Gordon Tucker

Gordon Tucker is a prominent rabbi, with a reputation as both a political and a theological liberal in Conservative Judaism. He currently has a position as senior rabbi of Temple Israel Center in White Plains, New York.

A 1967 graduate of the Bronx High School of Science, Tucker holds the A.B. degree from Harvard College and a PhD. (in Philosophy) from Princeton University. He was ordained a Rabbi in 1975 by The Jewish Theological Seminary of America (JTS). He has served on the faculty of JTS since 1976, currently serving as Adjunct Assistant Professor of Jewish philosophy, in addition to his duties as a congregational rabbi. From 1984 to 1992 he served as dean of the Rabbinical School at JTS. He subsequently became rabbi of Temple Israel Center in White Plains, New York, following the retirement of Rabbi Arnold S. Turetsky.

Tucker has served as Chairman of the Board of the Masorti Foundation for Conservative Judaism in Israel, and as a member of the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards of the Rabbinical Assembly.

In 2006, his name was listed as one of the frontrunners for the Chancellor of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, to replace Chancellor Ismar Schorsch upon his retirement. Arnold Eisen was ultimately chosen for the position.

Tucker, in his writings about the Torah and the nature of divine revelation, is a leader within Conservative Judaism in articulating a position between the traditional view that the Torah is of divine origin, and a secular view, in which the Torah is seen entirely as a work of human creation. He writes, "It is the particular characteristic of Conservative Judaism to insist that religious authority is a partnership, that it comes from the reality of a revealing God and the equally inescapable reality of a seeking, evolving community through which God's words get expressed over time." The Torah, according to Tucker, "is not a record of commanding utterances from God, but rather a record of the religious quests of a people, and of their understanding of how God’s will commands them."

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