non-orthodox opinions?

Question

What are the mods final judment on the non-orthodox versus orthodox viewpoint question are we here to answer question which should likely be adressed to the JTS? (migrate to the original orthdoxy question after it seems we have no final answer)

Answer 1

Our FAQ currently defines this site as:

... for those who base their lives on Jewish law and tradition and anyone interested in learning more.

This formulation is based on the one that I wrote up in our Area51 Definition phase. I explained my precise wording choice at the time in what were then called "definition comments" (now called "announcements"):

"People who base their lives on Jewish law and tradition" // "Professional Jews": The Jewish Life equivalent of pilots, lawyers, or professional photographers. (Unless you want to build a site for rabbis.) // People who consider Jewish law to be binding think about it every day and are most likely to be invested enough in it to come up with high-quality answers (standard SE dogma). // Pre-existing basic agreement on the need for authoritative sources to back up statements about law maximizes answer quality and minimizes the chances of people talking past each other.

"Anyone interested in learning more" // Unlike flying, law, or photography, Judaism intrinsically contains a mandate to educate. // Questions (and askers) welcome on all levels of sophistication. The experts in the core population are able and willing to address even the simplest questions with serious, backed-up answers. // Some types of questions (e.g. "Can you recommend an alternative for a talit bag with these specifications?") lend themselves to useful answers from unexpected sources.

There are two separate but related concerns in the first clause, the second of which is, I think, particularly relevant here:

1. To ensure a high-functioning SE site, we target as a core user-base people who spend roughly as much (or more) time and care thinking about Jewish issues as a professional photographer thinks about photography - people who consider Jewish law and tradition binding on their lives. Of course, as formulated in the second clause, we're more than happy to welcome questions and information from people with less knowledge of or personal commitment to Judaism.

2. To ensure that we're not all talking past each other or degenerating into endless religious war, I think that we ought to maintain a standard underlying point of view for all content on the site that Jewish law and tradition are, in fact, binding and that statements about Jewish law, at least, need to be backed up by authoritative sources as much as possible.

Due to the second concern, I would object to a question like "What are some fun and appropriate things to do on Shabbat for those who don't mind kindling flames on Shabbat?" or to an answer like "Don't worry; the prohibition against lashon hara doesn't apply anymore."

Under this assumption, I think we ought to allow questions or answers that assume a point of view that Jewish law and tradition are binding and that (e.g.) Conservative rabbis who make this same assumption constitute authoritative sources within the tradition.

Every member of the community is, of course, free to upvote or downvote based on whatever criteria they see fit. In general, administrative steps like closure and deletion, when based on content or point of view, should probably err on the side of inclusion. In particular, on the present issue, I think each instance would probably need to be addressed on a case-by-case basis, but again, the bias should be toward inclusion.

(I've been meaning to write something along these lines for the previous question on this issue and not getting around to it. I may yet adapt and extend this for there.)

Answer 2

I was under the impression that this site was open to a broader range of questions. Even within Orthodoxy there's not universal agreement yet all manage to get along anyway -- the chassidim probably don't answer the modern-O questions and the modern-O probably don't answer the chareidim, but they can co-exist nonetheless.

Edit: I just came across this chat log. While the focus there is on language accessibility, the discussion there also suggests that non-Orthodox Jews are welcome to participate here as first-class members. I am having difficulty reconciling that with the downvotes on this answer.

Answer 3

While it might at times seem less than diplomatic, it makes little sense to broaden the scope of the site to include as "Judaism" views of offshoots of Judaism that promote ideas generally considered to be heretical by the overwhelming majority of mainstream authorities (e.g. the outright rejection of Maimonides 13 principles of faith and/or the denigration of the Jewish sages). If one were to include such outside sects, the boundaries defining the scope of the site become, at best, capricious. After all, Christianity also claimed to be the "true" Judaism. Islam, as well, is an offshoot of and/or borrows heavily from the faith. Furthermore, atheistic and/or Reconstructionist Jews have their own religion they christen "Judaism". What remains off-topic? I think it's important to be able to distinguish being appropriately respectful of persons from other socio-religious backgrounds while still maintaining one's pride in one's own religious identity and traditions.