Rabbi Pruzansky's Blog

(First published on Israelnationalnews.com)

     The famed American novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald once wrote: “The test of a first rate intelligence is the ability to hold opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.” Such intelligence would be helpful today but is unfortunately lacking.

     The Chaim Walder case has riveted much of Israel and the rabbinic world, yet another example of a Haredi individual who allegedly used a position of trust and influence to prey on children and women, and for years. The stories of abuse are horrific, and the inability of the legal or rabbinic world to deal with the criminal effectively is typical of the global problem in these matters. If one accusation against an individual can be attributed to malice, jealousy or mental illness (or can be true), dozens of accusations coming from disparate and unrelated sources substantiate each other.

      Let us posit that he was guilty of all these crimes. These deeds warrant the death penalty, which in a sense, was carried out. So be it.

       Beyond the abuser, we have to look to heal his victims who bear no responsibility for his death, and console his family (wife, children, grandchildren, parents, and siblings) who are also guiltless, assuming – as all current information indicates – that they knew nothing of the criminal’s predations.

      Chief Rabbi Lau’s shivah visit to the family has been criticized, hotly by some of the usual suspects like the Jerusalem Post, which never misses an opportunity to attack religious Jews, the Rabbinate or the Torah. But it was also criticized by some rabbis who need to be reminded of Fitzgerald’s quote above. Consoling the victims and the family are, indeed, opposed ideas, at least superficially. But these ideas can be kept in mind and still allow us to function, particularly in line with Jewish law and custom.

      Is it a rabbi’s place to show support for a family that just a few months ago was stable and well respected, and has now collapsed? Of course. The family is understandably broken. Those who think that Rav Lau should have contented himself with visiting or calling after shivah do not understand the importance of his visit, which was to emphasize that the family must not be ostracized or stigmatized. The only way to show that was to appear, in person, even knowing his visit would be castigated.

      It is neither the first nor the last time that doing the right albeit controversial thing leads a rabbi into hot water. Such is life. And to those who argue that he should have reached out to the victims, well, who says he didn’t? The tendentious media that trumpets its stories with all the subtlety, substance, accuracy and careful contemplation of the average Twitter user. Don’t believe it.

      That being said, reports of glowing eulogies at the funeral of this miscreant, if accurate, are disgraceful. To be sure, eulogies are meant to shed a positive light on the deceased, not to maledict him. On the other hand, exaggerating a deceased’s accomplishments in the face of the pervasive evil that was attributed to him is perverse. Sometimes it is better to say little or nothing. Going to console the mourners is not the same as attending the funeral – perhaps justifiable also as support for the family – but going overboard on the eulogies is sinful. Those who allegedly eulogized the serial abuser as a “persecuted tzadik” are clueless fools, if not worse. (That conclusion is as theologically sound as averring that he died for our sins.) Those whose only conclusion from this tragic episode is to rail against the sin of lashon hara are disconnected from reality and cause detriment to Torah. Surely, lashon hara is a grave sin – so is rape and molestation, and so is standing by while lives are being endangered.

       Those who continue to deny that problems of abuse exist in their community are enablers of the worst kind.

       Nevertheless, we should be accurate and circumspect in judging any group for the sins of an individual. Predators exist everywhere, since time immemorial. There are Haredi predators, Modern Orthodox, Dati Leumi, Conservative, Reform, unaffiliated Jews, and Catholic and Muslim predators. There are predators who are priests, rabbis and imams, journalists and politicians, doctors and lawyers, teachers and professors, police officers, plumbers and piano teachers, producers and directors, actors and actresses, parents and step-parents. And at first, and shamefully, each group always rallies around its own accused. We do a disservice, and even mislead, when we harp on one group as particularly prone to this malevolence. It is a uniquely toxic blend of sickness and evil that should be beyond the capability of those who should know better and even those who may not know better. And yet it persists.

       Its endurance points to the impossibility of its eradication, something that no decent person wants to hear and no rational person will deny. What then can be done to minimize its prevalence and dastardly effects? There are several elements of society to consider – the victims, the parents, the police, the clergy, and the media. Each of them do not possess the tools to stamp out this phenomenon either individually or collectively but approached properly could limit its horror.

