The Chief Rabbinate is over

RABBI YEHUDA GILAD

If there is to remain any meaning to the terms state rabbinate and religious Zionism, then the decision last fall casting aspersions on Israel Defence Forces conversions should be the last straw in our relationship with the Chief Rabbinate of Israel.

As a religious Zionist who believes that Israel is the beginning of our redemption, it is not easy for me to come to terms with this realization, but it seems to me that the time has come to say honestly, sincerely and painfully, that the Chief Rabbinate as it stands today has run its course.

The rabbinate’s resolution, besides transgressing the biblical prohibition of oppressing converts (reason enough to reject it), clearly demonstrates its complete abnegation of responsibility to klal Yisrael (the Jewish people) and the Jewish character of the state, and a preference for a sectarian approach that sees reality through an ultra-Orthodox lens. We have reached an absurd situation in which the state’s own rabbinate, bowing to the Charedi (ultra-Orthodox) position, is endangering the past achievements and future potential of the state of Israel.

The high degrees of assimilation of the Jewish people in exile means that am Yisrael (the Jewish nation) is losing thousands of Jews each year. The state of Israel was, until recent decades, the only place in the world where assimilation was nearly nonexistent. Marriage between Jews and non-Jews living in Israel is rare and Israel was the only place that guaranteed the demographic future of the Jewish people.

As is well known, in the last decade, things have changed. The large immigration from the former Soviet Union included hundreds of thousands of descendants of Jews who are not Jewish according to halachah. These wonderful people have, in an impressive fashion, integrated into the life of the state – into the army, the economy and into society in general. The stage that should complete the integration for many of them into a normative Jewish life in the state of Israel is marriage with other Jews. Our people have never before in our history faced a challenge like this one. This is the time to engage in a broad national campaign, to encourage halachic conversion of large segments of this population. This should be a watershed moment for a state rabbinate that has the considerations of the entire Jewish people before its eyes.

It must be stated clearly – there are only two options. One is a sweeping effort towards creating an halachic, friendly and welcoming conversion process based on the large body of lenient opinions articulated in the halachic corpus over generations that would allow acceptance of many of these immigrants into the Jewish people. The alternative is an unyielding adherence to the most stringent positions in halachah, according to which one may not accept conversions of these immigrants, even at the price of creating thousands of mixed marriages between Jews and non-Jews.

There is a known and accepted principle in Jewish law that, under pressing circumstances, one may rely upon a minority opinion. It seems that there could be no greater pressing circumstance or emergency than the current situation. Moreover, there is no need to rely on isolated or obscure opinions, as there is ample and prevalent precedent in Jewish law for a more permissive approach.

Ultra-Orthodox Jews who adopt the strict approach are apparently unconcerned about the demographic disaster of assimilation. According to them, intermarriage is a phenomenon only in secular society and they can, therefore, absolve themselves by saying, “It’s not our problem.” However, those who are concerned for the future of Israel as a Jewish state cannot remain indifferent to the present situation that is developing before our eyes. In only a few years from now, we will split into two separate peoples. Both will be Israelis, Hebrew speaking and self-identified as Jewish, but only one will be technically and halachically Jewish.

As important as issues such as kashrut, Shabbat and religious services are, there is currently no Jewish communal matter that comes close to approaching the significance of this challenge upon which our future here as a Jewish state rests. We must admit and say honestly that the current Chief Rabbinate (with all due respect to the many fine individuals who make up its ranks) as an institution has neither the desire nor the ability to cope with this challenge. Unfortunately, it buries its head in the sand, and even kowtows to the Charedi community, which is ambivalent at best and antagonistic at worst, to the very state the rabbinate is meant to serve.

Despite the pain and difficulty involved in breaking with this institution for which we had great dreams, I hereby call upon the laypeople and the rabbis of the religious Zionist community to say openly what many of us have already felt in our hearts for some time: the Chief Rabbinate has run its course.

Rabbi Yehuda Gilad is rosh yeshivah of Yeshivat Maale Gilboa and rabbi of Kibbutz Lavi. This article was originally published in Hebrew on ynetnews.com. It was translated by Rabbi Ross Singer.

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