Before examining the historical significance of Yeshivat Maharat’s recent ordination ceremony, I want to acknowledge and thank the courageous women who have heretofore demonstrated spiritual leadership in the Orthodox community. Reb Mimi Feigelson, mashpiah ruchanit of American Jewish University and a Yeshivat Maharat advisory board member, and Rosh Kehillah Dina Najman, spiritual leader of Kehilat Orach Eliezer, both received private semikha and are serving the Jewish people with strength and integrity. Elana Stein Hain and Gilah Kletenik, graduates of Yeshiva University’s GPATS program, teach, preach, and tirelessly help lead major New York City congregations. Many other women, too numerous to name, working in many different contexts, perform acts of spiritual leadership daily, touching and inspiring lives, acting as role models to girls and boys. They have laid the foundation on which we now build.
Yeshivat Maharat has now taken a great leap forward. The ordination ceremony of June 16 inaugurated a new era in the advancement of female religious leadership in the Orthodox community. For two reasons, this event has changed the conversation about women serving as clergy
Institutional Semikha
The graduation ceremony marked the first time that institutional semikha was granted to Orthodox women. It was an historic moment because previously women with a passion to serve had to carve out their own path to spiritual leadership. Institutional semikha formalizes spiritual leadership as a viable career path for women to pursue.
In addition, Yeshivat Maharat has set the standard for the requisite skill set necessary for women to succeed as a member of the clergy—bringing a combination of in-depth textual knowledge and hands-on experience in various pastoral roles. Yeshivat Maharat’s curriculum is modeled on traditional rabbinic training programs, in which students learn the laws of niddah, Shabbat, kashrut, life-cycle events, and issues pertaining to daily living (the laws of Orach Chaim), with the intention of becoming poskot, decisors of Jewish law.
As interns in synagogues, communal organizations, and university Hillels, our students have gained first-hand experience dealing with some of the sensitive issues that arise in the work of a pastoral caregiver. Our graduates have trained for the past four years to teach, lead, and guide people through their most difficult and joyous moments. They have passed rigorous oral and written examinations administered by the ordaining rabbis and have been mentored to become sensitive pastoral guides and halakhic decisors.
The degree of semikha confirms the powerful role that female spiritual and halakhic leaders will play in Jewish communal life. Now the community can draw from 100 percent of the Orthodox population to serve as religious leaders, committed to halakha, while at the same time being open and sensitive to the daily struggles that the Jewish people face.
Community Advocacy
Four years ago, when I was ordained, I was accused of weakening and fracturing the Orthodox community. It was a lonely time, with our detractors overshadowing the voices of righteousness and justice. This time, the voices of integrity and courage have prevailed because the community has rallied behind us.
Over the past four years, Yeshivat Maharat has been building a community of supporters and advocates for women in spiritual leadership. We have traveled to shuls and institutions all over North America to develop recognition of the beneficial effects of female leaders. We have built an experienced advisory board made up of Orthodox rabbis and female leaders, and created an executive board of talented and accomplished lay leaders who support women in the role of clergy. Students and faculty travel to communities across North America as scholars-in-residence, painting a picture of a new kind of rabbinic model, with men and women working in partnership to serve the community. The placement of each of our graduates in pulpits and educational institutions confirms that our message has been received. Communities are ready for the new, diversified face of Orthodoxy.
Rachel Kohl Finegold is serving as clergy at Montreal’s Congregation Shaar Hashomayim alongside Rabbi Adam Scheier. Ruth Balinsky Friedman is serving as clergy at Ohev Sholom—the National Synagogue, in Washington, D.C., alongside Rabbi Shmuel Herzfeld. Abby Brown Scheier is principal of the Hebrew school at Congregation Shaar Hashomayim in Montreal and a Jewish educator in the larger Montreal community. In addition, Rori Picker Neiss will be completing her fourth year of study while serving as a member of the clergy at Bais Abraham Synagogue in St. Louis. The landscape of leadership is, indeed, changing.
Looking to the 2013–14 academic year, Yeshivat Maharat students will be interning in synagogues, as chaplains, and on university campuses. Yeshivat Maharat has received more requests from sites looking to host interns than there are available students to fill these positions. This, too, indicates that the community is ready for female Jewish leadership and has begun to turn to ordained Orthodox women for spiritual and halakhic guidance.
Some will say this is not the time to install women in positions of authority—that we are pushing an agenda for which the Orthodox public is not ready. I respectfully disagree. Men and women have left Orthodox Judaism because of a feeling that it lacked a place for them. I believe that scholarly Orthodox women with a passion for Torah are essential role models who will keep communities engaged. Jews are thirsting for spiritual guidance, and for those who feel uninspired or lost, Yeshivat Maharat offers a renewed opportunity for serious, genuine Orthodox leadership—steeped in Jewish texts and learning, but open to meeting people where they are. Yeshivat Maharat is changing hearts and minds—one community at a time, one individual at a time.
Halakha: Paskening and Serara
Granting the degree of semikha certifies that our graduates possess the authority and ability to excel as spiritual leaders. Indeed, there is no halakha that bars a woman from assuming this role.
Women already possess textual literacy. The next logical step is that they make halakhic decisions for others based on their knowledge. The Talmud states the principle that all who are unfit to serve as witnesses cannot serve as judges.1 Because women cannot serve as witnesses, it would follow that women cannot serve as judges.2 However, the Pitchei Teshuva Choshen Mishpat 7:5 rules that “even though a woman is disqualified from being a judge, a woman who is wise and learned is fit to render a ruling.” 3 The implication is that, if women are well versed in law, they can become authorities on any subject matter.
In addition to being a disseminator of Jewish knowledge and a pastoral counselor, a rabbi is a public figure. From Miriam, who taught the women in the desert,4 to Deborah, who led the Jewish people,5 women have been exceptional leaders. Moreover, we live in a world today where women have attained significant positions of public leadership. It is no longer exceptional to see a female head of a corporation or occupant of political office.
On the other hand, the ruling of the Rambam,6 which states that women cannot fulfill a position of authority (serara), even non-rabbinic leadership, came to bear on the public discourse when the State of Israel was forming its first Knesset. Rav Uziel, the Sephardic chief rabbi of Israel (1880–1953), adjudicated that women could serve in leadership roles in the Knesset if they were elected to this role democratically “through voting,” as “the majority of the community has chosen this person … and in this case, even Rambam would agree that there is nothing at all which is forbidden.”7
In 1993, Rav Bakshi Doron, the Sephardic chief rabbi of Israel, added that “the law is in accordance with the majority of the later and earlier authorities, who conclude that the prohibition to appoint to authority and serara only applies to a case where the judge forces the litigant to abide by his decision.”8 He ruled unequivocally, therefore, “Women can be of the gedolim [great leaders] of the generation and serve as halakhic decisors.”9
A More Inclusive Jewish Community
Serving as clergy is one of the highest honors a Jew can fulfill; it is a calling that brings with it a tremendous responsibility. The presence of female clergy standing next to women mourners reciting Kaddish, teaching from the pulpit, or leading some of the communal prayers engages and includes women in the ritual experience of communal life. Young girls can now look to female spiritual leaders as their role models, perhaps inspiring them to pursue a similar career path.
This is the beginning of a new era when men and women serve in partnership to inspire a more inclusive and committed Jewish community. It will be an era when women are trained and ordained as clergy, and consequently will be counted on for their spiritual guidance and halakhic scholarship. It will be an era when women can finally use their God-given talents to pursue their calling to serve the Jewish community as full members of the clergy. The time has come.