      The first line of defense is the parents, who must educate their children as to acceptable boundaries and the impropriety of physical contact by others. Parents must impress on their children that no adult is ever allowed to tell them to keep a secret from their parents, and that children should never be embarrassed or afraid to share with their parents anything that has happened to them. Children – boys and girls – should be informed of the laws of yichud, and try to not to be alone behind closed doors with any person, even a respected authority figure. And children should cry out immediately, run from their assailant, and immediately inform their parents.

      Parents should immediately inform the police. The legal authorities are in the best position to investigate these types of crimes, even if their investigations and prosecutions don’t always bear fruit. Often, the police are unhelpful when there is insufficient evidence, as indeed are rabbis, untrained as investigators and unaccustomed to dealing with reprobates. For sure, there are false accusations as well, and these accusations can ruin someone’s life, but the likelihood of false accusations dwindles to near zero when there are multiple, unrelated victims. And immediate action often unsettles the perpetrator and itself inhibits future misconduct.

       Victims should be encouraged to prosecute, and immediately, not ten years later. No one likes to blame the victims for anything, and prosecution and testimony can be frustrating and stressful. But it also saves lives. Sadly, I have dealt with this matter for decades as an attorney and then a rabbi, and most victims, for one reason or another (usually, the desire to just move on) do not want to prosecute. And that allows the predator to go on and on and on.

        Instead of prosecution, we are living in the world of trial by media, one of the more execrable phenomena of modern life. The media are unbounded by ethics, evidence or substance, and therefore often choose their targets based more on their agenda items than on the nature of the evidence. It is one of the worst forms of street justice; even Don Corleone’s justice was more equitable, legitimate and principled. The role of the media should be limited to publicizing the formal prosecution of alleged abusers, not publicizing the accusations of anonymous victims. That alone will garner sympathy for any accused. And suing for libel or slander for unfounded accusations is a non-starter, as it is widely ineffective especially in jurisdictions that elevate freedom of the press over the rights of an individual.

      As even one victim of abuse is too many, so too one life ruined because of a false accusation is also one too many.

      Sadly, this evil will always exist. Even the Torah’s judicial system had such inherent limitations that the king of Israel was authorized to execute his own justice for the protection of society when the legal system failed. Centuries ago, English courts featured the Star Chamber, also used when the traditional court system was of no avail. Both point to the insolubility of some crimes through classical means. Since such means are not available to us, we have to use other methods to protect the innocent and thwart the wicked.

       What might help is parents educating their children properly, developing with them a warm and open relationship so children feel comfortable sharing anything and parents are acutely sensitive to changes in their child’s temperament. The authorities must be informed immediately and the victims must be encouraged to file charges and testify. The clergy should be supportive of the victims and never coddle the accused. The media should report fairly and objectively, not assail others while shielding their own degenerates. Society should be educated as to the existence of the problem and how it can emerge from any individual in any group.

      We might not end this scourge – but we can isolate it and burn this evil from our midst.

The following was first published on Israelnationalnews.com

     One hopes that Elazar Stern is a better Minister of Intelligence than he is a commentator on religious affairs, for his endorsement of the Kotel’s partition (“The Kotel should be a Place of Unity for all Jews,” Jerusalem Post, December 24, 2021) is riddled with misstatements, platitudes, faulty reasoning and sophistries. Obviously, a division of the Kotel to reflect the modern and contrived denominations of the Jewish people is the antithesis of unity; indeed, it renders the Kotel the symbol of the disunity of Jews who cannot even pray together as one people according to traditional law and custom.

      Stern premises his thesis on the fact that the Jewish people were divided into tribes and, contrary to Moshe’s desire, brought their offerings as individual tribes on the day of the Mishkan’s consecration. But he fails to note that each tribal leader brought the same offering. In fact, the service in the Bet Hamikdash was rigorously prescribed. It allowed for no individuality, pluralism, egalitarianism, reforms or modernization. There was one Torah for all, and that Torah had to be followed. This message was taught at the very beginning of our history when Nadav and Avihu, imbued with religious passion, brought incense “that was not commanded by God,” and lost their lives in the process. What is most critical in divine service is responding to the divine command and not catering to our own subjective religious impulses.

