New York – Rabbi Avi Weiss looked ebullient. He was facing the congregation on a Sunday morning in March of last year, at the Hebrew Institute of Riverdale, the synagogue he founded nearly 40 years ago. His white yarmulke was bobby-pinned to his white hair, a broad smile lifting his jowls. In a few minutes, he would ordain the first woman in American Orthodox Judaism.
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This so-called conferral ceremony honoring Sara Hurwitz, a 32-year-old mother of three, was unprecedented, and everyone in the room knew it. Orthodox rules strictly delineate gender roles in all aspects of life, especially in synagogue, and these divisions go a long way toward defining what Orthodoxy stands for. Avi Weiss is not one for subtle gestures, yet even he recognized that this ordainment would require an unusual level of political finesse. He had picked his protégée’s title cautiously, choosing not to dub her rabbi—too loaded an honorific—but rather a new designation he’d invented: maharat, a Hebrew acronym, he explained, which stands for a legal, spiritual, and Talmudic leader.
Someone drummed on a chair, obliging Weiss’s request. “The authority of Torah will rest upon her shoulders,” Weiss proclaimed dramatically, “to spread the knowledge of God throughout the land.” Large hands planted firmly on the lectern, Weiss gazed like a father at Hurwitz, who sat smiling back, dressed in a plain black suit, cloche hat, and pearls. “Sara, what you have achieved today is distinctive. It’s set apart.” He told his audience how well versed Hurwitz had become in Jewish law—Halacha—as if to anticipate any questioning of her bona fides. “Sara, under the tutelage of Halachic experts, has studied the established traditional rabbinic texts that are required to become a religious leader and, based on her mastery of these texts, is assuming a full religious leadership position in a synagogue.” With open hands, he gestured to her. “We bless you as you rise and come forward to join me in officially becoming part of the religious leadership of Israel and officially becoming a full member of our clergy!”
The crowd cheered.
“You have risked so much to stand behind me,” Hurwitz said to Weiss in her acceptance speech. “It is my dream that young Orthodox girls will be able to say, ‘When I grow up, I want to be a maharat and serve in the capacity of female Orthodox rabbi.’ ”
Read the full story at NY Magazine
NY Mag, don’t they specialize in articles bashing the Orthodox community?
For those who remember in Satmar there was also a Rabba Sarah! שרה שארמאשער ע״ה.
How ironic
Weiss is a disgrace. Ask him his position on Rabashkin’s unfair sentence.
So Avi Weiss doesn’t even get the title Rabbi?
sunday morning??…did they have a breakfast too?
its a good thing his congregants come up with the money to fund this stuff.
We have exahusted this debate several months ago. Most of us (except for a few fanatics) have great respect for “Ms/Rabanit/Geveret/Whatever you want to call her” Hurwitz and her devotion to yiddeshkeit and lamdus. We don’t have to repeat all the arguments as to why or why not a rav should hav milah. She is a wonderful role model for our daughters whatever derech they choose. Kol hakovod and lets avoid having to repeat all the negative comments about her or Rav Weiss, shlita.
Don’t give him attention. That’s what he craves and what gives him any legitimacy in the eyes of the masses who don’t know any better.
The bais hanikdash was destroyed because of hatred between us, not because of lady rabbah.
Please, if you got nothing good to say about another yid this week, just say nothing.
As if a chronic shortage of Rabbis exists in the Orthodox Community.
Which multiple choice test did she take? Was she given the answers in advance?
This article doesn’t make Rabbi Weiss come across particularly well.
I think everyone is afraid she`ll outshine them and face the issues that the men were sweeping under the rug for so long. Go Rabba go!
“explains Marc B. Shapiro, an expert on Orthodoxy.”
How does one become an expert on Orthodoxy? Isn’t every talmid chuchum an expert?
What test does a person take to become a Rabbi? Is it the same or different in every school? Was her test the same as what all the other Rabbis have to take? Is there an agency that oversees the testing of Rabbis?
I don’t believe for 1 minute she learned even one perek of mishnayos. Maybe she’s qualified to be a mikvah attendant.
doesnt the gemara in pesachim, dachtsamir in the fifth perek, tamid nishchat, say that brurria, rav meir’s wife, used to learn 300 camels worth of sefarim each day? oh, but let me guess……..VIN wasnt there to report it, thus no debate……. 🙂
I prefer talking to a real non ordained rebetzin, but, I’ll ask my shailos to a male Rov (with a big black yarmulka, not a pinned on kippa, all right that makes me biased – so what?)
