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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 26 August 2021
This article explores one tumultuous encounter between a religious legal tradition and the modern principle of equality—an encounter that also has the potential to shed light on a much wider cluster of questions. The author tracks the ways that the responsa written by prominent Conservative rabbis on the subject of female rabbinic ordination and gender equality implicitly (but unambiguously) reflect the push toward increased equality that weighed on the movement's trajectory, showing that the debate about the ordination of female rabbis reveals two principal trends in Conservative legal rulings, which differ in their responses to the challenge of egalitarianism and their visions of the law, and notes two outlier responsa that cannot be neatly classified within either trend. The author then examines the deep-seated historical, ideational, and sociological processes concurrent with the rise of what some have called the egalitarian age, which have produced these diverging responses and visions, and it determines an appropriate framework to understand them. The author shows that the fight for increased gender equality is situated within an intricate social context that imbues it with meaning and shapes its outcomes and modes of expression. In concluding, the author suggests applying the insights gained in the course of the analysis to other circumstances in which gender egalitarianism clashes with religious tradition. The framework by which the ordination of women in the Conservative movement is analyzed also proves useful, mutatis mutandis, in understanding and comparing the responses of other faith communities as they deal with challenges caused by the egalitarian age.
1 Thomas Paine, Rights of Man (1791; repr. Oxford: Woodstock, 1992), 46–47.
2 Galatians 3:28, New International Version; similar statements are also found in Romans 10:12 and Colossians 3:11. See the insightful analysis of Karin B. Neutel, A Cosmopolitan Ideal: Paul's Declaration “Neither Jew nor Greek, neither Slave nor Free, nor Male and Female” in the Context of First-Century Thought (New York: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2015).
3 Matthew 20:25–28; Mark 10:42–45; Luke 22:25–27. These and other verses are regularly mentioned in journals like the Priscilla Papers and the Journal for Biblical Equality, both published by the organization Christians for Biblical Equality. For instance, see Nicole, Roger, “Biblical Egalitarianism and the Inerrancy of Scripture,” Priscilla Papers 20, no. 2 (2006): 4–9Google Scholar. See also Linda L. Belleville, “Teaching and Usurping Authority: 1 Timothy 2:11–15,” in Discovering Biblical Equality: Complementarity without Hierarchy, 2nd ed., ed. Ronald W. Pierce and Rebecca Merrill Groothuis (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2005), 205–23.
4 See the many sources listed by Louise Marlow, Hierarchy and Egalitarianism in Islamic Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), especially 13–41.
5 For the Talmudic sage Ben Azzai, the creation of all men in the divine image (with reference to Genesis 5:1) is a cardinal principle (klal gadol) of the Jewish law (Bereishit Rabba 24:7 and parallels).
6 The idea that humanity was created single underlies the admonition administered by rabbinical courts to witnesses in capital cases: the destruction of one human life is regarded as the destruction of the world entire. Mishnah, Sanhedrin 4:5. Subsequent citations to the Mishnah use the form mSanhedrin 4:5.
7 Babylonian Talmud, Ta'anit 18a and parallels; the language of the Talmud echoes the verse from Malachi 2:10. Subsequent citations to the Babylonian Talmud use the form bTa'anit 18a.
8 bSanhedrin 74a and parallels.
9 See also Joshua A. Berman, Created Equal: How the Bible Broke with Ancient Political Thought (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), who suggests reading the Pentateuch as an early prescription for the establishment of an egalitarian polity.
10 The Jewish law is, in general, quite remote from “rights talk.” See a summary presentation of this idea in the work of the late Israeli Supreme Court Justice Haim Cohn: Haim H. Cohn, Human Rights in Jewish Law (New York: Institute of Jewish Affairs, 1984), 17–18.
11 The most deeply troubling of these, though by far not the only one, is arguably the genocidal command to blot out the Amalekites (Deuteronomy 25:19) and seven other nations, including the Canaanites (Deuteronomy 7:1).
12 The category of Avoda Zara (idol worship) is employed to justify a long litany of anti-pagan norms that are too numerous to be listed here.
13 For two excellent presentations of the differential treatment of women in Jewish law, see Rachel Biale, Women and Jewish Law: An Exploration of Women's Issues in Halakhic Sources (New York: Schocken Books, 1984); Tamar Ross, Expanding the Palace of Torah: Orthodoxy and Feminism (Waltham: Brandeis University Press, 2004), 12–24.
14 A child born from an adulterous or incestuous sexual relation is legally considered a mamzer (bastard): mYevamot 4:13.
