A. Ahad HaAm argued in his essay, “Slavery to Freedom”, that he did not need to subscribe to the opinions of his father and grandfather if he wanted to be a good son or grandson. What he thought he needed was to strengthen his family as a means of continuity, facing the challenges of the new age in a contemporary way.

He was addressing more than the personal aspect of honouring his forebears but how to maintain his Jewish identity. His father and grandfather could have decided to be believing and practising Jews but he should be able to make up his own mind without slavish adherence to their opinions. His preference was for a secular cultural Jewish identity regardless of what his ancestors might have chosen.

His is the dilemma of the secularist Jew in our age a century later. His problem is how to find a Jewish ideology and position that will be sufficiently passionate and poetic to satisfy his descendants. Breaking with the God-talk and halachic pattern of the past may empty Jewish identity of its quality.

Does this mean that a grandson must force himself to live a lie, to “worship” a God he does not believe in and to “practise” commandments which do not appeal to him?

Not at all. Living a life of Jewish observance can be done whatever one’s present motivation. One can say it is a source of poetry in one’s life, that its symbolic content enriches one’s ethics, that it is a mark of Jewish belonging. And often it grows on you and you are able to say, “This religion business is beginning to make sense”…

A. From the technical halachic point of view, yes, but the Royals and the British government might prefer something different, especially because Anglican Christianity is Britain’s official religion. There is a concept of Af al pi shechata Yisra’el, “Even though a Jew has sinned he is still a Jew”, but it is not likely that the former Kate Middleton (or her parents) would want this to apply.

The common-sense approach is to say that unless a person identifies as a Jew, lives as a Jew, thinks as a Jew, thrills at Jewish history and feels bound up in the Jewish destiny, they can hardly be regarded as Jewish. Jewish identity can be and sometimes is rediscovered and regained, but it can also be lost, and this seems to be the situation with Kate Middleton and her family. (The cynics might add that it could turn out very expensive to install m’zuzot on the hundreds of doors in Buckingham Palace, plus Windsor Castle, Balmoral and all the other royal residences!)

A. The concept of Jewish “chosenness” offends many as arrogant. George Bernard Shaw compared it to the Nazis’ claim to be a Herrenvolk. HG Wells called it a hindrance to world unity. Arnold Toynbee said it was “the most notorious historical example of the idolisation of an ephemeral self”.

So let us put the record straight. We may be a distinctive people but we do not pretend to be intrinsically superior to others. Nor do we claim exclusive rights to salvation. Jewish teaching is clear: “The righteous of all peoples have a share in the World to Come.” It is not a person’s religious label which is decisive, but whether he has lived a righteous life.

But to attain righteousness, says Judaism, the world needed a teacher. Our belief is that Israel had long ago developed sufficiently in moral consciousness that it was capable of understanding and accepting the challenge of attempting to spread righteousness as “a light to the nations”. Thus Isidore Epstein said: “Israel had from the very first laid upon them the task of dedicating themselves to the rearing of righteousness among the sons of man. It is God’s work that they were called upon to do, and they must do it in the whole world, transforming the darkest corners of the earth”.

It is paradoxical of course that the so-called people of God have suffered so much for their pains. Perhaps it is inevitable for a deliberately dissentient minority to attract suspicion and persecution. Perhaps we needed to undergo experiences which would reinforce our determination to strive for the stars even when others sought to bring us down to the dust.

This can be a heavy chore, and we are not perfect as a people, yet the world has a long way to go before it really learns the lessons of our prophetic teachers and begins to approach the Jewish ideals of mutual concern and social justice.

A. The problem is that there is no one word which completely answers the question. Countless attempts have been made, of course. Religion is a crucial element, but so is peoplehood. Some call the Jews a nation, understood in a historical and cultural sense (though Theodor Herzl said rather cynically that a nation is a group of people who have a common enemy). There is a popular habit of saying that the Jews are a race, but this view has no scientific basis.

In modern times one of the most useful approaches was that of Dr Nahum Goldmann, for many years president of the World Jewish Congress, who said, “There is a tendency, especially in the United States, to equate the Jewish religion with others, forgetting that the Jewish people itself was never solely a religious group, but that its uniqueness expresses its combination of peoplehood, religion and the bearer of a total civilisation”.

Another modern writer, the historian Dubnow, called the Jews “a spiritual nation” based on a “creative principle” that combines “religious, moral or philosophical ideals whose exponent at all times was the Jewish people”, together with historical memories and Judaism still has contributions to make to history.

A. The source of the phrase is Ex. 19:6 and it is not just a slogan. It breaks down the barrier between the kohanim and people. In some cultures the priesthood was an exalted caste with special privileges and responsibilities. In Judaism the ordinary person was a priest in that sense. Certain roles needed an actual priest, a descendant of Aaron, but in terms of learning and living by the Torah every Jew was equal.

