Friday, September 14, 1973—THE BULLETIN—11
Israel's rabbinate frustrated, estranged
Israers rabbis are frustrated and largely estranged from the society around them, says Jerusalem-born Robbi Adin Steinsoltz.
|erusalem-born Rabbi Steinsaltz a BSc degree at Hebrew |iversity before studying atvar-js yeshivot. He is head of the stitute for Talmudic Publica-hns in Jerusalem.
kNY BROAD DISCUSSION of
rabbinate in Israel inevitably tns into a discussion of the tsis within the rabbinate.
lis crisis, however, is not lically Israeli.
[t is a general Jewish crisis, inected with the social and
jritual development of Jewry
[the past hundred years or so. The role of the rabbi is rather
^cial because, although he is
sir?"
A SPECIAL Israeli aspect of the general problem of the role of the rabbi is the fact that the Israeli rabbi is a civil servant employed by the Stat^. This bestows on him a certain happy independence from the community and its financial leaders. But it may also result in his lacking incentive to play an active role in the community.
A complicating factor is the existence of religious councils in every community. The religious council is a body composed, according to law, of representatives of the public concerned. Those chosen to serve on it are largely selected by the political
f Eiiiifiipviira
\Bl OVADIA YOSEF, Sephardi Chief Rabbi of Israel.
ien by the community which serves, his authority is de-|d from another source, from Torah, and.he is its inter-fer and representative. 18 rabbi, therefore, cannot |ly represent or speak for >le of his community out-a certain very narrow field, |ss they, like him, accept the >rity of the Torah. hother difficulty stems from fact that his role isnotessen-a sacramental, a purely, ^ous one. Unlike the Catholic it who serves by virtue of orders and actually holds us hand the sole authority [erform the sacraments, the |i 'has no essential function |h cannot be performed by jone else,
lie rabbi is merely the person being learned in the Torah [Jewish law, has to help the Ibers of the community when figious problem arises. Is frustration is well-illust-by a joke told by a rabbi Ine of Israel's cities. "In (lO years of my official func-Ing as rabbi, there were only Iquestions that have been put lie — and both of them can |y be reduced to one ques-namely: 'What time is it,
parties.
The religious council is allocated its budget by the Ministry for Religious Affairs and by the local authorities and its task is to supply the inhabitants of the locality with all the religious services required.
The rabbi is not a member of the religious council.
He is employed by it and, together with the other religious or semi-religious functionaries, has to-provide all the religious services he can.
The rabbi therefore represents the local religious-political institution but does not stand at its head.
There is yet another element in Israel which makes the problem more acute: the existence of the yeshivot and the strong influence of heads of yeshivot and even of the yeshiva graduates in the community.
The head of a yeshiva is not only the spiritual leader of his school; his influence often extends beyond the school and beyond intellectually-scholarly matters to the field of ideas and ideologies.
Yeshiva students usually choose to study at a particular school out of deference to the authority and
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leadership of the head of the yeshiva. Usually, this emotional and spiritual bond is maintained in all its strength after the student's departure from the yeshiva and frequently throughout his life. The influence of the yeshiva . head is liable to be much greater than that of the rabbis of the community, who are themselves former yeshiva students with their own personal loyalties.
The existence of so many yeshivot also creates a whole class of laymen who are often qualified as rabbis and certainly have an equivalent education.
Such a congregation would re7 quire relatively little of the routine legal services of the local rabbi.
In fact, he is frequently in the position of being an ideological or political opponent.
A yeshiva graduate who wishes to devote his life to religious action generally prefers to serve as the head of a yeshiva, as a teacher or as a dayan.
Far too frequently, therefore, those who become communal rabbis are frustrated individuals for whom it is the second or third choice of career and who, even in their daily round dream of establishing a yeshiva as a fuller expression of theirperson-alities.
Dependence on the traditional services of the rabbi is also reduced by the publication of hala-chic handbooks and guides, as well as other works which deal with problems of Jewish law, Israelis often prefer to read and learn for themselves rather than rely on the opinion of the local rabbi.
The rabbi in Israel finds that his traditional role is narrowing, while his education follows the old traditional pattern.
The material he studies and on which he is examined has become less and less useful in terms of his everyday preoccupations, while those fields of operation which do engage him are quite outside the yeshiva curriculum.
Relations with the large non-religious public are a serious problem in themselves. The rabbi usually comes from a religious background, which is a different social and cultural milieu from that of mostof his secular-minded community. The gap between their re spec-
RABBI SHLOMO GOREN, Israel's Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi.
tive views and values is often much greater than he can bridge.
Even the formal respect shown to clericals in other countries is relatively absent in Israel.
Among possible solutions, one might be the emergence of the rabbi from the confines of religious party politics and the narrow scope of his ritual duties (from the butcher shop to the mikva, as one rabbi put it) and his active participation in public life, on the basis of a definite moral and Jewish point of view.
This may well make him a controversial figure, but it will at least reinforce his role as a representative of living Judaism.
Another possible solution is for the rabbi to resume the traditional role of teacher of Torah to the people. In other words, obligated'to instruct anyone who
asks for instruction, whether young or old.
This obligation to teach, if properly carried out, could make the rabbi in Israel a genuinely influential factor in the future of Judaism and the Torah in the Jewish State.
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