CCAR
JOURNAL
| A REFORM JEWISH QUARTERLY |
WINTER, 1997
Published by the Central Conference of America Rabbis
| A REFORM JEWISH QUARTERLY |
As we continue to seek high standards for the American rabbinate, we must be concerned with private ordination. During the last decade the number of rabbis privately ordained has been growing. What are the qualifications of these private ordinees--their education, character, and general qualifications? What quality of services will these ordinees offer to the Jewish community?
Many of these ordinees do not meet the requirements for a modern rabbi set by the Reform, Conservative, and modern Orthodox communities since the nineteenth century. These include university training alongside the completion of a solid Jewish curriculum.
We should also be concerned about the manner in which these men and women represent the Jewish community to the broader world. Our neighbors cannot be expected to distinguish among individuals bearing the title of rabbi.
All this is especially so as, in our time, the rabbinate has become a profession for most of those who seek it. The title indicates to those who wish to engage a rabbi that certain requirements, both intellectual and spiritual, have been met; there are distinctions in the education of Reform, Conservative, Orthodox, and Reconstructionist colleagues, but all have met the requirements of their group. Private ordinees rarely have done so, and their title is misleading.
The history of rabbinic ordination is long and complex, but a brief review might be in order. We should remember that the rabbis of previous ages often had to study locally and, due to poverty or political circumstances, were not able to attend the outstanding yeshivot of their time. Conditions in North America are quite different.
So let us place private ordination into a historical setting and also see who were the "gatekeepers." The concept of ordination accompanied the rise of rabbinic Judaism. Our leadership needed legitimate ties with the past in order to have claim to authority. This was accomplished by seeing ordination with roots in the days of Moses, who conferred it upon Joshua (Num. 27:18; Deut. 34:9). The uninterrupted chain of tradition was described in Pirqe Avot. Ordination was given either by three people (according to the Mishnaic tradition of San 1.3 as interpreted by the Talmud San 13a ff) or by a single teacher (M. San 1.2; 13b ff). The first ordinee with the title of Rabban was Gamaliel the Elder. Ordination provided the right to participate in a Bet Din. Its decisions were, of course, not limited to ritual matters, but included every aspect of life, and included major changes in the halakhah (for a full discussion, see Semikhah by J. Newman [Manchester, 1950]). The power to ordain was in the hands of a few individuals in each generation, and given to a small number whom they believed to be qualified (San 13b ff). This resulted in a cohesive body that made the ultimate decisions for Jewish life. The divisiveness that would naturally come with larger numbers was thereby avoided, and individuals with irregular or divergent views were easily excluded. On the other hand, the small numbers could easily lead to an end to ordination in a time of crisis or through the unwillingness of this handful of individuals to ordain. This actually occurred, and ordination ended in the talmudic period. With it ended the ability to make major halakhic changes.
Some judicial appointments required special expertise, and so this was an added requirement (M. San 3.1; San 5af). There was some discussion whether individuals ordained in Babylonia could function in the Land of Israel and vice versa (San 8ab; B.K. 84a). Calendar issues were particularly contentious (J. San 1.2; Ber 63a ff; R.H. 20b, 21a). These discussions continued into the Gaonic period.
Not every qualified candidate wished to be ordained. The recipient was expected to serve on courts and to teach (yoreh yoreh, yadin yadin). Some scholars who wished to concentrate on the theoretical life of scholarship or felt unworthy refused ordination (San 14a, J. Bik 3).
As only a small number of individuals in Babylonia and Palestine were ordained, we must ask who performed the other tasks within both the Jewish communities. A whole series of lower officials looked after the affairs of the semi-autonomous community. Ordination was reserved for the higher ranks within that system.
In the Gaonic period ordinees were expected to complete the curriculum of study of the Babylonian academies. Appointments were made by the exilarch on the recommendation of the heads of the academy. In this way, ordinees were supplied to the entire Jewish world under control of the Sassanid and later Islamic communities, which eventually extended to the entire southern Mediterranean basin.
The positive aspect of this independent unregulated system was that it provided leadership for every part of the globe through the initiative of a series of individuals. No bureaucratic obstacles lay in the way. Judaism could develop and move ahead.
Negatively there were no universal standards, and the yeshivot varied in the quality of the education they provided. Over time this worked itself out, as those with greater intellectual leadership inevitably drew better students, and those students were then in demand by communities seeking first-class leaders.
