THE ESSENCE OF AMERICAN JUDAISM

The famous would-be convert, who came to Hillel seeking to learn the whole Torah while standing on one foot, finds many imitators among the ranks of American Jews. Daunted by Judaism's seemingly overwhelming complexity-the endless array of forbidding tomes, printed in microscopic type, and only comprehensible to the specially trained-these modern seekers likewise demand some statement of Judaism's essence, a basic formula, one simple enough for any English speaker to understand. A whole library of volumes stands ready to meet this challenge. Some books base themselves on ancient and medieval sources, demonstrating as they do so that the modern quest for Judaism's fundamental principles has roots deeply grounded in the past. Other volumes-charming yet now forgotten catechisms, tedious but for some reason still popular creeds and platforms, and modern'how to' books-more closely adhere to Christian models-and by no coincidence. Yet no matter how alluring and how basic such texts in essential Judaism become, for some they can never quite become basic enough. Like Hillel's visitor, these Jews demand a formulaic definition, one easy to remember, easy to express, and easy to apply, a ready means of ascertaining what is Jewish and what is not. Abraham Cronbach, professor of Social Relations at Hebrew Union College, once offered what is perhaps the easiest formula for defining what Judaism is: "Whatever inside of any Jewish soul is good and right and holy and noble-that is itself Jewish."' Since for Cronbach social justice was "good and right and holy and noble," it naturally followed that "social justice is Jewish." With pardonable exaggeration, it might also have followed, as Lenny Bruce pointed out in one of his routines, that "chocolate is Jewish," "fruit salad is Jewish," and "macaroons are very Jewish." Cronbach never said in his definition that those opposed to what he felt to be "good and right and holy and noble" should be labelled nonJewish, much less anti-Jewish. Some of those he influenced, however, did