Who is a Rabbi?

Who is a Rabbi? By Sherwin Pomerantz This morning’s papers include an item about the decision of Israel’s Sephardic Chief Rabbi Shlomo Amar to do all in his power to reverse the state’s earlier decision to recognize some Conservative and Reform Rabbis in Israel and pay them with public funds, just as the Orthodox Rabbis are so paid. In an interview on Sunday with the Kol Berama radio station (aligned with Shas, the ultra-orthodox Sephardi party) he said the Reform and Conservative movements “uprooted all the foundations of Torah” and there’s a need “to explain the terrible damage that they wreak.” He went on to say, in a letter to the Attorney General, that “We view such a thing as the planting of the seed that will yield fruits that are not good fruits or kosher fruits, but that bear within them grave risks to the Jewish people from every direction. We know that the greatest danger to this generation is the assimilation that is eating into us and depleting us, and they give a hand, haphazardly and easily, to this terrible phenomenon, aside from what they uproot – actually uproot – from the foundations of Torah.” Last week Shas MK Nissim Ze’ev told the Jerusalem Post that the high court and the attorney general do not have the authority to designate as rabbis “people who falsify the Torah. This is the beginning of the destruction of the Jewish people in the land of Israel.” Really? Is this the major issue of our times? I find it strange that at a time in the history of Israel when we are faced with existential threats to our survival as serious as any in our 64-year history; when next door to us in Syria and Egypt we see political chaos that has the potential to destabilize the region and our security; when our strongest ally, the US, yields to pressure from Turkey to exclude us from an international conference on counter-terrorism; when Iran continues to develop its nuclear capability while simultaneously taking every opportunity to tell the world Israel should be removed from the face of the earth: and when our heroic military leaders are prevented from traveling to some western democracies for fear of being arrested as war criminals, that this is the time when some of our religious leaders choose to launch an internecine struggle to define who is a Rabbi. My father, z”l, was a manufacturers’ representative for most of his life. When selling the products of the companies he represented, he lived by a cardinal rule and that was if what he had to sell could not be sold on its own merits as a quality product with value to the customer, there was no benefit whatsoever to attempt to sell his product by demeaning the competition. Sadly much of the Orthodox leadership in this country has not learned that lesson. If Orthodoxy is the true faith, and if Orthodoxy is the best there is, then it should stand on its own two feet and not depend for its growth and sustenance on the denigration of other streams of Judaism. And what is it that is feared? In all of Israel today there just 30 Reform congregations and 50 Conservative groups, and this after 50+ years of existence in the country. These are not even statistically significant numbers. Why there are over 100 synagogues, shtieblach, and prayer groups just with a 5 sq.km. distance from where I live in Jerusalem. So what’s the fear? That the state has now officially legitimized non-Orthodox rabbis? Does anyone really believe that those who call these loyal Israeli citizens “Rabbi” will stop giving them the honor due a Rabbi because the state does not recognize them? Will they be given any more respect because they are recognized by the state? No. The issue here is one of control. The Chief Rabbis and their minions are obsessed with the issue of control: control of their followers, control of the state’s funds allocated for religious activities, and control over who is acceptable and who is not. The logic may be cloaked in the flowery language of the fear that the “other” will destroy Judaism, but the real reason is control, nothing more, nothing less. These same Rabbis who rant and rave about the destruction being foisted on Jewish continuity by the Reform and Conservative movements are very happy to take contributions for their projects from the adherents of those movements. When they take the high road and refuse the donations, then I’ll be ready to listen to the arguments which are today cloaked in a misplaced sense of sanctity. Until then, clearly the only motivating issue here is the fear of losing control, nothing more. Just one more reason, perhaps, why the position of Chief Rabbi no longer makes sense in Israel or anywhere else. It just may be an institution who time has passed.