15 See the masterful monograph authored by Tzvi C. Marx, Disability in Jewish Law (New York: Routledge, 2002).
16 See Norman Solomon's survey of this issue: Norman Solomon, “Religion and Human Rights with Special Reference to Judaism,” in Does God Believe in Human Rights? Essays on Religion and Human Rights, ed. Nazila Ghanea, Alan Stephens, and Raphael Waldens (Leiden: Martinus Nijhoff, 2007), 89–105.
17 See Darshan S. Tatla, “Sikhism and Development: A Perfect Match?,” in Handbook of Research on Development and Religion, ed. Matthew Clarke (Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 2013), 97–112, esp. 105–10.
18 For an example within Christianity, beyond those listed at note 4, see John G. Stackhouse Jr., Partners in Christ: A Conservative Case for Egalitarianism (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press Academic, 2015). For Judaism, see Marc D. Stern, ed., Formulating Responses in an Egalitarian Age (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2005). For Islam, see Islam and Equality: Debating the Future of Women's and Minority Rights in the Middle East and North Africa (New York: Lawyers Committee for Human Rights, 1999).
19 For a presentation of the history of the Conservative movement, its ideology, leaders, and institutions, see Neil Gillman, Conservative Judaism: The New Century (West Orange: Behrman House, 1993); Marshall Sklare, Conservative Judaism: An American Religious Movement (Lanham: University Press of America, 1985). The denomination also has smaller representations in Israel, Europe, and South America, sometimes under the alternative name Masorti.
20 One scholar was especially dismissive: “While writing, I could not avoid the feeling that the halakhic share of the discussion in the movement, which was perceived as so central in the discussions of the Rabbinical Assembly and the Seminary, was, in fact, absolutely detached from the common experience of the movement. . . . In my opinion, there was an absolute gulf between the learned academic debate on the minutiae of interpretation, which became quite passionate at times, and reality.” Arnon Bruckstein, “The Ordination of Women as Rabbis and Cantors in the Conservative Movement: An Aspect of the Struggle of a Modern Jewish Religious Movement between Conservation and Change” [Hebrew] (Master's thesis, Hebrew University, 1990), 108–09. Beth Wenger similarly believed that the halakhic aspect was only of secondary importance to other social, psychological, and political factors, and she devoted only one of the forty pages of her article to the halakhic side of the discussion: Beth S. Wenger, “The Politics of Women's Ordination,” in Tradition Renewed: A History of the Jewish Theological Seminary, ed. Jack Wertheimer, 2 vols. (New York: Jewish Theological Seminary, 1997), 2:485–523, at 491–92. The sole exception is Ezra Kopelowitz's fine review of the responsa from a cultural standpoint, which raised some valid points: Kopelowitz, Ezra, “Three Subcultures of Conservative Judaism and the Issue of Ordaining Women,” Nashim, no. 1 (1998): 136–53Google Scholar. See also, touching upon some of the same material, Haklai, Iddo, “Four Paradigms of Legal Change: American Conservative Halachic Rulings on Women's Roles in Synagogue Practice,” Modern Judaism 40, no. 2 (2020): 169–94CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
21 This idea and its implication have recently been superbly treated in the latest book of Chaim N. Saiman, Halakhah: The Rabbinic Idea of Law (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2018), esp. 124–40.
22 Simon Greenberg, ed., The Ordination of Women as Rabbis: Studies and Responsa (New York: Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1988). See also further material in David Golinkin, An Index of Conservative Responsa and Practical Studies, 1917–1990 (New York: Rabbinical Assembly, 1996), 76–77; David Golinkin, The Status of Women in Jewish Law: Responsa (Jerusalem: Center for Women in Jewish Law at the Schechter Institute of Jewish Studies, 2012), 341–86; and the symposium on the ordination of women in Judaism 33, no. 1 (1984).
23 David Golinkin, “The Influence of Seminary Professors on Halakha in the Conservative movement: 1902–1968,” in Wertheimer, Tradition Renewed, 2:445–82, at 451.
24 Israel Francus, “On the Ordination of Women,” in Greenberg, Ordination of Women as Rabbis, 35–45, at 35.
25 David Weiss Halivni, “On Ordination of Women,” in “On the Ordination of Women as Rabbis: Position Papers of the Faculty of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America (unpublished manuscript, variously paginated), BM726 .J48 1983, Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary, New York; Joel Roth, “On the Ordination of Women,” in Greenberg, Ordination of Women as Rabbis, 127–87.
