The Chief Rabbinate – The Dream and Its Break, or: The Institution and Its Damage

With God’s help

Makor Rishon – 2013

Michael Abraham

Many burning questions that permeate our world space need to be discussed in a broader context. For example, when I thought about questions such as whether the disengagement is the right step, or whether the withdrawal from Lebanon is the right step, I came to the conclusion that they cannot be answered. The answer depends on the plan for various scenarios after the disengagement/withdrawal. Only after we see the overall picture can we form an opinion about the specific step. Therefore, public discussion of such questions is usually almost worthless.

It is likely that the question of the Chief Rabbinate should also be discussed from a broader perspective. The main question in the background is the question of religion and state. Those who favor continuing the relationship between religion and state in Israel as it is today, that is, the implementation of marital law according to halakhic law, conversion according to halakhic law, the Law of Return, Shabbat, kashrut, the Bible quiz, those who blessed IDF soldiers, prayers for the peace of the country, etc., need to answer who will be responsible for all of this in the absence of a Chief Rabbinate. On the other hand, there is room to ask in the broader context, is it even right to continue the problematic relationship between religion and state? If the answer to this is negative, the answer regarding the Chief Rabbinate seems obvious.

Fortunately, the Chief Rabbinate relieves me of the need to examine the context in order to answer the question before us. Although I am in favor of the separation of religion and state, it is clear to me that the Chief Rabbinate is a superfluous institution by its very nature. However, since it is also a harmful and corrupt institution, whose main concern is systematic desecration of the name of God, even without discussing the context, and even if I wanted the connection between religion and state to continue, I would oppose the continued existence of this institution, at least in its current form.

And yet, if only for the sake of the methodological adequacy of the discussion, I will divide my remarks into two: First, I will discuss the structural problems that exist in this institution by its very nature. Second, I will describe a few of the problems in the way it operates in practice. Finally, I will also briefly address the cardinal question of the proper location of our dirty laundry.

The structural problems

At the top of the Chief Rabbinate's website are the words of Director General Oded Wiener, which opens with the following:

Rabbi Avraham Yitzhak HaCohen Kook, the thinker and founder of the Chief Rabbinate of Israel, well defined the roles and responsibilities of the rabbinate when he came to establish it. "The rabbinate must stand at the pinnacle of the revival of the nation and be a worker with the public in all corners of life in the building and creation of the nation. The rabbinate is the important force that has always created public opinion in Israel, it is the sublime force that has sustained the soul of the nation and awakened it to a whole and reformed life. The rabbinate will influence by constantly striving to bring hearts closer and instill a spirit of peace between all factions and parties and to strengthen the Torah and its honor on the Holy Land and throughout the entire world."

So that we can be impressed by the variety of activities that realize this sublime ideal, Oded Wiener immediately details the variety of departments and wings (more correctly: wings) of the Rabbinate, and the quote continues:

Kashrut Department:

"And you shall be holy men to me" In order to pave our way toward fulfilling our spiritual and moral destiny of being "a kingdom of priests and a holy nation," we must be careful and ensure that everything that comes to our mouths will be as commanded in our holy Torah. There is a close connection between the height of a person's moral virtue in Israel and his food...

Below is a breakdown of the various departments in the Kashrut Division of the Chief Rabbinate of Israel.[1]

National Unit for Enforcement of the Law Prohibition of Fraud in Kosher: Import Department: Overseas Slaughter Department: Department of Obligations Dependent on Israel: Public Institutions: Factory and Industry: Department of Hotels, Halls and Event Gardens: Department of Marketing Chains and Restaurants: Meat and Poultry: Slaughterhouses: Slaughterhouses: Butcher Shops: Examination Department: Alliances Department: Computer Department: Human Resources Department: Material Resources Department:

After I have exhausted this fascinating and challenging description of the training department of the spiritual leadership of the peak of our spiritual revival, I look down the page and look for the other departments that will surely be even more promising and refreshing, such as: the department for examining and updating prayer and halacha for today, the department for establishing current moral norms, the department for Torah research, the department for law and halacha, the department for medical ethics, the department for shaping and guiding the Jewish home and personal status laws, the department for shaping and guiding the public in relation to foreigners and non-Jews, the department for the status of women, the department for studying and imparting the principles of faith, halacha, and morality to the public and its rabbis, the department for methods of government and state law, the department for war and security law, the department for international relations, the department for guiding the health and welfare system, the department for examining methods of study and the Torah methodology of halacha rulings, the department for economics and halacha, and so on and so forth.

