Yeshivat Maharat graduates at their ordination ceremony at Ramaz High School in New York City, June 16, 2013 (Joe Winkler)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
The RCA says it supports advanced Torah study for women and their assumption of appropriate leadership roles in the Orthodox community, goals to which Weiss also subscribes. The RCA has never objected to female graduates of an advanced Talmud program at Yeshiva University, several of whom have served in quasi-rabbinic roles at Orthodox synagogues similar to those that Yeshivat Maharat graduates will fill.<\/p>\n
But while Weiss sees ordination as a vital and historic step, to the RCA and its 1,000 members the move represents a dramatic and potentially dangerous break from tradition, if not a violation of Jewish law.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn many ways, I believe it sets back the slow progress that we have made in giving women positions of leadership,\u201d Goldin told JTA. \u201cWhen something is done sort of arbitrarily, that there is no consensus for, that creates a counter-reaction on the other side. I believe that’s what’s happening.\u201d<\/p>\n
For years, Weiss has been agitating for women to assume leadership roles in Orthodoxy that are more or less comparable to men. In 2009, Weiss gave his protege Sara Hurwitz the title maharat, a Hebrew acronym of his invention that translates as female leader in Torah, spirituality and religious law.<\/p>\n
Several months later, Weiss decided that maharat had not caught on and that Hurwitz instead would be called rabba, a feminized version of rabbi.<\/p>\n
Reaction was swift. The haredi Orthodox Agudath Israel of America dismissed it as beyond the pale of Orthodoxy. Rumors swirled that the RCA was considering expelling Weiss, which the organization denied.<\/p>\n
But even after Weiss conceded in early 2010 that he wouldn’t ordain any more rabbas, he continued to use language reflecting his belief that these women performed functions comparable to male rabbis. The website of Yeshivat Maharat describes its graduates as \u201crabbinic leaders\u201d and legal decisors.<\/p>\n
The document awarded to graduates on Sunday refers to their ordination — in Hebrew, smicha — the same terminology used for male rabbis. But Weiss said he wasn’t conferring a title, insisting that smicha refers only to the women’s function as authorities on Jewish law and their pastoral training, not their honorific.<\/p>\n
The decision of what to call his graduates would be left up to the women themselves and the communities they serve, he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe desperately need spiritual leaders,\u201d Weiss said. \u201cAnd to me it doesn’t make sense to tap into only 50 percent of the Jewish community.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hurwitz, who now serves as the dean of Yeshivat Maharat, said that offering the school’s graduates ordination was a reflection of their having satisfied a course of study equal to what male rabbinical students complete.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I received ordination, I was able to be present for people in a different way,\u201d Hurwitz said. \u201cPeople sought out my advice and my help and my halachic expertise because they understood what I had studied and what I can do for them.\u201d<\/p>\n
According to Weiss, there is no legal barrier to women functioning as rabbis, only sociological ones.<\/p>\n
In a 1,500-word defense of the religious basis for female clergy provided to JTA and later published by the Times of Israel, Weiss cited various sources to show that female spiritual leaders are well within the bounds of tradition.<\/p>\n
Goldin acknowledged that it was difficult to point to any particular religious law that Weiss has transgressed in ordaining women, but he insisted that his quibble with Weiss is about much more than semantics.<\/p>\n
He cited the example of Conservative Judaism’s decision to permit driving to synagogue on the Sabbath — a move initially made for understandable sociological reasons, but which wound up having a dramatic impact on the quality of religious life.<\/p>\n
Goldin conceded that Weiss is not entirely without religious justification for his actions and said if it were solely up to him, he would be content to agree to disagree with Weiss.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat the [RCA] will do in the future,\u201d Goldin said, \u201cI cannot predict.\u201d<\/p>\n
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