For all of you out there who think that I'm the greatest thing since sliced bread, I have bad news for you: Newsweek has once again served me a thick slice of humble pie. For the second year running, I did not make Newsweek's list of the fifty most influential rabbis in America. Even more frustrating, nor did I make the new list of the top 25 pulpit rabbis in America. (my good friend Rabbi Asher Lopatin of Congregation Anshe Shalom in Chicago did make it, right below Amy Schwartzman of Virginia and Terry Bookman of Florida. Kudos to him.) I admit it: I'm bitter. What can I do to improve my rankings for next year? Clearly blogging isn't the answer. Nor is teaching Torah, giving drashos, or ministering to my members. I obviously need to be flashier, generate more publicity, and probably be considerably more liberal, judging from the people that did make the list.In any case, this list - and the Catholic Pope's upcoming visit to America got me thinking about whether we'd be better off if we really had a chief rabbi that represented Judaism, if not Orthodoxy. Whether people like him or not, agree with him or not, they get really excited when the pope shows up. They consider it a religiously invigorating event. Granted, the chief Rabbis of Israel do exist, but they fill political posts, subject to the whims and wishes of power players in Israel.
What if we had someone who had the ability to unite -- and speak for - the American Jewish population, the way the Chief Rabbi does in England, eloquently, passionately and powerfully. Would that not be a kiddush Hashem for the Jewish people, and advance the cause of Torah Judaism?
At least then we'd know who was on the top of our list.
One of the things that seperates judaism from any other religions is the fact that we are an egalitarian religion. All ideas must be based in Torah but it is loyalty to Torah not an individual that defines what is acceptable and what is heresy. Even the concept of Da'as Torah is not because of any type of rabinical infalibility but since Rabbis are more knowledgable in Torah than the rest of us.
ReplyDeleteThe way one achieves greatness in Judaism (at least in the post prophetic era) is through scholastic achievement rather than political achievment.
The "Newsweek" list is a perfect illustration of this. Just a few months ago Rav Shmuel Berenbaum was niftar and his funeral was attended by tens of thousands of jews from around the country. Somehow he didn't make the list last year. Influence in the Torah world cannot confused with visibility in the secular world. It is precisely this egalitarianism that makes Jews such an opinionated people. Therefore a Chief Rabbi might serve as more of a lightning rod than he would as a uniting figure.
This is the challenge of our generation. We often get caught up in a Rabbi's politics and disregard his Torah knowledge, in my opinion that is a fatal mistake. Whether it is dismissal of gedolim like Rav Herschel Schachter or contemptuous treatment of Gedolim like like Rav Elyashiv we too often get caught up in politics at the peril of Kavod Hatorah. In our own city we have seen the way the appointment of a "Chief Rabbi" can bring out the worst in people.
Hopefully, when we evaluate our rabbinic figures we can learn to look at their qualifications and achievments rather than a political label. Or to badly paraphrase Martin Luther King Jr. I have a dream that our Rabbis will be judged by the content of their charachter not the color of their kippa.
P.S. Here is an interesting question, would Rav Herschel Shachter or any other Orthodox Rabbi be able to draw a crowd as big as the one that the Pope will attract on Friday night at the Park East Synagogue?