A few months ago, football’s New York Jets willingly accommodated Jewish fans by moving their home opener from the evening to the early afternoon of the same day. That evening – Yom Kippur – would have presumably found thousands of the Jets faithful in synagogue and not at the Meadowlands or glued to their television sets.

This altruistic act – moving the game out of prime time – speaks volumes about the Jets’ sensitivity to Jewish sensibilities (perhaps it even propelled them to a successful season), to the influence of politicians and civic leaders to cause a commotion over trivialities, and to our sense of acceptance in general society.

From their perspective, it was a most decent and generous act. From our perspective, though, it is less salutary, and represented a triumph of Orthopraxy over Orthodoxy.

While Orthodoxy literally means “correct belief” but in actuality encompasses an entire range of thought and behavior that is regulated by Torah, Orthopraxy (“correct action”) is much more limited in scope, requiring only the adherence to certain behavioral norms without any semblance of philosophical commitment to the system from which such behavioral norms emerged.

Obviously, some of the obsession with sports is nothing less than silliness; who wins or loses – or even plays – does not matter at all in the real world, and sports and other forms of entertainment are just diversions from the more significant endeavors in which we are engaged.

What happens, then, when the diversions become the essence, or at least a critical component, of a person’s life – so much so that one’s thoughts on Yom Kippur might have otherwise been on the game and not on life, family, health, sustenance and the fate of the world?

That is a sad commentary on the spiritual state of some of our fellow Jews, and begs the question: Is it any less contemptible to spend three hours on erev Yom Kippur fascinated by grown men pounding each other in pursuit of moving an oval-shaped pigskin across a goal line than it would be to do the same on Yom Kippur night?

Not really.

The only difference is that there would be no technical violation of the rules of Judaism to so while away one’s time on erev Yom Kippur. Nonetheless, the broader and more crucial questions are: Where was the person’s head, and heart, at that most solemn time? Where were his thoughts? Were they on repentance and introspection – a matter of the soul? Or were they just on weathering the impending 25-hour fast – a matter of the body?

The answer is clear, as it was in Isaiah’s time when he decried the insincerity of fasting without repentance, of the tendency of some Jews to underscore some deeds and not others because none was internalized as the will of Hashem or as divine service:

“They pretend to seek Me every day, they pretend to desire knowledge of My ways . they inquire of Me about righteous laws, as if they desire the nearness of God” (Isaiah 58:2).

The Orthoprax are an informal, incognito group of unknown size and scope who, for the most part, practice halachic norms but do not really believe in God (or that He chose us as the nation that would carry His moral message to mankind) or understand what they are doing. They might not even believe in the divine origin of the Torah, but identify themselves with the Orthodox community for social, ethnic, cultural or even aesthetic reasons. We usually do not know who they are – after all, it is a matter of the heart – but we do know how and where to find them.

They are the Jews who will come to shul – but barely daven. They will perfunctorily mouth a few words here and there while engaged in a persistent but likely not-very-stimulating conversation with their neighbors (people they would not talk to outside of shul for more than five minutes the rest of the week).

No wonder the Zohar (Parshat Terumah) labels people who talk in shul as atheists; they sit in the House of God but are oblivious to His presence. The words of the davening are either unfamiliar to them or do not resonate with them. Their only contribution to decorum is the occasional shushing of their children, a vulgar act of hypocrisy that, as Faranak Margolese noted in her book Off the Derech, is a major factor in turning off children to the life of Torah.

The Orthoprax attend shul because it is a social expectation, and their conduct in shul reflects it.

They are the Jews who are nominally shomrei Shabbat – they would never drive to shul, for example – but they will look for ways to swim or play tennis or baseball on Shabbat or encourage their children to do so, or leave the television on (or have the ubiquitous housekeeper turn it on) or read business newspapers on Shabbat, or perhaps even sneak in a business phone call or two when no one is looking.

Their children will text each in stealth (texting being the preferred method of communication even between teenagers who are sitting next to each other). Their divine service is external; if no human being sees them sin, it is as if it hasn’t happened.

That state of affairs was well known to Rabban Yochanan ben Zakai, who admonished his disciples that “their awe of Heaven should parallel their awe of men” (Berachot 28b), the latter being more pervasive and substantial. The Orthoprax will “observe” Shabbat – they will not mow their lawns or drive to the beach – but Shabbat as a day of communion with the Creator is almost non-existent.

They are the Jews who will dress the part – as if, indeed, there is such a thing as “Jewish dress” beyond tzitzit and kippah for men and modest clothes for all. But they will conduct their business without integrity, stealing, conniving, cheating Jew and non-Jew alike, underreporting their taxes, hondling with contractors after the work is completed, stiffing their employees of their due wages – and often professing that they are acting perversely for the glory of Torah or to benefit a favored charity.

The Orthoprax will do good works, but those are socially useful and divorced from any sense of divine worship.

Most recently, Orthopraxy underlies such phenomena as the female clergy, the Partnership Minyanim (in which women chant portions of the davening, and a quorum of both ten men and ten women are needed to begin services), and the integration of Christians into special worship services.

These innovations blur or cross the line that defines halachic practice, and all, on some level, conflate self-worship with divine worship. All seek to make halacha “user friendly” and to render the Torah into putty that can be molded as the user desires – the Torah as akin to the American Constitution, which, Thomas Jefferson warned, could be twisted and shaped by unscrupulous judges “as an artist shapes a ball of wax.”

Note how the proliferation of Orthopraxy transcends all the traditional (and artificial) divisions in Orthodox life. It compasses right wing and left wing, modern, centrist and yeshivish, haredi and non-haredi alike. And one might well contend that all the deviations listed above trample on the halacha and the sacred institutions of Jewish life, and therefore strip the “ortho” out of that “praxy” – they are not correct practices at all. But that contention is only partially true.

There are those of us who have become quite proficient – crafty is a better word – in manipulating the sources, in finding obscure opinions that, interpreted innovatively, tend to justify precisely what we want to do. Such people no longer desire to ascertain the will of God, but rather to satisfy their own inclinations while remaining in “technical” compliance with halacha, very broadly construed. It is as if they have transformed the Almighty into a divine caddy who carries for us a bagful of clubs known as “halacha,” and they reserve the right to remove any club when they so desire, and use them any way in which they desire. Most lacking is the concept of the Jew as the servant of God.

 The Orthoprax wish to remain part of the community, relying on general notions of tolerance and Western concepts of religion as a “private matter.” And they do remain part of the community – often integral parts of the community – but a community no longer defined by commitment to the fundamental principles of Judaism, by subservience to God, or by eternal norms and values.

 It is a social community, ethnically based and often geographically defined, but not a covenantal community. It is a community in which people perform actions that are roughly similar, but their hearts are not united. We certainly retain common enemies – Ahmadinejad is uninterested in these fine distinctions – but the nation of Israel should stand for something greater than that some evil people hate us.

