Much Ado About Maharat

[I have held off on commenting on Rabbi Avi Weiss' creation of a clerical title for women. My reason for doing so was the desire to present it within a broader discussion of the halakhic and policy issues involved. Now that Rabbi Michael Broyde has published a thorough and thoughtful discussion of both, I feel free to simply state my personal feelings on the subject.]

A number of years ago, I had a long conversation with a very prominent Rosh Yeshiva, concerning certain initiatives whose aim was the establishment of Modern Orthodoxy in Israel. The Rosh Yeshiva, for whom I have tremendous respect, was less than enthusiastic about the long term impact of the initiative. His reason was, essentially, concern that it would be highjacked by radical elements such as those who advocate far-reaching changes in the liturgy and the structure of communal prayer.

I was somewhat taken aback by the intensity of his response. I replied that, personally, I am opposed to almost all of the liturgical innovations introduced by religious feminists (for example; the details will wait for another post). On the other hand, in my opinion, the most revolutionary change in Modern Orthodoxy was instituted, endorsed and advanced by מורי ורבי Rav Soloveitchik זצ"ל namely providing women with a full Talmudic Education. It was here, I maintained, that the real sea-change was to be found. Compared to it, women's tefilla groups pale in significance.

My interlocutor responded with silence.

I have not changed my mind since then. We have, happily, trained our daughters and wives to learn Torah in the widest sense. This has not only deepened their devotion to God and Observance. We have all benefitted from their insights and interpretations. In addition, where frameworks have been created to alow them to use their hard earned knowledge, they have been a blessing to the entire community. In Israel, Rabbinic Pleaders (טוענות רבניות) have rescued innumerable women from the chains of abusive marriages. In Israel and abroad, Halakhic advisors (יועצות הלכה) have deepened observance of Taharat ha-Mishpaha, especially in those areas where women were uncomfortable asking men (with definitely negative results for their marriages). Where they have served as teachers for young brides, they have achieved a level of acceptance of Miqveh that is quite remarkable.

So, in light of these successes, I see no reason not to create a formal framework wherein learned women can spread Torah. Indeed, I believe that we owe them that.

On the other hand, I fully subscribe to Rabbi Broyde's caveat:

This does not at all mean that women need to be given the title “rabbi;” it could be, either for reasons of formal authority (serarah) being limited to men, or because the title “rabbi” is limited to people who can serve as witnesses or function as a chazan, or simply as a matter of tradition, a different title should be given. So too, this does not mean that training for women in the Orthodox clergy has to be identical to the training for men in the rabbinate -- women sometimes bring different pastoral approaches that require different training.

I would even sharpen his remarks. First, I think that the title Rabbi NOT be bestowed, not only for the cogent reasons that Rabbi Broyde notes. The pall-mall rush after the title 'Rabbi' smacks to me of an agenda-ridden feminism, and not (as must be the case) of a deep desire to serve God and Israel. An alternative title announces that women (as men) are ready to maximize their roles within the framework of the Law, but surrender to God's dictates when they reach that limit. To do otherwise would verge on idolatry. At best, it would be putting Tefillin on the statue of Apollo.

Shabbat Hazon marks the departure of God's Presence from amongst us. Creating a formal place for learned, Gof-fearing women as כלי קודש would be a step to inviting Him back.

