To the chief rabbis:
Two rulings were announced this past Monday regarding your institutional and personal status. And you can feel relieved that - for now, at least - the institution of the Chief Rabbinate has dodged the bullet.
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he first and most talked about was the declaration by the committee responsible for appointing rabbinical judges that Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi Yona Metzger will be allowed to continue serving in his post despite allegations of impropriety. The second was the decision by a ministerial committee to extend the authority of the rabbinical courts to all divorce- related matters, including those that were previously resolved in civil courts. Both decisions were met with anger by those members of the public who pay attention to such things, just another indication that you have lost moral and spiritual authority in the eyes of Israelis - both secular and religious. My suggestion: If you want to retain the bureaucratic as well as legal authority you still have, you need to institute systematic changes in the rabbinate's structure that will increase its accountability and transparency.
Already in the committed national religious sector, many no longer pay heed to you, turning instead to leaders with more direct ties to the people and their needs. The secular, of course, fret about the power the law gives you over their lives, but more and more, they disengage and circumvent their need for your services, whether by ignoring the huppah in favor of commitment ceremonies, or heading off to Cyprus to get married.
The irony, of course, is that while you are increasingly subservient to the ultra-Orthodox world, that same Haredi world has no respect for the Chief Rabbinate - as demonstrated, for example, by the existence of the Badatz Kosher certification. For the Haredim, you lack religious authority. So you are shunned from all sides.
Indeed, one issue making headlines this year has been the war over shmita. In all previous sabbatical years, during which Jewish Israeli farmers, according to the command of the Torah, were expected to allow their land to lie fallow, the rabbinate managed to mitigate the deleterious effects on the Israeli agricultural economy and the level of inconvenience to the public through the heter mekhira, a legal fiction that made it possible for Jewish farmers to continue to grow and sell their produce.
This year the rabbinate endorsed, and seemed to prefer, buying produce from non-Jews, in some cases even refusing to grant kosher certification to restaurants using heter mekhira produce - a policy since overruled by the Supreme Court. And in matters like conversion, family law and the problem of agunot (women whose husbands refuse to grant them a divorce), the rabbinate's positions have created a lack of trust if not anger among both the religious and secular communities. In reality, most Israelis are not opposed to halakhic requirements for marriage, but they resent the absence of respect and compassion that often characterize the proceedings of local rabbinical courts, as well as the lack of transparency in the selection of dayanim (judges). As one Orthodox Jew told me after going to his local rabbinate for a marriage license, "It is the most Godless place in Israel."
This is not a call for disestablishment. Unlike Norway or Britain, both of which have an official "state" church, but one that plays little role in sustaining the character of the country, the institution of the rabbinate can play an important role in maintaining Israel as a Jewish state. But if you want to hold on to your power and influence, you must be willing to create a system of accountability and transparency. You must become a rabbinate that is sensitive to the people you lead.
Let's compare the Israeli situation to that in the United States. Over there, a rabbi is accountable to the congregants who pay his salary. Here, a rabbi can have "authority" over a given geographical area, but is appointed and paid by the state. And since his congregation did not choose him, he does not necessarily feel accountable to it. Being part of the state apparatus may solve your budgetary needs, but it lessens your moral authority. Having become a pawn in political party maneuverings has only reduced your moral authority further.
What is truly sad is that it's clear your own actions have led to your decline. The rabbinate could have been, and can still be, an incredible force of moral leadership. But if tensions are allowed to increase, there will be pressure on Israel to move to a separation of religion and state. The country would then face an even greater challenge, that of determining the nature of the Jewish state's Jewishness. This would have major implications not only for Israel but for Diaspora Jews as well. And where will it leave you? Or us?
In the past, the rabbinate would factor the existence of the state into its decision- making. Indeed, great rabbinical authorities always maintained a dialectic between halakha and community needs. Now, however, the chief rabbis are drawn from the ultra- Orthodox - indeed the non-Zionist - population, which makes no effort to integrate strict halakhic laws and Zionist values. The partnership of rabbis Isaac Herzog and Ben Zion Uzziel, who worked assiduously to promote unity among different sectors of society, has become a nostalgic memory. Additionally, as allegations of misconduct and sexual harassment have dogged the rabbinate in recent years, you have lost respect among the general population.
In Shi'ite Islam, the clerics state that for their religious system to work, there must be some accountability to the people. I never thought I would be suggesting that the Chief Rabbinate take lessons from the ayatollahs.
Sarah Breger is a 2007-2008 Dorot Fellow living in Jerusalem
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