Rabbi Pruzansky's Blog

     Recently, we have been told repeatedly that competition is a good thing, especially when it comes to the religious services provided by the Rabbinate in Israel. There is merit to that argument. Competition tends to keep prices down, improve service and make the provider much more responsive to the consumer. But what happens when competition is less of an economic driver and more of an attempt to undermine and weaken the designated provider of those services? What if “competition” is just a slogan that masks a more devious and damaging agenda?

      For example, look at the kashrut reforms being proposed. Trumpeting the ideal of “competition” so obscures the proposals that it is difficult to ascertain what exactly is being proposed. One report claims that the Chief Rabbinate will remain the overseer of standards even as individuals, groups or local rabbinates will administer those standards. That would seem to be a proper exercise of competition, although if everyone is implementing the same standards, what does the reform add?

       Thus another report reveals that the Chief Rabbinate will remain the overseer of standards – unless a particular merchant or establishment chooses otherwise and has the support of three rabbis. In which case, the standards no longer exist.

      What will take its place is the execrable form of kashrut supervision that existed for many years in the United States in which individual rabbis gave hashgachot – local or national – and rabbis asked by their congregants as to the reliability of these supervisors would have to investigate these people, one by one. Often the answers were “I don’t know,” “not recommended,” “I know him, he’s OK,” or “I never heard of him.” To the lay mind, it often came down to money but money does buy a certain level of service and trust. It is indeed true that you can pay much less to a kashrut “supervisor” who visits once a year or at least less than would be paid to a “supervisor” who visits several times a week. But the need to investigate each rabbi or group and its standards was tedious, inefficient, and unsatisfactory.

       Additionally, kashrut standards could widely diverge as well. Some of the more indolent or mercenary hashgachot utilize leniencies (distinct minority opinions) on which most kashrut consumers would not rely. And most of the articles cite complaints of merchants about the hashgacha, the cost, the mashgichim, etc., and never cite the sentiments of the mashgichim or the Rabbinate or the demands of kashrut. The merchant and the kashrut supervisor are not enemies, for sure, but each has different interests that will occasionally clash. Just like the mashgiach is not always right, so too the merchant is not always right.

        Over the decades, kashrut in America coalesced into four main organizations whose standards are quite similar, and local vaadim who usually follow the standards of those organizations. Kashrut became more centralized, more efficient, and more beneficial for the consumer. There is even an association of the kashrut professionals that meets regularly to resolve outstanding issues and discuss policies. That is kashrut in America today, and those establishments that utilize individual or boutique hashgachot usually do it for a reason, and that reason is rarely to improve the level of kashrut. How odd, then, that Israel would want to revert to the old American-Jewish decentralized system that was so chaotic that it was abandoned!

      For sure, there are reforms that are possible as any system can be improved, but beware the law of unintended consequences. For example, it is as ridiculous to have multiple hashgachot on the same product as it is to provide kosher supervision for water – but both are probably unavoidable. Multiple hashgachot are obviously redundant, until we realize that merchants use them as marketing tools to niche communities. It is advertising, in essence, for the merchant and his product or establishment to a sub-group of consumers. We wouldn’t castigate the business, or take seriously the complaints of a proprietor, who wonders why he has to advertise on Channel 12 and Channel 20 instead of just Channel 20 alone. That is business, not Torah, and the merchant has the absolute right to say he uses only one hashgacha, even if it forecloses expanding his consumer base. Similarly, the consumer – for whatever reason – can declare that he will only purchase water with a particular (unnecessary) hashgacha. So be it.

       We should be mindful of the American experience where many of the current proposals have been tried and have not succeeded. It is sensible to try to duplicate what works rather than duplicate what did not work. It would make more sense, here as in other areas, if the Civil Service laws were amended to allow for the termination of bureaucrats who were incompetent or nasty. The public deserves better.