      We are a nation that is governed by its Torah. It is true that there are twelve tribes but those tribes reflect the diversity of the Jewish people in terms of talents, character, predilections and temperament. There was no denominational split among the tribes of Israel. Our division into tribes assuredly did not reflect diversity of observance. There were nothing commanded to Reuven from which Dan was exempted nor any prohibitions on Shimon that were permitted to Asher. (The only exception was the tribe of Levi, spared the harshness of slavery in Egypt as they were mandatory conscription in Israel’s army, as they were all devoted to divine service and the study of Torah; one suspects that a modern analogy would be fiercely resisted by Minister Stern.)

     There were no “multiple” voices permitted to Jews. All Jews, without tribal distinction, uttered naaseh v’nishma, “we will do and we will obey,” or we would not be a people. We all accepted the Torah and are all bound by the mitzvot. It is true, as Stern notes, that the Talmud is replete with discussions and arguments – but it is also true that it usually comes to a conclusion with appropriate guidance for all, and if not, such guidance was provided by the Codes and the rabbis, down to this day. For sure there are certain differences in customs, and some stringencies adopted by different communities that were eschewed by others. But on most matters, including the configuration of the venue of prayer, and even the number of times we pray each day, there are no two opinions. That was uniform in Jewish life until it was infiltrated with a secular, Western value system that its proponents then presumed had to be “Jewish” because they adopted it.

     Since the Temple era itself, Jewish men and women have been separated in prayer, which adds to the bitter irony that at the very place where separate worship was formalized, there is now an effort to institute mixed prayer. This is both divisive and sacrilegious. It is also shameful that Stern looks to the precedent of the era of Ottoman and British rule when Jews were not allowed to have a mechitzah at the Kotel or even bring chairs and so men and women prayed informally without a divider. That is a precedent – when Jews lacked sovereignty over the land of Israel? Would he also ban the blowing of the Shofar as those alien governments also did?

     It is pure sophistry to quote Rav Yitzchak Yosef, who opposes the Kotel reforms, as somehow supportive because he maintains that only the enclosed area for prayer at the Kotel has the status of a synagogue. And what about the rest of the Kotel – the Wall itself, rather than the plaza outside that area? Every part of the Kotel retains its sanctity and may not be used, for example, as a handball court. And by Rav Yosef’s definition, any part of the Kotel that is used for prayer has sanctity, and thus that prayer should reflect traditional Jewish norms as is befitting the place that sits in the shadow of the holiest site in the world.

      There is another critical point that eludes Stern. There is a system ordained for us in the Torah to resolve questions of Jewish law and practice through the authority vested in the Rabbis of the generation (Chinuch, mitzvah 495). That authority is a monopoly, much like the monopoly given to the elected government to command a nation’s generals to embark on a military campaign, and much like the monopoly given to generals and officers to issue orders to their soldiers.

      Soldiers can balk and question – even the propriety of expelling innocent Jews from their homes, to no avail – but as Minister Stern himself repeatedly stated, they have no right to refuse orders. There is a chain of command. Similarly, many Israelis are chafing under the perplexing and ever-shifting Corona directives of the government and its medical advisors that are ruining people’s lives while purportedly trying to save lives, but we are expected to comply. There is a chain of command.

     Why doesn’t Stern recognize the chain of command in the religious sphere? There is a Chief Rabbi – two, in fact – designated as Mara D’atra d’Eretz Yisrael, the religious authorities in the land of Israel. Are they to have no authority over what happens at the Kotel, or for that matter, over Kashrut, Gerut, marriage and divorce? Is the mandate of Torah leaders inferior to that of military or health officials? That would only be the conclusion of people who do not accept the reality of Torah as divine, immutable and the source of our survival as a nation. And finding rabbis, of whatever stature, who disagree with any Chief Rabbi’s opinions should carry as much weight as is afforded the sergeants and colonels who disagree with their superiors and go their own way. Generally, they are court-martialed and dismissed.

      I am not Haredi nor defined by the pejorative “ultra-Orthodox,” but I do resent the recurring use of those terms to denote those who are opposed to the Kotel’s partition. Clearly they are being used on the assumption that the reader will recoil in horror and instinctively oppose whatever Haredim or the ultra-Orthodox support. Like all individual Jews and all groups of Jews, we have what we can learn from them and areas in which they can improve. But do not try to marginalize the issue by conveying the impression that only Haredim care about the Kotel. Such is false.

