Ordination

RRT 232-237

ANNULLING RABBI’S ORDINATION

QUESTION:

Is it possible to have a rabbi’s semicha taken away from him for reasons of moral turpitude? Have there been such cases in Jewish history? (Asked in a class of Rabbi J. B. Goldburg, Des Moines, Iowa.)

ANSWER:

THE QUESTION OF whether a rabbi can be “defrocked” is a complicated one because the meaning of ordination and the status of the rabbi have drastically changed in Jewish history. As for ordination, originally it was a mystical or spiritual transfer of sanctity by the laying on of hands. It was a process presumed to have begun by Moses, and carried on uninterrupted from ordainer to ordainee. This process ceased in the third century (although Maimonides hoped to restore it). It was, however, taken up by the Christian Church and greatly treasured as an evidence of the special sanctity of the sacraments by an ordained priest. Hence the dispute in the Church about “unbroken apostolic succession.” As for us, in place of the mystical ordination, we have hataras ho’roah. This is popularly, but erroneously, called semicha, although no laying on of hands (semicha) is involved. Our modern hataras ho’roah is merely a teacher’s certificate, a statement by one or a number of scholars that this person has studied and now has permission to serve as teacher, or rabbi.

It is clear that the two types of ordination differ as to their permanence inherent in the person ordained. It is hard to see how a sacred status, once bestowed, can ever be removed; but a teacher’s certificate may certainly be retracted if subsequent events, for example, prove that it was given by mistake. Maimonides, in his responsum cited by David ibn Zimri (his successor in the rabbinate of Cairo), says that no one may be removed from the historic Sanhedrin once he has been appointed there. The reason for this inviolability of status in the Sanhedrin was due to the fact that no one could serve as a member of the Sanhedrin unless he had the true ordination. On the other hand, in his Code (Sanhedrin 17:9) he says that the head of a Yeshiva who has sinned is removed and is not restored to his position. David ibn Zimri explains it by saying that the members of the high Sanhedrin in Jerusalem could not be removed, but a teacher of the Torah may be removed.

However, there was great hesitation about the removal of a teacher or, as we would say, a rabbi. The Talmud states in two places (Moed Katan 17a and Menachos 99b) that if a teacher has sinned or has to be put under the ban, this must not be done publicly, but secretly. Resh Lakish bases this caution on the verse in Hosea 4:5, which says: “Therefore shalt thou stumble in the day, and the prophet shall also stumble with thee in the night.” In other words, the disgrace that comes to the prophet is also a disgrace which comes to the people; both of them stumble together. Then Resh Lakish emphasizes the phrase “in the night” and says: “Keep the disgrace as dark as the night.”

Thus, whenever it was necessary to rebuke or to punish a leader of the community, it was important to keep it quiet and so avoid public shame. Aside from the question of public shame involved, we must note that while the rabbinate is a profession, and a rabbinical position is based upon the choice of the congregation, the rabbi is considered to have a special status which gives him almost automatic tenure in his position. Note the following in the responsum on tenure in Contemporary Reform Responsa:

To sum up: The general principle that “we do not degrade in holiness” (En Moriddin Bakodesh) stands against removal of any appointee of a congregation for sacred work. Such removal was possible, however, in the early days when the rabbinate was not a profession. After it became a profession it is unheard of that a rabbi be removed after the formal term of three or five years mentioned in the rabbinical contract has passed.

Of course that does not mean that they were insensitive to an unworthy person functioning as a leader in public service. The Talmud (Berachos 32b) says that a priest who has killed somebody should not lift up his hand to bless the people, and the proof verse that is cited is from Isaiah 1:15: “When you lift up your hands, I will hide my face from you. Your hands are filled with blood.” The Shulchan Aruch (Orah Hayyim 128:35), giving this as a law, says that even if the priest killed a man by accident, and even if he has made full repentance, he shall not publicly stand up to bless the people. (However, Isserles is more lenient to the repentant priest.) Thus we see that the law is, indeed, sensitive to ethical purity on the part of leadership, but it is hesitant in taking drastic steps because of the public shame involved.

