I just want to make sure I understand you, Joey.

Anybody who finds some value--sorry "attempts to enrich his or her life"--with the Jewish teachings and scriptures is Jewish?

Madonna?

Rosie O'Donnel?

You're kidding, right?

Your redefined Judaism is going to revolve around what, exactly? Not synagogue, because that's patriarchal and outmoded. Unless we decide there's no barrier to entry and no language restriction and no requirement to believe in anything specific. So where's the Judaism?

Maybe the Jewish home? Kosher isn't good enough - you'd have to be vegan. Shabbat is nice, especially if it's reduced to nothing but some candles and family boardgame night. There won't be any prayer, I imagine.

Holidays? Some of the holidays are ethnocentric, though, and don't map easily to universalist themes. We'll have to do away with those.

What will it mean to be Jewish? To care about Darfur?

Sounds to me like the be-all and end-all of Judaism, as far as you're concerned, is acting or donating on behalf of world causes. Tikkun olam (not a mitzva or even a concept in the Torah), pikuach nefesh (a term stolen outright from halachic literature), pursuit of justice (an instruction with several real-world application for judges), and being kind to the stranger (a mitzva with very practical and well-developed parameters).

You ask whether anyone at JTS is debating the importance of 10% vs. 25% charitable giving. It's not a new argument, Joe. Read the Talmud. Read Maimonides. Read "Gates of Kindness."

There are 613 mitzvot, Joey, and we've spent the last 2000 years analyzing their parameters and ramifications and relevance, too.

"Your generation" can't read Hebrew, though. "Your generation" bought the Tikkun Olam pablum and never realized there's more to the story. "Your generation" was robbed of a decent Jewish education, and now doesn't have any interest in learning *why* those crazy Orthodox are so distracted by minutiae.

Get the source material down first, then pass judgement.