#rabbinate

[ask-jumblr]

How can you figure out if Israel accepts conversions by your local beit din?

Mod here. Government acceptance for aliyah vs. by The Rabbinate (for purposes of halachic marriage/divorce)  differ. Respondents should specify which they are referring to in their answer.

[progressivejudaism]

“Be the change you wish to see in the world”- Ghandi

Do you want to be a rabbi, cantor, or a Jewish educator?  Do you want to be in contact with a current student at the Hebrew Union College Jewish Institute of Religion?  Please send an ask to the blog and the moderator will reach out to you directly!

[hero-israel]

Heartbreaking. Do people think this makes God happy? The amount of prepwork and practice that those kids and their parents must have done... Some people are just awful.

[whylorinda]

The Jewish tradition has shunned the proselytizing propensities of our Abrahamic cousins, Christianity and Islam, but in doing so, it has seemed, to some, to embrace an ethos of exclusion. The fact that anyone with the drive and perspicacity to convert is allowed to do so is one of the most important checks on the Jewish conception of chosenness; being Jewish is not a genetic condition, but a complex hierarchy of identity and choice.

From an excellent article by Shmuly Yanklowitz in the Times. I believe very deeply that we must embrace and ease the path of converts, not only because by joining the Jewish People they become part of our family and we are thus obliged to care for them, but also because they bring strength to us. Conversion is good for Judaism: it brings new Jews, and new perspectives. The pain that many Orthodox converts here in the United States are subjected to is deeply cruel (particularly the demand to renounce ones parents and relatives, which is a despicable thing to ask of someone), and the Israeli Rabbinate's gate-keeping is even worse: they are actively fracturing the Jewish People. It is, in my opinion, a betrayal of all of us.

[invisible-lady]

This may possibly be good news. However, essentialist ideas towards the inclusion of women are not necessarily correct ones: having women on the panel doesn't mean that the rabbis appointed will be sympathetic to women's issues. Furthermore, so long as Orthodoxy is the only legitimate type of Judaism according to the State, the rabbis appointed will all be men, and will still be ruling from an exclusionary Halachic viewpoint.

Additionally, this bill is in the very beginning stages, and may of course be simply a bid on the part of the coalition to attract (Jewish) women voters. Updates to follow.

[rabbigreenberg-blog-blog]

Let's Not (Continue to) Institutionalize Mediocrity

Rabbi Yitzchok Adlerstein is a Haredi blogger on the blog Cross-Currents. I do not typically read the blog posts on Cross-Currents as they generally revolve around issues that are outside of the Modern Orthodox community. However in his most recent blog post he directly addresses the perceived growing mediocrity in the Modern Orthodox rabbinate. He attributes the rising state of mediocre rabbis on the fact that both YCT and RIETS have taken away educational time from pure study of Torah to pastoral counseling and professional development. The more time a rabbinical student spends delving into Torah for its own sake the better a congregational rabbi he will make, argues Adlerstein. He continues and asserts that the more time a rabbinical student spends learning the methodologies and practices in counseling a person through death and mourning, divorce, alcohol and substance addiction, etc the more mediocre the rabbi will be.

Rabbi Adlerstein is not the first Haredi blogger to pontificate on the downfall of the rabbinate based on this argument. One needs only to think seriously about this argument to realize its intrinsic flaws and shortcomings. There are people who have devoted their lives to talmud Torah and the institutional framework of kollel. Then there are people who have devoted their lives to the institutional framework of the congregation and serving the community. Both are pursuing paths of avodat kodesh. To argue that a rabbinical school that devotes time to training their future communal rabbis in how to be compassionate counselors, effective communicators and trained administrators is in someway forming a mediocre rabbi is ludicrous. That is not to say that many rabbis who did not receive this training do not function as wonderful congregational rabbis - it only means that their rabbinical school essentially hopes they are natural prodigies in counseling, communication and administration (among many other areas) instead of providing the actual education. We do not place our bet on the prodigy factor in any other profession and we should not make that bet on a profession that serves for many people as the front line responders to a whole array of life challenges and difficulties.

So yes, Rabbi Adlerstein, let us not institutionalize a mediocre congregational rabbinate. Let us continue to support institutions such as RIETS and YCT that believe a Modern Orthodox congregational rabbi today needs to be able to counsel a couple; work with a suicidal teenager; recognize eating disorders before its too late; balance budgets and understand P&L reports; communicate in a language that can reach and inspire the Jews of today and so many other dimensions that it would take pages and pages just to list them.