"Unorthodox Answer"

There has been a meme circulating on Facebook for some time, with a quote from the Lubavitcher Rebbe, responding to a letter sent by a person who proclaimed herself "not Orthodox", saying that there is no such thing as Orthodox, Conservative and Reform.Rather, we are all Jews. I believe that the majority of people who have read this, interpreted it incorrectly. They understood the Rebbe to be saying that levels of observance make no difference, and all "denominations" are of equal value. It is as if we are judged in Heaven on the basis of "You were Orthodox, so that time you ate that ham sandwich was a grave sin", but if the person had been a member of a Reform Temple "well, Reform doesn't recognize the kosher laws, so it was OK". This is not what the Rebbe was implying. Rather, he was emphasizing that all Jews are equally bound by HaShem's Torah. Kashrut, Shabbat..everything is equally incumbent on every Jew. He was here castigating those elitists who say "only we are the Jews"(as one rabbi, a little over a century ago went to court in Germany, in order to have Orthodoxy and Reform declared different religions) , but at the same time castigating those who proclaim themselves not bound by Torah law, because they have joined one or another "denomination", that allows ignoring much of the Torah. The Rebbe, in this instance, was emphasizing the essential Jewishness of all Jews, while clarifying that differences of ideology and practice are man made, and mostly artificial. You can read more in my series "Orthodox and non Orthodox Judaism.