Category Archives: Current Events

An Abundance of Riches

Posted on July 10, 2013 | 11 comments

Let’s concede at the outset that the process by which Israel chooses its Chief Rabbis is disgraceful, humiliating, over-politicized and demeaning to all the participants. The election date has come and gone without any election; the terms of the previous Chief Rabbis have expired and been extended; and the electoral process itself changes from week to week and is still unclear.
We can also concede that the involvement (even interest) of American Jews is fairly limited. Our lives will not be changed in any meaningful way whether the Chief Rabbi is this one or that one. We have little stake in the outcome, notwithstanding that there is always cooperation between rabbis in both countries and there are consequences to all from any of our actions.
What is being lost – indeed, trampled – in the process is the realization that all of the candidates are wonderful people, fine talmidei chachamim, and outstanding Rabbonim. Every single one of them would serve as Chief Rabbi with honor and distinction, and there are a dozen other Rabbis off the top of my head that would be equally outstanding if they sought and gained the position. The politicking, the campaigning and the media advisers have made this election unseemly, but it should not divert us from the basic reality: we are blessed to have such capable rabbis in their current positions and in the Chief Rabbinate if they are so blessed (if, indeed, that is the right word).
Most of the public’s attention has been focused on Rav David Stav, Rav of the town of Shoham and head of the rabbinical organization Tzohar. Rav Stav is a creative, energetic, dynamic leader who is rooted in the Mesorah but who is unafraid to speak his mind, to break through the inertia of the terminally passive, and to make the Rabbinate more responsive to the people. He is said to be the choice of secular Israelis, among others, because he will look to revise the status quo and renew the role of the rabbinate in Israel. The attacks on him have been scandalous and unfair, but have succeeded – as lashon hara usually does – in making him in the eyes of some into a polarizing figure. That itself is unfair.
The primary alternative candidate now is Rav David Lau, Chief Rabbi of Modiin, with whom I have developed a very warm relationship over the last few years. Son of a former Chief Rabbi, Rav Yisrael Meir Lau, whose life story should be read by and inspire all Jews, Rav David should nonetheless not be perceived as a legacy candidate, driven to higher rabbinic office by the effects of nepotism. He is an exceptional human being – warm, friendly, engaging, personable and dedicated to Torah and Klal Yisrael. By the standards of the Israeli rabbinate, he is unique. I have personally witnessed Rav Lau walk miles on Shabbat morning to participate in the smachot taking place in a variety of kehillot, only because as the city’s rabbi he deems it appropriate. (Few, if any other chiefs, do the same – Rav Shlomo Riskin in Efrat being the exception, but an exception that proves the rule.) That approach, more typical of the American rabbinate, is sorely lacking in Israel. Rav Lau brings that to Modiin, which is why so many will be disappointed if he is elected, because they do not wish to lose him – the greatest testimony to a Rav’s effectiveness.
Both Rav Stav and Rav Lau are excellent orators and teachers of Torah. But this is unique: every Thursday night at 11:00 PM, Rav Lau gives a shiur at a different home in one neighborhood of Modiin, only because people asked for it and he is happy to do it. (I have attended several times myself and even filled in once when Rav Lau was away.) Between 15-20 men come every week, late at night (the class ends around midnight), and Rav Lau enters, banters, takes a topic in halacha or from the sedra and teaches Torah. There is no money, no fanfare, no entourage, no need for the national media to take note of it; just a Rav teaching Torah to eager students, laymen all. He is treasured by religious and secular alike, and his scholarship is apparent from his sefer on halacha (a compendium of different topics) called “Maskil L’David.”