26 Mayer Rabinowitz, “An Advocate's Halakhic Responses on the Ordination of Women,” in Greenberg, Ordination of Women as Rabbis, 107–23, at 108.
27 Gordon Tucker, “Final Report of the Commission for the Study of the Ordination of Women as Rabbis,” in Greenberg, Ordination of Women as Rabbis, 5–30, at 16, 18–19.
28 See Reena Sigman Friedman, “Behind the Headlines: Women in the Conservative Rabbinate,” JTA Daily News Bulletin, January 17, 1979, 3.
29 Robert Gordis, “The Ordination of Women,” in Greenberg, Ordination of Women as Rabbis, 47–67, at 48.
30 Gordis, “the Ordination of Women,” 48–49.
31 I start by using the binaries of traditionalist/liberal and formalistic/progressive somewhat loosely. The initial benchmark is the age-old position of the Jewish law, which has always perceived rabbinic ordination to be a strictly male preserve. Any element that apparently supports a reaffirmation of this gendered view of the rabbinic function is deemed “traditional” (or sometimes “formalistic”), while any element which supports the reconsideration of previously held positions is deemed “liberal” (or sometimes “progressive”). Below, I problematize these categories and reassess their relevance against the background of the wider sociocultural processes that affected the Conservative movement at the time.
32 There were several secondary reasons, but discussion of them does not change the import of the analysis.
33 The main reference here is to the twelfth-century code authored by Maimonides (Mishneh Torah, Laws of Kings and Wars 1:5). Note that Maimonides's ruling represents an extension of the earlier Midrash Sifrei, according to which the Torah prohibits the appointment of a queen (“a king and not a queen”). The general question of women's leadership is far from purely theoretical; the same question gave rise to a significant controversy in 1919–20, as the rabbinic authorities of the “Old Yishuv,” in the early mandate period of British Palestine, debated the halakhic permissibility of women's suffrage and representation. Rabbi Abraham Isaac Ha-Kohen Kook, who was chief Ashkenazic rabbi of Jerusalem at the time, ruled stringently, whereas Rabbi BenZion Meir Ḥai Uziel, then the chief Sephardic rabbi of Jaffa, ruled leniently. There is significant literature on this topic: see Zvi Zohar, “Traditional Flexibility and Modern Strictness: Two Halakhic Positions on Women's Suffrage,” in Sephardi and Middle Eastern Jewries: History and Culture in the Modern Era, ed. Harvey E. Goldberg (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1996), 119–33; Menaḥem Friedman, Society and Religion: The Non-Zionist Orthodox in Israel 1918–1936 [Hebrew] (Jerusalem: Yad Izhak Ben-Zvi, 1977), 146–84; Zohara Bozich-Hertzig, “The Debate on Women's Suffrage in Institutions of the Old Yishuv during the Early Mandate Period” [Hebrew] (Master's thesis, Bar-Ilan University, 1990).
34 mKiddushin 1:7.
35 bRosh Hashanah 29a.
36 In his position, Halivni noted the existence of halakhic sources prohibiting women from acting as agents, on behalf of the entire community, in the recitation of the bridegroom's blessing, thus barring them from accomplishing a crucial and symbolic function of the rabbinate: officiating at weddings. Halivni, “On Ordination of Women,” 3–7.
37 Sifrei on Deuteronomy 17:19; bShavuot 30a; Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, Laws of Testimony 9:2.
38 See the relevant discussion of the Tosafists, Shevuot 29b, s.v. “shevuot haedut.”
39 Francus, Halivni, Roth, and even Rabinowitz.
40 To clarify: while below I denounce the fallacy of “pure” halakhic considerations, my focus here is on the responsa as understood by the authors themselves.
41 Tucker, “Final Report of the Commission,” 12–27.
42 Gordis, “The Ordination of Women,” 57.
43 Francus, “On the Ordination of Women,” 5.
44 Tucker, “Final Report of the Commission,” 21–27. Factors pulling in the opposite direction were duly considered but viewed as marginal (examples include the need to respect the minority opinion supported by the traditionalist wing and the risk of driving its representatives out of the movement; and the negative symbolism involved in a revolutionary halakhic innovation, which represented a deviation from the sanctified tradition and a concession to the positions of Reform Judaism).
45 Wenger, “The Politics of Women's Ordination,” 494–95.
46 See Halivni, “On Ordination of Women,” 2.
47 Francus, “On the Ordination of Women,” 43.
48 Golinkin, “The Influence of Seminary Professors,” 451.
49 See Rabinowitz, “An Advocate's Halakhic Responses,” 119. Tucker, “Final Report of the Commission,” 27–28. Gordis, “The Ordination of Women,” 16–17. Anne Lapidus Lerner, “On the Ordination of Women,” in Greenberg, The Ordination of Women as Rabbis, 93–106, at 100–01.
