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.

Sholom Rubashkin and the Human Element

I have been thinking a lot recently about the court proceedings against Sholom Rubashkin in Iowa. Let me preface by saying that I am deeply opposed to any and all unethical and illegal business practices. I believe that it is the lofty responsibility of every Jew to represent the paradigm of a person of profound faith in God and scrupulous commitment to Torah with the utmost commitment to ethics and good citizen behavior. The actions that Sholom Rubashkin did personally, and the actions for which as CEO he is ultimately responsible for, are inexcusable and represent a severe lapse in ethical reasoning. Sholom Rubashkin should and must face the punitive consequences for his actions.

My colleague Shmuly Yanklowitz in a column in The Jewish Week argued that the Jewish community in campaigning for a punishment other than life in prison, the punishment being asked for by the prosecution, is demonstrating a public display of our wrong priorities. What about the workers arrested in that now infamous raid? Why isn't the Jewish community collecting signatures on their behalf, Shmuly asks. ("One must consider priorities in these cases and the message sent by defending the owner's case...")

I agree with Shmuly that the case of the workers should be addressed and the workers dealt with compassionately. I commend organizations such as The Jewish Council on Urban Affairs for making immigration reform a central piece of their agenda. However, caring about the workers does not by necessity demand ignoring Sholom Rubashkin. In asking for a life sentence the prosecution is clearly interested in utilizing this case as an example to all would-be offenders. I am opposed on moral and religious grounds to the concept of excessively punishing one person to set an example for others. First, it turns a real human being into a means towards an end. Secondly, it ignores the fact that all matters of din (judgement) must be tempered by rahamim (mercy) and a court that exercises only pure din is an unjust court.

For these reasons I have decided to support the campaign to seek a sentence that both reflects the severity of his crimes and is tempered with mercy.

The Meaning of Remembrance

Today marks Yom HaZikaron, Israeli Memorial Day. On this day the people of Israel pause, reflect, mourn and remember the thousands of individuals; men, women and children who have lost their lives in defense of the State of Israel. Many died in the formative wars of the early days of the State. Many died in the wars with the Iranian proxy group of Hezbollah in Lebanon or with the Islamic fundamentalist group Hamas in Gaza and the West Bank. Many died sitting on a bus or having dinner at home or celebrating a Passover Seder at a hotel or reading the newspaper in a coffee shop. All of them died al-Kiddush Hashem, as martyrs and are kodesh kodeshim, the modern day human embodiment of the holy of holies.

What does it mean to remember? Every year the yahrtzeit candles are lit, memorial ceremonies are held and prayers uttered. All of these acts are rituals meant to evoke memory. The memory though can not sit idle. To remember is to be transformed. To remember is to act. During holidays we recite memorial prayers called Yizkor, literally translated as "may God remember." The Divine does not possess a human memory nor does the Divine forget. The essence of what we ask of God in that moment is that God should act on the memories of our beloved. The lives they led; their passions, convictions, hopes and faith should become the impetus for Divine action.

The same is true today on Yom HaZikaron for us. When we remember those who have perished, we should seek to turn the emotional content of those memories into concrete action. The rituals we perform to evoke the memory should be a springboard for action that authentically and genuinely reflects their memory. In that vein, I suggest that we view this day of remembrance as a moment to strengthen and rededicate ourselves to the work of peace. Ultimately, it is the dream and yearning of Israeli society at large to see the day when peace will finally be achieved. It too was the inspiration and motivation for many soldiers who gave their lives in defense of their country. May we, in their memory, continue their work.

The Agudah and Misplaced Values

The Beis Yaakov school, a Haredi girls primary school in the Israeli city of Emmanuel has been denying admission to any girl from a Sephardic family. They refuse to even entertain the idea of admitting a girl who is not Ashkenazic. This blatant case of racism found its way to the Israeli Supreme Court and the court fined the Israeli Beis Yaakov system 5,000 NIS a day until the school agrees to integrate.

The response from the Haredi rabbinic leadership has been unequivocal opposition to the idea of allowing Sephardic girls into the school. Rabbi Shalom Elyashiv, the preeminent rabbinic leader of Haredi Ashkenazi Jewry in Israel, called for protests against the Supreme Court. He furthermore said that he would be willing to sit in prison rather than allow Sephardic girls into the Beis Yaakov school in Emmanuel. He compared the efforts of the Israeli court to end racism to the Czarist Russian anti-Semitic authorities.

The elite rabbinic leadership (the Moetzes Gedolei HaTorah) of the American branch of the Agudas Yisrael convened an emergency meeting to discuss their response. The head of this rabbinic group, the Novominsker Rebbe, issued a statement on behalf of the organization essentially agreeing in whole with the response by their Israeli counterparts. They affirmed the position that one should rather sit in jail than send their Ashkenazic daughters to school with Sephardim.

This should be compared to a recent proclamation by the very same Moetzes Gedolei HaTorah on the subject of the ordination of a female Orthodox rabbi. They condemned the agreement reached between Rabbi Avi Weiss, one of the rabbis who ordained her and the Rabbinical Council of America, a rabbinic body representing Modern Orthodox and Centrist rabbis. They specifically condemned the decision of the Rabbinical Council of America to acknowledge the value of women's leadership in Orthodoxy and to not outright reject the notion. [Specifically the following quote: The RCA reaffirms its commitment to women's Torah education and scholarship at the highest levels, and to the assumption of appropriate leadership roles within the Jewish community.] They declared that any synagogue that has a woman in a leadership position is not Orthodox.

The very same organization that supports blatant and outright discrimination in the Jewish community condemns Orthodox women who want to teach Torah and serve as a spiritual, halakhic and moral guide for the Jewish community. Even if one finds personal resonance in the Agudah's condemnation of female leadership and does not see it as an obvious case of sexism, how can anyone ever take them seriously? They have lost all moral standing and respect by openly supporting discrimination solely on the basis of one Jewish racial background over another.

