On Orthodox ordinations of female rabbis

The Shalom Hartman Institue in Jerusalem is going to begin ordaining women as rabbis, reports the Jerusalem Post, in an article which would have you believe that this is the biggest development in Orthodox Judaism’s relationship to its women since the banning of Indian sheitels. ‘A major change in gender roles within modern Orthodoxy,’ the article prints in the first sentence. Big news! Stop the presses! Women can learn, become scholars, and impart their knowledge to others! And they can now style themselves ‘rabbis’ with the permission of an Orthodox institution!

Except it’s not really a big deal, of course. Slate’s Samantha Shapiro has an excellent article in which she explains several crucial things that, in their breathless desire to sensationalize this event, the Jerusalem Post either buried or omitted:

• The Shalom Hartman Institute isn’t really Orthodox, or even Modern Orthodox. Even the original article subliminally acknowledges this, in a quote from the founder, Rabbi David Hartman, himself: ‘[The Shalom] Hartman [Institue] has been multi-denominational for the last 12 years. We make no distinctions between men and women here. Our latest decision is a natural evolution of our existing policy.’ Now, Rabbi Hartman was ordained as an Orthodox rabbi, but the institution itself does not ‘belong’ to the Orthodox ‘movement’, insofar as such a movement exists.
• Orthodox women have been ordained before. An excellent example is Mimi Feigelson, who was granted semicha (ordination) by Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach. Feigelson somewhat enigmatically uses the title Reb, which in Yiddish has the connotation of ‘Mister’—nothing specifically rabbinic, but everything specifically masculine—and kept her ordination secret for many years until it was revealed in a newspaper. She’s just one example: there are several other women who have been ordained in the Orthodox tradition as Orthodox rabbis, so the Hartman Institute’s decision to start doing this isn’t exactly new.
• All denominations of Judaism except for the Orthodox flavour have ordained women for at least twenty-five years.
• There have been other Orthodox institutions that educate women to be spiritual and religious consultants on various matters, such as family law and ritual purity. Nishmat is one such institution; yet it does not call its graduates ‘rabbis’ and tacitly seems to acknowledge that any religious opinion or ruling rendered by a woman will always need a nod from a qualified male to render it fully valid and worthwhile.
• This development isn’t going to have, in my estimation, any significant impact on either Orthodoxy in general or women’s roles within Orthodox Judaism in particular. Even if we count the Hartman Institute within the boundaries of Modern Orthodoxy, it was already quite far to the ‘left’ of that label, and this decision may well push it beyond the pale for other M.O.s, to say nothing of farther-right-wingers in the Orthodox ‘movement’ or the Haredi world. Also, many of the kinds of people that the Hartman Institute already reaches, in religious and dogmatic terms, are already likely to accept women as rabbis and therefore put themselves out of this ‘movement’ as well, thus effectively (a) making Hartman’s decision to do this essentially preaching to the choir, and (b) causing Hartman to secede even further from Orthodoxy.

Naturally, this has been gathering some significant responses in the Jewish word, much of which I believe has to do with the ’sales’ of this event as hugely significant both for women and for Orthodox Judaism. Rabbi Shlomo Aviner, for instance, was quoted extensively in the Jerusalem Post article to the effect that the Hartman Institute is already beyond the pale because Orthodox Jews are studying together with non-Orthodox Jews, who ‘do not have a fear of God’, to say nothing of women studying together with men. He also takes the (somewhat baffling) position that women should not have the title ‘rabbi’ yet still ought to be respected by the hoi polloi, just as male rabbis are:

“I think it is degrading to tell a woman that she won’t be respected and appreciated unless she adopts a man’s title,” Aviner said. “Throughout the generations there were always scholarly women who were highly respected. Jewish law dictates that a man must stand before a learned woman just as he must stand out of respect for a learned man.”

Though I personally welcome this news, I have to doubt its general effect, just as Shapiro does in her article. If Aviner’s reaction is any indication, those women who do receive their ordination from the Shalom Hartman Institute will be shunned in the Orthodox world, and this ‘big news’ will end up striking no blows for the acceptance of women in that world, which is a real shanda in today’s world.