  Is there a value in Orthopraxy – in remaining part of a community of behavioral norms even if the philosophical commitment in lacking? Some point to a cryptic passage in the Yerushalmi, and in the Pesikta, citing, in Hashem’s name: “Would that they abandon Me and still observe My Torah!” As some explain, it is therefore better to observe the mitzvot even with a lack of faith than to observe only if fully committed. Undoubtedly, there is some merit to this – at least the individual practitioner remains tethered to the Jewish community, however tenuously. But that understanding is grievously flawed.

 Better understood, the passage (a rhetorical question) seems to be admonishing us that it is impossible to abandon God and still observe the Torah for long; we can indulge ourselves for a time, but eventually even the practice of mitzvot will wither without an internal commitment.

Or Chazal are teaching us stages of development: people may begin the observance of mitzvot without a full ideological commitment, or must continue even if such commitment occasionally wanes – but eventually commitment and practice must coalesce, and the observance of mitzvot must mature from mere deeds to the development of the complete Torah personality. If not, then our divine service remains stunted, and not a little phony.

 Worse, our youth are very sensitive to this double game, and some become disenchanted. They internalize the corrupt idea that in Judaism externals count for everything and sincerity for nothing. Like Esav asking his father halachic questions in a fatuous attempt to demonstrate his piety, our children can learn to play the adult game just as well as we can: emptily mouth the words of tefilla, read parsha sheets at the Shabbat table while clueless to what they are reading, or internalize the idea that the most harmful aspect of sin is not the sin itself but getting caught. Once learned, that approach is not easily forgotten, until the child either finds better role models or discards his commitment entirely.

   There is a bright side to all this, or at least elements of comfort. The rise of Orthopraxy is on some level just a reflection of the human condition. The criticism applies to everyone, bar none. We are all flawed and all sinners, and the revelation of the flaws of public figures – even religious figures – is usually just a matter of time.

 ”For there is no man so wholly righteous on earth that he [always] does good and never sins” (Kohelet 7:20) – and yet we are still stunned and shaken when it happens.

We must distinguish, though, between personal frailties and systemic breaches. The “righteous” sinner (an oxymoron, but bear with me) stumbles because of human nature – an inability to control his instinctual drives – but confesses his sins, admits his guilt and does not seek to rationalize his wrongdoing.

There is, however, a “wicked” sinner, as well, who protests his innocence, who claims he has been misunderstood, who defends his actions on grounds that others are doing it, or, worst of all, that what he did is not sinful at all because the halacha changed, or should change, or he found an arcane but lenient source allowing him to do what he wants to do. The former is the position in which most of us find ourselves, and which is addressed by the commandment of repentance; the latter is a systemic violation for which there is no simple rectification. It is an act of spiritual gerrymandering by the sinner who has carved out for himself exemptions from halacha.

  How do we triumph over Orthopraxy and reconnect our divine service to God? We can – must – infuse our mitzvot with a recognition of their divine imperative by returning to fundamentals. We should study ourselves, and teach our children, not only “how” we do things but also “why.” We all must learn the details of the mitzvot – from Shabbat to Pesach, from kashrut to monetary integrity, from the laws of Chanukah to the laws of Tisha B’Av – but also the framework of those mitzvot, how they combine to create a faithful, moral, decent servant of Hashem.

 We must refine our davening so that – as Chazal ruled – it is better to say less with kavanah (a concentrated focus) than more without kavanah, and lose the notion that our prayer obligation is satisfied through the daily recitation of a certain quota of words. We must restore a sense of reverence and sanctity to the shul, or stay outside until we are ready. And before performing any mitzvah, we must pronounce, figuratively if not literally, that we are “ready and prepared to fulfill the commandment of our Creator.”

 Kabbalat HaTorah (the acceptance of the Torah) required naaseh v’nishma – the commitment “to do” preceded the commitment “to learn.” It preceded it, but did not vitiate it. Naaseh cannot endure unless there is an ongoing nishma – and Talmud Torah must encompass not only what we should do but also what we should think and how we should feel.

 The greatest of all orthodoxies – those correct beliefs that govern our lives – is, then, humility – humility that will enable us to absorb the divine values of Torah and not those of modern man, and recreate a nation of thinking, rational, wise, intelligent, good and ethical servants of God, a light unto the nations.

      Which of the following eligible bachelors makes the most attractive shidduch candidate ? Please choose one.

a)      a quiet, cerebral, 60 year old who has never left his parents’ home, never worked, and is not on speaking terms with his only brother;

b)      an impetuous, arrogant, young man, obsessed with his physical appearance, whose family has disowned him, and who has served time in prison;

c)      a man adopted and raised by non-Jews, now 45 years old , accused of murder and still a fugitive from justice;

d)      none of the above.

     If you selected (d) – not an entirely unreasonable choice on its face – you have unfortunately rejected (a) Yaakov Avinu,(b) Yosef HaTzadik, and (c) Moshe Rabbeinu as shidduch-worthy, forever altering Jewish destiny and world history. And such thumbnail sketches could easily uncover similar “flaws” in Avraham Avinu, Dovid HaMelech, and most other luminaries of Jewish life.

     Evidently, there is much more substance to a human being than his (or her) pedigree, appearance, educational background, career choice, and social history. More importantly, each person possesses values, goals, aspirations, character, and a spiritual sensitivity (or lack thereof) that comes closer to defining him or her than any information that can be gleaned from the brief biographical data now used to determines one’s eligibility, not for marriage, but for a first date.

      It is not only the Avot who do not measure up to today’s standards; our glorious Imahot (foremothers) also do not fare well. All were raised in idolatrous households, in families whose values were diametrically opposed to those of our covenantal community. Yet, in every case – as well as those spiritual giants mentioned above – their backgrounds were indicators of nothing, and their special personal qualities and unique gifts that sustain us to this day had to be extracted and uncovered through personal contact. In today’s parlance, you had to “get to know them”.

     In today’s world, these men and women do not stand a chance, for they cannot cross the minimum threshold of acceptability. Personality, chein (perhaps translated as ‘a special charm’), goodness, and beautiful midot are not easily adaptable to a resume. Rather than judge the person on his/her merits, the person is judged on a host of considerations that simply do not define the essential person. And we are all the poorer for it.

     I recently had an unpleasant conversation with a male inquirer into a local shidduch. After a series of impertinent questions, I said to him (impertinently): “Why don’t you just call her up, and ask her yourself ?” He responded that his Rebbi (non-YU, as it happened) had taught him that “it is assur – forbidden by Jewish law – to call a woman directly”. Surprised that this halacha had escaped my notice, I said: “Are you certain your Rebbi said that it is assur ? Especially since the Gemara establishes that men are the initiators – aggressors – in pursuing marriage ! How can it be assur ?”

      He conceded that his Rebbi did not actually use the term “assur” –  that was his assumption – and I urged him to be more careful in his use of halachic terminology lest he be guilty of “Bal Tosif”, adding Mitzvot to the Torah (and presumably falling several notches even lower on the shidduch depth chart).