You won't believe what I found there: nothing. The page simply ended. The Kosher Department is the only department (!) in the Chief Rabbinate. Oh, sorry! On another page on the site I also found the Holy Places Department (someone needs to run the Middle Eastern version of Jewish idolatry). I didn't find Marriage, Divorce, and Mikvahs, but maybe they're hiding there somewhere too.

So, in the list of departments of the Chief Rabbinate of Israel, the essence of the soul of the Israeli nation in its sparkling strength, there is only a Kosher Department, which branches out into details, departments and sub-departments, down to the kiosk level. Beyond that, there is the appointment of rabbis and judges, who are also apparently intended to deal with Kasher and nothing more, and various administrative departments. It seems to me that every additional word is unnecessary.

How did we get to this farce? How did such a polar gap between declarations and implementation arise? The answer is simple. The Chief Rabbinate was born out of a naive assessment of reality, and continued in sin. It was established at a time when it was accepted in the world that communities were led by religious leadership. To this day, Israeli law still has the anachronistic concept of the 'head of the religious community,' which is nothing more than the official who represents the true heads of the religious community (who, from their homes in Bnei Brak and Jerusalem, give the 'head of the community' precise instructions). Add to this a pinch of hopes that are based on naive assessments by activists and rabbis in the pre-state period and in the first years of its existence, as if the renewed state would be governed on the basis of halakhic law and the spirit of Judaism, and therefore required spiritual leadership to manage this complex process.

All those hypocrites or delusional people did not take into account that they were operating within a society that had long since ceased to be interested in their sublime spiritual leadership (by the way, regarding the figures who were at the head of the Chief Rabbinate at the time, this is not irony). They acted as if the ideological bubble in which they lived was reality itself. But life very quickly slapped them/us in the face. At some point, society in general was no longer willing to accept the rule of the 'leadership of the religious community', since the community was no longer religious. But none of this affected the Chief Rabbinate of Israel. It continued to lead with a strong hand the entire range of diverse spiritual fields that the public allowed it to lead: from the kashrut of the hair clipped in the kiosk to the import of meat slaughtered in Argentina. As Rabbi Kook's aforementioned vision: "And to be a laborer with the public in all corners of life in the building and creation of the nation." So much for the naivety in the rabbinate's teaching. For the continuation of sin, see below.

Of course, none of this would have been possible without the cooperation of the government institutions. Yeshayahu Leibovitz, then the religious worker representative in the Histadrut (the Histadrut has probably also undergone some change since then), describes a conversation he had with Ben-Gurion. The latter told him that he knew that he (=Leibovitz) wanted to separate religion from state, but he (=Ben-Gurion) would not let that happen. He wanted to hold religion and the religious by the throat, and his way of doing this was by establishing 'leadership' institutions on behalf of the state. This way he had complete control and supervision over these problematic and subversive elements. This was his way of neutralizing their ability to lead and express positions that were problematic for him. This is how the Rabbinate Mat'am (= on behalf of the monarchy) was created, in its Middle Eastern version. It's basically a matter of money that won't be cut short: money in exchange for silence. You will receive money, honorable robes, representation at various ceremonies, as long as you keep quiet and don't cause problems. Ezer Weizmann once said on behalf of his uncle, Chaim Weizmann, the first president, that the only place a president can stick his nose into is his handkerchief. The Mat'am Rabbinate can't even do that.

Therefore, it should come as no surprise that any connection between spiritual leadership and these institutions is a figment of the imagination. This is a government official who cannot say or do anything outside the very narrow boundaries of the headscarf that the legislature has left her. She is invited to express her opinion (under the supervision of the High Court of Justice) in the areas of kashrut, conversion, mikvahs, and the appointment of rabbis, and nothing else. Any statement on any other subject, or a statement that is too original that crosses the permissible and trivial boundaries, will immediately receive a cold shoulder, either from the secular leadership (the press, the government, or the court), or from the real leadership of the religious community (which, as we recall, resides in Bnei Brak and Jerusalem).