Jeff Jacoby on Obama and Jerusalem

Jerusalem - one city, undivided

By Jeff Jacoby, Globe Columnist July 22, 2009

LATE LAST WEEK, the Obama administration demanded that the Israeli government pull the plug on a planned housing development near the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of Jerusalem. The project, a 20-unit apartment complex, is indisputably legal. The property to be developed - a defunct hotel - was purchased in 1985, and the developer has obtained all the necessary municipal permits.
Why, then, does the administration want the development killed? Because Sheikh Jarrah is in a largely Arab section of Jerusalem, and the developers of the planned apartments are Jews. Think about that for a moment. Six months after Barack Obama became the first black man to move into the previously all-white residential facility at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, he is fighting to prevent integration in Jerusalem.
It is impossible to imagine the opposite scenario: The administration would never demand that Israel prevent Arabs from moving into a Jewish neighborhood. And the Obama Justice Department would unleash seven kinds of hell on anyone who tried to impose racial, ethnic, or religious redlining in an American city. In the 21st century, segregation is unthinkable - except, it seems, when it comes to housing Jews in Jerusalem.
It is not easy for Israel’s government to refuse any demand from the United States, which is the Jewish state’s foremost ally. To their credit, Israeli leaders spoke truth to power, and said no. “Jerusalem residents can purchase apartments anywhere in the city,’’ Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday. “There is no ban on Arabs buying apartments in the west of the city, and there is no ban on Jews building or buying in the city’s east. This is the policy of an open city.’’
There was a time not so long ago when Jerusalem was anything but an open city. During Israel’s War of Independence in 1948, the Jordanian Arab Legion invaded eastern Jerusalem, occupied the Old City, and expelled all its Jews - many from families that had lived in the city for centuries. “As they left,’’ the historian Sir Martin Gilbert later wrote, “they could see columns of smoke rising from the quarter behind them. The Hadassah welfare station had been set on fire and . . . the looting and burning of Jewish property was in full swing.’’
For the next 19 years, eastern Jerusalem was barred to Jews, brutally divided from the western part of the city with barbed-wire and military fortifications. Dozens of Jewish holy places, including synagogues hundreds of years old, were desecrated or destroyed. Jerusalem’s most sacred Jewish shrine, the Western Wall, became a slum. It wasn’t until 1967, after Jordan was routed in the Six-Day War, that Jerusalem was reunited under Israeli sovereignty and religious freedom restored to all. Israelis have vowed ever since that Jerusalem would never again be divided.
And not only Israelis. US policy, laid out in the Jerusalem Embassy Act of 1995, recognizes Jerusalem as “a united city administered by Israel’’ and formally declares that “Jerusalem must remain an undivided city.’’
As a presidential candidate, Obama said the same thing. To a 2008 candidate questionnaire that asked about “the likely final status of Jerusalem,’’ Obama replied: “The United States cannot dictate the terms of a final status agreement . . . Jerusalem will remain Israel’s capital, and no one should want or expect it to be re-divided.’’ In a speech to the American Israel Public Affairs Council, he repeated the point: “Let me be clear . . . Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel, and it must remain undivided.’’
Palestinian irredentists claim that eastern Jerusalem is historically Arab territory and should be the capital of a future Palestinian state. In reality, Jews always lived in eastern Jerusalem - it is the location of the Old City and its famous Jewish Quarter, after all, not to mention Hebrew University, which was founded in 1918. The apartment complex that Obama opposes is going up in what was once Shimon Hatzadik, a Jewish neighborhood established in 1891. Only from 1948 to 1967 - during the Jordanian occupation - was the eastern part of Israel’s capital “Arab territory.’’ Palestinians have no more claim to sovereignty there than Russia does in formerly occupied eastern Berlin.
The great obstacle to Middle East peace is not that Jews insist on living among Arabs. It is that Arabs insist that Jews not live among them. If Obama doesn’t grasp that, he has a lot to learn.

More on the Home of Roi Klein

Widow of Israeli war hero to be dispossessed.
July 16, 2009
National Council of Young Israel
24 Tammuz 5769
As reported in Israel National News

On Monday, the High Court in Israel ruled in favor of the far-left organizations Peace Now and Yesh Din and ordered that 11 homes in the Samaria town of Eli be torn down. One of the homes in question belongs to IDF Major Roi Klein, who was killed in the Second Lebanon War when he jumped on a live hand grenade thrown by Hizbullah forces, in order to save his soldiers. Maj. Klein's last words, his soldiers later said, were "Shema Yisrael."