      Minister Stern, and a few of the other government officials pushing these reforms, delight in identifying themselves as Modern Orthodox. That is their right, of course, but it would be instructive to know what that moniker means to them. The way many use the term “Modern” Orthodox today, it carries the implication that they don’t take the Torah as seriously as do Haredim. They are “Orthodox,” but “Modern,” which apparently affords adherents the right to dissent from parts of the Torah that don’t fit their world view. They are pluralistic, repudiating the idea that there is one objective truth. They are suspicious of religious authority. They have a concept of sin but a very narrow one, and certainly they would not let a sin cloud an otherwise sunny day. Carving out personal exemptions from Torah observance because one identifies as Modern Orthodox is as meaningful as those carved out by Jews who identify themselves as Conservative, Reform or unaffiliated. For sure, there are many self-identified Modern Orthodox Jews who would rightly reject the aforementioned symptoms, and just see themselves as Torah Jews in a Western milieu (as Rav Aharon Rakeffet has characterized it), without any fear of or hostility towards the best of Western culture. That is unequivocally valid and we would benefit from having more such Jews in Israel.

     I prefer just to identify myself as Orthodox, period, and try to uphold the Torah and its values accordingly. I try not to rationalize my sins by writing them out of the Torah or diminishing their importance; instead I just hope to improve myself in areas of weakness.

     I don’t see the Haredim or any other group of Jews as bogeymen, the measuring rod for everything that I have to be against, nor do I understand why anyone would. The barometer of our quest for perfection is the Torah itself and not how any group of Jews wishes to interpret, modify or condense it. We are witness now, for the first time in the history of Israel, to the attempt to weaken standards in every area of Jewish life – Shabbat observance, kashrut, gerut, prayer at the Kotel, etc. One would hope that Israel’s government would try to foster closeness to Torah, which after all is our deed to the land itself, rather than discourage it and make religious observance more difficult. Hatred of Haredim, unjustified as it is and synonymous with the tendentious calls to “end the Haredi monopoly,” is not a valid reason to undermine the Torah in the land of Israel. And such will drive a deep wedge between Israel and the Torah community abroad of all levels of observance – the most faithful supporters of Israel today in the Jewish community.

      Those who wish to partition the Kotel will one day partition Jerusalem and then the land of Israel. Once we begin trampling on the sacred there are no boundaries or limits. Those who want to dilute the observance of Torah in Israel by re-shaping the Torah according to the values and neuroses of modern man are playing with fire. The problems we face in Israel require siyata d’shmaya, divine assistance, to overcome. That demands of us not pandering to those who have distorted the Torah or weakening its observance but rather strengthening the Torah that is the common heritage of all Jews.

     Is it possible to stem the tide of assimilation that is ravaging Diaspora Jewry?

     That is the objective of a new caucus launched in the Knesset last week under the leadership of MK Yitzchak Pindrus that I attended as part of the Am Echad delegation. It is called the “Caucus for the Strengthening of Diaspora Jewry” and is certainly warranted, as we are hemorrhaging Jews at an alarming rate, but its success is by no means guaranteed. There are no simple solutions – but there are approaches that are certain to fail.

     Israelis are familiar with cage-like boxes that are ubiquitous in residential areas for the placement of used plastic bottles. Many have a sign (in Hebrew) that reads in translation “it is insane not to recycle,” and that certainly is true. Recycling is a good thing because it saves resources and helps the environment. But what if it didn’t? Then it would be insane to recycle. We are confronted, in the first instance, with the attempt to reverse assimilation by recycling and even strengthening what has failed in the past and, indeed, what has greased the wheels of assimilation.

      Part of the problem is the continued reluctance to define who is a Jew by the traditional halachic standard. Resources will be squandered on outreach to people who are not Jews, do not define themselves as Jews, and even among those who do, have no interest or desire to conform to norms and values that have sustained us as a people. It is unsurprising, then, that Diaspora Affairs Minister Nachman Shai (Labor) rejected any suggestion (and even documentary proof) that the non-Orthodox movements in America are in steep decline, closing and consolidating temples and losing members. And even among the members retained there is unfortunately a diminution of commitment to Torah, mitzvot (even as they define them) and support for Israel.