To avoid misunderstandings, the demand that the Rabbinate not express such positions is absolutely justified. Rabbis are appointed officials, and as such they cannot act outside the framework of the law and their mandate. They receive a salary from the secular government, and demand and receive authority over the general public, and therefore they are subject to the administrative rules established by law. They are part of the public service. A serving rabbi cannot say that apartments should not be sold or rented to non-Jews, because that is against the law (and in my opinion also against halakhic law). If he wants to express such a position, he should be respectful and distance himself from the government's favors and favors. Anyone who wants to have authority over the general public, both secular and religious, must understand that it is this public that determines the limits of his authority. The demands that rabbis be appointed exclusively by the religious public or its representatives, or that they express halakhic positions even if they are against the law, are out of the question in such a structure. It is impossible for a certain group in the population to appoint itself a governmental authority that has authority over the general public. At the same time, it is not possible for an institution that is appointed, funded, and maintained by the state to operate as if it were an independent rabbinate in a Jewish community in Katerielbek.

This is precisely the reason why you will not find in the Rabbinate all the departments missing from above. The rabbi cannot express a position in any area, and certainly not a non-consensual position. This is a derivative of the very nature and structure of the Chief Rabbinate, and not a coincidental result of failed conduct. When was the last time you heard a statement by a Chief Rabbi on an important issue? When did he say something valuable? Something unexpected? Something that might influence and guide in some way? I do not remember such a statement. All these relevant areas are simply not within the mandate of the Rabbinate. But it is no wonder, after all, it wants and draws its power from the secular legislature. It will never lend a hand in creating a true religious-spiritual authority, and rightly so from its perspective.

On the Shemitah before last, I bought a box of salad at a grocery store that solemnly announced that there was no concern about using the Shemitah sales permit. I saw that its bottom was raised (meaning its real volume was not what it looked like from the outside). The high price of the salad, due to avoiding the sales permit (at Otzar Beit Din, the salad is sold at cost price, of course), was reflected in the reduction of the volume, while hiding this from the buyers. I contacted the rabbinate that supervises the factory that produces the salad, and I told the person in the kashrut department there that at this time, the seventh is a rabbinate, and if there is a sale of the land, then it is not at all clear that there is a halachic problem with the salad. But fraud even at this time is, by all accounts, against the law. I will leave it to the astute reader to guess what it did in this matter. The rabbinate considers itself, and with some degree of justice, responsible for the area of Shemitah, but not for the area of fraud and morality. By the way, I think that if the factory were celebrating Christmas, it would remove kashrut from it.

I am now reminded of one more case, which deals specifically with the Military Rabbinate, but it is certainly representative. When I taught at the Hesder Yeshiva in Yeruham during Operation Defensive Shield, we were approached by young men from the yeshiva, officers and soldiers, who claimed that there were no halachic and moral rabbinical guidelines on the difficult questions that arose there (harming innocent people, etc.). The Military Rabbinate, of course, remained silent as usual (I think that has changed a bit since then). And then, very shortly after the operation, the head of the Halacha branch of the Military Rabbinate came to the yeshiva and gave a class titled something like "New Conclusions from Operation Defensive Shield." I was overjoyed, the place was finally filling in our gaps. To my amazement, he immediately began a heated discussion on the important question of what a reserve soldier would do if he received an order on Shabbat and wanted to pack his toothpaste. Should he take it in his mouth and drop it into his kit bag, or is it permissible to shake it in his hands? Incidentally, the subject is discussed in a lesson from its primary sources, as is the way of Torah that is studied with due consideration for these serious issues, he says: contradictions in the words of the Mishnah Berura and solutions from the answers of Rabbi Goren. And that's it, Zil Gamor.

And despite everything, it is precisely in these days that the existence of a central rabbinate is important. The reason for this is the great diversity and dispersion of Jewish communities, which does not allow for control over the rather wild standards that prevail in some of them. In an open and pluralistic world, no one can determine who deserves to be a rabbi, how much he knows, and according to what standards he will operate (whether he is Reform, Conservative, Reconstructionist, Orthodox, or some other variety). The complexity of the questions that arise, and the various forms of treatment that are offered against them, requires concentration and provision of information to the public, and perhaps even guidance to the various communities in the world. Someone needs to tell Jews that a certain person does not really know Halacha, or that his rulings do not really correspond to its sources. Any Baba or other charlatan can appear in any community and present himself as the greatest of the generation and its luminary, and there is no shortage of such people today.

The need does exist, but the problem is that we currently do not have people who can do this. The Chief Rabbinate certainly cannot do this. Even those who are considered great Torah scholars today are not agreed upon, and in my opinion most of them are not even the best, and therefore I am very glad that there is no Sanhedrin with authority today. Those who are supposed to sit in it are a collection of figures who I would very much not want to have mandatory authority over me.