The system continued to encourage individuals to send their more difficult inquiries to the head of the yeshivah for adjudication. In some instances, an individual who wished to establish a yeshivah in a new land, as for example the United States, sought permission to do so from the head of the yeshivah from which he had received ordination. Although this might be done as a courtesy or as a way of obtaining some legitimization, it certainly was not required.
In the century following the Black Death, the Ashkenazic rabbinate changed radically and became professionalized. The rabbi became the mesader qiddushin and was involved in many other matters on a regular basis; he received payment for services rendered. The designation of mara de-atra protected his livelihood. Ordination did not necessarily come from his teachers, but from rabbis who examined the candidate for competence; the semikhah, at times, specified areas of special competence.
Secular education was added as a criterion by some ordaining rabbis in the nineteenth century before the creation of rabbinic seminaries. The ordination of Kaufmann Kohler, for example, among many others, followed this pattern; he was ordained by Dr. Joseph Aub after studying at the University of Berlin (Joshua Bloch, "The Semikah of Dr. Kaufmann Kohler" in Jacob R. Marcus (ed.), Essays in American Jewish History, Cincinnati, 1958).
Among those who followed the traditional training in the Orthodox Yeshivah, a high percentage have always decided that life as a congregational rabbi was not their goal, so they have entered other professions although they received semikhah. We should also parenthetically note that the traditional role and powers of the rabbi were drastically curtailed by the Emancipation, when the semi-autonomous status of the Jewish community disappeared. So, rabbis who, in the eighteenth century, had decision-making powers in the whole range of economic activities, now found themselves primarily as teachers and congregational leaders with a role still to be newly defined in the next century.
Each of the groups within Judaism--Reform, Conservative, Re-constructionist, and Orthodox--has organized its rabbinic training in this fashion and established appropriate seminaries. Within the Orthodox tradition, the older style yeshivot continue alongside modern schools. Modern ordination has been generally restricted to graduate-level institutions; it has been given to those who fulfilled the academic and spiritual requirements. It has been open to female candidates for twenty-five years within the Reform movement.
The contemporary American Jewish community is akin to that of ancient Babylonia in this matter. We have well-established academies that are the "gatekeepers" and placement systems which serve the same function as the exilarch in Babylonia. We therefore do not need or want to encourage private ordination as an alternative in North America. Our present system assures well-educated, properly motivated, properly trained rabbinic candidates for the American rabbinate. Any congregation or organization which turns to our placement system knows that it will receive well-qualified applicants. It is, therefore, important that we discourage private ordination in the Reform, Conservative, Reconstructionist and modern Orthodox movements.
It is appropriate as well that members of the CCAR refrain from ordaining persons on their own initiative in North America, recognizing that, although they may have such authority, it has become the practice in our day to see this as a function only of the seminaries. Privately ordained individuals should be denied both admission to the CCAR and placement, unless the circumstances are unusual and the candidate meets all the appropriate requirements.
We have seen the slow development of two systems of ordination through the centuries. Each has been adapted to the needs of particular communities. As our American community is well organized, we have established the equivalent of the Babylonian academies and we must follow their model of ordination and rabbinic appointment through seminaries and centralized placement systems. Private ordination continues as a possibility; it presents a model for adaptation and survival in times of crisis, but it is not appropriate for us in North America. It may be useful nowadays in countries where different conditions prevail, or in the future, under other circumstances.
We need to be served by a highly qualified rabbinate. Those qualifications, both intellectual and spiritual, include a good education as well as an appropriate general education. This has been assured through a system of rabbinic schools that represent the different ideologies of American Judaism.
We should, however, remember that our strong stand against private ordination in North America may not be appropriate for other parts of the world. There are many countries in which the number of Liberal rabbis is very small and will grow only slowly, primarily because of political problems. Qualified candidates there may not have an opportunity to be ordained except privately. Such ordination should be encouraged under those circumstances.
It is in the interest of the North American community especially to insist that those who serve it be graduates of appropriate rabbinic schools. This can be done through the self-policing mechanisms of the various rabbinic organizations. Each of those has definite standards for membership. These organizations act as appropriate "gatekeepers" and are able to maintain standards. We should cooperate with one another in this matter, particularly in the area of rabbinic placement, far more than we have in the past.
My gratitude to members of the Standards Committee who commented on an earlier version of this paper.
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