Hello she is not orthodox…in English its called reform. Its because of people lke her and Weiss that we are still in golus
This is not marbeh machloes by showing the Chillul Hashem here; this is for standing up for the Kovod of the Almighty who set us up with a mesoira, a tradition, to be kept until the redemption. If we don’t keep our traditions then we are lost as the Gemoro says, and for this we were redeemed from Egypt.
The fact that no Gedoilim of this generation or the previous put a woman in a situation of harbotzas torah and as a Rabbi – to men – means that its a non-condonable thing.
From the Lubavitcher (for whom the wives of the shluchim were an integral part of the shlichus) to Rab Moshe to the Satmar Rebbe to Rabbi Kaminetsky.
Rabbi Weiss has some other shitos that in the chassidishe and yeshivashe world would never be allowed, and this new “rabbanit” (which he dared not introduce until now — I wonder why?) will not last, unless they become reform or conservative or something close.
Here’s a very revealing part of the New York Magazine article:
“His longtime friend Blu Greenberg, who founded the Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance, convened a kind of focus group to help him figure it out. On two separate evenings at her house in Riverdale, Greenberg invited about two dozen prominent Jewish women…“I think everybody was in amazement that she had achieved this,” says Reform rabbi Jacqueline Koch Ellenson, who attended a meeting.”
Hmmm…
Avi Weiss counts Blu Greenberg amongst his friends and advisors. This is the same Blu Greenberg who calls herself “an Orthodox female rabbi”. She, in turn, invites “prominent Jewish women”, including a female Reform rabbi.
It’s pretty obvious where this movement is heading.
The wives of both Satmer and Bobover rebbes of prior generation performed the same role as planned for Rabba Hurwitz but perhaps without the same title. In many chassidus, it is the rebbetzen who is the real power and posek on many issues.
She learned for three years then spent another three years focusing solely on psak. She knows more gemoro and helchos than many rabonim. If you don’t approve of her then sit and learn instead of condemn her.
I can think of lots of things worse than her dedication to lumdos and helping klal yisroel.
“found a way for women to say Kaddish, the prayer for the dead, which normally requires a quorum of ten men”
This is highly misleading. Women have been saying Kaddish in the presence of a minyan for 400 years. And I was personally present at a service with Rabbi Weiss where we had nine men and one woman where the woman wanted to say Kaddish for a parent. Rabbi Weiss would not permit the woman to say Kaddish until a tenth man showed up.
“he and 29 families founded a shul in a boiler room of the Whitehall Building off the Henry Hudson Parkway”
Also misleading; the congregation had been in another part of the Bronx and had almost died (as had most shuls in most of the Bronx), the remnant moved to Riverdale. There is still one very active member who was part of the old Hebrew Institute of University Heights, which is still the official corporate name of the Hebrew Institute of Riverdale.
“But Weiss mostly spends his time with those decidedly on the margins: the elderly, the widowed, the infirm, the disabled.”
This is absolutely true. Rabbi Weiss always goes out of his way to make frail and disabled persons feel welcomed in shul.
Don’t call her Rabbah. Call her Ravina.
Why do Orthodox Jewish feminists believe that what the men do in Judaism is the best in Judaism? Who says Tefillin trumps Shabbos Neiros? It is the yetzer hara that makes us dissatisfied with our roles. Don’t the psychologists call this personality defect, “heinous envy?”
By the way, the word is not “ordaniment” (ordainment), it is “ordination.”
Another interesting article about a custom that is being defiled in Torah True Judaism. It is catastrophic how individuals wish to pursue unorthodox likings to their own pleasure! I do hope that this is resolved and that Sara Hurwitz can find a place in the universe that is consistent with Orthodox Jewish Religious Law. I do not feel that I would want her to marry a couple, lead torah, conduct funeral services or make physical contact with men. Women who wish to do these activities are a Chillum Hashem! Perhaps she can find a way to lead women to more orthodox observance such as tzunis, child rearing, prayer and matrimonial affairs! Don’t turn down an eager participant. Find a way to work with that person and bring our people closer to redemption!
“Not one of them has written an essay disputing the points raised by the three rabbis who supported rabbi Weiss.”
Why should they restate the obvious, to appease the desire of the quasi-orthodox to bring this farce up to the level of a dialogue?