     When did our men become so emotionally emasculated that they hide behind spurious halacha to avoid taking responsibility for their own futures ? When did it become a crime to say ‘hello, nice to meet you’ or to strike up a conversation with a young man or woman whose eyes met yours at a wedding, a social gathering, or in shul (i.e., after davening)? What is wrong with checking out the personality of a potential mate through light conversation before conducting the background checks that are designed to weed out miscreants, malefactors, and malcontents of all sorts ?

      Certainly, there is a fear of rejection – but rejection does build character and is part of life. There is a greater and more troubling fear: The Netziv’s famous commentary on “ezer k’negdo” (literally, ‘helpmate opposite him’ – the Torah’s description of the first wife in Breisheet 2:20 – that the wife most benefits her husband when she is different than him in temperament and personality, thereby creating a balance in the marriage) is lost on today’s generation. Opposites no longer attract; they don’t even get a first date.

     The Avot and Imahot were all spared the horrors of the shidduch scene because they married family members. We do not have that luxury. What we can do is foster an environment in which single men and women are judged as people first, and not as checklists. Then, if they find in each other chein – in appearance, family and reputation (see Igrot Moshe, Yoreh Deah, I, 90) – they can commit their lives to each other in full confidence that G-d who makes all matches has blessed their union.

     Herein lies the challenge, as well as the potential for unlimited blessing, for our generation and for our future.

     Amalek attacks, and no one seems to object. (Of course, they probably argued that what Israel was doing – marching through Sinai on the way to conquer the land of Israel – violated international law and the sovereign rights of Canaan.) Haman hatched his scheme and persuaded a very pliable Achashveirosh, but why did everyone else go along so willingly ? The couriers left with alacrity; the decree was published widely, in every province. When the Jews heard the news, there was intense mourning, but was there no group or no person in any of the 127 provinces of the Persian empire – who objected, who questioned, who dissented, who even thought of protecting Jews ? Apparently not.

     This is not a question of why Mordechai is hated, but rather why Haman is so loved? Why are people drawn to evil ? Is it fear ? Fecklessness ? Expediency ? Or is it something else ? Do they support the wicked because they think he will be successful, and then jump ship like Charvona when it looks like it is sinking ? The Megila teaches that when the tide turned, many people feigned being Jewish, i.e., the enemies who hoped for our destruction were defeated, but the common man who one day supported Haman the next day is wore a shtreimel or a kipa seruga, trying to look Jewish. So why are people drawn to evildoers ?

     This is not just a theoretical question. Amalek has become so popular today that most of the civilized world could not really care if Iran acquired a nuclear weapon, and used it against Jews. Indeed, Israel’s politicians and generals travel in fear that some European country will detain, arrest and prosecute them for “war crimes,” even as Iran’s Ahmadinutjob can travel most of the world freely and even be feted like a global celebrity. The hypocrisy is so sharp that it could be the stuff of satire (actually, it is: see www.latma.co.il)

      Israel’s cause does not receive much sympathy these days – from non-Jews and their Jewish accomplices – despite its good works around the globe. The more concessions they make, or wish to make, the less popular is their cause. So what is about the wicked person that earns him so much good will ?

     The average person doesn’t identify with the evildoer, but he is drawn to him like a moth to light. The evildoer represents a life without restraint or inhibitions – a pure yetzer hara (evil inclination). Normal people live with limitations – whether the result of self-control, the impact of law and social conventions, or in our case, the Torah. This is the attraction with the celebrity culture; it is like the freak show in the circus. No normal person would think of living that way – but we get to observe people who can seemingly say anything, do anything, betray anyone, live with any person and choose any lifestyle. All the things that motivate simple people to strive for good – spouses, children, law, rectitude, fidelity, decency, values – none of that applies. The evildoer lives in a parallel universe, flouting the norms of respectable people – and people watch and even enjoy. The parts of the instinctual drive that are ordinarily suppressed can find here vicarious expression.

     Amalek has a very unique niche in the world of the evildoer. They denied G-d, defied G-d – and they did not even need Sinai or Torah to hate Jews/ They were our first enemies, and so made it easier for others. They have active supporters and tacit cheerleaders. They are the unbridled animalistic instinct in man, and make it nearly impossible to look away. Amalek made Jew-hatred kosher for everyone – as does the existence of Israel today. It is a respectable way of defying G-d and hating His people – as if to say, “I’m just defending the rights of the oppressed, I’m just against racism, imperialism, expansionism, Zionism, and nothing more.”

     The love of Haman – like the hatred of Mordechai – both speak to something deep within the human psyche. It opens the faucet on latent human desires in a way that is not easy to control or regulate. Some just watch, amused; others identify and support from a distance; and still others sacrifice themselves wholeheartedly for the cause.

      We cannot fully understand the tranquility that many evildoers have that allows them to concoct their schemes, and wins them so many adherents and advocates. We do know that they are able to seize the weaklings among us, and we do know that our weaknesses – our fears, doubts, hesitation, and even our occasional fecklessness – embolden them, and gain them new activists, and new opportunities to promote their evil.

        This is part of the great struggle of mankind from our earliest history until today, and why we can never forget that it is G-d’ s battle we fight in every generation, and that the war will not end simply because we wish it to end. And with that understanding, we fulfill the mitzva of remembering Amalek and enjoy the true elation of Purim, and will again merit the salvation of G-d from all our foes, speedily and in our days.

One question keep recurring: “Where does it say it?” As in: where is it written that a woman cannot be a Rabbi ? The question, asked several dozen times in the last few weeks, deserves an answer about halachic methodology, because the question itself reveals a lack of understanding about Jewish life and tradition, as well as, I say this gently, not a little disingenuousness.

One might as well ask: where does it say that I cannot give my beloved flowers on Valentine’s Day ? Where does it say that I cannot watch TV or play tennis on Shabbat ? Where does it say that a shul requires a mechitza? Where does it say that I cannot get drunk every day ? (Don’t get any ideas.)

There is a reason why the Torah was not given to us as a law book, but as a narrative that includes laws, unlike, say, the Constitution or the United States Code. Neither of the latter works gave an account of what preceded their composition, but rather just present, respectively, the framework of government and the dry laws that govern different aspects of society. The Torah begins with creation, the stories of our forefathers, the exile in Egypt and the redemption, the Revelation at Sinai and our sojourn in the wilderness. The Torah presents its laws in an ethical framework, and fosters the creation of a Torah personality who is humble, subjugates his will to G-d, and finds his connection to spiritual life through the Mesorah.

The naval birshut HaTorah (the degenerate within the Torah’s framework) is the prototypical example of a person who does not violate any specific laws in the Torah but still confounds and tramples on the very notion of the Torah personality. He is a drunkard and a glutton, but cannot be shown any specific place “where it says” one cannot be a glutton or a drunkard. But he is still a degenerate, not a good Jew, and breaches in a vulgar manner the Torah’s meta-halachic mandate that compels us to be a “holy people.”