       The same scenario pertains to conversion, which this government would also like to decentralize and remove from the authority of the Chief Rabbinate. In America, “been there, done that,” and that too failed. It failed so miserably that well over a decade ago, the Rabbinical Council of America, in its most productive and consequential act in the last half-century, instituted the “Gerus Policies and Standards” that made conversion standards uniform and oversaw a network of a dozen conversion courts throughout North America. (For seven years, I headed the Bet Din that oversaw New Jersey and environs.) It worked splendidly, and still does. Those who do not participate in that network usually (but not always) have lower standards that correctly call into question their conversions.

      To have disorder in conversions is even worse than disorder in kashrut because the stakes are greater. No one wants to create a situation where conversions are routinely insincere, do not require an acceptance of mitzvot, and promote the rejection of people’s Jewish identity by most Jews because the standards were insufficient or the judges unacceptable. That also didn’t work in America, and it was changed for the better. Why would Israel implement here an old system that failed there?

      With all due respect, no one authorized Matan Kahane or the Knesset to determine who is a Jew. They can certainly adjudicate who is an Israeli, but “who is a Jew” is a matter of Jewish law to be determined by the decisors of Jewish law, not politicians. They have as much authority to change the definition of Jewishness by altering conversion standards as they do to move Shabbat from Saturday to Tuesday.

      Competition is not good in every context. And if it was, and we are enamored with the “competition” cliché, here are additional examples where competition in government services might pertain.

      Why should driver’s licenses be granted only by the Ministry of Transportation? Quite frequently, there are complaints about how tests are administered, the costs involved, and the randomness of passing or failing. That too could be privatized, all in the name of competition.

      Why isn’t there competition in the government’s guidance on dealing with the Coronavirus? Why must we heed the government’s “experts” who have us zigging and zagging when they are not demanding that we run in circles totally confused, whose advice changes weekly, daily, and sometimes several times a day? We should have competition as well in that sphere. I have plenty of experts who can guide me. I don’t appreciate the government’s monopoly of experts.

       Come to think of it, why must we rely on the Ministry of the Interior to oversee the admission of first-degree relatives to Israel during this crisis? The handling of this matter has been appallingly incompetent – convoluted, arbitrary and inefficient. The rules and forms keep changing (three different ministries have already become involved and the forms have changed five times), and this too would benefit from competition from the private sector. Dov Lipman’s Yadlolim organization has done wonderful work stepping in where the government has fallen short, as has the organization “Amudim.” Both would do a better job in approving permits that the government is doing.

     Furthermore, many people are displeased by the decisions of Israel’s Supreme Court or Israel’s foreign policy. Why should the government retain a monopoly on foreign affairs, especially when it is unclear that it even represents a majority of the populace? Why should a Court that is unrepresentative of the population be exclusively authorized to make decisions that impact on our lives? There are many people with wonderful ideas who are not currently authorized to speak for the State of Israel or adjudicate cases. Even a little competition would be beneficial here as well.

     We would answer that government always has a monopoly on the provision of certain services for the alternative to government monopoly is known as anarchy. And perhaps therein lies the key. People would only countenance anarchy in the provision of services that they deem unimportant – or if they wish to dismantle the entity that administers those services.

      The attempt to strip the administration of kashrut and conversion (and who knows what else?) from the Chief Rabbinate is a thinly-concealed effort to dismantle it entirely. It betrays a vision of Judaism as a purely cultural entity that lacks substance, mandates, divinity or any real importance, and will dilute the very notion of a Jewish state. Competition is encouraged usually when the matter at hand is not considered that important.

      Every element of government could benefit from competition but we do not allow it when anarchy would result and the service provided is considered critical to society’s functioning. So strengthen the Chief Rabbinate rather than undermine it. Hold the bureaucrats accountable rather than further bloat the bureaucracy. Promote the observance of Jewish law rather than water it down. Don’t create anarchy in kashrut, conversion, marriage or divorce – even in the name of the dubious value of competition.