Despite the need for such a central institution, it is currently not possible to establish it. The way to establish a courageous and original rabbinate, which may be a true spiritual leadership for the religious public, and perhaps for the public in general, is to separate the rabbinate from the minions of the central government, and to subject it to the test of the public. Not from the government's influence or sting. Not from its budgets and formal authorities and the power it grants, nor from the restrictions it imposes. If an institution is created that naturally receives authority from the public, and is not a "misleading" institution, then we will have a Chief Rabbinate. If there is no such institution, then we will not have a Chief Rabbinate. It depends on the leadership and character of Torah gurus of a (very rare) kind who can inspire some trust in the public, and it also depends on us. As long as this does not exist, it is not possible to do it artificially, by authority and power granted by the secular government.

In fact, this means the separation of religion and state. This must be done for the good of religion and not just for the good of the state. People need to take their fate into their own hands and appoint rabbis themselves, and not through degenerate institutions that choose rabbis for us that no one asks of them for anything. In this way, perhaps an independent and courageous spiritual leadership will be created that will express positions, that will direct and lead the public in a proper and clean manner. If as a result of this, some kind of central institution is also established, so much the better.

The issue of separation of religion and state obviously involves additional issues, and we will not go into them here.

The actual conduct

In practice, what has been created before our astonished eyes is an extremely problematic monster, causing enormous damage to all the lofty goals for which this institution was established. The spiritual leadership of the Revival of the Nation has become a corrupt institution, which is nothing more than an instrument that provides a livelihood for people (usually those who do not believe and do not speak in terms of 'Revival of the Nation' and the like), is run on nepotism and power, and is devoid of basic criteria of proper administration. The fundamental reason for this scandal is probably the inherent emptiness of this dubious institution, which was described in the previous chapter. But one must add to this the individuals who operate it, and the socio-cultural atmosphere within which it operates, as a kind of island of a religious-Haredi shtetl persecuted and defended within the modern secular state, while at the same time also depending on it at its navel. This is also the reason why, although it is an institution devoid of substance and authority, there are quarrels and desperate struggles within it over the filling of positions. When there is no substantive role, what remains is power and money. This is the framework in which even the residents of the closed shtetl can catharsis their political and power-hungry tendencies. The wise Fritz left the residents of the shtetl a place to define themselves, as if telling us: Fight there as much as you want at our expense, as long as you don't interfere with our real life outside.

The rabbinate today is run by third-world standards, befitting a self-respecting shtetl. Exam dates, publication, and proper management of rabbinical and judicial ordination, from the bottom of my heart. Information maintenance and transparency, not to mention. Proper appointments (not of one's son/brother), not in our school. Rabbinical courts are sometimes run like a synagogue. Many of the rulings that come out of there are problematic, and of course there is no consideration or recognition of critical positions (after all, these are only anti-Semitic elements, or liberals, for that matter). The appointment of people worthy of heading the system, we have long since stopped expecting that from the political horse trading that stands behind these appointments. It seems that in another term or two we will have to check whether those heading it can read and write. An original candidate who is willing to express independent positions has no chance of being elected. Go to the alleys of Bnei Brak and Jerusalem, known for their traditional support of the Chief Rabbinate, and for being steeped in values and modern society, where the candidate worthy of heading the summit of the strengthening sparks of our renewed redemption will be determined.

And so the Chief Rabbinate introduces "a spirit of peace between all factions and parties and the strengthening of the Torah and its honor on the Holy Land and throughout the entire world," as its founder stated above. All factions bicker among themselves over the appointment of rabbis, until in the end the most worthy candidate (i.e. the most disciplined) is chosen, and power, money, and honor reach their destination. And truth and peace are loved.

For the sake of more peace in the world, it is appropriate that every city should have an Ashkenazi and a Sephardic chief rabbi. Why? And that the Ashkenazi rabbi does not know the rulings of the author, or the Sephardic does not know the Rema? To be honest, in today's gloomy situation, this may also be true. But I think that the real reason is that being a city rabbi, not to mention the Chief Rabbi of Israel, is the best rabbi in the land (and also a bit of power and status). They pay the best, and they do not demand anything (on the contrary, the demand is that nothing be done). And if 'anti-Semitic' ministers, like Yossi Beilin or Shimon Shitrit, dare to speak out against these phenomena and bring a little order to the chaos, the cry of the robbed Cossack will immediately be heard: Do not touch my Messiah! They are persecuting the religious and Judaism again (in other words: evil people like you, do not close the rabbi for us).