There are notions that transcend halacha; not that one could not point to a specific clause here or there that prohibits or permits some desired practice (like the female rabbi), but rather that the specific clause is almost irrelevant to the question at hand. One such meta-halachic notion concerns the appropriate categorization of the roles of men and women in Jewish life, and in particular the criteria for Jewish leadership. Chazal would not have had to ask “how could Devorah judge?” (see Chapter 2 of my book on Sefer Shoftim, “Judges for Our Time” for a greater elaboration) if the issue was self-evident. Other such meta-halachic concepts include “what is right and good,” “you shall be holy,” “Remember the Shabbat day to keep it holy,” et al. If all we did was just look in a book (or Google the Internet) in order to find what is permissible or impermissible, we would not recognize Judaism or need Rabbis or, nor would Judaism have much to say to the world of lasting value. Obviously, no legal work can encompass every single case or eventuality, and the divine genius of Torah is that we are given formulas that can be applied by the masters of Torah in every generation in order to gain a consensus and be guided in practice.

The latter point is critical, as some persist in citing even one authority who permits something, and so therefore it must be legal. (Rav Uziel’s name keeps popping up in terms of women as judges.) But one might then as well reference Rav Yaakov Emden who “proved” that men can take concubines, or Rabbi Yossi Haglii (Masechet Shabbat 130a) who “proved” that one can eat chicken and milk together. There are dozens, if not hundreds, of such examples. Well, all rabbis are created equal, but they do not all carry equal weight. Tradition strives for consensus, and in almost every case – and the exceptions are literally exceptional cases – the halacha, minhag, practice, recommendation, etc. – will follow the consensus of Rabbis and certainly when the matter at hand has national implications. Individual Rabbis might have flexibility in methods of koshering a dishwasher, but only a consensus of great Rabbis can introduce changes that affect the Jewish people – and their reluctance here is grounded not in timidity or prejudice but in Mesorah.

That is why – to answer another recurring comment on the lack of a universal posek – even Rav Elyashiv, Rav Ovadia Yosef, Rav Moshe Feinstein, etc.  will not necessarily be heeded on every particular decision. They, too, great people all, can also fall outside the consensus of halachic opinion in a particular case. But the consensus can be trusted not only to give appropriate guidance, but also to apply the traditional formula to new circumstances and – most significantly – not allow the mesora to be corrupted by alien ideologies that infiltrate our world. (The idea of “female clergy” not only mimics Reform, but in fact is a throwback to pagan ideologies and a perennial challenge to religious establishments. The Catholics suffer from this same type of movement that seeks to feminize the priesthood; it really does come from the “same pew, different church.”)

There is compelling logic in the propriety of consensus, even beyond “acharei rabim l’hatot” (the mandate to follow the majority). If 1000 doctors tell you that something is unhealthy, and only one tells you it is salubrious, only the most foolhardy will listen to the one doctor. We generally follow the overwhelming majority on any matter of interest. Would that we treated rabbinical opinion with the same formula we apply to restaurant or movie reviews; perhaps, to the detractors, the latter have more substance, since religion is all about “how you feel,” anyway.

To say there is no consensus that “female rabbis” are even in the realm of the possible, much less acceptable, is an understatement, to say the least. The opposite is so – there is near universal condemnation of the concept across the Jewish world – right to left – for clearly stated reasons. Some have been articulated earlier. Others present each day: A Rabbi is a spiritual leader, a role model, an example-setter. But the Torah exempts a woman from Talmud Torah and from public prayer – the two most common situations in which the public interacts with a Rabbi. “Greater is the one who is commanded and does than the one who is not commanded and does,” and so woe to the community whose “spiritual leaders” are exempt from essential aspects of Jewish life. “There is darkness in the generation in which a woman rules” (Yalkut Shimoni Shoftim 42), with Margaret Thatcher, perhaps, the exception.

One other point needs to be made on answering the question “where does it say it?” In truth, it is surprising to see that many ModOs are such textual fanatics, since even when specific laws are found in print they are often willfully disregarded. For example, the Talmud, Rambam and Shulchan Aruch (and later authorities as well) are quite explicit in obligating married women to cover their hair outside their homes, or in prohibiting swimming on Shabbat.  The fact that such is in writing – and quite unequivocally – does not seem to have that great an impact in certain ModO sectors. Or, one finds written injunctions on the importance of tefila b’tzibur, but in some ModO communities that does not seem to be the norm. So maybe the fact that something is in writing or not in writing is not really the point?

What emerges is the rank hypocrisy of people who will embrace as permissible whatever is not explicitly prohibited in the books (or explicitly prohibited to their satisfaction), while simultaneously arrogating to themselves the right to ignore or expound away explicitly written prohibitions when they do conflict with a particular objective or desire. That approach of the leftist ModO fringe makes up in legal creativity what it lacks in integrity, and is unworthy of and unbecoming a serious Jew.

All this reminds me of an incident I witnessed at the Kotel years ago. A weekday Bar Mitzva was accompanied by several loud musical instruments – a violation of the prevailing custom at the Kotel. When the father was told by the Kotel usher that what he was doing was forbidden, he replied: “But where does it say that I can’t do it?” Good question. And when told “zeh assur kahn” (“this is forbidden here;” it was even in writing), he answered “aval ani kahn” (“but I am here”) – and that made all the difference. It is all about me.

This month’s Newsmax quotes Rice University religious sociology professor Michael Lindsay on the “playlist effect” in contemporary American religious practice. “The way we personalize our iPhones, we also personalize our religious lives.” Rather than surrender our will to a Greater Authority, we choose what suits us from Column A or Column B – self-worship masquerading as divine worship.  Sadly, this tempest is just another example of Jews imitating non-Jews.

In the end, the question “where does it say it?” stems either from a sincere desire to research the sources – in which case one should consult a credible, learned Rabbi to understand how such decisions are made – or from an unconscious desire for a smokescreen that conceals the deliberate departure from Jewish tradition that this entails. To think that one can manipulate the sources – underscoring some, ignoring others – to permit the forbidden and thereby deviate from tradition is too clever by half, and just unserious.

The simplest result might be the most painful – simply to construe the small group of breachers as non-Orthodox, with all entails for their standing in the Jewish community. I hope there is another way, but it is clear now that the overwhelming consensus in Jewish life rejects this innovation, and will not let it stand. Let us therefore call it what it is. And let us recall as well that “whether Jew or non-Jew, man or woman, the holy spirit rests on a person in accordance with one’s deeds (Yalkut Shimoni Shoftim 42) – but we are each nonetheless called upon to serve G-d according to His will.

     The Talmud (Masechet Nedarim 81a) cites the verses of the prophet Jeremiah (9:11-12) asking “for what reason was the land [of Israel] lost to us” and we were exiled ? He answered “Because they have abandoned My Torah,” G-d says. And how was the Torah “abandoned” ? The Gemara’s answer is that “they did not recite the Birchat HaTorah” – the daily blessing that precedes the study of Torah. In other words, they did study the Torah, but did not say the requisite blessing. And for that we were exiled from the land of Israel ?