(First appeared as an op-ed in the Jerusalem Post, July 25, 2021)

     A few years ago when new Israeli president Yitzchak Herzog first assumed the chairmanship of the Jewish Agency, he commented off-handedly that intermarriage among American Jews is “mamash mageifah,” a veritable plague. Chastised by the leadership of American Jewry, he quickly apologized and explained that he didn’t mean “plague” as a pejorative but rather as an expression of prevalence.

     He need not have apologized. It is a plague, a plague that is destroying American Jewry.

     Shortly thereafter, newly minted Minister Rav Rafi Peretz said with great sadness that intermarriage in America is producing a “second Holocaust.” He too was forced to apologize for that accurate sentiment, forced primarily by secular Jewish apologists for intermarriage who predominate in the organizational leadership of American Jewry. He too need not have apologized. It is a second Holocaust, Jews willfully destroying their own lives and posterity rather than having Nazis do it. The soldier who rips off his uniform and flees the battlefield is as lost to his side as the soldier who dies in battle.

     American Jewish leadership doth protest too much.

     Certainly, we all believe in romance, love, free choice and human rights, which is not to say that some expressions of love and other poor choices have catastrophic consequences. But we should not be oblivious to the political ramifications of the choice of intermarriage in American Jewish life, where most Jews who marry these days happen to marry a non-Jew.

     Pew recently reported, to the great horror of many people, that one-quarter of American Jews deem Israel an “apartheid state,” with the percentage of young Jews holding that false and repugnant opinion even greater. A fifth of Jews under the age of forty, according to this survey, declared that “Israel does not have the right to exist.” A whopping 38% of American Jews felt no “emotional attachment” to Israel.

    Perhaps more pointedly, the Jerusalem Post (July 9) published a segment of that poll that indicated that Jews between the ages of 18-29 professed themselves to be “Jews of no religion,” with 33% of Jews aged 30-49 defining themselves similarly – as opposed to Jews 50-64 (19%) and Jews over 65 (16%).

    These polls have engendered much finger-pointing, depending on the pundit’s political perspectives. Some blame Israel’s policies for the severed connection between American Jews and Israel – on the peace process, settlements, or defense against terrorism and so advocate for more concessions. Others blame the Orthodox establishment and the lack of pluralism in marriage, divorce and definition of Judaism, and so advocate for liberalization and the separation of Torah and state.

      What these jeremiads miss is the answer that is staring us in the face and over which we have no control or solution. The loss of identification with Israel among the young Jews in the United States is a direct result of the spiraling intermarriage rates in the last half-century. It has nothing to do with politics, Netanyahu, negotiations, Gaza, the Chief Rabbinate or the like. There is no Israeli policy or change of policy that is going to matter.

      Simply put, polls that purport to measure American Jewish public opinion on any issue invariably count people who identify themselves as “Jews” to the pollsters, whether or not they are in fact Jews according to halacha. They are the products of intermarriage and they may consider themselves on some level “ethnic” Jews. They may have a Jewish father or grandfather. They may even have a Jewish mother and a non-Jewish father and still be considered Jews according to halacha, but their Jewish identity is tenuous and clearly not based on the features of Jewish life that bind all Jews – Torah, Mitzvot, love of Israel and the people of Israel, etc.

       Indeed, the generational increase of Jews who self-identify as “Jews of no religion” as indicated above tracks neatly with the rate of intermarriage in American Jewish life over the past six decades. As the rate of intermarriage has exploded, the percentage of “Jews” who feel no Jewish identity, no bond with Israel or the Jewish people, and whose real religion today is woke progressivism has increased proportionately.

      It should be no surprise that American Jews’ support for Israel is declining but it has much to do with the decay of American Jewry and little or nothing to do with what happens in Israel. Rick Jacobs, the Reform rabbi who leads the American movement, conceded that most Reform Jews today are probably not Jews according to Jewish law. It is invariably true that the loudest Jewish but anti-Israel voices in America today – on campuses, in the media and elsewhere – are usually the children and grandchildren of intermarriage.