      Undoubtedly, it will be suggested that assimilation can be reduced if we throw symbols and money at the movements that have presided over the assimilatory processes. Thus, high on the agenda is partitioning the Kotel to accommodate all streams of Judaism, including a section for mixed prayers. That will not bring even one Jew closer to Judaism and is more likely to serve as a backdrop for future interfaith weddings. For now, the government has allegedly put the plan on the backburner, even as construction on the new plaza continues, all to make it easier to trot out at a time of its choosing. The plan is not dead and we must remain vigilant in articulating how repugnant and unprecedented is the very notion of carving up a nation’s holy sites to service those that dissent from the long-established standards of holiness of that religion.

     And, of course, politicians often equate spending money on a problem with solving the problem. It is a hardy perennial of all politicians in every government, familiar to Americans in the boondoggles that are public education and public transport. In this context, there is a headlong rush to subsidize the heterodox movements in Israel as well as to fund Jewish identity and Israel awareness projects with the Reform and Conservative movements in America and Europe.

     This attitude is a product of the ideologies of some left-wing politicians and the political demands made of them by their supporters. It stands no chance of impeding assimilation and is just as likely to encourage more. You can’t cure the illness with what spurred the symptoms in the first place.

     What can be done? For sure there is no panacea and we should not delude ourselves that at this point it is possible to save every Jew. That is a worthy goal but not the definition of success as it is unattainable until Messianic times. What can be done, realistically, is to reinforce Jewish identity in all its aspects – and that alone will naturally increase the connection and affinity of Jews for Israel. How?

     In the current environment, it is not realistic to expect all Jews to be Shomrei Mitzvot; that too awaits the Moshiach. It is also unrealistic to expect much headway among non-halachic Jews, although there are certainly some who want to be part of the Jewish people and even come closer to observance, just as it is impracticable to expect Jews en masse to identify with Orthodoxy, a term which, to them, has become laden with politics and is perceived (falsely) as pejorative.

       But Jewish identity can be enhanced in two very practical ways – teaching the history of the Jewish people, of which non-observant Jews are fully part, accompanied by a gradual introduction to the mitzvot, which is our shared heritage. To perceive Jewish history, as many secular people do, detached from G-d, Torah, the Prophets and the Providential survival of our tormented but glorious nation, is a non-starter. It won’t work. Every ethnic group – Italians, Russians, Japanese, etc. – can take pride in its history, but it is not necessarily going to induce them to challenge themselves, to sacrifice (although many do) and to make important life decisions based on that history.

     If Spain and Spaniards were reviled on campuses, a Spanish-American might not have the gumption to stand against the relentless tide. He would need a reason to put himself out front beyond his ethnic attachment. Jews on campuses, for example, are faced with that challenge. Many hide, and many others swim with the tide and become anti-Israel.

     Rebuilding Jewish identity means affording Jews pride in our history – G-d’s choice of Avraham and Sarah, the covenant of the Torah and the land of Israel, our Exodus from Egypt, our acceptance of the Torah at Sinai and the conquest of the land of Israel, the destruction of the two Temples that were preceded by the recurring prophetic vision of an ultimate return to Israel, the vicissitudes of Jewish history which, despite its often lugubrious backdrop, saw the Jewish people prosper in every country in the Diaspora, contribute to each society and civilization itself in manifold and enduring ways, and then with divine guidance, fulfill the prophetic vision of old and return to the land and declare Jewish sovereignty over it. Each aspect is unprecedented in the history of nations. There is nothing remotely similar in any other nation’s history, and we should be proud of it and grateful for it.

      And what safeguarded our identity throughout the millennia was the Torah we studied and the mitzvot observed, often under great stress. Each aspect of Jewish history must be accompanied by an explanation of one of these pillars – Shabbat, Kashrut, family purity, the sanctity of marriage, prayer, Torah study and the like. How the Jewish home is sanctified by a Mezuzah, Jewish garments by tzitzit, tefillin and the prohibition of shaatnez, the Jewish day by prayer and berachot (blessings) and above all by a constant awareness of G-d. The ignorance of many Jews of some of the basics of Judaism is staggering. They don’t even know what they are rejecting.

      Understanding our history and culture – culture in the narrow sense of the uniqueness of our lifestyle rather than the foods we eat and the comedians we have produced – will give all Jews a greater sense of belonging. They will look at Israel as the place of true Jewish consciousness and the fulfillment of Jewish yearnings rather than the political entity that perpetually infuriates the New York Times, the United Nations, and all our enemies.

