Riverdale Shul To Have Woman Lead Kabbalat Shabbat
From the Jewish Week (link):
Riverdale Orthodox Shul To Have Woman Lead Kabbalat Shabbat Tonight
Friday, July 30, 2010
Staff ReportIn a move that apparently would make history for an Orthodox synagogue in the United States, the Hebrew Institute of Riverdale is scheduled Friday night to have a woman lead a Kabbalat Shabbat service where both men and women are expected to be in the pews.
A one-page e-mail letter was sent Friday morning to members of the synagogue, which is led by Rabbi Avi Weiss. The rabbi was recently embroiled in a major controversy over assigning the title Rabba to an HIR spiritual leader, Sara Hurwitz. The letter states: “Kabbalat Shabbat will be led by a woman. This is a halachically acceptable practice, and models our values.” While some Orthodox synagogues have women’s tefillah groups, a woman leading a Friday-night service for both men and women has apparently not been done in an Orthodox shul.
Traditional interpretation of Jewish law bars women from such a public role in the prayer service for various reasons.
The letter to congregants seems to anticipate controversy. “We recognize that this type of tefillah is not practiced in other Orthodox synagogues. We hope other synagogues will make room for this type of inclusive tefillah. Nonetheless, in deference to our own inclusive values beyond women’s involvement, and not wanting to distance ourselves from the Orthodox communal standards, we are not having this tefillah as our only Friday night tefillah, but as an addition to the Main Sanctuary tefillah.”
The letter, in making a halachic justification for a woman leading a Kabbalat Shabbat service, says that in such a service “no distinctions are made between men’s and women’s involvement,” and that it “is not an obligatory prayer service and contains no devarim shebikdushah (liturgical elements like Barkhu and Kedushah which have male leaders).”
The move to have a woman, Lamelle Ryman, lead a Kabbalat service, comes about three months after the Rabba controversy, in which Rabbi Weiss was widely believed to have caved to Orthodox critics who termed the title Rabba to be beyond Orthodox norms. Rabbi Weiss agreed to not use the title again.
Calls and e-mails to HIR Rabbis Weiss, Steven Exler and Hurwitz early Friday afternoon were not returned. A call to Ryman was not returned.
[...] the latest development — R. Avi Weiss allowing a woman to lead the Kabbolas Shabbos service (link) — put the synagogue beyond the pale of Orthodoxy. I expressed surprise that he didn’t [...]
L’halakha, a minor can lead Musaf as well. Is that next for the a-gi-ta-tors of HIR?
I ask all those interested in the Halakhic issues not to comment on this innovation until they READ the article I posted [http://text.rcarabbis.org/?p=909]. VERY briefly: If in a particular communal ritul there is no need to be motsi others, then even one not obligated can in theory lead. However, there is a consideration of kevod haTsibbur (understood as Tsni’ut or zilzul haMitsva). Nevertheless, in the case of a male minor this can be set aside because of Hinukh considerations, not applicable by women.
Aryeh – thanks, read the article. Still not convinced that you can equate kabbalat shabbat with torah reading and hallel.
I wonder if HIR will serve chicken and milk at the oneg Shabbos.
Another stunt to get attention, as if some new one was needed.
I am interested in the issue of procsss. Let us grant Rabbi Weiss’ claim that a woman leading Kabbalat Shabbat is mutar. But still, it is a change in the synagogu’es tradition, it exposes the shul to criticism, etc. At this point, the question becomes a matter of policy as to whether the congregation should act on R. Weiss’ pesak. Was this decison arrived at by the Congregation, say the ritual committee? (Is there such a committee?) Or did R. Weiss act unilaterally?
I’m interested in the process whereby a rabbi endorses this, regardless of who else was involved.
Larry Kaplan-IIRC, R Weiss was quoted in the NYJW as stating that “process” is not one of his strongest virtues or attributes.
“Michael Rogovin on August 1, 2010 at 7:20 pm
When I was in Israel, the sephardi minyan I sometimes attended recited kabbalat shabbat by having congregants taking turns with each tehilla. ”
isnt that what carlebach minyanim do? (actually, no leading; just pure communal singing)
Although living in Israel, I am not well-informed abouth the people and organizations involved in these supposedly “Orthodox” innovations, but, looking from the outside, what I see is an attempt to create a new form of Conservative Judaism. The currently existing Conservative Movement is fizzling out and has pretty much lost its identity, which at one time was based on a strong attachment to Jewish tradition with some flexibility in how the synagogue was run and not too many demands made on congregants in order for them to remain in good standing with the community. However, with the C Movement’s leadership seeming under endless pressure to conform to the latest “progressive” values, this “conservatism” which used to characterize the movement has vanished and it is now pretty much indistinguishable from Reform and Reconstructionism.
This, however is leaving a vacuum. For reasons that I don’t really understand, today it is very IN for people who in the past didn’t identify strongly with the Jewish people to now claim they are Jews, that they are Religious and that they are Zionists, even if they really are none of these things.
Thus, President Obama has an annual Pesach Seder, his Jewish advisors have a weekly Shabbat Kiddush and meal accompanyied by Shabbat Zemirot and Niggunim, Chelsea Clinton’s new Groom insists on having a Rabbi preside (along with a Christian minister) at his intermarriage and he even wears a tallit, and many Israel bashers such as those affiliated with J-Street will claim they are Zionists while they call for Israel to be boycotted and attacked in international forums.
Given this, there is no doubt people who in the past may have identified with the existing Conservative movement but who have been turned off by its anemic current state, and want a more “religious” or “traditional” type of synagogue service and rituals (what others may call “mitzvot”) but who do NOT accept what we consider to be Orthodox “doctrine” or traditionally understood and accepted.
Thus, I feel that innovations of these type will continue, they will attract new people, just as the Reform and Conservative movements did in the 19th and 20th centuries, they will seem to thrive for a while, and then they will fade out. Nothing to get excited about, this is the way modern Jewish history works. Those of us who oppose these innovations should not get hysterical about it , we should just stand firm and allow history to take its course. The traditional halachic system will stand up to the challenge and will come out on top in the end, as it always has in the past (as was the case in the conflicts with the Sadducees, the Essenes, the Karaites, the Judeo-Christians, and the old-line Reform and Conservative movements).