What are the religious principles that distinguish Reform Judaism? I suggest five.

1. Reform Jews are committed to a Judaism that changes and adapts to the needs of the day. Since its earliest days, Reform Judaism has asserted that a Judaism frozen in time is an heirloom, not a living fountain. Changes must be thoughtful, of course, and must be rooted in the history and traditions of our people. But we assert Judaism's innovative character, and we assert, too, that a stubborn failure to change will make Judaism an irrelevance. This willingness to adapt has brought new vitality and strength to a Jewish community that is fully integrated into North American culture.

2. Reform Jews are committed to the absolute equality of women in all areas of Jewish life. We were the first movement to ordain women rabbis, invest women cantors, and elect women presidents of our synagogues. While we have not yet totally fulfilled this commitment, there is no longer any debate that a Judaism that diminishes the equality of women is a Judaism that degrades our dignity and besmirches our soul.

3. Reform Jews are committed to social justice. Even as Reform Jews embrace ritual, prayer, and ceremony more than ever, we continue to see social justice as the jewel in the Reform Jewish crown. Like the prophets, we never forget that God is concerned about the everyday and that the blights of society take precedence over the mysteries of heaven. A Reform synagogue that does not alleviate the anguish of the suffering is a contradiction in terms.

4. Reform Jews are committed to the principle of inclusion, not exclusion. We understand clearly the need for boundaries between Judaism and the society around us, but we have little patience with those who spend day and night trying to define precisely where the boundaries are to be drawn in order to keep the maximum number of people out. Far better to spend time filling our Jewish world with experiences that will draw people in to Knesset Yisrael, the indivisible collectivity of the Jewish people.

5. Reform Jews are committed to a true partnership between the rabbinate and the laity. Of course, rabbis have their prerogatives, and we defer to their scholarship. But Reform Jews have come to understand that holiness and religious insight are not the monopoly of any segment of our community. And so we neither flatter one another nor refute one another; rather, most of the time, we decide together. This is not how it is done elsewhere in the Jewish world. Elsewhere the grand rabbis decide, or the Seminary decides, but we Reform Jews prefer shared insight and learning.

Where else does such a constellation of principles exist in the Jewish world? Absolutely nowhere. This is Reform Judaism's unique and powerful legacy.

Rabbi Eric H. Yoffie is president of the Union for Reform Judaism.