The specific question asked here is whether any such cases have actually arisen. We may say theoretically that such cases must indeed have arisen, considering the complaints that are found in the literature about men who have received their rabbinate through the influence of the secular authorities. In other words, there is an awareness in the literature of unworthy men occupying the position. As to actual incidents, there are some discussions in the responsa literature. The great Hungarian authority Moses Sofer, in his responsa (Choshen Mishpot 162), discusses the case of a rabbi against whom pious members of the community made a series of complaints. The first complaint was that the rabbi was not observant about hand-washing, grace after meals, etc.; the second, that he was too lenient in his decisions about Kosher and Trefe; and the third was that he gave divorce documents (gittin) in a city where no divorce documents should be issued. (There is an objection in Jewish legal practice to giving a get in a city where no legal get had been given before because the various spellings of the names and the status of the city on rivers were never settled, and the wording of a get must be precise. In the case discussed here, a well-known rabbi forbade any get to be written in the city where the accused rabbi lived.) As for the first two objections, Moses Sofer is doubtful whether the rabbi should be removed; but as for the third, with regard to the get, he states clearly that this cannot be forgiven. He says, therefore, that they should take away from him the hataras ho’roah because it was given to him by rabbis before they could have known the evil that he has committed (in other words, his ordination was an ex post facto mistake), and he says specifically: “They shall take from him completely the crown of the name of Rabbi.”

On the other hand, a later responsum by the great Galician authority Sholom Mordecai Schwadron (II, # 5 6) comes to a different conclusion (because the case was different). But it has its special interest: A rabbi of Rumanian origin was established as a rabbi in Manchester, England. He then moved to London. The Chief Rabbi, Adler, wanted to have him removed from the rabbinate, but the Sephardic Rabbi Gaster (who was also a Rumanian) came to his defense. Schwadron discusses all the material cited above and comes to the defense of the rabbi.

In summary we may say that the rabbinate today is a profession and does not have the mystical holiness of the old ordination. Nevertheless, the rabbi’s status is involved in the honor of the whole community, and therefore public disgrace is to be avoided. However, it is clear that cases came up in which scholars recommended that a rabbi be deposed. But even so, many scholars (cited by Moses Sofer, ibid.) said that the members of his community are not always to be trusted as witnesses against him because they may be motivated by hostility that has grown up between the rabbi and them. In brief, a rabbi can be deposed, as Moses Sofer says, and the title “rabbi” should not be used by such a man. Yet the cases are rare, and for the sake of the public good, they are handled with caution.

TFN no.5753.4 133-140

CCAR RESPONSA

Private Ordination

5753.4

She’elah
A rabbi in our community declares that a young man who has studied with him is now qualified to be ordained as a

rabbi. He has asked that I and another rabbinic colleague join him in granting ordination to this student. May I, as

a rabbi ordained at HUC-JIR, participate in such a ceremony?

Teshuvah
This is a question of extraordinary sensitivity within the rabbinic community. Virtually all the members of the

Central Conference of American Rabbis are graduates (i.e., ordinees) of the Hebrew Union College-Jewish

Institute of Religion or some other established rabbinical seminary. To permit the kind of private ordination

referred to in the she’elah is to invite a radical transformation in the way that we liberal rabbis receive our

credentials to serve. An adequate response to this question must therefore address two separate issues. First, what is

the nature of the ordination that we practice today? Must this ordination be granted by an officially-licensed school

or agency, or is any rabbi empowered, as a matter of Jewish law, to ordain a person of his choice as a rabbi?

Second, if the rabbi is so empowered, are there considerations of Jewish law, custom, and Reform Jewish practice

which would argue against the use of this power?

