Until the 1990s, no one dreamed that such a function existed.
Rabbinic arguments? A woman scholar, who will argue before male judges, and present to them halachic sources from the Torah and Shulchan Aruch of Even HaEzer?
But this theo-sociological wonder arose and was. Dozens of rabbinical advocates crowd the courts, their words are heard with distinction, and even in the court of the eminent Rabbi Nissim Karelitz they are accepted without reservation.
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How did this happen? How did women who had been excluded from studying Halacha and Talmud become subjects and negotiators with the Jewish judges?
There is only one answer to this question: Rabbi Shlomo Riskin. The man who, according to rumors, was almost removed from the position of rabbi of Efrat.
Rabbi Shlomo Riskin had a vision, as he put it himself at an event marking the 30th anniversary of the establishment of the Or Torah Stone network: "The revolution I dreamed of thirty years ago in the world of female Torah study and female leadership is happening here before our eyes within the walls of 'Or Torah Stone.' There is today a leadership of female rabbis, teachers, rabbinical advocates, and also those who study Torah for its own sake, influencing themselves, their families, and their surroundings in the world of Torah study.".
It's amazing to think that the social fact That seems so natural to us today, The law that gives legitimacy to a woman who claims to be a rabbi is a one-man revolution that also created changes in the area of prenuptial agreements that are recognized today in every rabbinical court, and more.
Even on the question of conversion, which is becoming one of the cardinal issues of the world of the rabbinate and Israeli society in the coming years, the man has something to say. One can certainly disagree with some of his conclusions, but one cannot ignore the figure of one of the most influential rabbis in recent decades, on Israeli society in general, and on the Neo-Orthodox sector in particular.
How is it possible that this man was wanted to be deposed? Why, or how, did the mindset that he sought to overthrow arise? To deviate from the path Are you the one who is causing these socio-religious changes?
You will say: The man does not act according to the accepted rules of halachah according to the opinion of some members of the Chief Rabbinate Council. For example. But towards whom is the Chief Rabbinate acting? Towards the graduates of the Ponivez and Hebron yeshiva? Towards the residents of Kiryat Sefer and Elad? And perhaps even towards the madmen of Mea Shearim?
The Chief Rabbinate deals mainly with what is known in rabbinic slang as "your people." People who wear knitted kippahs, Sephardim, and non-Torah-observant homeowners.
Among these people, Rabbi Riskin and his friends caused a revolution. It is not for nothing that Zohar, led by my friend Rabbi Rafi Feuerstein, became the most popular movement among young married couples, since in the Torah Bet Tefera yeshiva, for example, they do not need a hospitable rabbi, a tzor. In Ra'anana, they do not seek the kosher training of Rabbi Rubin. Nor of the Chatam Sofer group.
I don't know who (if anyone) was in favor of dismissing Rabbi Riskin. The reports have so far not gone beyond the realm of rumors.
And in any case, the removal of a rabbi with such significant influence, of this kind, would make the Chief Rabbinate - which is already perceived as an extension of Shas or the Haredi hegemony - disconnected from the masses. Is that what we want?
Is Haredi Judaism begging the people of Tzohar to finally establish their own alternative rabbinate, as surely militant voices among them are asking to do? Who will give up our Chief Rabbinate? The children of Gafni and Litzman? The private courts, and the Bedatzim who disdain to qualify the rabbinate as prey? The Lithuanian elite that looks with a disdainful eye at rabbis 'on behalf of'?
If the Rabbinate relies on them, then it can surrender now, unconditionally.
