Conservative malaise...

"Next week Arnold Eisen will be officially installed as the seventh chancellor of the Jewish Theological Seminary, Conservative Judaism’s flagship educational institution. While Eisen’s appointment as Conservative Judaism’s new de facto head has sparked a great deal of excitement, he will be inheriting a movement widely perceived as being adrift.

Conservative Judaism, once America’s largest Jewish denomination, is now second in size to the Reform movement. According to the National Jewish Population Survey 2000-01, only 33% of congregationally affiliated American Jews identified with Conservative Judaism, down from 43% a decade earlier. Indeed, JTS’s outgoing chancellor, Rabbi Ismar Schorsch, described Conservative Judaism in his 2006 commencement address as suffering from “malaise” and a “grievous failure of nerve.”

Is Conservative Judaism suffering from malaise? If so, what is the nature of the problem? And how should Conservative Jews steer their ship into the future? The Forward invited prominent Conservative leaders and some outside observers to weigh in on these questions. "

from www.forward.com/articles/11511/

...here are some observations from an uninvited outside observer:

Is Conservative Judaism suffering from malaise?

Yes, it is, because its theology has not moved from the 19th century while the world has moved far past it. Put simply, Conservatism is  no longer in sync with either Torah or modernity. Why should Jews be proud to belong to it? Its world class scholars are gone, its rabbis don't know how to learn or what to believe, and its laity is less observant then ever before. Without a spiritual core, it is declining and will continue to decline, whatever the residual numbers at this point.

If so, what is the nature of the problem?

1. No inspiration

2. No high-class Torah scholarship

3.Warped sense of tradition

4. A sense of inferiority to Orthodoxy

5.Outflanked on the left by Reform, on the right by Modern Orthodox, on the bottom by ambivalence and apathy, and on top by Jewish Renewal.

6.Learning turns into a" How I feel about this text". Ignorance is widespread and guided by neither critical sense nor fidelity to texts.

7.Worship is theater and not a profound self altering experience, never, not even once.

And how should Conservative Jews steer their ship into the future?

You need a consolidation or friendly takeover. Consider this:

1.Allying with the radical left of Orthodoxy, if they would have you. You need an infusion of learning and passion.

2.Make overtures to Chabad but be careful - they will run curcles around you.

3.Tempt world-class scholars to JTS but you don't have the money (or committment) to grow or develop it.

4.Jettison historical-critical approaches. Instead, say - I don't know but this is what the tradition teaches.

5.Get Federaton to build more Solomon Schechters and staff them with Orhodox teachers but your curriculum. The more you blur between orthodox and conservative, the more you will co-opt Orthodoxy''s success.

6.Your closest allies can be the Jewish Renewal Movement. Invite them in and balance their contibution with re-emphasizing the rational basis of Conservative Movement in the Historico-Postive school.

7.... would you consider reversing the homosexual rabbis psak? This is a boundary that many potential allies will not cross...