Christian Europe often locked up the Bibles and only allowed access to them by the priests. Judaism did the opposite. It regarded the Torah as “the inheritance of the (whole) community of Jacob” (Deut. 33:4). It taught that whoever withholds knowledge of the Torah from a person is as though he robbed him (Sanh. 91b). It honoured scholars but would not let them insult the ordinary person; when Rabbi Yannai found that a guest could not say the Grace After Meals, he said, “A dog has eaten at Yannai’s table!” and the guest retorted, “The Torah belongs to the whole congregation, not just to Yannai!”

It built up a spiritual democracy whereby every individual could get to God and did not need a priest to convey his prayers or to bring him forgiveness.

A. Possibly, but we can’t help being ourselves. Every people has its own sense of self-worth and self-importance. Without it, few would have survived. Indeed, their varied expressions of uniqueness have vastly enriched the world. Ours certainly has.

It is ironical for HG Wells to call the Jewish “chosen people” idea a hindrance to world unity when it is we who were the pioneers of the world-unity concept. It is an insult to history for George Bernard Shaw – followed by some of the Arab demagogues of our own day – to compare the Jews to the Nazi Herrenvolk boast, when we never claimed to be superior but asserted that the righteous of all peoples have a place in the World to Come.

The Nazis hated us because we were a thorn in their flesh with our insistence on “the rearing of righteousness among the sons of man”, as Isidore Epstein phrased our historic mission. Having the role of universal moral teachers has brought us persecution, but we remain convinced that we were right. We remain committed to the task and know that thanks to our dream the world will eventually learn how to live with difference without being divided.

We are not without our internal problems, which is why Chief Rabbi Lord Jakobovits said as long ago as 1973 that the first period of modern Israel’s history represents “the generation of Davids, a generation of pioneers cast in an heroic mould, bravely battling against and prevailing over many a Goliath”, and now we have to develop “a generation of Solomons, blessed in peace to concentrate on rebuilding the sanctuaries of our people, uniting the ingathered tribes of Israel in the pursuit of spiritual excellence and our national vocation as a beacon of social justice, ethical rectitude, moral discipline and religious fervour”.

A. If you had asked whether Jews are flawless, the answer would of course be no. All Jews probably do their best, but some behave foolishly, irresponsibly, cruelly, sinfully. Not that they are born this way; Judaism does not believe in “original sin”. The Jewish approach would be to say that everyone really wants to do the right thing but an occasional ru’ach sh’tut – a “spirit of stupidity” – gets in the way. Conscious, however, of having acted badly, one has a remedy available genuine repentance though if one has harmed another person, it is not enough to ask God’s forgiveness. Peace must be restored with the wronged person.

But you ask about whether Judaism is flawless. We believe so. The Psalmist says, Torat HaShem t’mimah – “the law of the Lord is perfect” (Psalm 19). As a balance between thought and deed, individual and community, vision and reality, Judaism is remarkable.

The Jewish system does not make gods out of men but tries to bring Godliness into every human being. It does not legislate for angels but for earthly creatures living on earth. It does not claim that God has handed man the world on a platter, but that He has given us a share in the perfection of the creation. It does not leave everything up to man, but neither does it leave man with nothing to do. It sees what mischief often happens on earth, but it never loses its faith in tomorrow.

What do we say about other religions? In his fascinating book, “A Jewish Theology” (London, 1973, pages 287-291), Louis Jacobs says there are three possible attitudes:

1. Judaism is true: all other religions are false.
2. All religions are equally true (or false).
3. There is more truth in Judaism than in other religions.

There is much to be said for the first option. We deeply respect the conscience and convictions of adherents of other faiths, but we have to deny the crucial positions that they take on the nature of God, the status of their leaders, and their view of Torah. But on the other hand we cannot fail to recognise that there are elements of truth in every religion.

One suggestion is to say that Judaism is true for Jews, and other religions are true for their own adherents. But this also creates problems, because it implies that all religions will continue in their own ways to the end of time, when the more Jewish approach is that in the end of days, “Out of Zion will go Torah (to the world), and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem” (Isaiah 2:3).

A. Let’s first ask what a class system is. A closed class system allocates a person a position in society as a matter of birth. The old British class system was like this. Your place depended on who your father was. The aristocracy was at the top of society and the commoners were at the bottom. It was described as an “upstairs, downstairs” society. You were either the 14th Lord Wilson or the 14th Mr Wilson. In contrast, an open class system allows for movement. You can go from rags to riches or from riches to rags. Your own effort determines who you are and where you fit in.

