OF REFORM JEWS
FAREWELL Remembering Rabbi W. Gunther Plaut,
1912–2012
Rabbi W. Gunther Plaut, renowned 1978, when at the age of 66 he decided to retire scholar, author, and leader of Reform as senior rabbi of Holy Blossom Temple and Judaism, died on February 9, 2012 at the age devote his energy to writing and editing The of 99. More than 1,000 people attended his Torah: A Modern Commentary. He continued funeral at Toronto’s Holy Blossom Temple, to serve the congregation as its senior scholar where he served as rabbi from 1961 to 1978. until about 10 years ago, when he was diagThe author of more than 25 books on nosed with Alzheimer’s disease. Jewish theology, history, and philosophy, In all that he did, Rabbi Plaut communicated Rabbi Plaut is best known for writing and thoughtfully, deeply, and eloquently. Here are editing The Torah: A Modern Commentary three examples of his writing, the first from RABBI W. GUNTHER PLAUT (URJ Press, 1981), the first non-Orthodox his general introduction to The Torah: A ModTorah commentary to be published in the United States. ern Commentary and two from Reform Judaism magazine. Today it is widely used in Reform, Conservative, and Reconstructionist congregations throughout North America. On the Torah Commentary Born in Germany, Wolf Gunther Plaut received his Doctor The commentator who…proceeds on the premise of human of Laws degree from the University of Berlin in 1934. Unable rather than divine authorship faces two initial questions: (1) to practice because of anti-Jewish laws imposed by the Nazi Does God have anything to do with the Torah? (2) How is the regime, he studied Jewish theology because “I wanted to book different from any other significant literature of the past? know what it truly meant to be a Jew, if I was made to suffer 1. Does God have anything to do with the Torah?...The for it.” A rescue program for scholars spearheaded by the Torah is a book about humanity’s understanding of and expeHebrew Union College and NFTS (now Women of Reform rience with God….Since the Torah tradition was at first Judaism) secured his safe passage to the United States. In repeated by word of mouth, and only after many generations 1939 he was ordained at HUC, and during World War II he set down in writing, the final text testifies to divergent ideas enlisted as a military chaplain with the 104th Infantry. Witabout God and the people….In this sense, then, the book is nessing the liberation of the Dora-Nordhausen concentration not by God, but by a people. While individual authors had a camp in Germany, he never forgot how the starving survivors hand in its composition, the people of the Book made the did not ask for food, but for religious items. Torah their own and impressed their character upon it…. Rabbi Plaut spent much of his professional career as a con2. How is the Torah different from any other significant literagregational rabbi in Chicago, St. Paul, and Toronto. A fierce ture of the past? For those of us who see in the Torah a people’s opponent of racism and champion of human rights, he also search for and meeting with God, the answer is self-evident…. founded Toronto’s Urban Alliance on Race Relations, was a [In] reading the Torah one should keep in mind that what founding member of the North York (Toronto) Committee on the authors said in their own time to their own contemporaries Community, Race and Ethnic Relations, and served as vicewithin their own intellectual framework is one thing and what chair of the Ontario Human Rights Commission. He was later generations did with this text, what they contributed to it responsible for the commission’s controversial decision to by commentary and homily, is another. This long tradition of allow Sikh students to wear traditional ceremonial daggers to holding up the book like a prism, discovering through it and in school. He also served as president of the Canadian Jewish it a vast spectrum of insights, makes the Torah unlike any other Congress (1977-1980), and the Canadian government named work. This is particularly true for the Jews. They cannot know him an Officer of the Order of Canada (1993). their past or themselves without this book, for in it they will As a leader of the Reform Movement in North America, discover the framework of their own existence…. Rabbi Plaut served as president of the Central Conference —From “General Introduction to the Torah,” of American Rabbis (1983-1985). In his CCAR presidential The Torah: A Modern Commentary (URJ Press) address, he proposed, unsuccessfully, that Friday night services be abandoned in favor of Saturday morning worship. On God Yet his stature was never diminished. At the 1985 Los “It’s your imagination,” the skeptic says. “The idea of Angeles Biennial the Union for Reform Judaism honored a God who connects intimately with billions of humans is him with its Maurice N. Eisendrath Bearer of Light Award preposterous. Why should God pay attention to you, in all this for “a lifetime of scholarship and leadership in the Reform multitude?” That argument might have commanded attention Jewish community.” a hundred years ago….But today, when…our computers can A major turning point in Rabbi Plaut’s career came in continued on previous page reform judaism
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Photograph by Rose Eichenbaum
NEWS&VIEWS
summer 2012
4/27/12 6:21 AM