    The blessing referred to acknowledges, in pertinent part, G-d “who chose us from the nations, and gave us His Torah.” It was that blessing that the Jews of that generation failed to recite that must precede the study of Torah – that G-d chose us from the nations and gave us His Torah.”

     Think about it. The Torah represents the embodiment of (some) of the infinite wisdom of G-d and is our uniqueness as a nation.     God would not have given us His Torah had he not first chosen us – i.e., separated us from the nations of the world. Torah study by its very definition presupposes a disassociation from the values, thought-processes and world-view of the nations. And each time we study Torah – certainly when we seek to apply its principles to contemporary times – we must underscore that sense of separation by articulating the Birchat HaTorah. We must ensure that the Torah reflects the eternal values of the Jewish people, and not the transient values of Greece, Rome, Christendom, Arabia – or America.

     It is undeniable that many of the distortions that have crept into Jewish life in the last half-century (the “female Rabbi” is but one; I would include the new “partnership minyanim” that necessitates the presence of ten men and ten women before beginning services, and in which women lead part of the services, and other such symbolism) have not emerged from a Jewish source but from a Western source: the rise of “feminism.” Nothing in Jewish life – or in the Torah – would militate in favor of any of these practices. Their sources are all non-Jewish.

      To incorporate these non-Jewish trends into Jewish life, and to do it through arcane references to isolated statements taken out of context or simply by premising one’s conclusions on the fact that something is not explicitly forbidden or mentioned in the Shulchan Aruch (mechitza is also not mentioned in the Shulchan Aruch) is the type of scholarship that prevailed during the First Temple era, and precipitated the exile. It is a type of “scholarship” that is not preceded by the Torah blessings that emphasizes that G-d “chose us from the nations” – He didn’t tell us to look to the nations for the values that would shape the Torah – and “gave us His Torah,” that has its own epistemology , methodology and values. Those who seek to infiltrate the Torah with the three pillars of modern Western life – feminism, egalitarianism and humanism – corrupt the Torah, cheapen the word of G-d, and ultimately sever their followers’ connection to the Tree of Life.

       Where these pillars are integrated into a new, grotesque Torah hybrid, it is no wonder that the distinctions between men and women, between the Orthodox and the non-Orthodox, and even between Jews and non-Jews (gospel choirs in shul, anyone ?) all become blurred. With all the “papers,” the “scholarship,” the “conferences” and the pre-determined conclusions – even assuming the sincerity of the individuals involved – it is all tantamount to “for they have abandoned My Torah,” and the Torah itself becomes not the elixir of life but a noxious and harmful entity that offers a quick high and then leaves its practitioners deflated or worse.

     Unrelated to the above is the deleterious effect of feminism on today’s woman, in at least one critical index of life. Researchers at the Wharton School of Business published a report last year (American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, August, 2009, 1-2, 190-225) entitled “The Paradox of Declining Female Happiness.” By objective measures women’s lives have improved immeasurably in the last 35 years – in terms of educational opportunities (there are more women than men enrolled in college today), employment opportunities that have increased women’s incomes and that have almost erased any gender gap in income (the disparities such as they exist are almost entirely attributable to seniority differences based on the woman’s need for more time off due to childbirth and child-rearing needs), and even social opportunities – to choose spouses or to leave unpleasant marriages. Those are demonstrable gains that women have made.

     Yet, by a subjective measure, women’s happiness has declined precipitously with all the newfound freedoms and material advantages. This decline transcends racial, ethnic, demographic and income boundaries, and the decline in women’s happiness is both in absolute terms and relative to men. For example, in the 1970’s, women were much more likely than men to report being “very happy.” Today, not only has the percentage dropped of women who report themselves as being “very happy,” it has also fallen below the level of men who report themselves as being “very happy.” Women today are also more likely to say they are “not too happy” than are men, the reverse of 35 years ago. To use another metric, women fell far below men even on the “life satisfaction” scale – another dramatic change.

     There are a number of reasons that are suggested. The ease of access to contraception and abortion gave women “control” over their bodies, but has been a far greater boon to men who seek sexual recreation without marriage and are no longer forced into “shotgun” marriages in case of unexpected pregnancy. Marriages were in a free fall for the first two decades after the rise of feminism (although it has levelled out in recent years), as men and women took flight at the first sign of marital dissatisfaction – and leaving many women as single mothers juggling too many responsibilities. The existence of women in the workplace has not diminished their household chores that much, creating what is known as “The Second Shift” phenomenon – women work outside the home all day, and inside the home a good part of the night. Finally, the authors (Betsey Stevenson and Justin Wolfers) suggest that the increased opportunities of modern women have also increased the likelihood that they perceive themselves as not measuring up to their peers – who now include men. Comparing their lives not just to other women but also to men fosters the conclusion that they have fallen short in the pursuit of life’s material quests.

    Perhaps there is one more reason why women have become progressively unhappier: they have ceased to find fulfillment in being women, and instead wish to be men – a disposition to which they are preternaturally and psychologically unsuited. For a woman to find her spiritual purpose in life fulfilled through rank mimicry of the male experience – partnership minyanim, aliyot, Torah reading, and now clergy – is, aside from its halachic offense – degrading to the Jewish woman. If happiness is found (and it is) not in finding pleasure but in a being living in line with its nature, than there are consequences to feminism that have induced women not to live in a way that conforms to – and gratifies – the essential feminine nature. Is there a crueler irony than that feminism might have destroyed the “feminine mystique”?

     The Torah posited, without absolutely mandating, different roles for men and women, not only to ensure that each makes its maximum contribution to the nation but also so that each should find fulfillment in the function to which it was most suited. Granted there are halachic prohibitions on some feminist excesses, and other prohibitions that arise from an understanding of the Torah personality (and some changes that were undoubtedly beneficial or neutral) ; but to erase these distinctions – in Jewish life – will sadly place the Jewish woman on the downward happiness slope of the modern woman generally, and (I guess the two dimensions were related after all) reflect an ideology of self-worship in which the Birchat HaTorah is not uttered in these forums because its methodology and conclusions defy the will of He “who chose us from the nations and gave us His Torah – and implanted within us eternal life.”

      Andrew Jackson said of himself: “I was born for a storm, and a calm does not suit me” but he was not a Rav, and he lived in an especially tempestuous time. We all know the ease with which machloket are created and sustained in Jewish life and the rampant factionalization that besets us in the face of all the other enemies that we have. Jews can easily (too easily) define ourselves as anti-Satmar, anti-Chabad, anti-Haredi, anti-YU, anti-non-Orthodox, anti-everyone, anti-anyone-who-is-anti-anything, but at what cost ?

      Sin’at Chinam is the great stumbling block, here defined as Rav Shlomo Aviner does – the inability to accept that there are differences in Jewish life and hating another simply because he is different and has a different approach to a particular issue.