       There are three prescriptions for Israelis that may be useful in countering the effects of intermarriage and even arresting it. The first is to stop taking seriously polls of “American Jewry” which disproportionately include people who are not Jews and have no share in Jewish destiny and exclude Orthodox Jews who are the most committed to Judaism’s present and Israel’s future. Second, take seriously (without distorting his words) Ambassador Ron Dermer’s recent comment that the basis of political support for Israel in America is not the Jewish community but the evangelical Christian community. That is true, even if people do not want to hear it.

       Third, another truism that people do not want to hear, is that intermarriage is a “plague” and a “second Holocaust.” We need to say it. And we need to reckon with the consequences for they are now upon us. Facts may be stubborn and even unpleasant, but they remain facts.

Could we please stop referring to each person’s bête noire as Sinat Chinam?

      The latest perversion of this philosophical concept came in response to the alleged disruption by religious youth of the egalitarian, anti-Torah worship services at the extension of the Kotel. Like it or not – it was surely impolite and violated the revered Western doctrine of “live and let live” – it was not Sinat Chinam, which is not baseless hatred as much as it is self-destructive hatred. It is hatred that destroys the hater as much as it does the target of his hatred and is thus ultimately self-defeating.

      To the lay eye and tendentious thinker, Sinat Chinam has apparently deteriorated into any type of hatred. In essence, if you dislike what I like, then you must be guilty of Sinat Chinam. Hence the accusations of Sinat Chinam against these passionate and politically incorrect youth who brought a mechitzah to the new “egalitarian” section of the Kotel and thereby disturbed the serenity of the worshippers.

      It is odd, but I don’t recall accusations of Sinat Chinam being leveled against the Israelis who loudly protested against former PM Netanyahu for years, sometimes nightly, disturbing the peace of the neighbors and interfering with their quality of life, especially the right to a quiet night in their residential neighborhoods.  And those demonstrations involved petty politics – not hallowed principle. Once we get past the cliché of Sinat Chinam it is easier to understand the Kotel rally as young people defending the honor and sanctity of a holy place, something that the worshippers studiously ignore in their echo chamber of virtuous self-aggrandizement. That is not Sinat Chinam.

      For all the hypocritical pieties of those who lambasted the “demonstrators” as desecrating the Kotel, it has become an unfortunate truism that protesters, even sometimes, sadly, violent protesters, usually get their way in Israel and across the Western world. It is as if the possessors of a media-favored grievance automatically have moral superiority. Thus rioters in recent years in Yerushalayim, Tel Aviv, Lod and elsewhere change policy and influence decision-makers. Limitations are placed on Jewish worshippers – indeed, on Jewish builders of homes across Judea and Samaria – for fear of Arab rioters. The Kotel demonstrators have learned that lesson well. If we have learned anything from America in the past year, it is that anarchy works and the politicians usually follow along hoping to salvage some measure of stability (and retain their electoral viability), until the next demand is made. Whatever the merits of the argument, it is surely unhealthy for a polity to have its policy makers driven by fear of the mob.

       But it is the substance of their complaint, if not their tactics, that deserve our attention. We would be hard-pressed to think of the holy site of another religion being forcibly co-opted by those of a different faith or even stream. St. Peters Square does not accommodate a Protestant Church and even Chabad has not set up shop in Mecca. Those who look to the past treatment of Jews at the Kotel – when the Kotel was under the control of Muslims or Christians –  as a template for today are shamefully denigrating Jewish sovereignty over the area. Those who nonchalantly embrace or even tolerate the idea of non-Orthodox worship of the Kotel – the retaining wall of the Second Temple, in the shadow of the holiest place on earth for Jews – do not understand the deviations of the non-Orthodox movements and thus the sacrilege at the Kotel.