       An attempt to form a Jewish identity based only on a connection to Israel will not succeed; arguably, it has not succeeded that well in Israel itself. So why would we expect it to succeed in the exile? Conversely, rooting our identity in Torah and mitzvot narrowly understood, without its national dimension, has merit per se but will not strengthen the Jewish state at all.

      It is the combination of both – both, simultaneously – that has the best chance of saving some remnant of the Jewish people scattered across the world. No one with a substantive understanding of Jewish history and practice, and the pride that such engenders, will consider intermarriage or gravitate towards assimilation. Why would they? This awareness will give them a full individual identity as well as attract them to a cause greater than themselves, and link themselves to generations past and future. It will enable them to stand up to Israel haters on campus and to Jew haters in society. It will give them a deep and passionate connection to all Jews across the world. It will bring them closer to Torah observance. It stands to reason it will increase Aliya as well.

      That should be the goal of this caucus and bears the greatest potential for its success.

     It is hard to conceive of a more repugnant editorial than the one published in Friday’s Jerusalem Post entitled “Wayward rabbis” (Apparently the title was deemed so negative that it was changed in the online editions.) The editorial castigates our nation’s rabbinical leadership for its opposition to the proposed government reforms in kashrut supervision and conversion and for good measure lambastes them for adhering to the Torah’s moral standards that are at odds with Western values. Perfect timing, indeed, like editorializing on Chanukah against the Maccabees for their fidelity to Jewish tradition and antagonism to Hellenism.

     One might think that the opposition of the leading rabbis in the country to reforms of Jewish law and practice would mute the ardor of proponents of those reforms. After all, who but the rabbis are better situated to opine on such matters, given their dedication, years of study and experience? It is lost on the editorialists that merely being Jewish does not make one an expert on Judaism.

     Imagine, for a moment, that the nation’s leading doctors joined together and opposed a particular government edict regarding the Coronavirus. (They probably should, but that is a different topic altogether.) No one would consider condemning those physicians for their opinions or suggest that they be fired, silenced, prosecuted or replaced by more “diverse” and accommodating doctors. In fact, one would be foolish not to strongly consider their recommendations or their resistance to a given approach, seeing that they have studied medicine and others have not. Editorialists have routinely denounced governments across the globe for not following the doctors, the science, or the data.

     Why then are doctors’ opinions treated with greater deference than is accorded to the Rabbis? Why do some people value the guidance of physicians but belittle the guidance of rabbis?

     The answer is multifaceted. In the worst sense, it reflects the attitude of the heretic (noted in Masechet Sanhedrin 99b) of “Mai ahanu rabanan?” How have the rabbis ever benefited us? But that itself presupposes a cavalier attitude towards Judaism, as if Jewish law doesn’t matter at all and the Torah offered us suggestions but not commandments, suggestions that we can spurn if we don’t like them. And Westerners struggle with obeisance to any authority figure.

     More typically, this dismissive posture reflects an approach to Judaism, and often religion generally, as something that lacks real substance or gravitas. To them, religion is meant to be fluff. Feelings count more than do facts or laws, and since we can intuit the right and wrong ways to live, who needs rabbis? So if the Western rejection of traditional morality feels right, that must be Judaism. If people want to join Judaism for whatever reason, they should be allowed to, no questions asked, because that too is Judaism. If a ritual does not speak to one’s sensibility, then abandon it or reform it. Science is real, Torah is not real. As such, we would sound like fools if we laymen offered amateurish opinions on physics or medicine, but Torah? Apparently, everyone can have an opinion and claim it is legitimate, even journalists and pilots. It completely dismisses the rigor, dedication and discipline needed to acquire expertise in Torah.

      That conceptual error engenders the view of rabbis as mere functionaries, or in the words of the editorial, “there to provide services.” What a constricted and ultimately embarrassing and uneducated view of the rabbinate! I am reminded of the old school rabbinate whose primary purposes were to be available to Jews to “hatch ‘em, latch ‘em, and dispatch ‘em” (meaning present at the Brit, where actually a mohel but not a rabbi is needed; there to officiate at a wedding, which today’s reformers also want to revise; and present at a funeral, where technically speaking a rabbi is also not required). It was the rabbi as supervisor of life cycle events, called upon to spout a few platitudes to which no one paid much attention, and then to be ushered aside.