      But he added that that does not mean that we have to agree on everything, or be silent in the face of perceived violations of Torah norms, or abandon our roles as teachers of Torah, or shy away from articulating our views for fear of being labeled and castigated by a hostile, agenda-driven “Jewish” media. There must be a way to articulate our red lines, to call attention – without invective or r”l hatred of any sort – to perceived breaches of Torah or harmful trends in Jewish life, and to leave it at that, without personalizing the dispute and without engaging in a futile debate – but simply to state one’s sincere belief that “lo zu haderech”  – even if all that is accomplished is that our opposition to these innovations are recorded for posterity. This is not simply to satisfy the Yated Neeman that succinctly asked when this issue first arose ‘where is the RCA?’ – although it is not inappropriate that our Torah brethren should wonder about our views, if not organizationally, at least as constituent members. And there are cogent objections – based on halacha, hashkafa, et al.

     “Whoever can protest (prevent) the sin of his household or city and does not is apprehended for the same sin” (Shabbat 54b-55a). But the mecha’ah in those cases was for moral offenses – injustices, corruption, maltreatment of the vulnerable elements of society – and not for ideological deviations or halachic violations.

     It is fascinating – but not surprising – that the “Maharat” title did not catch on. The very need to concoct that addled acronym reflected, as one colleague wrote, the genuine concern that combining “woman” and “Rabbi” was so alien to the Torah community that the very articulation would doom the experiment. And so the  “Maharat” designation was a fig leaf hiding behind a smoke screen that fooled no one. (Q. What do you get when you cross a fig leaf and a smoke screen ? A. I don’t know, but eventually the fig leaf goes up in smoke.) It was a failed PR stunt, to have simple people believe that something is other than what it is. It was not the title that is provocative, but the role. As Rabbi Avi Shafran indicated, clarity helps. It is honest and edifying, and communicates who is within and without the Torah camp.

     Strange, isn’t it, that the ordination ceremony several months back did not pay tribute to Sally Priesand or Amy Eilberg, the first female Reform (1972) and Conservative (1985) rabbis, respectively. They were the pioneers, the trailblazers, without whom the institutions of Maharat or Rabbah would not even be a fantasy. Clearly, this just continues down the trail they blazed, and simple integrity would have insisted that deference be paid. Not to acknowledge their role – their inspiration – and instead to wrap the institution in the mantle of Bruriah and her troubled life – strikes me as less than forthright.

    Of course, I understand why that could not be done – any overt linkage to the Reform/Conservative movements would be the death knell of this deviation – but yashrut is yashrut. I would also have expected a public apology of sorts to the Reform/Conservative movements for impugning their reputation, and acknowledging their leadership and prescience on this issue. Such an apology can still be forthcoming, would go a long way towards Ahavat Yisrael and clarify still further the limits of Orthodoxy. That would be honest, and would help answer the question that dominates in these parts: If women rabbis were unacceptable from Sinai until today, then how could Torah-observant Jews suddenly accept it ?

     Yated several months back was most on target citing the Dubno Magid’s mashal of this methodology of psak – of drawing a bull’s eye and then placing the arrow right there. Of course proponents decided the outcome and then created ”responsa” around it (but that has become a staple of the leftist fringe of Modern Orthodoxy, if it can still be called that). There is a substantial element of Modern Orthodoxy that never lets halacha get in the way of a good time or whatever it really wants to do. To paraphrase Admiral Farragut memorable line from the Battle of Mobile Bay during the Civil War: “Damn the mesorah, full speed ahead.” Find a “way,” the “way” being a “creative” interpretation of a few select passages coupled with an utter rejection of any dissonant passages or tradition itself, and heartfelt expressions of courage, daring, and the higher morality involved. 

    The Torah speaks a number of times of the spiritual leaders of Israel as men – anshei chayil (in Parshat Yitro) or anashim (in Devarim). If the Gemara (Sukka 38a) can state that “a wife can recite blessings for her husband, but a curse should come upon a man whose wife and children recite blessings for him,” then what will we say of men who seek spiritual guidance and Torah knowledge from women ? The Baalei Mesora are men, charged with preserving the national institutions, even as women are entrusted with maintaining the familial institutions. We have always maintained that the latter is more critical to Jewish survival, a point of view derided today as patronizing and condescending. So we have partly abandoned that dynamic in modern times, and judging from the state of the Jewish world, at our peril.

     The objections to this innovation can be grounded in halachic issues of serara, psak, the inability of a woman to perform several functions of the Rabbinate (even a she is capable of performing others, like pastoral counseling) and the transformation of the public persona of a woman. It serves, in part, another subtle objective of the leftist ModOs – the downgrading of the role and position of Rabbi into that of a glorified social worker and spiritual cheerleader.

    There are two greater objections: the utter disregard of norms of tzniut, with which ModOs generally struggle, and the corruption of the methodology of psak that transmits the Mesora and Jewish cultural norms and societal values. The only way to consider in this context the compelling Jewish value of “the glory of the King’s daughter is within” (kal kevuda bat melech penima- Tehillim 45:14) is essentially to discount it and say it has no relevance in the modern Western world. Thus, this ideal of Jewish femininity – the disinclination to seek a public spiritual role, cited by Chazal hundreds of times – is simply written out of the Torah system. And why ?
  

     It is dismissed in order to accommodate the doctrine of Western egalitarianism that wages war against the traditional division of roles in society, and demands that there be no distinctions between men and women. And what if the Mesorah cannot be reconciled with Western values ? Therein lies the great demarcation in Jewish life – between those who will remain faithful to the Mesorah  and those who will tamper with it and pretend it is still whole, or even improved. (I find the simplistic references to Sarah Schenirer a”h and women’s Talmud Torah today quite tedious. The basic facts are that until quite recently there was no general, formal education for women or men, not only in Jewish life but across the world. Only the elites were educated. This changed with the phenomenon of compulsory education – for both men and women – that was a late Enlightenment requirement. Then, faced with a choice of men and women receiving only a secular, public school education, Sarah Schenirer successfully stepped into that breach. The opposition to her was rooted in the belief that the Old World would somehow return. It does a disservice to proponents of “women Rabbis” to cite her, and her patrons the Chofetz Chaim and the Gerrer Rebbi, all of whom would roll in their holy graves to find their decisions mentioned in this context. It is more than a bit disingenuous.)

     Yes, yes, the Torah is alive, and by its very nature provides us eternal guidance to deal with the challenges of every generation. That is not to say that each issue can only be resolved one (stringent) way, nor that the Torah is completely frozen and cannot be adapted to new circumstances. It is to say that we should be wary of those who can “declare a sheretz pure according to the Torah” (Sanhedrin 17a). Such a creative judge is eligible to sit on the Sanhedrin, but the sheretz is still impure. If we want to be creative, absorb Western values into the Torah, and create a new hybrid, many of us can find good grounds on which to permit tax evasion (Western materialism) or even pilagshim (Western decadence). That we don’t is not only because those causes are not politically correct (a driving force in this issue), although undoubtedly each would have its lobbyists, but because there is an inner sense of what sustains the Mesorah and what undermines it – of what advances the holiness of Jewish life and what impedes it.

