectively endow popular liberal opinion with the same authority, and imagine that following the crowd instead of i…

The polemic between Center and Right on the proper approach to the non-Orthodox community must be viewed in a broader historical prospective. In normative Jewish society, which obtained from the Talmudic Age through the Middle Ages and until the Emancipation, heterodox ideas and conduct were viewed as aberrant behavior, and treated as such. Even if the bearers of such unorthodox views were organized into a community, they were treated as individuals rather than as a collectivity. Thus, no credibility was given to the Karaites as an organized religious grouping. Instead, Karaites were treated as individuals who had strayed from the straight and narrow path of the Torah, and one took either a hard-line rejectionist approach to them or, as was the case with Maimonides, a more accommodating and accepting approach. In either case, this was an attitude towards Karaites, not to Karaism. It was always understood that such heterodox groups represented deviations from the norm, and that eventually they would disappear by being reabsorbed in the historic flow of main stream Torah Judaism. Hence, heresy as a community phenomenon was simply not considered, and reduced to a simple collection of individual heretics who had no historical staying power.All this was unquestionably true as long as the overwhelming majority of Jews identified with the broad outlines of the Torah tradition. Individual aberrations could then be dismissed as transient phenomena in the history of the faith. All this changed with the Emancipation and the Enlightenment. For more than two centuries now, various forms of heterodox thought and behavior have attracted a great majority of Jews everywhere. Secularism has proved one of the most powerful foes Torah has ever encountered, and it has insinuated itself into the very bloodstream and sinews of the body of Judaism. The quiet give-and-take between Judaism and the environing cultures of the Jewish people, that understated the very real dialogue between Tora…