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From: R. Feldman
Subject: Formative experiences
Date: 6 Tishrei 5784
Subject: Committee recommendation
The committee has discussed formative experiences across three weeks and many messages. The chair will attempt to summarize.
The proposal is compelling. Formative experiences matter. They shape Jewish identity in ways our current categories do not capture. The richness of Jewish summer camp alone (the Zionist camps and Yiddishist camps, the denominational variations, the ideological battles fought through color wars) could merit its own specification.
And yet:
1. The category resists encoding. Experiences are narratives, not tokens. 2. The scope is unbounded. Every community has formative experiences. Selection privileges. Comprehensiveness is impossible. 3. The verification problem conflicts with our design. Formative experiences are externally verifiable in ways practice and belief are not. 4. Implementation complexity exceeds what we have built so far.
The committee recommends that formative experiences remain outside the scope of the current specification.
This is not a judgment that experiences do not matter. It is a recognition that this specification cannot do them justice. A future effort (perhaps a separate specification, perhaps a different approach) might address what we cannot.
For now, the Xp category is not included.
—Yaakov Feldman, Chair
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