    To many ModOs, the Torah is to be, as Thomas Jefferson said of some judges’ view of the American Constitution, “twisted and shaped as an artist shapes a ball of wax.”  But is there no real substance in Torah, and should the public rightly perceive that the Torah keeps changing and lacks consistency or structure ? “Some wrote that a chacham is forbidden to permit something ‘astonishing’ that the masses will think that something forbidden is now permitted” (Shulchan Aruch, Yoreh Deah, 242:10). Is there anything more astonishing to a Torah Jew than the notion of  “women Rabbis”? Lay the cards on the table: what stronghold will next be assaulted ? Women as witnesses, the mechitza, the legitimization of homosexuality, the blurring of distinctions between different religions ?  When egalitarianism becomes the defining value of Jewish life, then those restrictions must be galling, if not downright immoral. Note how the very notion of “female clergy” is a staple of non-Orthodox religious movements, Jewish – and non-Jewish. Non-Orthodox. Res ipsa loquitur.

        Sadly, since this phenomenon arises from the students of Rav Soloveitchik, it certainly tarnishes the legacy of the Rav, zt”l, who never entertained such notions. Maharal writes (Avot 1:1) that a true talmid need not hear everything from his Rebbi; the true talmid answers like his Rebbi would have without having heard his Rebbi actually say it. The broader point is that one need not embrace every psak of one’s Rebbi, or becoming (as famously described) just a parrot. But it does mean embracing the mesorah of the Rebbi, and in this case, some of the Rav’s students are not necessarily his talmidim. True, the Rav gave the first women’s Talmud shiur at Stern; but it is also true that he did not invite Stern talmidot to sit in his shiur in RIETS. There was only so much elasticity in the Rav’s views. There is no record of the Rav ever considering a female Rabbi as in the realm of the possible in the Torah world. Does anyone doubt that the Rav would have rejected the excesses and deviations of some of his students ? It wasn’t a lack of “courage” that inhibited the Rav, or even a sense that society was not “ready” for novelties; it was rather fidelity to the halachic process and the Mesorah, and to cherished Minhagei Yisrael.

     How do we refute this assertion: “The Conservatives follow the Reform just a decade later, and the left-wing Orthodox follow the Conservatives two decades later.” It is as if the Reformers proclaim the “value” to be implemented and disregard the halacha, the Conservatives find the solution by changing the halacha, and the left-wing Orthodox then “find” the same solution “within” halacha ! The logic seems irrefutable, and therefore the overwhelming majority of the Torah world – yes, readers of Yated and others who don’t read Yated, and people whose opinions we should care about – will rightly reject it. But it does mock the halachic process in a way that should offend all of us.

     I personally do not believe that engagement with the modern world inevitably entails accepting every cultural fad (read: value) as either imperative or elevating, but clearly some do. It does require that we remain discerning, with the ability to be mavdil bein kodesh l’chol.

    As it is, the feminization of the Reform and Conservative movements has devastated them, with women comprising approximately 2/3 of their average weekly attendance. Men have fled in droves. It is odd, then, from a purely pragmatic perspective, that a group among us should now be traversing that same path. Fortunately, the Torah world will not accept it but “Modern Orthodoxy” will be discredited (as I have already witnessed among the youth in my community) and perhaps the “Open Haredi” approach (as someone here coined) will be the wave of the future.

     I feel no need to apologize for the Mesorah, or the traditional roles recognized in Jewish life. Halacha is a categorical system. Women are exempt from time-bound mitzvot both pre-child rearing and post-child rearing (to borrow the reasoning of Rav David Abudraham) and men are obligated even if they are single fathers raising their children. The mesorah speaks in categorical terms, and those categories have sustained Jewish life even if some people chafe under them. But we tamper with the Mesorah at our peril, and the changing role of women in our society has been a mixed blessing.

     It is by now axiomatic, sadly so, that anything can (and will) be permitted by someone, and anything can (and will) be prohibited by someone else. So we look, for normative psak, to a consensus of poskim, mindful that there will always be extremes on both sides. These winds of change do not at all rattle the House of Torah but do shake the foundations of Modern Orthodoxy, which will be forced to detach itself officially from its outliers who rightly and honestly belong in another camp.

     Women have much to offer the Torah world, as is well known, and women’s Talmud Torah has been one of the inspiring phenomena of recent Jewish life. But that is not to say that, therefore, women are ipso facto the same as men and the halachic distinctions between the sexes must be blurred or vitiated. That may be an aspiration of liberal Americans but not of Torah Jews. Worthy women have historically been spiritual role models, but never spiritual leaders, and fidelity to Torah – for all Jews – involves recognizing both opportunities and limitations. And those limitations stem from the constructs of halacha and minhag, and not what a group of people perceives that the Jewish society can tolerate or accept at any given time.

     I predict (always a dangerous venture) that this phenomenon will be self-marginalizing. A schism is upon us, sadly and unnecessarily, but not unexpectedly. In every generation the fences of Torah are breached, and at times by people who were once firmly inside them, and clarity is indispensable. Windows enable us to gaze upon the world outside, but keep the cold winds outside as well. Not all windows are the same quality, and some windows let in a draft that upsets the entire house. New movements have to define themselves by breaking away from the establishment. But people should know and understand the roots of the opposition, and the few proponents of this – who are tolerant of so much – should be tolerant of this opposition, and its consequences, as well.

    And may we all continue to act for the glory of G-d and His Torah.

     Good question. Some will undoubtedly point to the distinguished Roshei Yeshiva at YU for that designation, but clearly their piskei halacha are followed by their students and a self-selected group of questioners. They, sadly, cannot be deemed the poskim for the ModOs, because many (if not most) ModOs would not ask them, and, if they did, would not necessarily heed their decisions. So who fulfills the role of the posek for the Modern Orthodox ? Good question. No good answer, and therein lies the essence of the problem of Modern Orthodoxy today, one it came by quite honestly, and which mostly answers the question: how did a so-called “Modern Orthodox” movement begin ordaining women, a matter that even Professor Saul Lieberman of JTS reportedly opposed just 30 years ago ?

    The answer is that there is no posek for Modern Orthodoxy, almost by definition. Modern Orthodoxy has always been shaped by a variety of Western imperatives, and as Western values change, Modern Orthodoxy attempts to change with it. And one staple of Western man – especially in the United States for more than two centuries – has been a clear streak of anti-authoritarianism. “Don’t tread on me” was the chest-bumping chant of nascent America that is still prevalent today in American political life. (It is the unspoken but guiding principle of today’s Tea Party movement.) And it is among the dominant trends of Modern Orthodoxy, otherwise expressed as “Who are you to tell me what to do ? I am fully capable of making my own decisions !”

     To be sure, there are many fine ModOs who will ask she’elot – whether to their local Orthodox rabbi or to a Rosh Yeshiva (here or in Israel) whom they respect – and they will consider themselves bound by the decision. They would likely and justifiably dissent from what follows, but, in truth, they would not be considered genuine ModOs by the keepers of the nomenclature. They might consider themselves “modern” because of some other dimension of their lives, and clearly many Western values – especially those rooted in Torah – are positive, virtuous, and indispensable to civil society. To be called “modern” is not necessarily pejorative – but neither is it always, necessarily, affirmative or honorable.

