Judaism as an evolving religious civilization.
Mordecai Kaplan's American movement: Judaism not as revealed law but as the evolving civilization of the Jewish people — community at the center, God rethought as process, and tradition given a vote, not a veto.
DeitiesGod as the power that makes for salvation — process, not supernatural person
Founded1922 CE · New York
FounderMordecai Kaplan
AfterlifeThis-worldly; the hereafter held very lightly
TextsTorah · Judaism as a Civilization
The map
Reconstructionist Judaism’s corner of it — solid lines are descent; dotted lines are resemblance only, ideas held in common across unrelated faiths. Click a node to recenter; ✕ returns here. All 171 faiths →
c. 1000 BCE Judaism 1922 CE Reconstructionist Judaism
Judaism is an evolving religious civilization.
Not only a religion: a people's whole civilization — language, art, land, law — evolving like any living culture.
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The past gets a vote, not a veto.
Tradition is honored as the record of the people's search — and overruled when conscience requires.
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God is the power that makes for salvation.
Kaplan's naturalism: not a person who intervenes, but the process working through nature and community that makes life holy.
held by most
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Bat mitzvah.
Kaplan's own daughter Judith read Torah in 1922 — the first bat mitzvah; now kept across nearly all of Judaism.
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