      If you judge by all the surveys taken over decades, and substantiated by more recent ones, few non-Orthodox Jews believe in God as the Creator and moral Authority of mankind, and even fewer believe in the divine origin of the Torah. Only a tiny minority yearns for the rebuilding of the Temple and in many cases these movements have removed such requests from their prayers. It is ironic, isn’t it, that they have made this place the focal point of their drive for legitimacy. In truth, most see it less as a place of prayer to God than as a national historic site of some significance, and only want to pray there because, well, the Orthodox pray there. But so did generations of Jews of all backgrounds and ideologies who realized the sanctity of the place and the religious sincerity of those who preserved it, and simply, properly and respectfully complied with the norms of the place. These worshippers should do the same.

      Here is the greater irony. We derive the necessity for a mechitzah from the practice that existed in the Bet Hamikdash itself (Masechet Sukkah 51b) and was then extended to all permanent places of Jewish prayer. In other words, the non-Orthodox Jews are engaged in the very sort of egalitarian worship that was prohibited in the very place they purport to honor with their presence and their prayers. How is that for a lack of spiritual self-awareness?

      This movement is part of a general trend to seek legitimacy for the deviant streams of Judaism even as their numbers drastically decline and their rate of intermarriage soars. And the desire for mutual respect and tolerance that underlies the accommodative nature of some of the politicians involved is also understandable, even though (for some, especially because) it tramples on the sensitivities of religious Jews. It won’t work because most faithful Jews do not regard the non-Orthodox streams as legitimate expressions of Judaism. Most are reluctant to say it – decorum has its place – and certainly it won’t be said by those organizations whose donor base includes many non-Orthodox Jews.

       It needs to be underscored that many of our brothers and sisters in these movements want to be good Jews and assume that what they have been taught is just a different but equally valid expression of Judaism. They have been misled by their teachers and rabbis. Many love Israel. But the inherent weakness of these movements has been proven by the astronomical intermarriage rate such that a large number (in the Reform movement in America, it is probably a majority) are no longer Jews according to halacha. Naturally, that necessitates cries to change the rules, make them Jews, accept intermarriage as a way to “increase” our population, alter the Torah, accept the reality of the sad state of Diaspora Jewry and import it to Israel.

     Will the egalitarian section soon host intermarriages as well?

      It is fascinating that the Wall Street Journal reported this week on the growing fears of a new schism in the Catholic Church over differing approaches to the issues of – you guessed it – same-sex marriage and ordination for women. That should ring a bell for Jews, as well as remind us that the pressures on tradition in our context are also coming from secular, Western, and non-Jewish sources.

      The gist of the problem is that God gave the Torah to the Jewish people. He did not instead give each Jew a mirror and say to him or her: “just look in this mirror and you will be able to ascertain My will. Because My will is whatever you say it is.” There are no such holy mirrors. There is a holy Torah, holy days and holy places. No group has the right to usurp control of even part of a holy place and claim it as their own, nor does such usurpation gain any more authenticity if it is supported by secular authorities. Here, mutual respect calls for the newcomers to desist from defiling the sanctity of the Kotel and worship there as did their ancestors.

     For sure, the Torah world is not monolithic but these are not radical views.  These are mainstream views held by people who seek to be welcoming and open to every Jew. Tolerance that flows in one direction only is just intolerance that has elitist and media support.

     And it is not Sinat Chinam to point that out.

For over a year, I have participated in an “Ask the Rabbi” panel responding to questions posed by the editor of the Jewish Press. here is the latest installment. This column, including the responses of my colleagues, can be read at Jewishpress.com

Assuming one is following the letter of the halacha, is it proper to do fun things during the 9 Days–such as gathering with a few friends or taking the kids on an outing?

The operative principle should be as the Mishnah Berurah (554:21) stated: “The House of God deserves that we grieve over its destruction at least one day a year.” By extension, the Three Weeks and Nine Days are periods of escalating sadness that culminate on Tish’a B’Av – that “one day a year” of intense mourning. As we cannot abruptly enter a period of national mourning (personal sorrow is exactly the opposite) we prepare for Tish’a B’Av by decreasing our pleasure excursions.

