OU Responsum about female rabbis

Aylat

Thu, Feb 09 2017, 3:54 am

Quote:

I was invited this past summer to participate in one of the forum discussions put together by the OU to speak with the Rabbinic Panel that the OU charged with providing guidelines regarding women's spiritual leadership in Shuls. Forum participants were also invited to submit a short written statement to the Rabbinic Panel. As the OU decision on this issue has recently been issued, I have decided to publicly share my written submission:

Esteemed Rabbonim and Rashei Yeshiva,

Thank you for taking the time to listen to the perspectives of Rabbonim and other Jewish leaders representing Modern Orthodox communities across the country. Having the poskim interact and engaging with community leaders out in the field is an important exercise that I hope will continue regularly without the need necessarily for a specific ruling or psak. We have what to learn and mutually gain from that interaction.

The reality is that the presence of a learned woman functioning professionally would greatly enhance Torah observance within my shul. These are a few of the areas that I believe my shul and many other shuls similar to mine would benefit from by having the right woman involved in some capacity ultimately bringing people closer to Torah:

· Working with kallot and being there for women throughout marriage as it relates to areas of taharat hamishpacha.

· Supporting and guiding female conversion candidates, especially in light of the fact that 78 percent of conversion candidates are women, according to the RCA GPS conversion survey.

· Having a leader in the women’s section during services who can be a role model and support for those who want it.

· Pastorally, to give an embrace to a female mourner to provide comfort in ways that I cannot give as I would to a male.

· Having women who are able to teach high-level Torah in our local modern orthodox day school, serving as a role model to our girls and showing both girls and boys that women can be serious Torah scholars.

I also have a concern with how this decision will be used. I fear a forthcoming schism within our broader community over this issue. There will be those that are looking for the opportunity to use this decision to write large segments from our community out of Orthodoxy. There may be shuls that will fall on different sides of this ruling based on their current practices even though they send their kids to the same schools, summer camps and marry into each other’s families. This is the same community. Artificially splitting our community would not only be sad but in my opinion very harmful for the future of Orthodoxy in America.

B'chavod,

Adam Starr

Rabbi, Young Israel of Toco Hills Atlanta

[/quote]

This seems to me to be exactly what the OU paper recommends, except Rabbi Starr doesn't address whether or not women should be clergy and the OU gave a definitive answer. Rabbi Starr also seems to think it would have been better not to issue an generalised ruling at all.

esther09

Thu, Feb 09 2017, 8:30 am

My opinion is that it is much more appropriate and sensical (let alone comfortable) for a woman to be judging the color in another woman's underwear.

That, and I think the OU is a bunch of men that are feeling threatened for no reason. These women aren't coming in and trying to be pulpit rabbis and take their jobs; they are filling much needed niches in communities. I'm sorry, but rebbetzins have ZERO qualifications to answer questions, run educational events, provide counseling etc. Being married to a rabbi does not make you a good community leader. I would much rather an additional woman spiritual leader on staff in my shul who actually is knowledgeable.

greenhelm

Thu, Feb 09 2017, 8:46 am

esther09 wrote:

Yes!!! I would like this a million times if I could.

amother

Vermilion

Thu, Feb 09 2017, 9:00 am

esther09 wrote:

I'm sorry, but rebbetzins have ZERO qualifications to answer questions, run educational events, provide counseling etc. Being married to a rabbi does not make you a good community leader. I would much rather an additional woman spiritual leader on staff in my shul who actually is knowledgeable.

Going anonymous for obvious reasons
1) zero?!? Where I live, the rabbinical council also provides professional learning opportunities for those 'rebbetzins' who would like to be trained in basic counseling, organizational issues etc. (Besides for providing those for the rabbis)
2) I am a qualified educator, and am probably more qualified than my husband to actually know how to arrange educational activities (though his knowledge of Halacha and Gemara is far superior to mine, but there are other areas in which I am more well-learned)
3) I agree that not everyone can do this, but why do we need female Rabbis or some other term that really means that? There are lots of women around (who's husbands are not pulpit Rabbis) who are good examples and have a good ability to a: learn, b: give counseling c: run educational events etc.

Let women be educators of their communities, be educators of taharas hamishpacha, be counselors, be coordinators etc, almost everything that was on the list that that Rabbi wrote about. (Sorry can't go back to read the name)
In my Shul, everyone knows what I do, even if I don't get up there to speak from the pulpit. I can share my thoughts in other forums.
Most of the other 'rebbetzins' I know in my city, are known to be highly -jewishly educated women, competent in doing all that is listed there.

ohmygosh

Thu, Feb 09 2017, 9:17 am

esther09 wrote:

Is it also your opinion that the kohen that uses the para aduma to purify someone who is impure should not become impure himself?

Judiasm is not based on opinion. Judiasm is based on the Torah, not what we may decide makes more sense to us.

Regarding women having more of a role in shuls etc., I have no opinion, because I am personally not learned enough to know the possible halachic implications.

