Category Archives: Halacha

    As the Rabbinical world wrestles with a public response to the latest deviation from tradition – the  “Rabbah – woman Rabbi” phenomenon – it is worthwhile to reflect on its provenance, and one basic question that haunts many of us: at what price machloket ? Must the small, insular Jewish community – already beleaguered by external enemies – suffer another schism, another set of divisions ?

      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.

     The sun shone brighter not long ago, and all earthlings had more pep in their step, with the news that a new rabbinical organization was launched – the International Rabbinic Fellowship. Ostensibly, it was formed in order to counter what they perceive as the too-dominant influence of Roshei Yeshiva in psak (Jewish legal decision-making) and communal life. In reality, it is an organization with a narrow agenda – to push the envelope of halacha so wide that it can accommodate the demands of feminists, homosexuals, and other assorted causes blowing in the cultural winds, and in a way that it senses that neither the Rabbinical Council of America nor the “right-wing” Yeshiva world will, properly, ever tolerate.

     Ordinarily, the founding of a new rabbinical organization would not be an occasion for comment, or even much general interest, as Jews are well known for organizations that are either redundant or promote – even just for vanity – the interests of one person. And since not all doctors belong to the AMA, not all lawyers belong to the ABA, and not all seasoned citizens belong to the AARP, why should all Orthodox Rabbis belong to any of the current five, six or seven existing rabbinical organizations ? If in the rest of Jewish communal life, the slightest difference in tinge, color or philosophy warrants a new organization (with overhead costs, officers, fund-raising, dinners, etc.), why should Rabbis be different ? Indeed, everyone knows (although few admit) that the quest for “unity” in Jewish life usually means “agree with ME or I will go my own way” (and everyone is a ME to himself). As such, the formation of any new organization is rather unsurprising.

     There is an interest, though, in highlighting the stated objectives of this new organization, if only out of a desire to propagate the Torah truth and safeguard the Mesora, as I see it. If several dozen Rabbis find fault with the ideological direction of the more than 1000 member RCA, not to mention the thousands of Orthodox Rabbis who are considered as part of the right-wing world, it is legitimate to inquire as to the nature of the disagreements, and whether they contain any substance.

     Clearly, they find the influence of the “Roshei Yeshiva” as stultifying – certainly those in the Yeshiva world but perhaps even most at Yeshiva University. They are perceived – probably justifiably – as resistant to the “changes” in Jewish life, first made by the Conservative movement in the last century but now embraced as a legitimate expression of “Torah” by proponents of this new organization. Actually, the rivalry between Roshei Yeshiva and shul (or town) Rabbis is not new, but was a staple of Jewish communal life in Eastern Europe. There, the balance of power favored the town Rabbis – and not the Roshei Yeshiva – as the town Rabbis were considered both scholars and pragmatists, and were more actively involved in people’s lives. Indeed, in Europe, it was considered more prestigious to be a town Rabbi than a Rosh Yeshiva.

     Today, the balance of power has shifted somewhat, and Roshei Yeshiva are, if not more respected (I have no complaints in that regard), then at least widely construed as more reliable and consistent interpreters of halacha. This is perhaps an over-generalization, and is shaped by three distinct phenomena: one, many people do not have a Rosh Yeshiva, and for them their Rabbi remains the exclusive address for Torah advice and guidance (that is a good part of my job); two, many students who spend years learning with a particular teacher develop a warm personal relationship with him, which is quite natural and understandable; three, Roshei Yeshiva generally train the pulpit Rabbis, and the burden of proof is on the Rabbi to justify why  he deviated from his teacher’s path.

     It is not my place to judge the relative Torah scholarship of Roshei Yeshiva vs. pulpit Rabbis, as there are many pulpit Rabbis (and Roshei Yeshiva) who are fine, outstanding Talmidei Chachamim. To be a pulpit Rabbi or a Rosh Yeshiva requires a different set of skills. Because pulpit Rabbis live in the grass roots, their decisions are often rooted in a greater awareness of communal concerns; conversely, Roshei Yeshiva can be in an “ivory tower,” unaware of how their decisions will affect a community beyond the individual who questioned them. Even to suggest that the world of Roshei Yeshiva is monolithic, or that their decisions are necessarily correct, would be misleading. And no one is infallible.

