Am Echad was founded by Agudath Israel’s Rabbi Moshe Sherer to fight the idea of "streams" or denominations in Judaism. Only one legitimate form of Judaism exists according to Rabbi Sherer’s ideology – haredi. Everything that is not ultra-Orthodox is therefore treife, including, it would seem Modern Orthodoxy.
Am Echad’s chief spinmeister is Rabbi Jonathan Rosenblum, a convert to haredism. (Yes, I know this is politically incorrect; Rabbi Rosenblum is a ba’al teshuva, and, as the haredi dogma goes, a Jew cannot convert to haredism – he simply "returns" to his natural state. This dogma is false, but here is not the place to explain why.) Rabbi Rosenblum, a product of the Ivy League, is a talented polemicist. His latest effort is a broadside against evolution, in which Rabbi Rosenblum sets up several straw men and then – effortlessly! imagine that! – knocks them down. He does this by selecting statements from evolution’s scientific critics and buttresses them with out of context quotes from evolution’s scientific supporters.
What Rosenblum does not tell you is the scientific critics of evolution number proportionately fewer than the number of academics who deny the Holocaust. It is like taking a minute sample of Americans who support a Stalinist takeover of America and representing them as a significant force in American politics. He also insists on labeling evolution as random, when only the most radical scientists (helpfully quoted by Rosenblum to misrepresent the scientific mainstream) would describe it that way.
Further, Rosenblum avoids entirely recent findings in genetics that confirm findings in other disciplines dating human presence on this earth to tens of thousands of years ago – much earlier than the Torah’s 6000-year-old universe allows.
Haredim, fresh from their ban on Rabbi Nosson Slifkin, are now engaged – with the help of Christian fundamentalists – in an effort to promote Intelligent Design, the pseudo-science created by Christian fundamentalists after their earlier pseudo-science, creationism, was laughed out of court and out of the nation’s public schools. They want ID taught as science in public schools, even though ID has no peer reviewed science and is nothing more than religion thinly, if at all, veiled.
Rosenblum will argue his misrepresentations are not lies and, while drawn brashly for effect, his points are not invalid.
But truth matters. As does context. As do one’s political bedfellows. Science has taken us from donkey carts and witches brews to airplanes, space flights and modern medicine in less than 200 years. It did so in large part because it was freed from the restraints of religion enforced by a state-supported church and a rabbi-dominated Jewish community. Rosenblum would return us to those days of yore to preserve his fundamentalist reading of the Torah. We must not let him.
17 Comments
January 22, 2006 at 5:25 pm
I am interested to know if you are willing to help me in my quest to find out where exactly did “Rabbi” Yonason (formerly Jonathan) Rosenblum receive S’micha?
Thank You
January 22, 2006 at 7:42 pm
Who says he has semichah? I assume he can’t read a Mishnah Berurah.
January 22, 2006 at 7:45 pm
Dear Detective:
I give a short discussion on S’micha about the various levels. Very unfortunitly, people have received S’micha under dubious circumstances. Even then even unordained people have used the title rabbi, especially if they are teaching at some religious school. Then they get a job and they keep using the title rabbi. This happens more often than one would think.
We have a system today in which there are really 3 levels of smicha and a 4th category that we allow to use the title Rabbi even though they don’t really have a smicha and can’t give smicha under our system.
All 4 from lowest level to highest:
1) Rav u’manhig
Really just permission to use the title Rabbi. Just a community leader/teacher. No permission to give wide psak and likely no right to give smicha to others.
One caveat, such an individual may have been given a very narrow right by their teacher to give psak in a very narrow area to a very limited degree. Beyond that, they must forward questions to a recognized posek.
The following 3 groups can give smicha at their level and below:
2)
Yoreh Yoreh can give psak except in more specialized areas like Dinei Nidah and can’t be a judge.
3) Yadin Yadin can be a judge and rule in dinei Nidah.
4) There is a level of smicha that deals with making rulings in regard to Temple work. Obviously, not as practical an area (for now) and as far as I know is not widely given. Usually, people giving/receiving such smicha today are people who have strong emunah in regard to the immediate coming of the Moshiach.
This is called Yechachin Yechachin
January 22, 2006 at 8:43 pm
I believe he learned for many years in Ohr Somayach and then got smicha from someone at the Mir. Perhaps Rabbi Rosenblum will clarify this for us.
January 22, 2006 at 10:42 pm
The premise that charedi is the only “real” Judaism is not incorrect. Modern Orthodox, like Conservative before it, was reactive. No one in the shtetl was modern Orthodox nor Conservative. No one claims that they were. The problem is the reason why MO and Conservative came into being in the first place. That is, it became impossible to defend some of the philosophy of fundamentalist charedism. Some big names joined this fight as MO’s but that does not change the fact that they were trying to keep Jews frum, not to promote what was traditionally called frum. There was no reason for the uneducated masses to be MO in the middle ages shtetl. The only question was how best to reatin the youth.
