Guest Post by Anonymous
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| Newly ordained Maharats Friedman, Finegold, and Scheier |
The young woman who penned this post is a personal friend of
mine. She wishes to retain her privacy and asked that I not reveal her
identity. Although I generally do not publish anonymous submissions, I have made
an exception in this case since I know who she is. She is a woman of high integrity; she is passionate about her
beliefs; and she writes well.
Her background is Modern Orthodox and she is college
educated. She attended coed Modern Orthodox schools for both elementary and
high school. As always the views
reflected by the author do not necessarily reflect my own. Her words follow.
I recently read the article from Tablet Magazine regarding
Yeshivat Maharat's graduating class of 2013. I was offended by the
article and by many of the issues it raises. Let me explain.
First, I must admit that the article appears to be
remarkably even-handed in its treatment of the subject. Opinions are
cited on both sides of the issue, with a fair share of context to back up both
those for and those against (for lack of a better term) female rabbis.
However, upon closer examination, I believe that the article reveals a
bias in favor of Yeshivat Maharat. By downplaying the vast religious and
socio-political implications of Orthodox woman rabbis, the article is in fact
perpetuating what I believe to be the biggest fallacy behind the concept and
institution of the Maharat: that the ordination of women within Orthodox
Judaism is "no big deal."
It is a very big deal, and no one knows it more than Rabbi
Avi Weiss and the women he is training to be rabbis. (Women of Yeshivat
Maharat, kindly forgive the term.) With the exceptions of the
non-Orthodox branches of Judaism, Yeshivat Maharat is the first Jewish
institution to challenge the fact that rabbis must be men.
Rabbis Weiss and
Sperber stand alone in their position that women can and should be rabbis.
They stand against every single one of our gedolei hador (the universally
accepted leaders of the Jewish people), both in this generation and in previous
generations. Our gedolim (great rabbinic leaders) have spoken clearly: the
fact that rabbis have always been men is no mere legal technicality, nor is it
a misrepresentation of our religious constitution. Call them what you want:
Women should not be rabbis.
Rabbi Avi Weiss and his students, like many thinking Jews
(myself included), are asking a very simple question: Why not? Why can't
women be rabbis? After all, just because no one has ever attempted
something doesn't mean it is wrong. Again, I belive that the gedolim have
answered this question quite clearly, albeit not to the satisfaction of
everyone asking the question. The gedolim have stated that the concept of
a female rabbi, even if it meets strict Halachic guidelines (which Yeshivat
Maharat assumes to be true), is nevertheless against the spirit of Orthodox Judaism.
I am personally acquainted with several of the members of Yeshivat
Maharat, and I believe that they are truly good Jews and good people.
However, I also believe that on this particular issue, they have
unfortunately been led astray and continue to lead others astray.
So what exactly is the problem with women becoming rabbis?
If I may, I would like to suggest that our rabbis' objection is twofold.
Our rabbis are fighting against the advent of Orthodox women rabbis
because they are fiercely defending two essential Jewish values that comprise
the fabric of Jewish belief and practice, namely, tzniut (modesty) and mesorah
(tradition).
Rabbi Avi Weiss and the women of Yeshivat Maharat are all
thinking and well-meaning individuals, striving (as I believe we all are) to approach
G-d and Judaism in an authentic and correct way. However, that does not
give them license to argue against normative Orthodox Judaism or to overrule
centuries, nay millenniums, of mesorah. Fiddler on the Roof
notwithstanding, the concept of tradition, mesorah, is vital to the very
survival and integrity of Judaism and the Jewish people. We have rules
when it comes to implementing a new idea or a new norm within Orthodox Judaism.
Our rabbis taught us that no religious court may ever overturn the rulings
of another religious court unless the former is greater both in wisdom and in
number.
Rabbi Weiss: The Orthodox Rabbinate, in the form of the RCA, has
rejected your idea. You are not a religious court. You are but one
man with a handful of loud supporters. Why do you persist in rallying
support for an idea that the religious world has already rejected? How can you
insist upon and demand the respect of the Orthodox community, while at the same
time engaging the Orthodox community with such pitiful disrespect?!
If
you want the respect of your rabbinic colleagues, you must afford them respect
as well, by honoring their religious principles, precedents and rules. If
it were a good idea for the Jewish People to have woman rabbis, wouldn't
someone greater than we have already thought of it?... Someone like Moshe
Rabbeinu, Yehoshua HaNavi, Rabbi Yehuda HaNassi, Ravina and Rav Ashi, Rav
Saadia Gaon, Maimonides, the Vilna Goan, the Baal Shem Tov, the Chofetz Chaim,
Rav Kook, or Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, to name a few?...
Rabbi Weiss has an
incredible level of disrespect for the leaders of our people, both living and
deceased. Yet he and his students persist in demanding the respect of us
all.
The issue of tzniut, modesty, is also one that gets downplayed
in the article. Contrary to popular misconception, tzniut has very little
to do with clothing or other minutia of religious life. It has everything
to do with dignity and self-image. (The Piskei Uziel's quote, brought by
Ms. Brown Schier in the article, alludes to this idea.) Shlomo HaMelech,
wisest of all men, told us that the dignity of a woman, which stems from a
sense of royalty, is internal. The strength of the Jewish woman, much as
the strength of the Jewish man, lies in the spiritual power she carries within.
She commands respect not by making a spectacle of herself, but by being
respectable herself and radiating respect toward others.
The public ordination
of women, by being radical and unprecedented, flies in the face of tzniut.
At the very least, the manner in which Yeshivat Maharat screams for the
world's attention is disgraceful and decidedly undignified. For a tiny
graduating class of three students, Yeshivat Maharat has a disproportionately
loud voice. To wit, hundreds if not thousands of men receive semicha
(rabbinic ordination) every year, but we don't hear them screaming for
attention. The attention-seeking behavior of the faces behind Yeshivat
Maharat smacks of insecurity and immaturity, and it compromises the credibility
of their cause. It is a disgrace not only to Judaism, but to feminism.
In closing, one final note: Why did I choose to blog about
this anonymously? Why did I choose to put my name on this article, and
share it with friends or with the world at large? The answer is that
unfortunately, I did not feel safe revealing my true thoughts and feelings on
this subject, lest they be shot down and lest my right to an opinion be
violated. And herein lies an even bigger issue than the others I have
mentioned. Why can't Yeshivat Maharat and its supporters be content to
live and let live? Why must they bolster their viewpoint by ostracizing
those who oppose it? Is this not precisely the kind of religious
intolerance and lack of intellectual honesty they are purporting to
combat?