    But the pulpit Rabbi is also subject to pressures that the Rosh Yeshiva is not, and therefore Roshei Yeshiva today have become – fairly or not – perceived as more coherent defenders of the Mesora against the onslaught of modern cultures and its insatiable demands on halacha and minhag Yisrael. Undoubtedly, that underlies the discomfort (distaste ?) this new organization feels toward the authority of the “Roshei Yeshiva” who have not been forthcoming on issues of importance to them.

     Three examples suffice: the nascent movement among some liberal-Orthodox Rabbis to find a place for practicing homosexuals in Orthodox life, usually by embracing the politicized conclusions of academics that homosexuality is innate, and it is therefore wrong – even immoral – to term homosexuality an abomination or homosexuals sinners. I’ll address that another time, but the attempt to accept homosexuality as a legitimate lifestyle, and even support the legalization of homosexual marriage, may be an expression of sensitivity and compassion on some level but is clearly driven by the popular culture. That itself erodes the respect that these Rabbis think should be theirs, and increases in inverse proportion the ire they feel towards the “Roshei Yeshiva.” That is to say, they lose credibility as representatives of Torah when they adopt such trendy views, and founding five or ten new organizations will not change that one iota. Simply put, the mass of Torah-faithful Klal Yisrael will not stand for it.

     Secondly, “liberal” Orthodox Rabbis call for relaxed standards for converts, and dissent from the standards promulgated several years ago by the RCA. They would rather revert to the practices of the recent past, where Rabbis were often compelled to look away from insincerity, or pretend that halachic commitment existed where it patently did not. See http://www.jewishpress.com/pageroute.do/30621 . But an individual Rabbi retains the autonomy to pronounce a particular restaurant kosher or not, based on standards that others can accept or reject; he does not have the right to dictate to the nation of Israel who will properly be termed a citizen. (I refer here not to the State of Israel but to the Jewish people. Membership in the Jewish people is not determined by the predilections of individual rabbis but by generally-accepted standards. Nor was the State of Israel endowed with the authority to declare “who is a Jew;” they can only decide “who is an Israeli.”)

     The third issue is that (now) century-old bugaboo of women’s rights and feminism. 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 International Rabbinic Fellowship and Galship (IRFG).

     More seriously, I sense their inner turmoil. They would like to ordain women as rabbis, but fear the obvious repercussions. Similarly, they must chafe at the mechitza, women’s inadmissibility as witnesses, judges, or in a minyan, or the restrictions on women in public prayer, or the very notion that the Torah ideal is based on a division of roles and responsibilities between men and women (analogous to the division between kohanim, leviim and yisraelim). They recognize the “mechitza” as a political statement – a clear sign of Orthodoxy in a synagogue, as lack of a mechitza is a clear sign of non-Orthodoxy. So they are stuck – emotionally, intellectually, halachically and spiritually – and therefore bristle at organizations – RCA, Young Israel, Aguda – that do not give them cover or succor, and at people – “Roshei Yeshiva” – whose authority, popularity and credibility they resent, and crave for themselves. It must be hard to explain these encroachments on the altar of egalitarianism to their constituents who have learned to expect flexibility-on-demand in halacha.

      So they skirt the issues, and implausibly think they can introduce gimmicks for women (sheva brachot in English, serve as Rabbis without the title, etc.) that do not really satiate the demand for equality, and are themselves rationalized by cherry-picking halachic sources and ignoring the mesora. Women’s prayer groups and the Yoetzet movement (the latter, more understandable in Israel where the Rabbinate is largely dysfunctional) are just two examples of the straight line one can draw from the Reform ordination of women in the early 1970’s and the Conservative ordination in the 1980’s until today. What changed ? Why did Orthodoxy vehemently oppose those ordinations then, and a few support it today ? Were we sexist, male chauvinists then, and more enlightened today ? Did it take thirty years to find the sources to rationalize it ? Not at all. The secular world changed, and for those whose halachic foundations shift with every change in the secular world, their world had to change as well.

    In brief, one has to line up a number of halachic ducks in a row (permitting women to learn Torah she-be-al peh, sing in public, speak before male audiences, decide matters of Jewish law, et al – each one somewhat controversial, some more controversial than others) in order to entertain these changes. The outcome is predetermined, because the psak is not based on an honest appraisal of sources but on finding the supportive sources and ignoring the rest. And then one has to wantonly discount Minhag Yisrael.

