There were some very interesting comments to my last post which raises a very good question: What is the difference in ideology between UTJ and YCT/Edah? I do not see any ideological differences at all. Now it is true that I am not really that familiar with the exact ideologies of either but it is plain to see that in practice, they appear to be the same and have similar goals. They both seem to be animated by feminist concerns. Aside from the fact that they both stem from radically different ideologies: YCT/Edah from Orthodoxy and UTJ from the Conservative Movement... their respective institutions seem to have virtually the same “look”. Both accept Torah MiSinai and both claim to be adherents of Halacha, and indeed I think they try to stay within those parameters, albeit stretching the limits.
KOE, which is the UTJ shul (defacto, if not dejure) ..has a Mechitza, but hardly one any traditionally Orthodox Jew would feel comfortable with. If I am not mistaken the Mechitza goes right down the middle and crosses the Bimah so that woman can get Aliyos. I am not sure of the Halachic permissibility of that but I’m sure if one tries hard enough one can find sources allowing some sort of scenario where that is permitted... perhaps without a Bracha... or not during actual Kriyas Hatorah... I don’t know. But the idea is that they stay Halachic and it is why they even bother with any Mechitza at all. And KOE just hired a female “rabbinic” figure to lead their Kehhila: From the article in the New York Times:
“Ms. Najman (pronounced NIGH-man), 38, a wife, a mother of three and an expert in Jewish bioethics, will become the spiritual leader of Kehilat Orach Eliezer, a small Upper West Side congregation. She will not be called rabbi; instead, she has been given the title of rosh kehillah, or head of congregation.”
The fact that they do not call her rabbi is an attempt to stay Halachic. (Although many would say it is a failed attempt.)
Compare that to YCT founder, Rabbi Avi Weiss’s Shul, the Hebrew Institute of Riverdale (HIR). He instituted a rabbinic intern program that trains women to function as defacto rabbis, only without the title. They do not technically violate any Halachic dictates and do only what women are allowed to do in a Shul, but they stretch that to the limit. Here, too, it is an attempt to stay within the parameters of Halacha. What’s the real difference between KOE and HIR? I see none.
In both cases the motivation seems clear. The most glaring commonality between the two groups is their concession to the radical feminist agenda. And I emphasize radical because I, too, am a feminist. I believe that in the area of the workplace and in matters of treating the sexes fairly and equally, there should be no difference in our approach to men or women.
But I part company with those who take feminism to an extreme and impose its doctrines in areas of Halacha. Although I agree that one can find legitimate loopholes in Halacha to accommodate feminism, there are lines that should not be crossed, especially if the primary motivation is feminist. Tradition matters. Minhag can be very important, and changing Minhag to accommodate an anti-Torah agenda (which at its core is one of the goals of radical feminism) is wrong.
This is why I am against Women’s Teffilah groups, for example. Though there is a Halachic way for them to exist the motivation is so obviously feminist that it overrides anything positive that may result. Any Kavanah in Avodas HaLev (Davening) that may result is secondary to the fact that a foreign and anti Torah ideology is behind it and has imbedded itself into the Torah world.
And it is foreign to Torah. Because radical feminism believes that equality of the sexes overrides any other ideal, religious or otherwise. Radical feminism wants the world to be blind to the sexes. There are no “roles for men and roles for women. They are interchangeable. Even the physical differences of the sexes are minimized by them. And psychological differences are completely denied. Even those who are sympathetic to their cause pay a heavy price if they even suggest the possibility that there is are psychological differences. Ask ex-Harvard president, Lawrence Summers. He did not walk in lock-step with them and ...he's gone! Female rabbis... absolutely... Halacha... secondary and always trumped by the radical femisit ideology.
We cannot allow this type mentality to creep into the Torah world. We cannot allow it to enter the holy parameters of a Torah nation, even if it does so through the side door of a Halachic loophole.
But UTJ and YCT/Edah don’t mind doing that at all, no matter how radical it is to traditional practice. It does not bother them that the motivation of those who push for such reforms are motivated by the tenets of the radical feminist agenda, even if they do not fully realize it and feel sincere in there motivations.
I think this is one reason that UTJ and YCT/Edah has not yet been... nor will they be successful. One cannot always say “Where there is a rabbinic will, there is a Halachic way” which is kind of an Eis Laasos argument for the times. We are not in such a time now. This type of argument should only be used at times when there is a clear existential danger to Klal Yisroel as there was at the time of the founding of the Bais Yaakov movement. At that time Torah Judaism was clearly in danger because women who had no formal system for Torah education were being lost to the universities. Women raised in Torah homes were ill prepared for the university environment which would convince many of them to abandon Torah observance as archaic, irrelevant, and untrue.
It was that fact that allowed history to be changed. It was the same Eis Laasos that allowed the redaction of the Oral Law back in Mishnaic times. But now there is no such existential danger. It is only a small group of people who are driving this agenda who are themselves, perhaps unwittingly, being driven by radical feminism. And that is not enough for radical change.