The Klein family home is located in the Hayovel neighborhood of Eli. The neighborhood received government support and services over the course of more than a decade, but never received official authorization. Peace Now claims that some houses were built on Arab-owned land. According, to residents of Eli, a part of one building does extend onto Arab land, but the other homes in the neighborhood, including the Klein family residence, were built entirely on state land.

Klein's final act of bravery led the state to posthumously award him the Medal of Valor, the IDF's highest honor. Klein was the first to be awarded the medal in more than 30 years.
Klein's widow, Sarah, declined to respond to the High Court decision that could leave her and her two young children with no home.

Neighbors described the news as "a harsh blow," particularly in light of the fact that it came almost exactly three years after Roey's death, and shortly before a scheduled IDF memorial ceremony in his honor.

'Will Your Hand not Tremble?'

Following the ruling, the Land of Israel Legal Forum sent an emotional appeal to Defense Minister Ehud Barak, calling on him to honor Major Klein by authorizing his family's home and making it legal. "Will your hand, as that responsible for destroying the home of this hero of Israel, not tremble as you sign the demolition order?" asked Forum chairman Nachi Eyal. "With your signature, you could turn his home 'legal,' but you refuse... The law does not require you to destroy the home of a hero of Israel who gave his life for his people," the letter continued. "If there is any legal way to prevent this travesty, you must make use of it."

When he gave his life, Klein became a national symbol of bravery and sacrifice, Eyal noted. If Barak allows the Klein family home to be destroyed, "the message sent will be disastrous, for both civilians and soldiers," he warned. "If there remains any significance to 'our duty to the fallen' - now is the time to prove it," he concluded.

Please help prevent the demolition of Ro"i Klein's home where his widow and 2 small children live. http://www.atzuma.co.il/petition/be770/1/

Fie Lifshitz College Fie!!!

I am privileged to know many learned, pious people. One of these is Professor Shmuel Glick. Those of us who know and admire him, know him to be a God-fearing, Jew, a fine Talmid Hakham and a first class scholar.

Recently, Prof. Glick was appointed President of the Lifshitz Teachers College. The latter was always a center for Torah and Jewish scholarship, which boasted such luminaries (many of who with children and grandchildren in Efrat)as Binyamin Klar, Ephraim Urbach, Shraga Abramson, Nechama Leibowitz,Haim Hillel Ben-Sasson, Zelda and (mutatis mutandis)Avraham Grossman.
In recent years, obscurantist Hardali elements have gained an foothold in Lifshitz.

Now, these forces of ignorance have forced the rescinding of Prof. Glick's appointment because he was hitherto employed as the Librarian of the Schocken Library in Jerusalem. The Library is owned and operated as a research institution by the Jewish Theological Seminary. It does not ordain rabbis and it does not involve itself in the Conservative movement. Yet these 'know-nothing' Hardali elements are using this fact to prevent this distinguished scholar from moving the college out of their control.

Let me make this very clear. Prof Glick's research career at Schocken has absolutely nothing to do either with his qualifications or fitness to be the President of Lifshitz. What these rabbis, who wouldn't know a scholar if the fell on one, are doing violates at least a dozen Torah prohibitions and, more to that, drives another nail in the coffin of Modern Orthodoxy in Israel.

I urge everyone who seeks justice and supports our beliefs to protest this nefarious action. Call the college at: 02-5679567 or e-mail them at: lifshiz@macam.ac.il.

INGRATITUDE!!!!

Major Ro'i Klein threw himself on a grenade during the Second Lebanon War. He saved his soldiers, but his wife and children became orphans. As a reward, the Supreme Court has decided to destroy his house and throw his family into the street. You see, Peace Now thinks this hero in Israel was a criminal because the government held up the final permits for his home (that was built by the Jewish Agency and Local Municipal Council).

Unbelievable, but too true.

UPDATE: Please sign this petition against this nefarious action.

Michael Jackson...Enough Already

Cong. Pete King from LI said it best:

Aharon Barak Revelatus

I'm sure that Ben Chorin will not be surprised, but former Chief Justice Aharon Barak not only advocates dictatorship by judicial fiat, he is also against the idea of the State of Israel as a Jewish State.