    Consequently, the ModO Rabbi will tout the virtues of local Rabbinic authority, as opposed to a centralized authority. About a decade ago, one of the leading exponents of this notion, the esteemed Rabbi Saul Berman, said at an RCA convention that pulpit Rabbis should construe themselves as akin to “District Court Judges” in the federal court system who have absolute authority in their districts, and need not turn to other districts for judicial guidance. I.e., we can make our own decisions, and we need not fear what a particular Rosh Yeshiva, Jewish community, or tradition itself, will say. When I interjected that the analogy is flawed because even district judges can be overruled by Circuit Court Judges, and they in turn by the US Supreme Court – in fact, engendering the very opposite conclusion from the one he was drawing – there was no response. Perhaps he could have said that since we have no Circuit or Supreme Courts in our system, therefore the District Judge (i.e., Rabbi) reigns supreme. But we do have judicial overseers – those entrusted with the Mesora from generation to generation, and the great body of Torah Jewry of all stripes who recognize – with great honesty and objectivity – what is an innate part of the corpus of Torah and what is a foreign graft that is not truly part of Torah and will eventually be rejected.

     In a very real sense, the Rav zt”l was never replaced. Granted, he towered over the movement, and could not easily be replaced. Certainly, he was ill-disposed to the ideological direction of some of his disciples, but he was a complex individual – as many great people are – and that engendered the enduring discussion of the “Rav’s Legacy” in which a generation of his followers has eagerly engaged. But the Torah bids us to obey the “shofet asher yihiyeh bayamim hahaim,” the judges that will be in those days (Devarim 17:9). Each generation has its own leaders, and they are designated notwithstanding that they might lack the greatness of a prior generation’s leaders. There are outstanding Gedolei Torah in the ModO world; the fact that they are not perceived as “authorities” is not because they lack the magnitude of Rav Soloveitchik, but rather because many ModOs have willfully and purposely chosen not to embrace any final, absolute authority – to permit that ultimate freedom of action and to actualize that most American value: “Don’t tread on me.” (The right-wing, Yeshivish, Charedi worlds are much more hierarchical, and their deceased Torah giants are mourned, their teshuvot avidly studied and serve as precedents to be discarded reluctantly and rarely – but they do move on to the next generation of Torah leaders.) The ModOs never moved on, and in that vacuum of Rabbinic leadership, anything goes – including female Rabbis. Who’s to stand athwart history yelling “Stop!” ?

     Two months ago, I wrote in this space: “I have no doubt that the International Rabbinic Fellowship will find a way to admit women as members, and as Rabbis, and thereby in the short-term necessitate a change in their name (already!) to the International Rabbinic Fellowship and Galship (IRFG).”  That it happened so soon is also not that surprising, as any movement that thrives on media attention needs regular injections of publicity. And there is a virtue in clarity, in dropping all the pretenses, the forced explanations and contrived titles, and being honest about intentions and objectives. (And when they ordain homosexual rabbis and officiate at same-sex marriages – first to be called “commitment ceremonies,” of course – they will be up to speed with their Reform and Conservative colleagues. Now, they are lagging by about two decades.)

       By the way, what kind of title is “Rabba” anyway ? The Reform and Conservative Rabbis all call themselves “Rabbi” – male and female. Rabba is a man’s name, to boot; roughly twenty amoraim were named Rabba, including, most famously, Rabba bar Nachmani, who must be rolling in his holy grave along with his famous bar plugta, Rav Yosef. Interestingly, the great Rabba was nicknamed “okeir harim” – the uprooter of mountains – for his keen analytical skills, while Rav Yosef was nicknamed “Sinai” for his prodigious memory. Is it fair to say that this new, female Rabba is just ….okeir Sinai ? (I.e., Okeret Sinai, of course.)

     And what is next – non-Jewish Rabbis ? And why not, you might ask. Is there some prohibition about having a non-Jew preach (or sing) from the pulpit ? Apparently not. Is there a prohibition against a non-Jew doing pastoral work ? Certainly not.  Is there some prohibition against a non-Jew leading psukei d’zimra or Lecha Dodi ? He (she) is only reading Hebrew. Can a non-Jew not pasken she’elot­ – assuming, of course, that they receive the same Torah training and education as a Jew ? Hmmm. Can a non-Jew not ascertain whether a wedding ring is a shaveh pruta ? Hmmm, you read it here first. Of course, a non-Jew cannot count in a minyan or read from the Torah or be a witness, but…never mind… This was meant facetiously –neither l’halacha nor l’maaseh! – but to illustrate where the embrace of pure individual autonomy, rejection of Mesora, and intellectual “creativity” lead.

     There are cogent halachic, philosophical and social objections to the ordination of women (related to serara, leadership, the normal functions of the Rabbinate that cannot be performed by women, psak, mesora, et al), but history provides the clearest instruction. The Conservative movement approved women’s ordination only after the death of Professor Lieberman, a Slabodka talmid who always seemed out of place in Morningside Heights. (Reportedly, when Professor Lieberman came to America, Rav Yitzchak Hutner asked him first to teach at Yeshivat Chaim Berlin; instead, he went to JTS… It was a different generation!) But when JTS ordained women, that decision was the primary catalyst for the founding of the Union of Traditional Judaism, a Conservative splinter group for which the ordination breach was just too much. Is it fair to conclude that, for those keeping score at home, that this puts IRFG (and its YCT patron; forget the cosmetic barrier erected between the two) somewhere to the left of UTJ, known colloquially as “right-wing Conservative”? If so, and apparently it is so, then shouldn’t YCTers now come home ? Did they originally see themselves as being outside the pale of Orthodoxy ? Did they realize that the legitimacy of their semicha would be challenged, and then rejected by the Torah world ? For most, certainly, I think not. Come home.

     The slope is no longer slippery, as the bottom has already been reached, for now at least. Modern Orthodoxy, and its leading Rabbinical organization, has to clarify where it stands, drawing lines in the sand where necessary, and deciding, regretfully and sadly, what – and who – is outside the world of Torah. No one needs another intramural fight, not with Iran’s nuclear bomb looming. But in this week’s sedra, Amalek attacked a Jewish nation “she’rafu yideihem min haTorah” – whose grasp of Torah slackened, loosened, and became more tenuous. We have to re-assert the fundamental norms of Torah, or we will cease being construed as authentic representatives of the Creator.

     One of those norms is the rejection of the anti-authoritarian streak of Western man, and the recognition that subservience to halachic authority is the hallmark of the Torah Jew. And the converse – the life of the libertine – is the antithesis of Torah, and the root of idolatry: the creation of G-d in man’s image. Most ModOs will reject this latest innovation, but the leftist fringe will keep pushing and pressuring, especially in small communities away from the center of Jewish life. We need to protect them, and push back, and state unequivocally – with love and tears – to those who are about to walk the plank: “This is not the way. Come home.”

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