Rabbi Prof. Dov Fischer
There now seems to have arisen the latest recurring chapter in the
never-ending saga of situations where radical-left rabbis in America
expect and demand that the Israeli Chief Rabbinate recognize them and
their “conversions” as valid Orthodox conversions.
In the newest tweak, a letter has been produced by which the Rabbinate did not recognize a conversion authenticated by a
Rabbi Akiva Herzfeld.
For some in the left-wing media, this is a new cause celebre: Wow! The
Israeli Chief Rabbinate will not recognize conversions by Akiva
Herzfeld, who graduated from an “Open Orthodox” seminary!
But
this is no news story worth the ink. This is no scandal. Because few,
if any, normative mainstream Orthodox rabbis in the United States would
recognize any “conversion” conducted by that rabbi,
nor would his written attestations make the slightest difference to us.
If a man walked into my Young Israel shul at a service where there are
nine men at the prayers, one short of a minyan (quorun) for reciting
Kaddish (a memorial prayer recited for a deceased loved one), and it
were my Dad’s soul for whom Kaddish needed to be recited that day,
I
still would not recite that Kaddish prayer if that tenth man were to
tell me that he had been “converted” to Judaism by that rabbi. Because that still would leave me with nine Jewish men in the room, plus a very sweet guy who is not Jewish.
Time and again these
columns have
warned the Jewish public and particularly the universe of non-Jews
contemplating conversion to Judaism — in Israel, in America — that
the
normative mainstream American Orthodox rabbinate, no less than the
Israeli Chief Rabbinate, does not recognize the validity of
“conversions” conducted by people of certain theological distortions. It does not matter that some rabbi says “But I am a rabbi! I have ordination! Here, look at my certificate!”
Just this past week, a handful of new Reform rabbis were ordained in California. At their ordination, the
keynote speaker not
only attacked Jews in general and Israel in particular — and was known
to the rabbinical institution for his long and nasty history of
attacking Israel — but he even further attacked the Judaic theological
primacy of endogamy: that a Jew must marry a Jew. Instead, he advocated
—
at a rabbinical ordination program — intermarriage of Jews with non-Jews.
There
are American rabbis who hate Judaic rituals like mikvah. There are
American rabbis who are world leaders in convincing non-Jews throughout
Europe and on American campuses to boycott Israel, to persuade their
universities and companies to divest shares of corporations who do
business with Israel, even to sanction Israel.
So
when a Reform rabbi comes to Israel and says “I am a rabbi,” that does
not automatically mean that Israel should be rolling out the red carpet
at the Kotel (Western Wall) and giving Judaism’s holiest site over to
her or his theological misdirection. There are American rabbis who hate
Judaic rituals like mikvah. There are American rabbis who are world
leaders in convincing non-Jews throughout Europe and on American
campuses to boycott Israel, to persuade their universities and companies
to divest shares of corporations who do business with Israel, even to
sanction Israel. Israel rightly even has refused to allow some of the
haters in. A rabbi who advocates for BDS against Israel indeed should be
kept out of Israel — just as America, England, Canada, and other
countries bar certain noxious public nuisances from entering within
their borders.
Chovevei Torah began as a fascinating
experiment. Many thought it would become an Orthodox flagship seminary
of “Modern Orthodoxy.” Then again, a century earlier, many of the
earliest founders of the Jewish Theological Seminary (JTS) were Orthodox
rabbinic leaders who mistakenly thought JTS would become the Orthodox
flagship seminary of “Modern Orthodoxy.” Somehow, JTS became the
seminary of “Conservative Judaism,” and it now ordains people who are so
far removed from the founders’ visions that leading faculty of JTS
finally resigned. Today Conservative Judaism is akin to Reform Judaism,
and they both are quite of a similar mindset on virtually all the key
hot-button theological issues of the day, with only the last vestiges of
differences. And the history of the past century evidences that
Conservative Judaism will adopt any radicalization of Jewish theology
within twenty-five years or so of Reform first breaking the standards of
Judaism.
Likewise, early in its evolution Chovevei Torah’s
founder and theological navigator decided to brand its theology as a
new denomination: “Open Orthodoxy.” It was not the Israeli Chief
Rabbinate that called YCT “Open Orthodox.” It was not the Orthodox
Union nor the Rabbinical Council of America nor Agudah.
It
was they who stepped out of normative mainstream Orthodox Judaism and
denominated themselves as a new theological breakaway: “Open Orthodoxy.”
And they now ordain rabbis.
Among their rabbis are rabbis who publish in Jewish publications
advocacy for intermarriage with non-Jews. Should the Israel Chief Rabbinate recognize them or their conversions?
I would not. I do not. None of us does.
Nor do I live in a vacuum. I live embedded in American Orthodox
rabbinics. Such a rabbi’s “conversion attestations” have absolutely no
meaning to us.
Others among these YCT-ordained “Open Orthodox” rabbis are married to wives who
publicly tell newspaper interviewers that
they do not believe in G-d. Does your shul’s rebbetzin believe in
G-d? Would any normative mainstream Orthodox congregation hire a rabbi
whose wife publicly parades that she is an atheist and does not believe
there is a G-d Who created the world in six days and rested
on the seventh, Who took the Jews out of Egypt and gave us His Torah
laws at Sinai? How good must her chulent recipe be to get her husband
hired at a congregation of such ilk? Would you want her teaching
Judaism to your children?