    Some of my dearest colleagues who endorsed either (or both) women’s prayer groups or yoatzot (I didn’t) now find themselves on the horns of a dilemma. Each move raised expectations, each move fostered the idea that we were revising the traditional role of women in Jewish life, or entirely abandoning it as both antiquated and repugnant – and so each move just encouraged the next one and the one after that.

     We can always play with halacha in an attempt to devise new roles. A husband is as capable of lighting Shabbat candles as his wife is, and usually less harried. How uplifting it would be if men went to the mikveh monthly, as well as women. Nothing wrong with that; some men go every day. We can also find a way to eat milk right after meat; we don’t, because that has no lobby. We also don’t, because that is not our tradition. The Torah – not liberal society – also determines our values, not just our practices.

     The real dividing line in Jewish life today is between those who are happy with the mesora and those unhappy with the mesora. Kabbalat Ol Malchut Shamayim (acceptance of the yoke of G-d’s kingship) demands that we accept the mesora even if we deem ourselves “more enlightened;” otherwise, we – like Nadav and Avihu before us – are worshipping ourselves, and not the Almighty. And isn’t that the ultimate reality of Western man today – self-worship ? If I am unhappy with the Mesora, it is because of something within me that needs rectification. I have to bend to the Torah’s will, and not bend the Torah to suit my will. Those who live with grievances against the Torah must recognize that on some level, as Moshe once said to his flock, “…your complaints are not against us, but against G-d” (Sh’mot 16:8).

     The feminist movement ravaged the American family, with skyrocketing rates of divorce that have only recently begun to level off, with a majority of children born out-of-wedlock, and with the continuing unreliability of the home as the transmitter of values. The Jewish world has suffered from this as well, and we should not look to repeat the mistakes from which American society is already retreating.

      Sometimes, the answer to a she’ela is “no” – like the answer a wise parent has to give to a child on occasion.  Any organization founded on the principle that a leniency can always be found to justify what we want to do (women, converts, homosexuals, Shabbat, you name it) will attract like-minded, tenuously-committed Jews but will soon be an anachronism, leaving only the questions: how much damage can it do to Jewish life ? How many well-meaning Jews will be misled into thinking that the Torah is a ball of wax that can be shaped any way they want in order to satisfy their needs ? How will pulpit Rabbis retain the respect of Torah Jews ? And how long before the Torah world rejects these notions, and this new organization merges with some form of Conservative Judaism that posited the same approach in the last century, with devastating results for Jewish life ?

     The reality is that men are the transmitters of the Mesora, and therefore entrusted with responsibilities of psak and leadership. Man’s nature is such that he will not regularly seek out a female teacher of any sort – and certainly not Torah – and those who doubt this should behold the steep decline in male attendance at female-led temples. Any attempt to tamper with the Mesora will not succeed, and the very framework of this new organization will be self-marginalizing. The “Roshei Yeshiva” will reject it, and so will most of the RCA, and the Yeshiva world, and the educated young people of today – men and women – and the religious world in Israel. It will be a curiosity, like Edah that came and went. And the second reality is that women are partners in transmitting the Mesora, but with a different role, different responsibilities, and, yes, different skill sets to help them fulfill their role. Their contributions are indispensable, their growth in Torah is a marvelous development – but neither should lead to a diminution or elimination of their traditional role on which the Jewish family depends, literally, for its survival.

     Should these individuals be purged from the RCA ? I am not enamored of purges, and the RCA can certainly accommodate a wide range of thinking, something natural to the study of Torah in any event. But anyone who thinks that a particular rabbinical organization no longer suits them should probably resign; I know I would. The saddest aspect is that many of the individuals involved – I am not familiar with all of them – are very talented teachers and leaders, with much to offer the Jewish people. Indeed, their greatest weakness might be a boundless love of every Jew that precludes them from inflicting on Jews the slightest pain – even the pain that comes from hearing the word “no.” With Jewish identity under attack (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/24/books/24jews.html?pagewanted=2&em) and the target of the most vulgar distortions and lies, we need all Jews and especially all Rabbis to strengthen the Torah and not to dilute it. We need clarity and consistency – from generation to generation. There needs to be the expectation that halacha will not change because of interest-group politics.

     In America, everyone has the right to found an organization that propounds any philosophy. And everyone has the right – sometimes the obligation – to challenge that organization, to defend what is pure and holy, to expose (where possible) hidden motivations, and to underscore the beauty of our mesora – the tree of life of Torah, for those who want to grasp it.