While this admits that MO is not authentic in the last 1000 years (not to say that it is not defendable, just not traditionally authentic), it also admits that charedism was incapable of holding the lion’s share of Jews philosophically. If Mo was what they did rather than frei-ing out, imagine how quickly they were frei-ing out.
January 22, 2006 at 10:46 pm
The levels of smicha come from Sanhedrin 5 or 6. They would ask the court about a particular sage Yoreh? (Is he allowed to teach dinim of issur v’heter?) They would respond Yoreh! He is indeed allowed. Hence, yoreh yoreh and yadin yadin, which deals with money matters. The other level mentioned there is Yatir yatir, which allowed him to paskin mum on a bachor animal. I can not find a source for yachanin.
January 22, 2006 at 11:36 pm
Rebel –
Remember haredism was not the normative Judaism pre-1800. Haredism is a response to modernity, just as the Torah im Derech Eretz movement (i.e., Modern Orthodoxy) and, yes, the Reform movement. The Conservative movement is a response to the excesses of early reform and the refusal of haredim in America to accomodate American-born Jews who spoke English and had secular educations. In many ways, clasical Conservative Judaism is closer to the Judaism of the Rishonim than any other.
January 22, 2006 at 11:43 pm
Rebel Jew writes in response to Isa:
Let me correct you. There are five types of smicha, not four:
1. Yoreh Yoreh.
2. Yadin Yadin.
3. Yatin Yatin.
4. Yachanin Yachanin.
5. Meshuggena Meshuggena.
The latter allows one to paskin on the identity of mashiach. Many Chabad rabbis have this.
January 23, 2006 at 1:43 am
B”H
Shmarya do you realize that this joke is an insult to someone like Rabbi Akiva who proclaimed Bar Kochba the Moshiach not just to Chabad Rabbis you dislike?
January 23, 2006 at 7:16 am
To all those that contributed to explaning the levels of S’micha- I thank you
ISA
January 23, 2006 at 9:28 am
Erm, Ariel: He was wrong, wasn’t he?
January 23, 2006 at 4:38 pm
The vast majority of Orthodox rabbonim do not have any formal s’micha, except for
YU, which has an official program mostly for those who choose rabbonus as their life’s work.
January 23, 2006 at 5:02 pm
To Un Orthodox Jew:
You are wrong in stating that only YU rabbis have Orthodox Semicha. I am a Chabad rabbi who,on the advice of the Rebbe, learned in MTJ and received Semicha from Rav Moshe in 1974. Most of my chabad peers received thier semicha from United Lubavitcher Yeshiva. My not chassidic peers received theirs from Ner Yisroel, Chofetz Chaim, Torah Vodaath, and many other fine Yeshivas. YU is not the only show in town.
January 23, 2006 at 5:36 pm
I will say one thing about the YU semicha. They teach their students practical rabbinics. They teach them how to officiate at a wedding or G-d forbid a funeral.I had to learn these matters on my own I wish the other yeshivas would emulate YU in this regard.
January 23, 2006 at 7:30 pm
Ariel wrote: “Shmarya do you realize that this joke is an insult to someone like Rabbi Akiva who proclaimed Bar Kochba the Moshiach not just to Chabad Rabbis you dislike?”
Ariel: I sometimes wonder if the fate of Rabbi Akiva, our sage of blessed memory, is perhaps telling in this regard. Let us not forget that failed revolt may have cost more Jewish lives than any other event until the Shoah.
Shmarya wrote: “Remember haredism was not the normative Judaism pre-1800.”
It may perhaps trace its roots to the end of the sixteenth century, as a reaction to the chaos following the expulsion from Spain and the Shabbatai Tsvi debacle. Much rational halachic progress seems to have stopped at that point. “Shtetloxy” may be begun with those events and then been codified as a reaction to the constant danger from the various charming “locals” who plundered Jewish settlements on a regular basis.
“In many ways, clasical Conservative Judaism is closer to the Judaism of the Rishonim than any other.”
So true, and a painful reminder of how far the movement has careened off the path set by those great men. Shmarya, JTS could use a few good men such as yourself to help them find their way back to those roots. How about running for the Chancellor position?
January 25, 2006 at 6:23 pm
The Union for Traditional Judiasm, http://www.utj.org, is a group of disgruntled Conservative rabbis who want a progressive, yet halachic Judaism. Rabbi Weiss-Halivni is one of their scholars. They also include Modern Orthodox types who feel alienated by the chareidization of Orthodoxy. That might be more to your liking, Shmarya.
January 26, 2006 at 1:15 am
I’m familiar with Rabbi Halivni’s work. He’s in a very difficult spot, caught between an increasingly ahalakhic Conservative Movement and a MO moving ever rightward. It’s hard to sell shades of gray when your competition offers black and white.
Thanks …