Years ago, Shearith Israel was contemplating becoming Conservative. A young man of some twenty years of ago, a certain Benjamin Cardozo stood up. He gave an impassioned talk about how, observant or not (he himself was the latter), everyone must preserve the true authentic Judaism for their posterity. (Queue in a drash about morasha (“heritage”, to be preserved) versus nahala (“inheritance”, to be expended as desired).) Thanks solely to Cardozo, Shearith Israel remained Orthodox. I bet not many law students know that side of Cardozo!

It’s like a story my rabbi told: my rabbi had a student learning in university in Australia. The professor handed out a paper on Milton, and bemoaned how its author was no longer writing, that he had disappeared, whereas he had used to prolifically write wonderful pieces on Milton. My rabbi’s student piped up: “Oh, you mean Rabbi Aharon Lichtenstein! He’s the head of a Jewish sect in the Judean desert!”.

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And in Rabbi Dr. J. H. Hertz’s essays (I’ve read three of his six volumes of essays), his conflation of “Orthodox” and “Positive-Historical” is absolutely fascinating.

(Harvey Meirovitch wants to conclude that Rabbi Hertz was therefore a Conservative Jew, but I compiled a list of Orthodox rabbis who’d be Conservative by the same standards Meirovitch gives. Rabbi Yehiel Weinberg and Rabbi Moshe Shmuel Glasner were on that list, and Rav Kook made that list three times over! And based on one of Meirovitch’s standards (that Rabbi Hertz referred to Solomon Schechter in good terms), I could actually get the entire Litvish Haredi world designated as Conservative: the Litvaks cite Rabbi Yehiel Weinberg, and Rabbi Yehiel Weinberg refers to Solomon Schechter as “Rabbi”; ergo, the Litvaks are Conservative! I firmly believe that Rav Hertz was Orthodox, but be that as it may, we at least learn that one must be very carefuly trying to anachronistically apply contemporary denominational labels to people who lived decades ago. But I must say, the historical data Meirovitch adduces is breathtaking; the information he gathers on Rabbi Sabato Morais explicates very much about Rabbi Hertz’s philosophy.)

I haven’t read any books about Conservative Judaism in America, but I’m sure one could write some fascinating stuff. After all, Congregation Shearith Israel, along with Rabbis Sabato Morais and Henry Pereira Mendes, helped found both the OU and JTS! So when Rabbi Hertz conflates “Positive-Historical” and “Orthodox”, you know something juicy is happening. (Plus, the first English translator of Rabbi Hirsch’s Nineteen Letters taught briefly at JTS, and YU and JTS contemplated a merger. Isn’t history just plain awesome?)