Standing Up for the Armenian Genocide

The Forward is reporting today that Jewish-American groups have been backing off on their support for a bill currently in Congress that would publicly and officially recognize the 1915 Ottoman Empire attempted genocide of the Armenian people. The groups cite their concern for Turkish-Israeli relations which at present is strained. Turkey, the successor to the Ottoman Empire, vehemently denies any reports of genocide and claims that the upwards of 500,000 Armenians murdered was part of a war and not a systematic attempt to wipe out a people based on their race or ethnicity. This assertion, however, is disputed by a wide consensus in the academic community. The Ottomans did indeed attempt genocide against the Armenians.

Jess Hordes, Washington Director of the Anti-Defamation League is quoted as saying in the article: "Inevitably, for some people the enthusiasm isn’t as great as it was in the past, because of concerns about Turkey’s policy on Israel." This is utterly and unequivocally unacceptable. We as a Jewish community need to rally behind those who have been oppressed by the hands of others. The continued denial of the Armenian genocide on behalf of world governments has led to a demoralizing condition amongst the Armenian people. Would we as a Jewish community tolerate our vivid memories of persecution being denied internationally?

Israel has very real needs and benefits greatly from a positive relationship with Turkey. However, our moral conscience must not be sacrificed on the altar of Israel's strategic needs. It is time for the Jewish community to stand with the Armenian people and shout from the rooftops, "Never Again!"

A Man of Vision: Rabbi Dr. Bernard Lander ז"ל

I remember the first time I met him as if it was yesterday. It was after a long five hour flight from my hometown of San Diego and my first New York City taxi ride from JFK Airport to Kew Gardens Hills, Queens that I met one of the greatest Jewish leaders of the 20th century. Rabbi Dr. Bernie Lander welcomed us, the second class of students to inhabit the magnificent space of The Lander College for Men. He did not just speak about providing an institution of academic excellence or about making it, the experience of college education, more accessible to Orthodox Jews; he spoke about the creation of a new generation of Jewish Orthodox leadership. He spoke about the leadership that Jews who at once firmly rooted in their Mesorah and also highly engaged in their professional lives could exhibit in the Jewish community. He told us that "Landers," as we affectionately called our college, would be the place that would forge us into the best of citizens, members of the public square, and talmidei chachamim, serious life-long students of Torah and our tradition.

To hear him speak was so utterly inspiring. It was not only inspiring because you could feel the passion with which he spoke but because here was a man that was well past the age of retirement going about the business of transforming the Jewish educational world throughout the entire world. He did not rest after the creation of Touro College in Flatbush nor after creating his subsequent schools in Manhattan, Queens, California, Russia, Germany and in every other place where there was potential to positively impact Jewish lives.

He gave his entire life to the betterment and advancement of Jewish and secular education. He had a vision one day many years ago and carried that vision with him through the many decades of his life. He was relentless in the fulfillment of that vision and worked tirelessly to see its realization. There are few times in a person's life where one gets to sit at the feet and learn from true greatness. I feel tremendously fortunate to have had such an opportunity during my college years with Dr. Lander. The entire Jewish community has suffered a tremendous loss with his passing and I for one will truly miss him.

May his resting place be in Gan Eden and may his soul be bound up in the bonds of life.

Social Networking and the Obliteration of the Private Life

"I'm at MTA - 42nd Street Station "

"Getting condiments for the super bowl party @ Walgreens"

"Lunch: Tuna sandwich on rye bread with a diet coke"

The quotes above are all examples of real messages sent out over Twitter, Facebook and the new service Foursquare by people all over the country. I have modified a few details of the quotes in order to protect the anonymity of the authors, even though the authors themselves were not concerned about their anonymity. These sort of messages are sent out daily, thousands of them, from people in every corner of the globe and in every major language.

There are a multitude of reasons for why people choose to utilize the variety of social networking tools to divulge every detail of their day to the Internet. For some people there is a profound loneliness pervading their lives and the Internet becomes a constant friend. In this vein, I am reminded of the great sociology book Bowling Alone which began to discuss this phenomenon more than a decade ago. For others the allure of achieving a celebrity status is too great to resist and the Internet presents an almost effortless path to notoriety and stardom. And yet for others social networking becomes an organizer and scheduler for their daily life; it presents an upgrade from a paper and pen organizer to a Palm Pilot to a Blackberry to finally leading to Twitter and Facebook.

No matter the reason for why people become deeply invested in sharing every mundane detail of their lives, the end result remains the same: a blurring or even the obliteration of the line that separates our public and private existence. I argue that it is of critical importance for there to be a division between one's private and public life. Many people have bemoaned the lack of etiquette or civility present in this new phenomenon while others have decried it as inane and mind-numbing. Those points may be true or they may not be but what is certainly true is that it is detrimental to personal development to lose one's private life.

The public sphere is where we project our persona and ego. It is where we assert ourselves, question others, comply with what has been asked of us and perform a variety of other tasks that reflect our identities. The private sphere is where we reflect and further develop ourselves. It is in the sanctum of home that we can pause and think deeply about our beliefs, our convictions and our identities. Without the space that a private life affords us, we can become disjointed, fraught with anxiety and stunted in our emotional, psychological, intellectual and spiritual selves.

There are all types of people that do not have a choice but to lose much of their private life: politicians, celebrities, etc. However, the rush to self-surrender every detail of one's life to the world of Foursquare or Twitter is not advisable and in plain speak not healthy living. We ought to remember that the God who divided the heavens from the earth also divided our public and private spheres and we must learn to appreciate the resource the private life offers us, even if that means everyone will not know what cereal was consumed for breakfast.