Mel Scult

For me our Psalms Project is the purist expression of the philosophy of Mordecai Kaplan and of the Reconstructionist movement.

Kaplan in the early years of the last century conceived of a radically novel theology that he called ‘transnaturalism’.  This philosophy took shape in the years before the founding of the Society for the Advancement of Judaism.  At the SAJ Kaplan finally had a free hand to innovate as he chose.  The primary focus of his innovation was the liturgy.

Kaplan believed that it is important for an individual to mean what he/she says when praying.   There are many traditional expressions that are not meaningful to us anymore.  Consequently the language of the prayers in some cases must be changed.  The Conservative movement of which Kaplan was a part in those years held to the idea that a prayer could be changed in the translation but not in the original.  Kaplan believed that this practice was dishonest.  Most of his colleagues at the Jewish Theological Seminary were appalled that Kaplan actually changed the language of prayers that had been in the siddur for thousands of years. 

Kaplan believed that there must be unity among Jews but not necessarily uniformity.

At West End Synagogue we have taken the risk of actually rewriting the Psalms or presenting our current version of the Psalms alongside the ancient version.  Doing this is quintessentially Kaplanian.  Our approach is not merely a matter of finding more familiar or relevant language.  What we are doing is to translate traditional notions into contemporary ones.  We strive to find naturalist equivalents for supernatural ideas.  This is no mean task.