Another illustrious Rav whose name was entered but withdrawn because of an age barrier is Rav Yaakov Ariel, Chief Rabbi of Ramat Gan. He is not only a superior talmid chacham, but a human being of exquisite sensitivity and humility. One example: a number of years ago, the expellees from Gush Katif set up a protest tent outside the Knesset in which they lived for a few weeks while their demands for justice were being considered. I went to visit them to show support. When I arrived, all I saw was Rav Ariel sitting in the tent surrounded by the refugees, giving a shiur, offering words of chizuk, consoling, supporting and identifying with Jews in need. Again – there was no entourage, no media, nothing to record that this was the rabbinate at its best: ministering to Jews, and tending to their spiritual and material needs not to win plaudits or acclaim but simply because it was the right thing to do.
Some candidacies have been placed on the back burner – but they are also wonderful rabbis and people. Rav Eliezer Igra, Rav of Kfar Maimon and Dayyan, is filled with Torah knowledge, depth, integrity, and love of Israel. He fought in the Yom Kippur War under Yoni Netanyahu’s command, and is widely respected, if perhaps the least known of the candidates. While sitting next to him and chatting at an event not long ago, I noticed that he (like me) wears a kippa serugah under a black hat. I didn’t ask him why (I’m not sure why I do!) but it is symbolic of someone who wants to overcome divisions in Jewish life, and doesn’t wish to see the Torah world divided into teams with uniforms.
And Rav Yaakov Shapira, Rosh Yeshiva of Mercaz HaRav and also son of a former, and most revered Chief Rabbi, Rav Avraham Shapira zt”l, is also a strong religious-nationalist and an effective spokesmen for Torah and the land of Israel. His candidacy also seems to have been muted for now, through no fault of his own.
In the Sefaradi world, admittedly less familiar to me, vying for the position of Chief Rabbi are two of the sons of Rav Ovadia Yosef, and also Rav Shmuel Eliyahu, son of former Chief Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu zt”l. He is the longtime rabbi of Tzfat – a powerful, outspoken defender of Israel, Jewish settlement and Torah – a leader who is unafraid to ruffle feathers and is guided by the truth of Torah in all his endeavors. Another candidate is Rav Ratzon Arussi, a dayyan and Rav of Kiryat Ono, whose Torah works are widely studied but whose outsider status might benefit the Rabbinate in general.
My point is not to choose sides, declare a favorite or to influence any voter; this particular system is broken. It is rather to underscore that all these individuals are splendid Rabbis and human beings, lovers of Israel, who do great honor to the Rabbinate in particular and to the Jewish people generally. The campaigning – including the pathetic leaks, rumors, innuendos and endorsements that are staples of secular elections – should not obscure that fact. Israel is blessed with many fine rabbis. They are the “judges who will be in those days” (Devarim 17:9) whose authority applies to their era. Nostalgia for the past is always pleasurable but often inaccurate. Great rabbis of the past – universally applauded today – were often vilified in their time, and usually by the same type of people responsible for today’s vilifications. (Who knows? Maybe they are all related as well.) That so many people view the Chief Rabbinate as the vehicle for power, patronage, money, jobs and prestige is one reason why the process is so vexing and troublesome. But don’t blame the rabbis for that.
Whoever wins, we should wish him well. Whoever doesn’t win, we should wish him well too, for all Jews should be appreciative that they all will continue to serve God, His Torah and His people.