     But that conception of the rabbinate died decades ago. Its death was hastened by the collapse of the non-Orthodox movements in America whose members, among other things, began to largely tune out their spiritual leaders who responded by supporting every new ideological and immoral fad in the hope of remaining relevant. That failed miserably and the toll it has taken in assimilation and intermarriage is so steep that those who shepherded those catastrophes now extol the virtues of assimilation and intermarriage – and want a seat at the table to plan the Jewish future.

       “Who is a Jew,” by conversion or otherwise, is a Torah issue, a rabbinic issue, and not a governmental or journalistic concern. No Jew has authorized the Knesset to determine matters of Jewish law – not to decide Jewishness, move Shabbat to Tuesday or permit the consumption of cheeseburgers. Israel has many Muslim and Christian citizens, and it would obviously be preposterous if the Knesset took it upon itself to liberalize conversion to Islam or Christianity on its own authority. Israel can rightly decide who can be Israelis but not who can be Jews. That is up to the rabbis, and properly so.

       Similarly, the definition of sin or mitzvah, right and wrong, moral or immoral is a Torah issue, a rabbinic issue, for which guidance should be sought and accepted. To chastise rabbis for espousing Jewish morality is as absurd as chastising doctors for prescribing antibiotics. Neither pressure nor parades will change that. As faithful Jews perceive it, matters of the spirit are in fact more real than matter of the body, for the former is eternal and the latter temporal.

       The narrow minded view of Judaism as just ceremonies, meals and feelings is self-defeating in the extreme. Whether or not Israelis recognize it, our claim to the land of Israel is rooted in the Torah. To the extent that we diminish the Torah, reform or revise it to suit transient trends, we undermine our claim to the land. It is this same mentality that gives rise to the notion of the Kotel as an historical site that should be available for all forms of worship rather than a sacred place of traditional Jewish prayer, in the shadow of the holiest place on earth, the Temple Mount.

       It is obvious that matters of Jewish law should remain the province of the authorized decisors of Jewish law rather than politicians or journalists. But rabbis should also be emboldened to speak out more, not less, on public issues that touch on moral, ethical and political matters. (Here’s a good laugh line: the editorial asked “Would we allow a situation in which a Supreme Court justice would openly voice his or her opinion on controversial political issues?” It is as if they never heard of Aharon Barak, who of course claimed that everything was justiciable, not political – as long as it suited his preferred ideological conclusions.)

      Rabbis must be wary of being used as mere functionaries. Here is a good example. Rather than recite a chapter of tehillim at the state ceremonies for Yom Hashoah and Yom Hazikaron (which an eight year old can do), wouldn’t it be more meaningful if the Chief Rabbis actually spoke words of Torah – instead of the annual clichés of the President, Prime Minister, Chief of Staff, etc. – about the ultimate meaning of these events, the State of Israel, the prophesies of exilic calamities and eventual return to the land of Israel? That perspective, that analysis, is sorely lacking in these somber events.

     What do rabbis do? True, they interpret the Torah in line with tradition, they decide questions of Jewish law, and they guide Jews (and even sometimes Gentiles) through the vicissitudes of life. But primarily, they are to be voices of Jewish morality and reason, especially when they run counter to modern life. They are here, to the best of their abilities, to bring a divine perspective to events and challenges, even if they won’t always agree on every conclusion. The criticism of “how have the rabbis ever benefited us?” was directed at rabbis “who study the Torah and the Mishnah for their own benefit” and never engage in public affairs.

     Ironically, these wayward journalists want just that – rabbis who remain in the House of Study, uninvolved with the public, to be trotted out for ceremonies, and then duly criticized for their aloofness. But here is another irony. Today’s Chief Rabbis, for example, engage with the public far more than any Cabinet Minister or Knesset member ever does. They engage daily, teaching, guiding, interacting, and sharing the eternal wisdom of our Creator.

    It is a shame that many journalists, wedded to their own agendas, do not see it. If they even tasted it, they would savor the Torah as the elixir of life and the rabbis as purveyors of goodness and wisdom. And together we would build an Israel that is proudly Jewish, awaiting the coming redemption.