The directors of kashrut of various rabbinates do not eat from the kashrut that they themselves supervise. Sometimes not even the mehadrin's kashrut. This phenomenon is not wrong in itself. The rabbi may demand higher standards from himself, but he is obligated to minimum standards towards the public (after all, public kashrut is intended for the entire public). But as a result, these minimum standards are often violated as well. I have heard with my own ears (and from second-hand sources, there have been several other cases) from a rabbi who deals with kashrut that he is not really strict, because in any case, those who strictly observe the halacha know that one should not eat from the 'rabbinate' koshrut. He is just making a living, but there is no need to provide any service in exchange for a salary.

When an organization like Tzohar tries to create a system of conducting weddings that is more pleasant and accessible to the general public, more appropriate to the time and circumstances of the generation (as we recall, this was the original role of the rabbinate), it is persecuted by the Chief Rabbinate, which uses the monopoly granted to it by law, and narrows its steps. As the emissary of the most conservative and fossilized elements in Halachaic Judaism, it uses political power (secular!) to impose on us all a fossilized and repulsive Judaism, which lives by medieval standards and refuses to change. Ironically, it is precisely the secular political power that gives it the opportunity to do this. It is the secular legislator who brought us the war on the sale permit, the treatment of agunot and get refusers and women in general, and the castrated rabbinate that we have. But as I described, Ben-Gurion already foresaw everything. After all, this was his goal. This is how wise people neuter the potential spiritual power and fertile ferment that a spiritual rabbinical institution can have.

Protest and criticism: all the dirty laundry inside

But we, faithful to the delusions of our past spiritual and political leaders, continue to cling to the importance and honor of this institution ("the honor of the rabbinate," did we say that?), and do not allow ourselves to harm it. The jokes that are told in the mikveh, in yeshiva, or in the synagogue, about the rabbinate, the kashrut it provides, and especially about those who lead it, are not mentioned in the public media. We do not wash our dirty laundry outside, lest there be blasphemy here (I can already imagine the angry reactions I will receive for this article). Only the "evil leftist journalists and politicians," the persecutors of religion and Jewishness, do this.

Instead of joining this criticism, and helping to finally eliminate the scourge called the 'Chief Rabbinate of Israel,' we are all careful not to wash our dirty laundry outside. The problem is that our dirty laundry has been blowing in the wind outside for many years, and what we have been hiding at home is the bleach and washing materials. A wise man has already said (I think it was Justice Brandeis) that sunlight is the best disinfectant for all blemishes and stains. But we have not yet internalized this. Despite the height of our lofty arrogance, we still behave as if we were a persecuted community in a dying diaspora. Afraid of what the Fritz will say.

Others are not afraid of the Fritz. And yet they think that criticism should not be brought out, for another reason: the alternative would be worse. How will marriages and divorces be conducted here if we close the courts and rabbinates? They ask. And how are they conducted today, I ask, when almost half of the public does not get married in the rabbinate? And what will become of kashrut? And what about mikvahs (and holy places, how did we forget)? But it seems to me that in recent years it has become increasingly clear that even when there is a Chief Rabbinate, things are not being conducted properly. On the contrary, for every such task, private institutions are now being established that do it better (kashrut, marriage, mikvahs and burials, etc.). Control over private institutions should not be done through a corrupt central institution (which raises the problem of "who will criticize the critic"), but through tools of investigative communication, reporting and public debate and transparency. Those who are not transparent and do not conduct themselves properly will be closed. This is the essence of the economic-spiritual capitalism that I propose.

Autonomous management of independent communities is an ancient Jewish art. We have about two thousand years of experience in this field, much more than our years of military or political experience. Such long experience is certainly worth relying on. The vision of spiritual socialism that advocates controlled management of Judaism through the central government probably doesn't really work, and for good reason. Milton Friedman, the famous capitalist, once said that what saved the State of Israel was two thousand years of exile (during which we learned how to circumvent the central government's attempts to manage us). It is worth utilizing these blessed skills also in relation to the centralized religious management that has been imposed on us. We should not be afraid of what will happen when the Chief Rabbinate disbands. What has happened and is happening everywhere and at all times in Jewish communities in the Diaspora, for thousands of years and in thousands of places, will happen. They managed just fine even without a Chief Rabbinate. It is true that with the closure of the Chief Rabbinate, we will have to provide alternative sources of income for a few good Jews, but this is a certainly tolerable price in relation to the great benefit that such a step will bring. And truth and peace loved.

[1] The more detailed descriptions of the various departments have been omitted.