11 Comments

Posted in Contemporary Life, Current Events, Israel

A Visit to Germany

Posted on July 3, 2013 | 5 comments

One of our most fascinating experiences in the recent months did not take place in Israel, but somewhere else entirely. The day after Yom Haatzmaut, Karen and I flew to Germany where we spent almost a week – five days in Berlin and one day in Cologne. Both are very interesting places, but also very sobering places to visit. One visits Germany, if at all, with solemnity. Certainly, I have no grievances against anyone who doesn’t want to visit Germany or buy German products; indeed, I still cringe when I hear the Volkswagen commercial that extols “the power of German engineering.” Such technological expertise was not long ago used to murder millions of Jews.
But there is no country in the world (outside Israel) that has a keener memory of the Holocaust; Germany is saturated in the Holocaust. There are dozens of signposts on the streets erected several years ago commemorating 75 years since the Nazis rise to power. Each signpost contains stories and pictures of what happened in that very place to Jews with real names and families and businesses, Jews who lived there, were persecuted, fled and escaped or were deported to their deaths. Nothing is concealed. Outside the train station nearest our hotel – on Tauentzienstrasse –there is a permanent sign listing the various concentration and death camps to which Jews were dispatched – from that very train station. The Holocaust simply cannot be escaped, a conscious choice that German officials have made.
Remarkably, there are brass plaques called “Stolpersteine,” or “stumbling stones,” on the sidewalks every few blocks – if you look down you can see and read them. These plaques – the tireless work of a non-Jewish German artist – are embedded in the sidewalks in front of apartment buildings where Jews lived, and record (in German), for example, “so-and-so Jew lived here, born 1892, deported to Auschwitz 1942, todt”. In both cities we visited, they were frequent and eerie sights, and the artist continues to add to them every year.
The recognition of the Holocaust is pervasive; in Sachsenhausen, just about 30 minutes north of Berlin, large groups of Germans – young and old – were touring the camp, on a Sunday morning in the spring. And the awareness of the inhumanity of the evil monsters who perpetrated the Holocaust grows and grows. In the bucolic setting of Wannsee, a Berlin suburb, where the infamous conference took place in a beautiful lakeside villa on January 20, 1942, the site now houses a museum that revealed, among other things, that the meeting to decide on the extermination of Europe’s Jews took all of 90 minutes. And not one person there objected to the mass slaughter in which they would all have a hand – and four or five of them escaped real punishment after the war.
Germany is not an easy place to visit –although I thought it would be harder – but it is astonishing that tens of thousands of Jews live there, including thousands of Israelis. In the main shul in Berlin, the Chief Rabbi and the chazzan, fine people, are both Israelis, one older and one younger. They work very hard reaching out to Jews. But I could not suppress one thought – why do Jews live there? Why do they come? Why do they stay? (You can ask that about the Jews of Teaneck too, but that question is coming from a different place.)
In reality, 90% are from the former Soviet Union, and they are awarded substantial benefits and pensions from the German government as soon as they come – as descendants of people invaded by Germany during WW II. There are very few German Jews, very few native Berliners – although I did meet some. Some young immigrants from the old USSR find out – quite suddenly – that they are Jewish and begin investigating Judaism. (The day we visited the shul in Cologne, a large group of much older Jews were practicing for a Russian-Yiddish concert they would soon perform.)
And here is what surprised me: the Kabbalat Shabbat was the most inspiring I had experienced in many years. The singing, the dancing – it was “Carlebach” as Shlomo Carlebach himself would have wanted, not routine but exhilarating. The dancing during Lecha Dodi went on for 25 minutes, but each minute represented a year or two that these Jews had been deprived of their heritage. That morning I had visited the site of Hitler’s bunker where he killed himself – and literally spit on his grave. I enjoyed it – but not as much as I enjoyed each foot stomping during the dancing that night during the davening.
At dinner, the Rabbi told me that almost everyone present was a Baal Teshuva, even those in religious garb. One young man, about 20 years old, is studying engineering, now wears black hat, sports a little beard and soon wants to make aliya. He knows that is his only real chance of remaining Jewish; the rest of his family – they all live near the Belgian border – are uninterested. Another boy recently celebrated his Bar Mitzva, and graciously accepted the Rabbi’s gift of a pair of Tefillin but only on condition that he commit to wearing them every day. He attends public school and is desirous of living a Jewish life –but only time will tell. For him, the next decade will be decisive.
And I noticed one other thing: every shtender (locker) in the shul was locked, and no one had a key. The owners of those shtenders are no longer in this world and took the keys with them. What a message: you can daven in Berlin, and even live there, but there is no future there. The shtender is locked. One cannot leave any inheritance for the next generation.
Why is the Rabbi there? Because there are thousands of Jews who will otherwise be lost to the Jewish people forever. That is his job – to ignite sparks, for this is the last round up before Moshiach. If not now, then when? That is his attitude, with all the hardship that he has– all his children and grandchildren live in Israel, there were recent threats to criminalize Brit Milah, and there are still sporadic attacks on Jews, sometimes from Germans but more often from the large Muslim population. There are great challenges – but the opportunity to save souls is exalted and fleeting. And, of course, that is the attitude of the local Chabad as well, that maintains in Berlin a beautiful, multi-million dollar facility with a kosher restaurant.
Each Jew is a precious soul and each Jew is a nation and a world in his own right. Jews who wish to make a difference lift their heads, step forward and put themselves on the line – even when others are quick to take shots at them. They are the saviors of the nation and the rescuer of souls. What is more exalting than seeing souls reborn and rejuvenated; what is more daunting than knowing that time is short; what is more challenging than knowing that if we too lift our heads, we can have a share in the rebirth of the Jewish people, and see G-d’s blessings descend on His people and His land.

