Letter From Stephen S. Wise to Mordecai M. Kaplan, May 31, 1922

This letter is evidence for the beginning of the saga of Kaplan and the Jewish Institute of Religion (JIR), and his leaving the seminary. Kaplan came to the Jewish Theological Seminary (JTS) in 1893 in short pants and joined the faculty some years later in 1909. He was unhappy from the start. Stephen S. Wise, the most outstanding Reform rabbi of that era, founded the JIR in New York City in the early 1920s. He had great respect for Kaplan and wanted him on board. Kaplan had trouble deciding and finally wrote that he would not come. This letter is Wise’s response. He is obviously disappointed. Twice more, in 1925 and 1927, Kaplan almost left JTS. The full details of this story may be found in my biography of Kaplan, Judaism Faces the Twentieth Century: The Biography of Mordecai M. Kaplan.

Letter From Louis D. Brandeis to Mordecai M. Kaplan, July 15, 1934

Louis D. Brandeis was the first Jewish U.S. Supreme Court Justice, serving from 1916-1939.

This 1934 letter is a response to Kaplan having sent Brandeis a copy of his book, Judaism as a Civilization.

Letter From Mordecai M. Kaplan to Selma Kaplan Jaffe, August 9, 1939

Selma Kaplan (1915-2008) was the youngest of Mordecai and Lena Rubin Kaplan’s four daughters. She was named after Solomon Schechter, having been born about a month after he died. In 1936, she married Saul Jaffe, an attorney and radio and TV producer. Selma spent her life in education and was also involved in TV programming.

This letter is significant because it presents a side of Kaplan not generally known. Kaplan had a serious demeanor, and photos of him rarely show him smiling. Scholars have even commented on the “Kaplan scowl.” But here we see the loving father and family man in a happy mood, joking with his youngest daughter. In addition, we see Kaplan sharing his ideas with Selma and taking her reactions seriously.

In interviews I conducted for my biography of Kaplan, all the Kaplan daughters mentioned the fact that when they were young and at the dinner table, Kaplan only talked to Judith (Kaplan Eisenstein). While Judith was preeminent and might be considered Kaplan’s most important “philosophical other,” we see here that he also shared his ideas with his other daughters. There is much material in my Communings of the Spirit: The Journals of Mordecai M. Kaplan Volume I, which details the early relationship between Kaplan and Judith.

Letter From Mordecai M. Kaplan to Mel Scult, October 27, 1973

I met Kaplan in June 1972 at Camp Cejwin. I had spent a year studying Kaplan’s works, and after meeting him, I spent another year researching his activities in the 1920s, particularly his leaving the seminary in January of 1927, and going to the JIR. He was very unhappy at the seminary, but returned in April of that year. He could not tear himself away from JTS despite the constant criticism leveled at him. Had he stayed at the JIR, it would have been the beginning of the Reconstructionist movement. The article I sent him, which he references in this 1973 letter, speaks of those events.

Saturday night, October 27/73

Dear Dr. Scult,

Your airmail letter of October 15 together with the 56 page article arrived yesterday afternoon. I no sooner received the article then I read it and found it to be a comprehensive account of my life and thought in the 1920’s presented in such a dramatic fashion as to keep the reader glued to it from beginning to end.

Fortunately, we had as guests for dinner last night (Sabbath eve) Prof. Moshe Davis [and] his wife. With dinner over, I had him read your article and he was equally impressed by it. Have my heartfelt congratulations.

Please note the following corrections:

Page 30 - line 5 should read as follows: Bethel, which later merged with Temple Emanuel, the most prestigious Reform etc.

Page 36 - line (after crossing out “as” in line 35) in November 1893, when he was admitted into the Preparatory Class, about a half year before his Bar Mitzvah celebration, which was attended by the late Julius Greenstone and . . . [Menachem M.] Eichler both eight years his senior.

I don’t know whether you are aware of my having been invited by the Philadelphia Branch of the American Jewish Committee to receive an award for “Human Relations” next Thursday November 1. I had expected to come to Philadelphia specially to receive the award [and] to deliver an address for the occasion which is of urgent relevance at this time. I worked out a Manifesto of the Jewish Reconstructionist Movement entitled, The Desperate Need for Religion: Humanism Not Enough. One of its main purposes was to dispel the effect produced by the New York Times of Sunday Aug. 26 which on its front page mentioned Rabbi Mordecai M. Kaplan, founder of the Reconstructionist movement as one of the principal signatories. The fact was that I had not signed it and the answer to the request to sign it, I stated why I refused.

However, due to the present peace crisis, I informed the A.J.C. that I was not coming to Philadelphia, but would instead send them the Manifesto. Ira [Eisenstein] will make copies of it to be distributed at the dinner and will comment on it.

In this Manifesto I finally state in very explicit terms that the God idea in religion draws from the experience of human needs – vital, cognitive [and] operative instead of that idea in philosophy which derives solely from the cognitive need for knowing the cause of existence in general. Make sure to get a copy from Ira of the Manifesto in which I not only criticize Humanism but answer the two questions “When Is a Religion Aesthetic” and “When It Is Mature.”

Have you any idea how soon you would have the second chapter ready?

With regards from Mrs. Kaplan and myself.

Cordially,

Mordecai M. Kaplan