#crissonastick

halecha, or jewish law, is not considered law in the strictest sense by reconstructionists. rather, it is a compilation with massive cultural significance that should be treated with respect and grappled with (which, in judaism, is really the same thing), but not necessarily followed to the letter

judaism is considered an evolving and democratic tradition. jewish values of 3000 bce are not the same as the jewish values of 1000 bce are not the same as jewish values of 1500 ce are not the same as jewish values of 1920 ce are not the same as jewish values of 2014 ce, and that is awesome. 'tradition gets a vote, but not a veto' is pretty much reconstructionism's tagline - you get to make it what you will, but make sure to recognize the benefits of both tradition and modernity

ok now we get to the controversial biggies (i know, that wasn't bad enough)

jews are not the chosen people; rather, there are many chosen peoples. this is the recon concept people - other jews and goyim alike - tend to get hung up on the most, and it's one that pervades the majority of discussion on reconstructionism. this manifests itself in a lot of ways in reconstructionist judaism, most apparently in changes in our liturgy. for example, there's one pretty important prayer that we say at every service called the aleynu that makes direct reference to the special-ness of jews that reconstructionists have changed to talk about the specialness of everyone!!! likewise, in the classical prayer for peace oseh shalom, the traditional liturgy asks for peace 'over all the jewish people' (v'al kol yisrael) - reconstructionists have appended 'and over the whole world' (v'al kol yoshvei tevel). this concept means a lot to me, as an egalitarian and as someone with, ya know, fly goyim friends (despite perhaps popular belief).

there is no such thing as a supernatural god, or indeed religious supernaturalism. instead, god is a force for moral good within people, who will do with that force what they will. this means that most liturgical references to supernaturalism - mostly mentions of god making crops grow/rain fall/bringing dead back to life - have been replaced with discussions of humans making choice (the classic being deuteronomy 30:19 - chose life that you may live, you and your children).

none of this means that you can't be a reconstructionist who follows halacha, or prays to a supernatural god, or who believes in the separation of jews from all other people of the earth, and no one is going to, like, revoke your recon card for any of that. it just means that institutionally, these are the things that make reconstructionists a lil different from other jews