5 Comments

Posted in Contemporary Life, Current Events

Secrets

Posted on June 28, 2013 | 4 comments

Secrets
A few years ago, I visited the headquarters of the National Security Agency (NSA), the nation’s most secretive organization, about 20 minutes or so outside Washington, DC. Well, I didn’t actually visit it. I was right outside – my business was in the vicinity – but stumbled upon it. It is a massive complex surrounded by fences, barbed wire and guard posts. What struck me was that the parking lot contained, without exaggeration, thousands of cars crunched together, and I marveled that the NSA with so many thousands of workers could do its work without leaks or breaches of security.
Hello, Edward Snowden.
Snowden, who presents as such a weird duck that one wonders how he got a sensitive job at all (he didn’t work in that Maryland facility), has taken the liberty – as many leftists do – of harming US security and revealing secrets because of the undetermined and inscrutable cause for which he is fighting. For sure, the reality that private conversations can be monitored and private emails read and intercepted came as a shock to the American civil system that prides itself on personal space and the right to privacy. Granted, government officials claim that no calls/emails of private citizens were invaded, but, understandably, no one really believes them. Usually, it takes time for abuses to surface, if they do at all, and these allegations are simple to deny and difficult to prove. There is some poetic justice in the “most transparent administration of all time,” as the Obama-nation proclaimed it would be, looking to justify its spying when it lambasted prior administrations for doing the same and less. And the IRS scandal, which really pried into and interfered with American lives, is still awaiting its liberal John Dean to blow the lid off the cover-up. Is there anyone in the administration with a conscience, at long last?
Here’s the thing: I don’t really care about the NSA. My life is not that interesting that the government should want to unleash spies to target me and probe my phone calls (few and brief) and emails (even fewer and briefer). I have long felt that the passive but persistent encroachments on personal freedom affect only the criminals, not the law-abiding, in which group I cast myself. The streets of most American cities are loaded with cameras (only the red-light cameras threaten me). Wherever we walk – subway or stores – we are watched by cameras. None of that bothers me; I am not about to mug or shoplift.
The more aggressive and useless invasions of privacy still grate, especially the airport security personnel. It is senseless to search every 75 year-old named Agnes when the real targets are 25 year-olds named Ahmed. Much of it, in any event, is security theater that provides the illusion of security but mainly serves to protect higher-ups from accusations of negligence if, God forbid, something goes wrong. “We followed our standard procedure of strip-searching nonagenarians with hip replacements and we dutifully confiscated the water bottles from screaming children. We must have missed something in that group carrying their prayer rugs who were whining about racial profiling.”
In any event, the Israeli satirical web site Latma (Latma.co.il) had it right when it “reported” a few weeks ago that “Americans are very upset to learn that the government has been spying on their private lives, even before they have a chance to post about it on Facebook.” There is something bizarre about a nation of emotional exhibitionists baring their every secret (and more) in the public domain, and then griping about a loss of privacy. Of course, the government has no right to intrude, and every American possesses a constitutional right to make an absolute fool of himself/herself by reporting on the inanities of their lives and sharing every stray, incomplete thought in incomplete and ungrammatical sentences. But a little self-awareness is also appropriate.
Privacy unappreciated and underutilized tends to dissipate, and in the US, fame and fortune are the rewards for those who can be the most public about what is usually most private. Let us not shed crocodile tears for those whose inner sanctum is breached by others before they have a chance to shatter the walls themselves. Privacy was always a cherished value, lauded by the Torah that grants everyone four ells to himself, and castigates those who reveal themselves or allow others access to their intimate lives. The beginning of Masechet Bava Batra discusses “hezek re’iyah,” the harm that accrues to a person when others can see him and his boundaries are invaded by the sight of others. But there can be no “hezek re’iyah” if we willfully put our lives on display.
Tzniut – modesty, humility – is not only about clothing, but most simply about privacy, about carving out areas in life in which only one’s closest and dearest are admitted. It is a lost value for several reasons, but primarily because the accessibility of our lives to others has led many to get less attention, not more, and immodesty in all its forms – verbal, physical, material – is often just a cry for attention. As every petulant child knows, even negative attention is attention.
A Snowden toils in obscurity until he realizes the acclaim and riches that will be garnered by public exposure of secrets and the betrayal of his country. At least Jonathan Pollard – who should have been released yesterday, ten or twenty years ago, or tomorrow – passed classified secrets to a US ally – Israel – but did not intend to harm America. Snowden did not reveal his secrets to benefit anyone but simply to sow mistrust, weaken the United States and curry favor with anti-American forces across the world. I wonder how he will be treated if he is ever caught.
The Talmud (Sanhedrin 31a) states that it was reported that a disciple revealed a secret kept for 22 years in a certain study hall. Rav Ami kicked him out, saying “this one betrays secrets.” Today, he would go on the talk-show circuit. But secrecy, privacy and modesty are the virtues of refined people. Rashi (Bamidbar 24:5) notes that Bil’am perceived the majesty of the camp of Israel in that their doors did not face each other, so no one could peer into another’s tent.
How quaint. How modest. How beautiful. And how missed is that world.

