Rabbi Mordecai H. Lewittes was an educator and author or editor of many textbooks and other educational materials. He earned his rabbinic ordination from the Jewish Theological Seminary in 1935, and was a teacher and principal in the New York City school system for many years. He made significant contributions to the field of Jewish education; his books included Select Readings in Hebrew Literature (1942); Modern Hebrew (1946; 1956), The Student Bible (1950), Highlights of Jewish History (1955; 1982) and Heroes of Jewish History (1978).

In this letter, Lewittes expresses appreciation for Mordecai Kaplan’s essay on “The Status of the Jewish Woman” that had just appeared in The Reconstructionist. In the essay, Kaplan declared that “Jewish women throughout the world [should] inaugurate a movement that would aim to remove the religious, civic and juridical disabilities which traditional Jewish law imposes on them and that would win for them the status of religious, civic and juridical equality.” Inspired by this article, Lewittes suggests that the editors of The Reconstructionist produce a “Guide to Judaism” for laypeople. He believed that the group connected with The Reconstructionist (which had been launched in 1934-35 and served as the key forum for Reconstructionist ideas at the time) was well-suited for this task, as it was “the only journal in America really contributing to an ‘advancement of Judaism.’ ” 

As early as 1920, Kaplan had published an article titled “A Program for the Reconstruction of Judaism” in The Menorah Journal, in which he advocated for “the formulation of a code of Jewish practice so that every Jew may know definitely what constitutes loyalty to Judaism.” In June 1941, a few years after Lewittes wrote this letter to Kaplan, members of The Reconstructionist’s editorial board met to explore plans for a ritual guide “designed for those Jews who cannot find adequate guidance in any of the traditional codes [of Jewish law] and yet feel the need for regulating their conduct by some norm or standard of Jewish usage.”

A summary of the group’s deliberations was published in four parts in The Reconstructionist in the fall of 1941, titled “Towards a Guide to Ritual Usage.” According to Dr. David Teutsch, Wiener Professor Emeritus and Senior Consultant to Reconstructing Judaism (and former president of RRC), these early efforts were followed by a later pamphlet on the subject, various movement position papers, articles in The Reconstructionist and guides put out by RRC’s Center for Jewish Ethics. In 2011 and 2014, Dr. Teutsch published the comprehensive, three-volume A Guide to Jewish Practice. As he explains in the Introduction, the guide “will allow readers to explore ways to ground their personal and communal practices and observances in Jewish values and traditions that can help to make every moment an opportunity for holiness.” This landmark guide, written from a Reconstructionist perspective, is in accord with Kaplan’s vision—and Lewittes’ as well.