Elana Sztokman

The blogosphere is abuzz with news of the new program opening up for women to become clergy in the Orthodox world. “Maharat,” the title being granted to women graduates of the program, a cumbersome acronym for something like “spiritual, religious, Torah teacher,” is being touted by JOFA as “an historic moment for the Jewish people” in that it “ordains” women as “clergy.” JOFA announced that Sara Hurwitz, the first Maharat in history, “has passed the same tests required for rabbinic ordination that entitle men to be called Rabbi. We trust that Yeshivat Mahara”t will offer this same opportunity to other qualified women so that they can take their rightful position in Orthodox leadership.”

Although it is encouraging to see so many people come out in support of women’s advancement in Jewish life, the announcement is disingenuous and troubling. For one thing, at least three women have already received full-blown Orthodox rabbinic ordination, not some watered-down, anything-but-rabbi fabrication. Mimi Feigelson, Haviva Ner David, and Evelyn Goodman-Thau have all received Orthodox ordination and are all active, practicing teachers and spiritual guides. The failure to acknowledge the work and achievement of these women is at the best dishonest, and at the worst a purposeful attempt to delegitimize women’s full ordination in order to block future advancements.

Moreover, the formalizing of this creature called “Not rabbi but Maharat” is in effect cementing women’s inferior status. It’s as if I would have spent my six years doing doctoral work alongside men and at the end, the men got to graduate and become “Doctor” and I were to be called “Teacher-who-has-taken-tests-and-maybe-has-some-things-to-say-and-we-should-maybe-listen-to-her-but-don’t-call-her-doctor-because-she’s-a-woman.” That would be so glaringly insulting that nobody would take it seriously. And yet, that’s exactly what’s going on here. The only reason she has this title is because she is a woman.

Despite her knowledge and achievement, the title is by its very definition so much less than rabbi. JOFA and others are proud that the Maharat has passed all the tests exactly like a man. And yet, when a community seeks out a rabbi, this ensures that only a man will qualify for the job. A Maharat is not a rabbi. Women can apply for the Maharat position — and exactly how many Maharat positions are there out there? She will never get the rabbi job. She is, in short, just not a rabbi. That’s exactly what Maharat really means. It means “Not a Rabbi”. Actually, it means, “Not a Rabbi Because I’m a Woman.”

Jonathan Mark in the Jewish Week makes an even more disturbing point:

Adding insult to injury, at Rabbi Weiss’ Hebrew Institue of Riverdale, Associate Rabbi Steven Exler—who’ll be a wonderful rabbi someday but who is not a rabbi, who is still in school—is called “rabbi,” or “Rav Steven.” Sara Hurwitz, who is several years his senior, both in age and in service to the congregation, and who has completed her rabbinic training, is called Manhigah Hilhatit Ruhanit Toranit.

So Maharat, even when completed, is still lower on the rung than “man studying to be a rabbi one day.”

Rabbi David Silber of the Drisha Institute, interviewed in the Forward, offers a sharp analysis:

The fact of the matter is, if you have a situation where you can only go so far and you can’t go to the top, what you’re going to lose is the people who want to go to the top….What if she should be a rabbi in a big synagogue and she sat in the balcony. What would she do, slide down a fireman’s pole to give the sermon?

In other words, women continue to be second class citizens, even the top women who really ought to be the leaders.

What’s worse, now the Maharat thing gives people an excuse to point at Orthodoxy and say, “You see, we’re advanced!” But are we? Is this advancement or a political step that effectively pre-empts true equality for women?

JOFA acknowledges this problem, and tries to be both excited about this development and hopeful that it is only a “stepping stone” towards rabbi:

Our fervent hope is that as we travel further along the path of spiritual growth in Torah, more women will fulfill the traditional yeshiva requirements of semikhah and be accorded the same respect for their achievement as men. We will reach another milestone when the official title of Rabbi, that truly reflects what they have learned and how they will serve, will be bestowed equally upon all qualified men and women.

Yet, by failing to acknowledge that women have already gone past that, they are setting women backward. Rabbi Dr. Haviva Ner-David, who worked very hard for her title, says:

It’s annoying (even insulting) to me personally how JOFA’s official statement says at the end that they hope that one day women will get the title rabbi, as though this is something that is so far off and unattainable right now. Not even a mention of the women who have already gotten this title. And by this I mean all women rabbis – both those who received Orthodox smicha and those who received ordination from other streams of Judaism. An recognition of the women who paved the way for this event, as well as an acknowledgment of the fact that there do exist women rabbis in the world, would have been appropriate for an organization that has the word “feminist” in its title. What JOFA writes makes it seem as though this happened in an Orthodox vacuum.

Of course, Sara Hurwitz disagrees. “You have to start somewhere,” she told the JTA. Plus, we all hear the argument that “change is slow” and that you have to be “politically wise” in trying to make change in Orthodoxy. “We have to put one foot in front of the other and keep moving forward,” Hurwitz said, “and I think that the community will follow.”

I don’t know who Hurwitz is talking to. Those who believe in equality want rabbi, and those who don’t want equality will unlikely accept Maharat. All the rest are self-delusional, “Yes, we want equality, but WHOA not so fast.” Is that who she’s talking to? So all this “being careful” that is an insult to women is to please whom? This is an exercise in letting the cowards of the world set the agenda. Cowards’ needs for not rocking the boat ultimately have a higher priority than women’s needs for equality. That is just pathetic.

This is not a step forward, but a step backward. They could have done something great and had a woman’s smicha program, but they wimped out. In the year 2009, Rabbi Weiss has just cemented women’s status as not-rabbi-but-Maharat. Now we’re REALLY stuck.