Chovevei Torah ordains rabbis who marry non-Orthodox
cantors and
rabbis, and some of them even
then go off with them to their temples. Chovevei Torah ordains rabbis who
publicly attack the
kosher food industry in
the pages of non-Jewish American publications, evoking noxious images
and toxic language that conjure up the worst memories of the battles to
save kosher ritual slaughter from anti-Jewish efforts to ban
shechitah (kosher slaughter) in the 1950s.
All because a man
or a woman is
ordained with a piece of paper to be an “Orthodox rabbi” by an “Open
Orthodox” ordination seminary — namely Yeshiva Maharat or Chovevei Torah
— that does not mean that her or his “conversions” will mean anything
theologically to the vast and overwhelming majority of American Orthodox
rabbis.
Yeshiva Maharat is the seminary that ordains
“Open Orthodox” women rabbis. Those “Open Orthodox” rabbinical students
take some of their classes together with the Chovevei Torah male
rabbinical students. The two “Open Orthodox” rabbi-ordination schools
operate out of the
same address. Their graduates join “International Rabbinic Fellowship,” the association of “Open Orthodox” male and female rabbis.
The
Orthodox Union will not allow the Maharat graduates into any pulpits,
notwithstanding their ordination. The Rabbinical Council of America
does not admit anyone whose defining credential is ordination from
Chovevei Torah.
The National Council of Young Israel does
not recognize Chovevei Torah ordination as acceptably qualifying for a
Young Israel pulpit. “Open Orthodoxy” is repugnant to actual Orthodoxy.
None of this has anything to do with the Israeli Chief Rabbinate.
In
the case of Akiva Herzfeld, surely he is a nice fellow. So are many
other people — Jewish and non-Jewish — and “nice” is not the same as
“recognized Orthodox rabbi.” His theology speaks for itself,
representative of the very reason that normative mainstream Orthodox
rabbis in America do not regard “Open Orthodoxy” as a valid expression
of Orthodox Judaism (even if they have arrogated the term “Orthodox” for
their own purposes).
Here is an Akiva Herzfeld
sample,
equating two events: (i) the Maccabees’ fight to liberate the Holy
Temple (Beit HaMikdash) in Jerusalem from Greek occupation, and (ii) the
political movement to recognize homosexual marriage in the state of
Maine:
“While the Greeks looked much stronger, the Jews had
a powerful weapon on their side: their hearts. . . . The Jews fought
for their religious liberty, and this motivated them despite the odds
against them. . . . We light Hanukkah candles each year to remember the
ancient miracle. . . . This Hanukkah, I celebrate the past and the
present. With my very own eyes, I have seen a great miracle this year
right here in Maine. A small group of people, homosexuals and their
supporters, stood up for their equal rights in marriage. . . . Vast
numbers of people stood against them.
"A few years ago, the
gay rights supporters were defeated at the polls in Maine, and the
sacred ground of their pure hearts was crushed. They continued to fight
because they knew that justice was on their side. This year they
overcame the odds, and finally won. My conversations with friends in
Maine helped convince me of the rightness of the same-sex marriage
cause. I signed a letter in support of ‘Yes on 1’ together with other
rabbis in the state, including Rabbi Jared Saks of Congregation Bet
Ha'am, the Reform temple in South Portland, and Conservative Rabbi
Rachel Isaacs of Beth Israel Congregation in Waterville. The truth of
their hearts helped me overcome my wall of religious textual evidence
that helped justify arguments for the other side. . . .
"This
Hanukkah as I light my menorah, I think of our modern battle that was
won in Maine for equal rights. We have witnessed a miracle, as a small
group of people of faith won victory over strongly entrenched, wrong
beliefs. It is a miracle of love. Soon, some people consecrating their
love in religious ceremonies of marriage will ask for God's blessing.
Our society has already blessed them.”
Very nice. And no
mainstream normative American Orthodox rabbi necessarily would recognize
any “conversion” attested to by this fellow — and certainly not one in
which he was one of the three rabbis on the conversion panel. I
certainly would not. Hundreds of my American Orthodox rabbinical
colleagues would not.
So why blame the Israeli rabbinate for not recognizing American “conversions” that American Orthodox rabbis
also do not recognize?
The
writer is adjunct professor of law at two prominent Southern California
law schools, Senior Rabbinic Fellow at the Coalition for Jewish Values,
congregational rabbi of Young Israel of Orange County, California, and
has held prominent leadership roles in several national rabbinic and
other Jewish organizations. He was Chief Articles Editor of UCLA Law
Review, clerked for the Hon. Danny J. Boggs in the United States Court
of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, and served for most of the past decade
on the Executive Committee of the Rabbinical Council of America. His
writings have appeared in The Weekly Standard, National Review, Wall
Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, Jerusalem Post, American Thinker,
Frontpage Magazine, and Israel National News.
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