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| Rabbi Avi Weiss |
I am not in
the habit of defending Rabbi Avi Weiss. I have long been critical of his philosophy
and many of his actions.
Rabbi Weiss
might be considered the philosophical head of Left Wing Modern Orthodoxy. He
has created a Yeshiva (YCT) that has crossed some serious lines drawn by his
mentor, Rav Soloveitchik. He admitted parting ways with his mentor on those issues. Among some of his innovations are promoting theological interaction with non
Orthodox movements and letting feminism be his guide.
He has been in the forefront of ordaining women for the rabbinate… something that is
rejected by virtually all other segments of Orthodoxy. He was chastised by his
own rabbinic fraternity (the Centrist RCA) for doing just that when he ordained
the first Orthodox female rabbi (feminizing that masculine honorific into the
word rabba). They threatened him with expulsion if he ever did it again. He agreed to no longer ordain rabbas.
But he has
nonetheless not only continued doing this, he has set up a rabbinical school
for that purpose. Ordainees will are given the title Maharat. (How he thinks
this is not a violation of his agreement with the RCA is beyond me. A Maharat -
is a rabba - is a rabbi. A rose by any other name is still a rose.)
In yet
another break with tradition He has allowed women to lead the Kabbolas Shabbos service
with men present in his Shul.
He has also
been involved in some very public actions that I felt were inappropriate and
counterproductive. I won’t go so far as
to call them a Chilul HaShem. But I think he clearly sent the wrong message
about how to react to problems facing Judaism.
Just to mention 2 such incidents:
There was the time he protested a convent
being built in Auschwitz. In protest he made a public spectacle of himself at
the time by jumping over a fence built to protect the convent.
In another
instance he protested a movie called The Passion of the Christ by picketing a theater in which it was showing wearing a concentration camp prison uniform. This kind of shoot from the
hip approach is totally inappropriate and counter-productive in my view.
I am not
going to discuss the propriety of any of his innovations here. I’ve done that
in other posts. Without going into detail - suffice it to say that I think he is
wrong in all of the above.
That said, I
do not believe he ever violated the letter of the law in any of what he did.
What he did is ignore tradition and broke with it. Tradition has always played
an important part in Judaism. Mesorah,
which is another word for tradition is not something to be treated lightly.
(As a matter
of fact following the traditions of our parents is something lacking even in
the right wing Yeshiva world. As Dr. Chaim Soloveitchik said in his seminal essay,
the ‘book’ has replaced the ‘Mesorah’ We are a people of the book now more than
at any other time in history. Incorrectly so. Instead
of looking at what our father’s customs were, we are taught to look inside a Sefer. We see what the Sefer says and we
follow that instead of following what our parents did. But I digress.)
I am opposed
to the type of change Rabbi Weiss has innovated and promoted. That kind of
thinking is what motivated the Conservative movement to do things like remove
the Mechitza from their Shuls. Their claim was that nowhere in the Shulchan
Aruch will one find that a Shul requires a Mechitza. But as we all know, a
Mechitza is essential in a Shul if there are women present. There is no Posek
even in the most left wing segment of Orthodoxy that permits a Shul to remove a
Mechitza. Not even Rabbi Weiss would allow that in his Shul.
And that is
the point. Rabbi Weiss has to the best of my knowledge never promoted even the
slightest infraction of any Halacha. His ‘sins’ are Hashkafic, not Halachic. And
as such I believe his testimony is as valid as any Orthodox Jew.
I am therefore
strongly protesting the Israeli rabbinate suggestion that he has lost his
validity to testify. They claim that his fealty to Halacha is questionable
based on some rabbinic sources which include some members of the RCA. From
Ynet:
(The Israeli Rabbinate) had received testimonies from well-known rabbis in the United States, some of whom are member of the Rabbinical Council of America (RCA), that Weiss' halachic opinions – reflected in different incidents and circumstances – "cast doubt on the level of his commitment to the customary and acceptable Jewish Halacha."
What a
curious phrase: ‘Customary and acceptable Jewish Halacha’. This is not the
same as not being committed to Halacha. It is what I said earlier. It is his lack of
commitment to ‘customary Halacha’ which is kind of a contradiction in terms. Custom is not Halacha. I
have to assume they are questioning is loyalty to tradition. Important as that is,
it is not the same as violating Halacha. By using the term Halacha in that phrase, they imply that Rabbi Weiss promotes violating Halacha.
It is fair to
criticize him for what he does. It is unfair to criticize him by implying he
rejects Halacha.
What led to
all this is a letter from Rabbi Weiss to the Rabbinate testifying to the
legitimacy of a convert who was seeking to be married in Israel. They rejected
Rabbi Weiss’s testimony. The rabbinate will not perform a marriage to a convert
if they do not ascertain the validity of that conversion.
I don’t know
enough about the actual convert is this case. I might agree with their decision
not to accept the validity of a conversion that is not made according to their standards.
If that had been the claim, they had a right to that opinion. Agree or not, it’s
not my call or Rabbi Weiss’s.
But I do
know that calling into question Rabbi Weiss’s commitment to Halacha is a mistake
which ‘whitened the face of their fellow’. Doing that, the Gemara says, is
tantamount to murder!
Rabbi Weiss
has had a lifelong commitment to Yiddishkeit.
I am sure that Rabbi Weiss believes that all of his questionable
innovations are L’Shma. I’m sure he has a Halachic justification for all of
them. Eventhough I strongly disagree with him, I believe that his heart is in
the right place.
To embarrass someone in public the way the rabbinate did implying
that he does not follow Halacha is a gross violation of Bein Adam L’Chavero in
my view. Ultimately it reflects poorly on the Rabbinate. I think they ought to
apologize.