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Posted in Chumash, Contemporary Life, Current Events, Machshava/Jewish Thought

A Response for the Neo-Cons

Posted on June 21, 2013 | 13 comments

In the Times of Israel (http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/mesorah-and-making-room-a-journey-to-womens-spiritual-leadership/), Rabbi Avi Weiss, whom I will always esteem for his past accomplishments for the Jewish people notwithstanding his current odyssey, lays out his case for the ordination of women as a natural evolution of the Mesorah as he sees it. His arguments are compelling, skilled polemics, but ultimately fall short and are unpersuasive, as well as divisive to the Jewish people.
Note first the proof case for this flexible Mesorah – the Gemara Chulin 6b that states that the great Rebbi (Rabbi Judah the Prince) permitted the residents of Bet Shean to eat produce without first tithing it on the grounds that Bet Shean was not then part of the land of Israel. (Needless to say, none of the innovators here have the stature or national leadership role of Rebbi.) Nonetheless, the story actually proves the opposite of what Rabbi Weiss presented, as it begins (a curiously omitted passage) that Rebbi “heard testimony that Rabbi Meir ate a vegetable leaf grown in Bet Shean without tithing and based on that Rebbi exempted Bet Shean from the tithing requirement.”
That is to say, Rebbi saw that there was evidently an existing tradition to exempt Bet Shean from tithing, or Rabbi Meir would not have eaten untithed vegetables. Likely, there was a change in the facts on the ground – an obvious loss of sovereignty of the Jewish people in that territory and a reduced population that led Rebbi to decree that it was no longer part of the land of Israel for tithing purposes. Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi was simply following his rebbe, Rabbi Meir, and extended Rabbi Meir’s private decision to the public. But here, was there an existing tradition that Rabbi Weiss followed to ordain women? No. (Only non-Orthodox movements have done so, first Reform, followed a decade or so later by Conservative.) Was there a change in the factual circumstances that called into question the prior mesora? Not at all.
Rabbi Weiss: “Rebbe responded: makom hinihu li avotai le-hit’gader bo – “My ancestors left room for me to distinguish myself.” (Hullin 6b,7a) In other words, it’s been left over for the next generation. No generation can do all of the work that is necessary. It is not only the right, but the obligation of each generation le-hit’gader bo—to distinguish itself. Not to distinguish itself in an arrogant sense, but in the sense of continuing the work of not being frozen in the past and thus taking halakha to even greater heights.”
In fact, Rashi here (Chulin 7a) does interpret “lehitgader” to mean “lehitgadel” – to become great, to make a reputation, to demonstrate halachic prowess. That interpretation perhaps hits closer to home than wanted, but the interpretation of “continuing the work of not being frozen in the past and thus taking halakha to even greater heights” is Rabbi Weiss’ own and not indicated by the text or commentators. In any event, clearly the facts changed and necessitated a different psak than the one his ancestors gave. How is that related at all to women’s ordination? No facts changed; what changed was embracing the secular value system that sees egalitarianism as a Torah value, when it is clearly not.
Notice also that the premise in Chullin is based on two individuals – Asa and Yehoshafat – who did not do what they should have done – destroy idols – thereby allowing Chizkiyahu to “make his reputation” as an idol-buster. I.e., Chizkiyahu’s “innovation” was to destroy what his ancestors failed to destroy. He did the right thing; it wasn’t at all a “Mesora” issue. How does this justify women’s ordination? Additionally, Rabbi Yehuda’s decision was localized, applicable only to the few Jews of Bet Shean. By contrast, Rabbi Weiss’ decision to unilaterally change long-standing tradition and, in the process, disregard several halachic principles, purports to affect all of the Klal Yisrael.
That is not to say that individual halachists have no right to disagree with a psak of prior generations or poskim. Rav Herschel Schachter posits (in his recently released Divrei Sofrim, Page 67) that according to the Rambam, a Bet Din can disagree with the conclusions of prior Batei Din even if not greater than them, except in areas of takana. Of course, the Rambam referred to Batei Din and not individuals, but the same would apply even to great individuals. (“However, this should not lead one to the conclusion that in every generation, rabbinic leaders can pasken as they please.” Pages 113-114).
