Amidst much fanfare, the Rabbinical Council of America (RCA) has
released the findings of its committee charged with reviewing the conversion process
(http://www.rabbis.org/news/article.cfm?id=105822)
This is a welcome step in the proper direction, and the most welcome part of
the report is that the committee included a number of non-rabbinic lay members
as well as rabbinic leadership within the RCA.
However, I am concerned that many individuals will be
satisfied with the recommendations of the report and the implementation of
those recommendations. This process
follows a number of other similar processes, including the “Joel Commission”
which issued a report after investigation of systemic failures within the
Orthodox Union over the course of three decades to address allegations of abuse
and improper behavior by Rabbi Baruch Lanner.
To the extent that these reports focus on the issue at hand, I am
concerned that we are missing the bigger picture, and that it is only a matter
of time before the next scandal breaks, another commission or committee is
empaneled, another report is issued, etc.
What is at the heart of the matter is the issue of rabbinic
power and appropriate checks on and oversight of that power. Under the rubric of pesak halacha, rabbis
are given broad powers to make decisions, both minor and major, that have the
potential to affect the lives of their congregants and followers. I fear that rabbis, being in somewhat of an
echo chamber without appropriate lay oversight and involvement, have tended
over the years to expand the domain of these powers to a degree far beyond
where they are appropriate. Especially
when scandals occur, it becomes apparent to all the degree to which halacha
has been invoked with regard to issues upon which halacha has little to
no bearing.
As a Modern Orthodox rabbi, I have a relatively minimalist attitude
about what constitutes fair game for pesak halacha, also known as da’at
Torah. For example, I do not believe that da’at Torah addresses what
color shirt one must wear on Shabbat, how one must vote in the next election,
or issues of social policy. I do recognize that rabbis and talmidei
chachamim need to have input on issues that do not strictly fall under the
rubric of pesak halacha because not everything that is permissible is
necessarily a good idea. Nonetheless, it
is inappropriate for a rabbi to pull rank and classify a purely social issue as
a halachic one in order to stifle discussion on it, or to not at least solicit
opinions from lay professionals in other fields before forming an opinion on
the matter. Over the long run, this will
erode the trust that the public has in its rabbis, and lead to out-and-out
violations of halacha when the public no longer trusts the rabbinate to
set boundaries between halachic and social issues.
Although I can identify the problem, and assert that the
problem might be addressed by expanded lay oversight, I have no idea what that
might look like in practice. In an
opinion piece published in the Jewish Week last month by a pseudonymous “Rabbi
Yochanan Batzek,” (http://www.thejewishweek.com:8080/editorial-opinion/opinion/you-not-rabbis-have-power-stop-rabbinic-abuse)
the author asserts that since lay leaders sign rabbis’ paychecks, this serves
essentially as lay oversight. While this
is true, it adopts a sword of Damocles approach to lay oversight, which grants perhaps
too much power to lay leadership, is not a respectful way of construing the
relationship, and hampers a rabbi’s effectiveness by having him (or her) worry
overmuch about the consequences of what he (or she) does instead of forging an
effective working relationship with the laity. (Also, I have personally
observed instances where a rabbi can get around this sort of oversight by
publicly discrediting the lay leadership from the pulpit.)
Rather than waiting for a situation to escalate and having a
lay board summon the power of the paycheck in a showdown with their rabbi, what
is needed is some form of best practices for lay boards and their rabbis to
adopt well in advance of problems. These best practices can and should be
implemented in a discreet manner, as well as in a manner that is respectful of
the rabbi and recognizes that there are bona-fide boundaries between halachic
and social issues. One hopes that the
RCA, or the International Rabbinic Fellowship (IRF), might give some forethought to this issue, empanel a
committee comprised of rabbis as well as seasoned lay leaders to give some
thought as to how this might be done, and make recommendations which synagogue
boards and their rabbis might adopt to forestall future scandals, which
besmirch not only our rabbinic leaders, but all of Orthodoxy as well.