50 Thus, one can define the rabbi's role in halakhic terms (step 1), and rule leniently or stringently (step 5); moreover, the inclusion of sociocultural considerations (steps 2–3) does not logically lead to an automatic lenient ruling (step 5).
51 Unsurprisingly, the question of the heteronomy of the halakhic debate is often raised in the context of a controversial topic, like the status of women or homosexuals in the Jewish law. See, for instance, Daniel Sperber, “Congregational Dignity and Human Dignity: Women and Public Torah Reading, Appendix I : On Halakhic Methodology,” in Women and Men in Communal Prayer: Halakhic Perspectives, ed. Chaim Trachtman (Jersey City: Ktav, 2010), 27–205, at 123–26; Tamar Ross, “Halakha Contextualized: the Halakhic Status of Homosexuals as Test Case” [Hebrew], in The Halakha as Event [Hebrew], ed. Avinoam Rosenak (Jerusalem: Van Leer Institute Press, 2016), 375–430. But not always: see Kaplan, Lawrence, “Back to Zechariah Frankel and Louis Jacobs? On Integrating Academic Talmudic Scholarship into Israeli Religious Zionist Yeshivas and the Specter of the Historical Development of the Halakhah,” Journal of Modern Jewish Studies 14, no. 1 (2015): 89–108CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
52 Beth Wenger's essay provides a detailed historical description of the events: Wenger, “The Politics of Women's Ordination.” See also Arnon Bruckstein, “The Ordination of Women as Rabbis and Cantors in the Conservative Movement: An Aspect of the Struggle of a Modern Jewish Religious Movement between Conservation and Change” [Hebrew] (Master's thesis, Hebrew University, 1990); Pamela S. Nadell, Women Who Would Be Rabbis: A History of Women's Ordination 1889–1985 (Boston: Beacon Press, 1998), 170–214.
53 For a detailed treatment, see Jack Wertheimer, “JTS and the Conservative Movement,” in Wertheimer, Tradition Renewed, 2:405–42.
54 Wertheimer, “JTS and the Conservative Movement,” 406–08.
55 Wertheimer, 409–10.
56 Wertheimer, 414–16.
57 Wertheimer, 418–19.
58 The names of Saul Lieberman, Shalom Spiegel, Abraham Joshua Heschel, Moses Zucker, and David Weiss Halivni come to mind here. On this point, see Harvey E. Goldberg, “Becoming History: Perspectives on the Seminary Faculty at Mid-Century,” in Wertheimer, Tradition Renewed, 1:354–417, esp. 359–61.
59 Golinkin, “The Influence of Seminary Professors,” 450–52.
60 See Nadell, Women Who Would Be Rabbis, 212.
61 Nadell, 168–69.
62 On all these developments, see Gillman, Conservative Judaism, 117–18; Sklare, Conservative Judaism, 188–90.
63 Gillman, Conservative Judaism, 118–20; Sklare, Conservative Judaism, 188–90, had already made similar observations in the original 1954 edition of his book.
64 During the first year, only eighty-nine youngsters were enrolled. Ramah then grew rapidly: in 1970, more than three thousand youngsters were enrolled. Sklare, Conservative Judaism, 259.
65 Michael Brown, “It's Off to Camp We Go,” in Wertheimer, Tradition Renewed, 1:822–54.
66 See Nadell, Women Who Would Be Rabbis, 170–71.
67 See Mel Scult, Judaism Faces the Twentieth Century: A Biography of Mordecai M. Kaplan (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1993).
68 See, for instance, the presentation of David Golinkin, Halakhah for Our Time: A Conservative Approach to Jewish Law (New York: United Synagogue of America, 1991), 3–5.
69 Roth, “On the Ordination of Women,” 127–48.
70 Roth, 148.
71 Roth, 149–62.
72 Roth, 162.
73 Roth, 162–66.
74 Roth, 165.
75 Roth, 166–74.
76 Roth, 174.
77 Francus, “On the Ordination of Women,” 43.
78 Lerner, “On the Ordination of Women,” 95–97.
79 Halivni, “On Ordination of Women,” 7–8.
80 Halivni, 8–13.
81 Halivni, 9 (emphasis in the original).
82 Halivni, 13–15.
83 Halivni, 15–17.
84 Halivni, 15–16.
85 Halivni, 17–19.
86 Halivni, 19.
87 Halivni, 18.
88 David Weiss Halivni, The Book and The Sword: A Life of Learning in the Shadow of Destruction (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1996), 105.