But note the three cases Rabbi Weiss adduced to show the Mesorah’s evolution: polygamy, slavery and yefat to’ar. In each case, Chazal made use of the principle of “shev v’al taaseh,” don’t so something because it might violate another Torah value. The ordination of women is exactly the opposite – it is a “kum v’aseh,” an active, affirmative violation of the tradition, not a passive abstention from a particular act.
Two examples suffice: the halacha bans blowing the shofar on the first day of Rosh Hashana that falls on Shabbat, lest a person carry the shofar in the public domain to learn how to blow it. The Mesorah “evolutionists” might posit that since today, only proficient people blow, and we have eruvin, and we can leave the shofar in shul before Shabbat, etc., that the tradition of not blowing on Shabbat Rosh Hashana should be abandoned and that we should again be able to listen to the inspiring and awesome sounds of the shofar even on Shabbat. It makes sense – we would thereby fulfill a Torah commandment of shofar – but that breach of the Mesorah would place one beyond the pale of Orthodoxy.
So, too, drawing from one of Rabbi Weiss’ own examples: suppose an enterprising, creative rabbi would decide to reverse Rabbenu Gershom’s ban on polygamy. After all, the edot hamizrach never accepted it, and it is arguable whether it has lapsed or even if he meant it for all time. And this innovative rabbi would do it for the most sincere reasons – say, resolve the singles’ crisis, in which unmarried females outnumber unmarried males. Imagine if willing males would embrace two or three women into their homes. Forget the bigamy laws (as many people have already). The immorality that prevails today (fewer and fewer marriages take place) could certainly accommodate concubinage, which is obviously more formal and more respectful than adultery, one-night stands or other such shenanigans that are not uncommon in the modern world. Needless to say, the rabbi who would suggest that would place himself outside the pale of Orthodoxy and in a heap of trouble with his wife. In theory, though, why couldn’t an “evolving Mesorah” accept that?
The answer is because the Mesorah does not adapt to new circumstances in the way that Rabbi Weiss presented, which is in fact precisely the methodology of the non-Orthodox movements: see which cultural winds are blowing, presume that those values are good, proper and worthy of emulation, and figure out a way to do with the minimum disfigurement of Jewish law. I.e., decide what you want to so and then adduce the sources to permit it. But halacha has a methodology with which it addresses new circumstances; the ordination of women did not utilize it but did utilize the evolutionary theory of the non-Orthodox.
Notice also how innocuous practices – simchat bat – are conflated with weightier issues, like women’s ordination. But even the shalom zachar has a broader purpose unrelated to women (I think, and perhaps only to date:) it announces when the brit mila will take place.
Two references are jarring. The first – allegedly the original Maharat – was someone named Osnat who headed a yeshiva in Kurdistan for a time. Frankly, I have never heard of her, do not even know if she really lived or was simply a fictional character in some historical novel. With all due respect to her and to my dear brethren of the Kurdish-Jewish community, Osnat – if she indeed lived – was certainly not a mainstream figure and even less is known about the spiritual level of her community that induced them to retain the services of this predecessor to Yentl. She cannot be a precedent – she did not even have any successors. By way of analogy, the bearded lady was always a staple of the carnival, but she was hardly a reason to apply to all women the three biblical prohibitions relating to shaving.
The second reference is also a hardy perennial – boldly stating that deceased great rabbis would now support innovations that they strenuously opposed during their lifetimes. It is a specious argument that adds nothing to the debate because it can neither be sustained nor refuted. Tampering with the words and writings of great Sages after they have gone to their eternal reward, and twisting them to mean the opposite of what they said, is not much different than the posthumous conversions done to Jews (and others) for many years by the Mormon Church. Personally, it offends me. Citing Rav Kook, the Chofetz Chaim and Rav Soloveitchik out of context as if they would support something that they actually opposed in their lifetimes is disingenuous. May their memories be for a blessing, and may they rest –but really rest – in peace.
