a few good rabbis?

for those of you who aren’t aware of it, this has not been a good couple of years for the orthodox, “strictly-”orthodox and ultra-orthodox communities. corruption around kosher slaughterhouses and conversions, sex scandals, money-laundering, drug smuggling, you name it. all the usual justifications are made, of course, all the usual people accept them and all the usual people sneer at them.

in such an environment, it’s extremely helpful to be able to point to people who can stand up and say in no uncertain terms: this isn’t right. excusing it is even worse. as it says in the Mishnah: where there are no men, at least you should try and act like a man. i am encouraged to see at least some orthodox rabbis swimming against the tide of denial although, of course, not that surprised to see the perennial awkward squad-nik and contrarian (and my own much revered teacher) rabbi jeremy rosen, writing in haaretz:

“I am tired of making excuses. Once I would argue that 2,000 years of oppression, hatred and exclusion had taught the Jews to do whatever they needed to survive. Or, I would note that much of Orthodox Jewry nowadays is barely a generation removed from life in an Eastern Europe where the state was an enemy and everyone had to break the rules in order to evade the discriminatory regimes. In Israel, one could put the blame on David Ben-Gurion, for not having separated religion and state, which in effect encouraged the Orthodox to indulge in all the temptations that accompany political power.
 
But as with attempts to rationalize terrorism, you go through the obvious list of justifications – poverty, alienation, discrimination – and then you find perpetrators who have suffered none of the above. Daily, we Orthodox repeat mantras about justice, charity and kindness in our prayers, and the more we seem to spout them, the less many of us seem to pay any attention to translating the words into actions.”

you can read the rest of the article here, but i think it’s worth pointing at this particular point:

“Wherever you have a self-perpetuating oligarchy, its members come to see themselves as above the law. Just as a regime of men usually discriminates against women. This is why the unfair laws of divorce in Judaism have still not been modified to remove the disgrace of male chauvinists who can blackmail their wives over a get. When a majority of rabbis turn a blind eye, claiming they can do nothing, they are really encouraging the process of coercion, providing easy outs to the men while refusing to budge for the women. Add to that the superstition factor – and a tendency to attribute superhuman powers to certain rabbis, so that many then fear crossing them – and you have additional opportunities for corruption.”

i think there’s probably a lesson there that the catholic church has been learning – hard – recently. with that said, i was astounded to see this article in this week’s jc (now it’s been retrieved from pro-palestinian hackers) written by two of the most forward-thinking of the rabbis of the united synagogue in connection with the jfs admissions fiasco:

“What is required, therefore, is work for a change in the law that will put the determination of Jewish identity back where it belongs — in the hands of the Jewish community. Since there is no prospect of a change in the law without broad consensus across the Jewish community in favour of change, this involves all the denominations working together. This, in turn, requires realism and a willingness to compromise on the part of the Orthodox community.”

yes, you heard right: orthodox rabbis realising they have to be realistic, compromise and work with non-orthodox rabbis and proposing détente.

good G!D. i sincerely hope this is the thin end of the wedge – it is genuinely astounding to see something so overtly challenging to the “NO SORRENDOR!!” paisleyist orthodox establishment stated so clearly, succinctly and without ambiguity.

the two rabbis concerned, naftali brawer and michael harris, have long been known as pragmatic, open-minded, individuals. let’s hope it doesn’t stand in the way of their further advancement.