89 Halivni, 105.
90 Personal conversation with Rabbi Halivni, June 2009.
91 The works of Elisabeth Behr-Sigel deserve special mention: Elisabeth Behr-Sigel, The Ministry of Women in the Church (Redondo Beach: Oakwood, 1991); Elisabeth Behr-Sigel, The Ordination of Women in the Orthodox Church (Geneva: World Council of Churches, 2000). See also the following: Kyriaki Karidonayes FitzGerald, Women Deacons in the Orthodox Church: Called to Holiness and Ministry (Brookline: Holy Cross Orthodox Press, 1998) (FitzGerald builds on the research pioneered by the late Evangelos Theodorou.); Gennadios Limouris, ed., The Place of the Woman in the Orthodox Church and the Question of the Ordination of Women (Katerini: Tertios, 1992) (the important publication of the 1988 Rhodes Conference by the Ecumenical Patriarchate); Petros Vassiliadis, Niki Papageorgiou, and Eleni Kasselouri-Hatzivassiliadi, eds., Deaconesses, the Ordination of Women and Orthodox Theology (Newcastle-upon-Tyne: Cambridge Scholars, 2017).
92 See, for example, Haye van der Meer, Women Priests in the Catholic Church? A Theological-Historical Investigation (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1973); Chloe Taddei-Ferretti, Even the Dogs: The Ordination of Women in the Catholic Church (Vienna: LIT, 2017); Ruth A. Wallace, They Call Her Pastor: A New Role for Catholic Women (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1992); Jacqueline Field-Bibb, Women towards Priesthood: Ministerial Politics and Feminist Praxis (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991); John Wijngaards, The Ordination of Women in the Catholic Church: Unmasking a Cuckoo's Egg Tradition (New York: Continuum, 2001).
93 John H. Henry, Women Priests: An Emerging Ministry in the Episcopal Church (1975–1985) (Bristol: Wyndham Hall, 1985).
94 Jesse Avery Hungate, The Ordination of Women to the Pastorate in Baptist Churches (Hamilton: James B. Grant, 1899).
95 See Judith Craig, ed., The Leading Women: Stories of the First Women Bishops in the United Methodist Church (Nashville: Abingdon, 2004); Paul Wesley Chilcote, The Methodist Defense of Women in Ministry: A Documentary History (Eugene: Wipf and Stock, 2017).
96 For one of the few academic studies that discusses contemporary female imams, see Simonetta Calderini, Women as Imams: Classical Islamic Sources and Modern Debates on Leading Prayer (London: I. B. Tauris, 2021).
97 Women were not permitted to serve in Baha'i institutions until 1954: see Susan S. Maneck, “Women in the Baha'i faith,” in Religion and Women, ed. Arvind Sharma (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1994), 227.
98 Thus, for Neil Gillman, the decision of the Episcopal Church in the United States to ordain women runs parallel to the final position of the Jewish Conservative movement analyzed in this paper, and the Catholic Church's staunch refusal to follow in the same track is similarly echoed by Jewish Orthodoxy's unyielding veto of female ordination: Gillman, Conservative Judaism, 125.
99 See, for example, Navon, Haim, “Kamah Mesukan Harissut Ha-Sedarim Ha-Yeshanim,” Akdamot 22 (2009): 86–96Google Scholar. In contrast, see the very nuanced, and ultimately negative, position taken in Broyde, Michael J. and Brody, Shlomo M., “Orthodox Women Rabbis? Tentative Thoughts That Distinguish the Timely and the Timeless,” Ḥakirah, The Flatbush Journal of Jewish Law and Thought, no. 11 (2011): 25–58Google Scholar. Liberal Orthodox responsa affirming the possibility to ordain women as rabbis were penned by Rabbi Yoel bin Nun, Daniel Sperber, and Joshua Maroof in 2009, when Rabbi Sara Hurwitz became the first woman ordained in the seminary Yeshivat Maharat. These and related articles, thought papers, and press are currently posted on the seminary's website: “Teshuvot—Ordination,” Yeshivate Maharat (website), accessed August 5, 2021, https://www.yeshivatmaharat.org/teshuvot-text.
100 Roger Nicole, “Hermeneutics and the Gender Issue,” in Pierce and Groothuis, Discovering Biblical Equality, 355–63.
101 Behr-Sigel, Ministry of Women in the Church, 39–42.