Rabbi Weiss: “Our mesorah does not reject the idea of women’s ordination. Quite the contrary, the mesorah rooted in the past, while emanating light into the future, says quite the opposite.” But it does reject the idea; if not, scholarly women from Bruria, the wife of Rabbi Meir, to Nechama Leibowitz z”l would have been called “Rabbi.” The fact that they were not – and it is a fact – means that the mesorah did not and could not accommodate that title or that job description.
The fact that there is a “demand,” if four institutions out of thousands can be described as “a demand,” really says nothing at all. There are many varieties of Judaism’s out there, many of them having only a tangential relationship with Torah. Any experienced rabbi could attest that many Jews, told something (a food, a restaurant, a Maharat) they long thought was forbidden was now permitted, will flock to it at first. Usually the demand for the illicit is very strong, but it peters out when the desire for the next illicit thing builds and builds. People love to have permitted to them what they want to do anyway, but that is hardly to be perceived as spiritual greatness.
Elsewhere I have addressed the halachic and hashkafic problems, but the attempt to change the Mesorah and traditional Jewish practice because American values have changed is, simply, non-Orthodox. To act on the impulse that the Torah considers women “second-class citizens” is repugnant, and can only and necessarily lead to further halachic mischief. In a free country, anyone can do anything and call it Judaism or anything else. But the Torah world has an equal right – and obligation – to characterize such deviations for what they are: non-Orthodox, mimicry of the Reform/Conservative approach to Jewish law and methodology, and self-alienation of the Torah world.
No one involved in this controversy, least of all myself, is Rabbi Yehuda, Rabbi Meir, the Chofetz Chaim, Rav Kook, Rav Soloveitchik, et al. This unilateral attempt to transform the traditional role of women in Jewish life has grave ramifications – for marriages, families, children, the Jewish community, the integrity of the Mesorah, and the Orthodox world. It is tantamount to castigating and besmirching the rabbis and leaders of prior generations for not being as enlightened or moral as present company. That requires some broad shoulders and enormous self-confidence.
A kind reader called to my attention this quote from Rabbenu Bachye’s Chovot Halevavot, Shaar Yichud Hamaaseh, Chapter 5: “Be careful, therefore, not to stray in your step from the way of the fathers and the path of the Early Ones, into unjustifiable innovations, relying only on your mind, consulting only your own opinion, and following only your own conjecture. Do not distrust your fathers regarding what they have handed down to you concerning what is good for you, and do not contradict the views they teach you. For there can be no idea that occurs to you of which they had not already thought and weighed its consequences, both positive and negative.”
“You may recognize the positive in a certain opinion at its initial stage, while the negative consequences at its final stage remain hidden from you; so that, with your lack of deliberation, you will see what is positive in it, but fail to see its error and liability. As the Wise One said: ‘Do not move back the world’s boundary [which your fathers established]’ (Mishlei 22:28).”
That is profound, and profoundly relevant. The grievances against the Torah will not end with this, nor will the deviations from tradition. Like a century ago, a new movement has been created that is outside the realm of Torah. It will not have the same devastating impact on Jewish life as did the other movements because their numbers will remain small. The large majority of the Orthodox world will reject it, some rather prosaically perceiving it as a typical, non-Orthodox pattern. Eventually, its rabbis and adherents will find themselves outside the Orthodox orbit – with their marriages, divorces, conversions and kosher supervisions coming under suspicion or just being rejected.
All that is inevitable, if it hasn’t happened already, and echoes Rabbenu Bachye’s concerns above.
I pray that my remarks are not too strident, and that no one take personal offense. This is the business of Torah. I have said my piece and have no interest in ever again addressing this topic.