Yes, yes, I know he said that he wants a 'state of all its citizens' 'while maintaining its Jewish character.' The two, however, are mutually exclusive since the former is code for a secular state with no Jewish content.

Thank God he's no longer in charge, and his successor is far less capable than he.

Your take, Ben?

Swine Flu

One of the more poignant aspects of the 'ethnicization' of Jewish Identity, is the substitution of sentiment for substance. I first encountered this, as a child, when my parents explained the difference between 'Kosher' and "kosher style.' The latter simply referred to treyfe food that was prepared according to Eastern European palates. Later I came to understand that satisfying those palates was a mode of Jewish self-identification, and therefore possessed some (limited) value. After all, no one would think of ordering a glass of milk with their treyfe pastrami.

The thing about such, non-substantial modes of affiliation is that they become ever more tenuous as time, and generations, go on. The latest example of this process of attenuation is the rise in pork consumption among Jews. Once this was the ultimate shibboleth. Now, however, savoring pork appears to be quite au courant. Personally, while the mangiatori del carne suina are pleased with the shock value that attends their new-found pleasure, I am far from shocked. In fact, I'm surprised it's taken this long.

The Jewish revulsion from pork is historically remarkable. In ancient times, Jews preferred to be martyred, rather than partake thereof. In post-Expulsion Spain, refraining from pork could be a one-way ticket to the torture chambers of the Inquisition. On the other hand, as Professor Haym Soloveitchik has noted, it is unclear why pork products elicited such a strong reaction when other (equally, or even more serious) forbidden foods did not. In any event, the identification of pork with the ultimately taboo is a long standing Jewish trait. [After all, how does one say absolutely forbidden in Yiddish? Chazer Treyf.]

At the end of the day, however, the emotional response to pork is simply an expression of a deeper commitment to Judaism and Jewry. As with many forms of ethnicity, after the regulae are dispensed with, it may maintain itself for a generation or so. However, in the absence of an axiological commitment (and the willingness to pay the price for that commitment) it will inevitably pass away. This is what happened to the taboo against intermarriage, and this is exactly the case with the taboo against pork.

So the pork-eating Jews may enjoy themselves. [חזיר געגעסען הנאה געהאט.] However, their newly found pleasure only confirms the fact that despite their sophisticated, post-modern, Jewish self-fashioning they (or their children) are on the precipice of Jewish oblivion.

That is the tragedy.

Ah....Validation

More Obama...

One of my commenters has observed that my Obama postings have been a bit shrill. Being shrill is not my style, and I intend to monitor my tone. Nevertheless, the administration's actions have me very concerned. Their rhetoric cum actions connote a serious withdrawal from the commitment to Israel's existence that has been the hallmark of American Policy since Truman, pace Eisenhower/Kennedy/Johnson.

Consider the following:

1) Obama, implicitly, denied the right of Jews to a state in their ancestral homeland. Instead, he openly adopted the Palestinian/Muslim understanding that the Christian World foisted the Jews on the Arabs out of guilt for the Holocaust. In addition, his recent remarks on settlements being illegal is Arab spin. They have never been deemed as such in any Israel-Palestinian agreements.

2) The American Ambassador has commenced an on-going dialogue with irridentist elements within Israel. These elements, e.g. the Supreme Arab Commission, are leading the fight to denude Israel of its identity as a Jewish State, precisely because Jews are an alien element here and they are natives.

3) Hillary Clinton, speaking for her boss, still insists that building within established settlements (including those that everyone expects will remain Israeli) is the biggest obstacle to peace. The statement is unrealistic, mean and simply wrong. At the end of the day, the problem is that Arabs (and Muslims) cannot and will not make peace with a kafir state on waqf land.

It pains me that we can't seem to get this message across and must always wait for the Arabs to save us. The trouble is that Leftist true-believers rarely let facts interfere with their take on the world.