A Shana U’Pireish

Rabbi Victor Urecki playing with his grandson (JTA)

I have to say that I am deeply disappointed. What started out as a cute ‘puff piece’ in JTA  about a Lego building rabbi, ended up depressing me. Although I must admit that the photo of him makes him look very untraditional, there are some untraditional looking rabbis that do some very  good things. 

 YU (Yeshiva University) ordained, Rabbi Victor Urecki is what is known as a Shana U’Pireish - a Jew who is  knowledgeable in Halacha and knowingly rejects it. Which in his case was done in a very public manner in his role as a rabbi.

Rabbi  Urecki is currently the rabbi of a Conservative Shul. Not that this is all that shocking. Back in the heyday of the Conservative movement  (the late 50s – early 60s) it was not all that uncommon to hear about an Orthodox trained rabbi taking a pulpit at Conservative Shul. Not only YU ordainees but  ordainees from across the spectrum of many Orthodox Yeshivos. 

Those of us who were in Yeshiva high school back then used to call it ‘selling out’. Meaning that these rabbis were mostly interested in the much larger salaries paid by Conservative Shuls than they could get from Orthodox Shuls. Often fooling themselves into thinking that they could do some good  by instilling a little more Halacha into the lives of their members. But usually the opposite happened. In all too many (but not all)  cases those rabbis ended up violating Halacha themselves. 

This was not the same as taking a pulpit in Traditional Shuls - mostly in and around  Chicago. Which  was the epicenter of the growing phenomenon (at the time) of taking Mechitzos out of Orthodox Shuls. 

Back in those days more than a few Orthodox Shuls that moved out of the changing neighborhood of the once very Jewish West Side of Chicago wanted to relocate as non Mechitza Shuls while still under Orthodox auspices. 

Taking a pulpit in a non Mechitza Shul was vigorously opposed by the vast majority of the Orthodox rabbinate – including by YU’s Rav Yosef Dov Soloveitchik and even more vigorously by his brother, Rav Ahron. But there was one Posek and Rosh Yeshiva (of HTC) in Chicago, Rav Chaim Dovid Regensburg, that not only permitted it, he actively told his ordained students to take positions at these Shuls. 

He argued that if they didn’t take them, those shuls would turn to Conservative rabbis and be lost to Judaism. By taking those positions these rabbis would be able to keep the shul within the fold of Orthodoxy in every other way. Furthermore they would be able to influence their members to send their children to religious schools instead of public schools. Which many of these rabbis were successful in doing. So successful were they that those children refused to attend their own father’s shul because of the lack of a Mechitza. That contributed mightily to the demise of the Traditional movement.

Upon his arrival in Chicago, Rav Ahron made it his mission to destroy that movement. He too contributed mightily to their demise. In fact all of his ordainees, including yours truly, were required to sign a document that exclusively forbade taking a non Mechitza Shul without his express permission.. Only after signing that document did he sign our Semicha.

Although that is an interesting piece of Chicago Jewish history, I digress. Back to Rabbi Urecki. He took a pulpit at a Traditional shul back in 1986 during the dying days of the Traditional movement. But instead of guiding his membership in the way Rav Regnesburg had instructed his students to do, Rabbi Urecki went the other way. His shul eventually joined to Conservative movement and many of his members are now dual members of the nearby Reform, Temple Israel. Then there is the following: 

In 2017, B’nai Jacob held its first High Holiday services where women counted in the prayer quorum. In 2018, the synagogue officially joined the Conservative movement. Urecki welcomes the flexibility. 

“The congregation has allowed me to grow not just as me, but also as a rabbi,” Urecki said. “I’ve got to explore avenues that I don’t think I would have done in other places. I’m not the same rabbi that came in back in ’86. I want to perform intermarriages. I want to be there for same-sex marriages. 

How far has Rabbi Urecki fallen! What a sad commentary about a man who should know better. Yes’ he grew, But in the wrong direction – out of Halachic Judaism. 

When someone like Reform Rabbi Rick Jacobs – whose entire life and education was in the Reform Movement does that it’s understandable.  It’s hard to blame him. He did not have the education that Rabbi Urecki did. He never experienced any kind of Orthodox education Surely he believes he is serving God and the Jewish people. But when someone studies in an Orthodox Yeshiva, knows what Halacha demands, and then rejects it,  that cannot be excused. That is literally the definiton of a Shana U’Pireish 

I am not one to condemn someone like that. I am not in his shoes. I don’t know why he changed his views so drastically. But what I can say is that I’m really disappointed that a once religious and surely idealistic Jew who chose the rabbinate as his calling has decided to reject what he learned. Surely he knows that this would be completely rejected  by all of his teachers and mentors at YU. I don’t know how he can rationalize his way out of that! . 

Yet another sad story in Klal Yisroel.