The Jewish type of class system was a combination of both. In some respects you were stuck with your heredity. You couldn’t move from Kohen to Levi or from Levi to Yisrael. Even if you were a Kohen who transgressed the laws of marriage and could no longer claim the privileges of being a Kohen, you still had to carry out the Kohen’s responsibilities. But this aspect of Jewish identity was not an end in itself: it merely defined one’s role in the Temple.

On the other hand there was an area in which your status was entirely fluid and depended on your own actions and aspirations. The Jewish ideal had nothing to do with what money you had or what size your house was. It was a matter of learning. The scholar was esteemed regardless of his wealth or lineage. The aim was to marry your daughter to a scholar (a talmid chacham) or the son of a scholar (I remember saying under the chuppah when two fellow students married that they had the best of both worlds – a scholar was marrying a scholar). The fear was that a person would marry someone who had neither piety nor learning.

When the sages spoke of learning being the defining characteristic which was open to everyone they did not measure it by the number of books you had read (or written), but by the effort you had made at study. They thought of study in terms of Torah; in modern times this Jewish value concept has been extended to include the pursuit and attainment of knowledge in other fields too. Being a Kohen depends on your father; gaining a Nobel Prize depends on your own self.

When you criticise the Kohen-Levi-Yisrael system you do not explain which group you belong to. But don’t be in too much of a hurry to want to rebel against whichever group it is. There are many aspects of our identity and personality which we are born with and have to handle as a fact of life. Did anyone ask me, for instance, whether I wanted to be a human being? Was I consulted about which gender I preferred to be born into, which colour, which nationality? Since I have no control over these or other aspects of who I am, have I any better option than to say “That’s who I am: now let me get on with it”?

A. Let me again emphasise cordiality and courtesy between all Jews. Now as to your question: criticism of Reform as a non-halachic movement does not necessarily apply to Conservatism, which is far more traditionalist. But Conservatism allows itself to interpret halachah in ways which do not conform with halachic norms. It is not a matter of leniency as against strictness, since halachah encompasses a range of possibilities, but of “shifting the landmarks” (Deut. 19:14).

A. It never happened that every Jew thought like every other Jew. “Two Jews – three opinions” is an expression of reality that goes even further than Elijah, who said, “How long will you hesitate between two opinions?” It resonated through the ages, with dissident sects and competing ideologies, bitter conflicts and reluctant compromises. There has always been diversity in Jewish life. Even the problem of the orthodox versus the non-orthodox is not a modern invention. The problem is not whether the question is new, but whether anyone has discovered a way of solving it.

Rabbi Joseph B Soloveitchik distinguished between b’rit goral, the covenant of fate which binds all Jews regardless of their opinions, and b’rit Sinai, the covenant of faith which unites those who uphold the Revelation on Sinai. It is a useful approach, but it creates its own new problems. The second arm of the thesis allows orthodoxy to maintain Sinai-based halachic Judaism as the authentic tradition which defines a Jew, but leaves unspoken the status of the Conservative movement, which also claims to be halachic, and that of the Reform movement which, whilst not claiming to be a halachic movement often claims halachic legitimacy on the basis of a Talmudic statement that both Bet Hillel and Bet Shammai are “the words of the living God”.

There is a difference between, on the one hand, the secular Jews who have no room for God in their Jewish identity and come within b’rit goral but not b’rit Sinai, and on the other hand the three religious groups, Orthodox, Conservative and Reform, who believe in God (though there are apparently some Reform rabbis who are not certain about Him).

The “words of the living God” assessment is in Eruvin 13b. The passage informs us, “For three years Bet Shammai and Bet Hillel were in dispute. One side said, ‘The halachah is in accordance with us’. The other said, ‘The halachah is in accordance with us’. Then a heavenly voice said, ‘These, and these, are the words of the living God, but the halachah is in accordance with Bet Hillel’.”

Two things emerge from the discussion: one, that there can be several ways of interpreting a law, and two, that in behavioural matters there is no room for halachic indecision. To think that the first statement sanctions pluralism is illusory. In the Bet Hillel-Bet Shammai dispute, both sides are within the halachic loop. It is not that one is inside the halachah and one outside it. Both are halachic. Both accept the authority of the mitzvah, but each has a different emphasis or nuance.

One cannot use this passage to say that halachah and the abrogation of halachah are both Judaism. It is like saying that kosher and non-kosher are both kosher. Neither Bet Hillel nor Bet Shammai can be used to lend support to this position. Bet Hillel did sometimes reverse a view they had espoused in favour of one advocated by Bet Shammai, but neither was outside the halachic loop. Orthodoxy has no choice but to say that whilst they respect followers of the Reform movement as part of b’rit goral, Reform as an ideology cannot be counted as part of b’rit Sinai.