Ashkenazi Jews are split into orthodox, chareidi, chassidish, modern orthodox, and then reform and conservative. Sefardim are just Sefardim. Nobody ever heard of a reform Sefardi. I want to understand how this happened.
1. Where did the denominations actually come from? My understanding is reform started in Germany in the 1800s after the haskala, and orthodoxy was the reaction, the Chatam Sofer and chadash assur min haTorah. Is that the real history, and were these labels ever a halachic category or just a social one?
2. Chassidus started with the Baal Shem Tov and the misnagdim fought it hard, the Gra and the cherem. Today chassidim and misnagdim are all just chareidim together. How did a fight that big turn into one camp, and what does that say about how real these divisions are?
3. Why did Sefardim never split? There was haskala in some Sefardi places too, but no reform movement came out of it. Is that because the haskala was really an Ashkenazi event, or because Sefardi psak worked differently, more flexible inside the tradition so nobody needed to break off?
4. Halachically, what is a denomination? If a person keeps the Shulchan Aruch, what does a label add or remove? Is there any real halachic difference in how the groups pasken, or is it all minhag and culture on top of the same halacha?
5. Practically, how should a person think about these labels? Are they a real part of Torah, or a 200 year old European argument that has nothing to do with being a Jew who keeps halacha?
Thank you Rabbi, thank you very much.
These labels are mostly historical, cultural, and political; they are not different kinds of Jews. Reform developed in nineteenth-century Europe, Conservative Judaism developed later, and “Orthodoxy” itself became a label largely because those new movements existed. Chassidim and Misnagdim once fought bitterly …. including actual cherem …. and yet eventually found themselves on the same side of a much larger cultural divide. Sephardic communities generally never developed this same denominational structure: people could be more observant or less observant and still simply belong to the same Sephardic community.
Halachically, what matters is not the label but what you actually do. Ashkenazi, Sephardi, Chassidish and similar descriptions can tell us something about minhagim and traditions of psak, but they are not separate Torahs. Reform and Conservative did develop institutional positions that differ concerning the authority and application of Halachah, so historically those labels mean something; nevertheless, I don’t need a denominational adjective to describe myself. I am an observant Jew …. meaning that I make the effort to observe the Torah and Halachah within my abilities and understanding.
Unfortunately, throughout history we have sometimes built walls and then treated the walls as though they came from Sinai. At times, more insular Orthodox communities alienated Jews who were already moving away, and the divisions became even greater. Sephardic communities were historically much less inclined toward that kind of denominational separation. I think we should be very careful not to recreate those walls today. The labels can be useful descriptions, but once the label becomes more important than “I am a Jew trying to observe the Torah,” it is taking away from who we are rather than adding to it.