Matthew Lagrone

Like some of my peers in the class, I have found it hard to talk about last weeks lecture. In efforts not to be critical of Mr. Lagrone's delivery of the material, I find that I'm at a loss of words. For most of the lecture, I was confused, although with the help of the knowledge from the past lecturers, I wasn't completely lost. The main point i took away from Lagrone's lecture was that the conservative movement serves as a balance between traditional and reform. Kohut was a figure who embodied the centrism in the argument of traditionalist vs. reform. I believe that the thoery behind the conservative movement is to be centered between orthodox and reform, yet I dont necessarily think the theory is always put into action. We have briefly talked about how Jewish people tend to make their own rules and exceptions, so i think that the balance of the conservative movement is just the case. As it is, i belong to an egalitarian conservative temple. The men and women are mixed in the synagogue and woman can go on the bima and say prayers from the Torah. In other conservative temples, this may not be the case. What I am trying to say, is what i got from Lagrone's lecture was that there is a theoretical balance between reform and orthodox within the conservative movement, but like many aspects of American Judasim, people take the restrictions and such into their own hands. Subsequentially they have created a personalized version of what we call the conservative movement.