|
Reply to UOJ's Article by Rabbi Jakobowitz Attacking the Supremacy of Yeshivas by Rabbi Dovid Eidensohn I have read the UOJ's posting of Tradition's article by Rabbi Immanuel Jacobowitz, and I think it is a dated piece. First of all, the facts as he states them don't exist anymore in the communities I frequent. Recall that Rabbi Jacobowitz was appointed Chief Rabbi of England in 1967, fifty years ago. His observations in those days were more valid, but today things are much different. Therefore, posting this article is really inventing a reality that has passed from the scene decades ago. However, because the issues raised in the article are important, and because some of the concepts are still valid, if not all of them, it does pay to revisit the issue. I have publicly attacked the Yeshivas for similar reasons, that Rosh Yeshivas have usurped the traditional dominance of the Rav who outranked the Rosh Yeshiva. Today the Rosh Yeshiva dominates the world, not the Rov. But I did not mean to suggest as this article does, that the solution is to find more "moderate" and modern rabbis to supplant the influence of the Rosh Yeshivas, as that is surely not the solution. Rather, the solution is to find rabbis who are not "modern" or "moderate" but whose task is the community, not schooling. Rabbi Akiva Eiger was not the Rosh Yeshiva of Posen, he was the Rov. He may have had a Yeshiva, but that was not his main role. The Chasam Sofer was the Pressbur Rov, and on the side, he had a Yeshiva. Today, we have no major Rov in many places so we turn to the Rosh Yeshivas for advice. Although this is a problem, and it requires a solution, the UOJ article is not interested in what I am interested in. It wants a leftist rabbi instead of the right-wing Yeshiva element. This is not the solution, because that Modern Orthodox world of Rabbi Jacobowotz, like a melting glacier, is not going to be around that much longer in its "progressive" phase. Rather it will split, as it is splitting now, and some will go left to the Conservadox, and some will go right to the Yeshivas and Haredim. Rabbi Shmuel Mendelowitz, the son of Reb Shraga Feival Mendelowitz, told me that his father battled the rabbis of his time. These rabbis were Europeans and were often great scholars, but they didn't want to build Yeshivas. When Reb Aharon came to a group of such rabbis to ask for help in building Yeshivas, the senior rabbi told him, "We are in charge of America, and you are not needed here." That rabbi died on the spot. I heard this from a prominent Lakewood talmid who used to drive Reb Aharon in New York. Not all rabbis were this bad. In Washington I went to a Yeshiva Or Torah DiBrisk built by the Rosh Yeshivas with the enthusiastic help of the rabbonim, Rabbi Yehoshua Klavan and Rabbi Bogner, and presumably others. Baltimore also had rabbis who loved Yeshivas. Yeshiva Chofetz Chaim was built by local rabbonim, and Ner Yisroel was warmly supported by the rabbonim of Baltimore. But in New York and elsewhere there were divisions. One rabbi blocked Rabbi Mendelowitz when he wanted to build a Day School in the rabbi's community. The rabbi's children became irreligious from going to public school. This article is a plaint by someone who sees his world vanishing, as indeed it did. The early world of YU and Rabbi Jacobowitz was one of communal bonding with Reform, Conservative and whoever else. Semicha was denied anyone who hadn't studied from the apikoress books of the colleges and from secular science staffs committed to pruning from any student traditional religious ideas. Rabbis had to deal with congregations filled with irreligious people. Of course, they had to "modify" halacha. The Yeshivas and the Yeshiva community would have nothing to do with that. The reality in Torah communities such as Monsey, Baltimore, and much of New York City, is that the Yeshiva and Haredi community created a ghetto, and allows in those who accept their standards, without compromise. Large and beautiful shulls dot these communities and capable and wise rabbis, the choice of the Yeshivas, staff them. Exponential demographic growth powers these communities and their shulls, and there is no need to compromise halacha or anything else. Thousands and thousands of people from all walks of life join these communities precisely because they are ghettos. Someone asked me a shaalo about an inheritance. It turned out he was related to the royal family of England. I was surprised, but he told me that Monsey is filled with Gerei Tsedek, and nobody can tell them from anyone else. Actually, once I could tell. We looked out the window of a Beth Din and saw a strange apparition. A young woman dressed in what seemed medieval dress for a nunnery was approaching the Beth Din. I went out to her and she told me she was a writer who had become frum. When she dresses more frum than others we can tell they are from the outer world. At any rate, this is an ancient article and has no place today. I deal regularly with the gentile world, with newspapers, Internet, etc., and they respect me because they know the ascending power of the Haredim. I have no need to make the compromises that at one time allowed Orthodox rabbis to be accepted by irreligious Jews. That world, fortunately, is gone forever.
|