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Orthodox women. Mimi Feigelson, a student of Rabbi Shlomo Carrlebach, was ordained by a
panel of three rabbis after her teacher’s death. Feigelson, however, doesn’t use the title “rabbi” out
of respect for the current social structure of orthodoxy. Eveline Goodman-Thau was ordained in
October 2000 in Jerusalem by Rabbi Jonathan Chipman.
But the orthodox religious establishment has harshly condemned the actions of these women and
others with similar aspirations. In 1993, Haviva Krasner-Davidson applied to Yeshiva University’s
rabbinical school, the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary. She never received a response.
Instead, it has been reported to her that her application was ridiculed at a Purim shpiel (Nadell
218, Ner-David 196-198). She is now studying in Israel under Rabbi Aryeh Strikovsky.
Why are women excluded from these seminaries? Rabbi Steven Dworken, executive vice
president of the Rabbinical Council of America, has said that women’s entry into the rabbinate
“smacks of innovations of Reform and Conservative Judaism, which would not be acceptable.”
Zevulum Charlop, dean of the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary of Yeshiva University
argues that women can not receive smicha because it originated with Moses and was passed down
only to men (Goodstein). “
Criteria for becoming a rabbi today, however, differs dramatically from standards in place during
the days of Moses (Ner-David 195). Blu Greenberg wrote that: ”A close look at the convention of
ordination reveals that it is not a conferral of holy status nor a magical laying on of hands to transit
authority. Nor does the process uniquely empower a rabbi to perform special sacramental
functions that a knowledgeable layperson cannot. Ordination is the confirmation of an individual’s
mastery of texts (largely from the Talmud and codes); familiarity with precedents; and ability to
reason analogically and apply precedents to contemporary questions. Conferring the title “rabbi” is
a guarantee to the community that this person has been judged fit by a collective of rabbis or by a
single great scholar to give guidance on matters of issur v’heter, the forbidden and the permitted,
primarily as it concerns the laws of kashrut, Shabbat and family purity. The smicha process
assumes but does not even test for personal piety, good character or a spiritual bent. the formal
criteria are almost wholly intellectual, but does not even test for personal piety, good character or a
spiritual bent. The formal criteria are almost wholly intellectual.“
But women shouldn’t rush into training to become rabbis. “The first steps might be a teacher, a
Rosh yeshiva, or a rabbi of a women’s defile group, or a position in the secular organizational
structure that calls for the title of rabbi,” Greenberg states. “Another milestone would be for a
woman to write pinkie halakhah and teshuvot” (Greenberg, Judaism, 32). Haviva Ner-David, an
Orthodox woman who is studying for Orthodox smicha, says, “there should be a woman studying
for Orthodox smicha. The time is ripe. I have the motivation, the desire, and a rabbi who is willing
to take this step – there is no reason not to move forward” (Ner-David 199). Orthodox smicha for
women is going to require women to push for it, however it is halakhic. Blu Greenberg says
“some highly respected Yeshiva University-ordained, modern Orthodox rabbis see no halakhic
barriers to women’s ordinations” (Greenberg, Moment Magazine, 74). As Ner-David says, “If we
want to see major changes for women’s status in the Orthodox world, it will be up to women to
agitate for and make change” (Ner-David 209).
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Judaism/femalerabbi.html
Nostra Aetate: Transforming the Catholic-Jewish Relationship
Thursday, February 14th, 2008
By Rabbi Leon Klenicki
“No person outside Israel knows the mystery of Israel. And no person outside of Christianity
knows the mystery of Christianity. But in their ignorance they can acknowledge each other in
the mystery.”
Martin Buber