Israel's Supreme Court has, once again, clipped the wings of the Rabbinical Court system. In one sense, it's a further step in Aharon Barak's attempt to oust Jewish Law from the Israeli legal system and to turn the latter into an ideologically pure post-modern, liberal organ.
On the other hand, I can't get away from the nagging feeling that the unprofessional, obtuse, insensitive behavior of so many dayyanim paved the way for this development.
We will long be paying the price for humiliating the Torah and for choosing to send our children into the professions and not into the rabbinate (preceded, of course, by acquiring a decent general education alongside Yoreh Deah and Hoshen Mishpat. That would have allowed them to deal with the world. It would even have put them at an advantage over the secular judges, whose knowledge outside of the law is terrifically underwhelming.)
WIth all due respect, Judge Procacia dealt with Prof. Eliav Shochetman's piece on this isse - am opinion that has been taught to probably a generation of lawyers that went through Hebrew University and Shaarei Mishpat Law School. She rejected it. I have to say that her opinion wasn't so flimsy. True, the court wanted to attack the rabbanut. But this issue was sitting there for over 20 years and was never dealt with - either at the court or at the knesset. Many a legislator from the Mafdal nd other religious parties had the opportunity to close this "hole". But they didn't. The judges also - idirectly - gave us mussar about havaing a "rabbanut mitaam". The private batei din of the eidah charedit came out looking much better than the rabbanut did. After 50 years of RZ attacking the Haredim for not going along with the Rabbanut, now the court tells us that the Haredim were correct - in a legal sense - all along. Why was the law never changed to read clearly so that the Rabbanut would have clear, binding jurisdiction in arbitration or family law monetary issues? B/C religious zionism put its head in the sand and was happy with the "rav mitaam" that we created without looking at the simple truth about Jewish life in Israel.
ReplyDeleteMaybe now, with some serious introspection, we will understand that the army isn't kadosh and neither is the rabbanut. And that realization will help us build healthy communities, with private batei din that can legally arbitrate, and not mess up our childrens' heads with all sorts of stupid ideas like soldiers wearing an IDF uniform are wearing bigdei kehuna and that an M-16 is klei odesh b'avodat hashem, and that the Rabbanut is some type of proto-sanhedrin for Yemot Hamashiach.
Not a massive kiruv movement accomplished on the backs of our own children