That being said, we should be able to retain our social interactions (as they are not inherently joyous or frivolous) and certainly to enjoy time with our children. Such outings need not be incongruous with the period of mourning, mindful of what is age appropriate for children. At no time should a person be oblivious to the mourning, and social interactions – and particularly time with the children – can be used for meaningful discussions about inyana d’yoma, the matters at hand.

We should also be wary of imposing mourning practices on children who are not mature enough to understand, and certainly avoid conveying the impression that Judaism is a religion of misery and anguish. We are always mindful of the churban, and more intensely so this time of year, but we are mandated to enjoy a simchat hachayim as well, as that is the most exalted service of Hashem

Thus gatherings and outings need not be incompatible with this sorrowful season – and it is most proper to infuse those interactions with discussions of the hardships of the past (the churban and other tragedies), the blessings of the present (Israel, Aliya, etc.), as well as the joyful challenges of the future redemption that is unfolding before our eyes.

Is it proper to use the title “Rabbi” when referring to someone who received rabbinic ordination from a Reform or Conservative institution?

The counterargument would be that such ordination does not really confer the status of rabbi and therefore demeans the title for all rabbis. I do not find this contention very compelling; indeed, it is unnecessarily provocative. Notice how the title doctor encompasses everyone from a neurosurgeon to one who holds a doctorate in ethnic studies. It is a form of addressing someone by a title they have chosen, earned, or claim that ordinarily should be uncontroversial.

Rav Moshe Feinstein in several of his responsa referred to non-Orthodox rabbis as “rabbis,” phonetically spelled out in Hebrew, in contradistinction to his references to Orthodox rabbis as “Rabbanim” and other such honorifics. It is as if he used the term “rabbi” to denote a lesser or unworthy form of ordination. “Rabbis,” apparently, can be non-Orthodox, men or women, and in the recent case of a Haredi-dressing man in Yerushalayim, a Christian. The term has been so abused that true Rabbanim deserve better.

Indeed, it has become quite common in rabbinic circles to refer to Rabbanim by the title “Rav” and not Rabbi, to make the distinction even clearer. It is used on letterheads and in advertisements and immediately identifies the individual as an Orthodox rabbi.

If only for the purpose of friendly relations it is appropriate to call someone by the title of their choice. They can be rabbis. I am happy to be a Rav.

Is it presumptuous for a regular frum Jew to disagree (not face to face, obviously) with a great rabbi on a particular matter in Jewish thought or public policy?

This treads on very sensitive territory and the critical element is the precise area of disagreement. Certainly on halachic matters the opinions of a “regular frum Jew” carry little weight. Psak, like any specialty, requires extensive training and preparation and encompasses far more than knowledge of books or texts. I can read an X-ray and ascertain obvious fractures; undoubtedly, though, I will miss 95-98% of what there is to see in an X-ray. Great rabbis are radiologists, while the average person is not.

Similarly, matters of Jewish thought also require expertise in a given area. We may be living in the “era of feelings,” but not every feeling translates into a cogent and legitimate expression of Jewish thought. Not everything that a Jew says (or thinks) becomes, by definition, a valid part of Torah. Without a background in Jewish thought, it would be presumptuous to disagree with a Rav who possesses such a background.

Public policy matters are somewhat different because determination of the proper approach requires more than just knowledge of Torah. It requires a worldly understanding of life, politics, societal trends, culture and current events. Not every rabbi – even great ones – is necessarily conversant with all these issues. Nevertheless, two points must be added.

The “regular frum Jew” might have a sensible approach to public policy but it might not be informed by the Torah. If so, then these lay approaches will be less compelling and should be treated accordingly. Conversely, unless we maintain that rabbis have daas Torah that affords them unerring insight into public policy, then rabbis will have no special proficiency in these areas. Those who believe in daas Torah must explain why rabbis often disagree on matters of public policy, something that undercuts the idea that there is only one daas Torah.

Respectful dialogue between rabbis and laymen on policy issues is the ideal.