Just wanted to emphasize that our opinions of what we may think makes more logical sense to us within religious Judiasm, is not a relevant argument.

esther09

Thu, Feb 09 2017, 9:20 am

amother wrote:

One anecdote does not a fact make. Yes, I stand by "zero." I respect your qualifications; however those are on your own merit. They were not granted to you JUST because your husband is a rabbi. I also know many rebbetzins who aren't any more qualified or educated than I am. Also the "basic" training you speak of... pretty unfair to equate that to years of training and education actually required to counsel and educate.

I think a lot of you are missing the point. These women are being trained in Halacha and spiritual leadership and guidance, not to lead davening or be a pulpit rabbi or do anything halachically prohibited. By saying, "why can't they just stick to doing xyz", you are just calling it by another name (a teacher or educator or counselor or coordinator). Why can't we just afford the women the respect they deserve for the training and education they undertook and call them the spiritual title they deserve? What is so threatening about the term maharat or Yoetzet or gasp, Rabba? They all just mean, my teacher/leader. Why can't I have a teacher/leader who is female?

esther09

Thu, Feb 09 2017, 9:22 am

ohmygosh wrote:

Please tell me where in the Torah it says that a man must look at my underwear, and it ABSOLUTELY CANNOT be a woman.

mo5

Thu, Feb 09 2017, 9:23 am

amother wrote:

The problem, of course, is that the patriarchy is obviously feeling threatened...
I don't understand women's resistance to it, though. I didn't realize so many women had wholeheartedly bought into the gender roles the patriarchy had assigned for them....

It's not gender roles the patriarchy has assigned. It's the way G-d created us, and it's His rules I try to abide by.

I personally believe and experience that women are created the same as men. Yes we are just as capable but we are not the same.

I get pregnant for 9 months and deliver our children, I'm the one nursing them after,- although my husband is VERY involved, he isn't the one doing that. He just can't.
I believe that a woman can DO anything if she really wants. I also observe that there are certain innate traits amongst many/most women and men tend to have others.
Every men are from Mars women are from Venus type of book reinforces those differences. They are real.

Perhaps therefore, some of us a bit more traditional. Traditional as in wanting to keep within the halachic framework. Whilst childcare and housework in my home is definitely divided in 21st c style; we split based on need availability and natural ability, I still don't see why I need to push the boundaries of Halacha.

The halachic support for partnership is really minority opinions. It's been a while since I studies some of the responsa and looked up the mekoros listed in them so I can't bring the specific examples now.

amother

Vermilion

Thu, Feb 09 2017, 9:32 am

esther09 wrote:

I'll just say that a lot of what Rabbis do is not what they were trained for (or officially hired for.)
It's not one anecdote, it's many of the rebbetzins in my large city.
No, it's not because I am married to a Rabbi, but I went into marriage knowing my husbands plans and have been learning on his/our journey.
I still want to know, why the insistence on the title? Why is that the only way to acknowledge what these woman are learning?
And let's realize that there are and have always been women with tremendous halachic and/or spiritual knowledge who lead in their communities without titles.

A yoetzet is not a 'threatening title' but I am bothered by the need to find titles like rabba and Maharat. It reminds me of the suits in the 80s that professional women used to wear, the ones that were designed to resemble men's suits.

SixOfWands

Thu, Feb 09 2017, 9:44 am

amother wrote:

And why shouldn't they have the title?

If the issue is halachic, then it wouldn't matter if you called them "doorknob" it would still be problematic.

No one has addressed the halachic issue, though, other than in a conclusory manner.

But if the problem is a word -- rabba, or Maharat, then the issue clearly isn't halachic.

Thu, Feb 09 2017, 10:16 am

amother wrote:

I still want to know, why the insistence on the title? Why is that the only way to acknowledge what these woman are learning?
And let's realize that there are and have always been women with tremendous halachic and/or spiritual knowledge who lead in their communities without titles.

The title is one of the best ways to acknowledge learning in a professional environment, and many professions only allow fully qualified people to hold or use those titles. Would you go to someone who studied a lot of medicine but wasn't actually a medical school graduate if you were sick? There have been congregational scandals in which the community rabbi was found to have falsified his credentials. Titles matter.

The women you describe above, those who lead in their communities without titles, are they paid? Are they able to build a professional career with their tremendous halachic and spiritual knowledge? Or will they never have the opportunities that formal ordination would afford? If they publish, will their work be taken as seriously as if they had recognized credentials after their names? Do they have the opportunity to publish in scholarly journals, speak at major symposia or otherwise be acknowledged as serious scholars?

smile12345

Thu, Feb 09 2017, 10:46 am

amother wrote:

Yes, the Torah and our very existence is clearly being threatened by these OO movements.
I am wholeheartedly happy to continue the mesorah the way Hashem set up the gender roles to be and see no need to be disconcerted or feel threatened by it just because modern day feminism dictates that I should be.

smile12345

Thu, Feb 09 2017, 10:58 am

cm wrote:

The reason that women don't get acknowledged as serious scholars is because the mitzva of Talmud Torah only applies to men.