1. Ordination, Past and Present. The “ordination” customarily practiced today, a ceremony we call

semikhah, has little to do with the semikhah described in the Talmudic sources.¹

That ancient ritual, according to rabbinic thought, elevated its recipient to the status of the biblical judge

(shofet) and as such the latest link in a chain of Torah transmission that reached from student to teacher

all the way back to Moses.² The ordained judges were regarded as the legal successors of the

seventy elders who stood with Moses on Sinai. It was they who qualified as elohim (Ex. 22:7-

8),³ empowered to enforce their decisions upon recalcitrant litigants;⁴ it was they

alone who were entitled to adjudicate all matters of law,⁵ including diney nefashot (capital

cases) and diney kenasot (fines).⁶ Ordination was practiced only in the land of Israel. This

explains why Babylonian sages were called rav rather than rabbi, the title bestowed upon the

recipient of semikhah, unless those sages themselves received semikhah in Eretz

Yisrael.⁷ This semikhah no longer exists, and its power has largely disappeared. In the

words of R. Ya`akov b. Asher: “today, we are all lay judges (hedyotot) and we do not exercise the Toraitic

power of jurisdiction.”⁸ We function as the agents of the ordained judges of old,⁹

who commissioned us to exercise judgment within carefully circumscribed boundaries that exclude diney

nefashot and diney kenasot. Various attempts have been made to renew the practice of

semikhah and thereby the rabbinic Sanhedrin, the supreme legislative and judicial body that can declare

the authoritative interpretation of Torah to all Israel. The most notable of these efforts occurred in Safed during

the 16th century; in addition, talk of the re-institution of semikhah was common during the heady days

following the establishment of the modern state of Israel. While those who advocated the restoration of

semikhah relied upon the opinion of Rambam that such an act may be halakhically

permissible,¹⁰ they were rebuffed by the firm opposition of most of the rabbinic community.

What, then, is the nature of the “semikhah” we confer upon our rabbis today? R. Moshe Isserles writes that

“the purpose of the ordination commonly practiced these days is to inform the community that the student has

attained the requisite knowledge to rule on matters of Jewish law (higi`a lehora’ah) and that he does so

with the permission (reshut) of the rabbi who has ordained him.”¹¹ In this view, he relies

heavily upon a responsum of R. Yitzchak b. Sheshet (Rivash; late-14th century Spain and North Africa), who

offers a comprehensive halakhic analysis of “this semikhah practiced in France and

Germany.”¹² Rivash rejects any real similarity between the original ordination and the

contemporary custom, which he regarded as a mere symbolic representation of the former.¹³ Today’s

semikhah serves only as a means of granting the student the permission to issue halakhic rulings.

Ordinarily, the requirement of kevod harav, the honor due to one’s Torah teacher, prohibits a student from

issuing halakhic rulings during his teacher’s lifetime. Semikhah is a formal “license” which exempts the

student from this prohibition.¹⁴ It does not, however, bestow upon him the full range of powers

associated with the ancient ordination cceremony. The authority of a rabbi’s rulings, in this day and age, is based

solely upon the willingness of the community to abide by them.¹⁵ And since the empowerment of

rabbis flows from the people, no organized body, rabbinic or otherwise, is entitled to demand that a community

engage the services of only those rabbis who have received an “approved” ordination.¹⁶

2. Ordination and the Qualifications of the Rabbi. The foregoing suggests that today’s seminaries hold no

monopoly over the ordination of the rabbi. Any person acceptable to the community may serve in that position. Yet

this grant of popular sovereignty is circumscribed by a vital caveat: the rabbi chosen must be sufficiently

knowledgeable and qualified. All Jewish communities, including those that did not demand formal ordination,

have nonetheless been concerned that their rabbis meet the criteria of learning expected of Torah scholars. And, as

we have seen, the practice of ordination developed in medieval times in response to this concern.¹⁷

Today, the widespread custom (minhag) is to require ordination as testimony that the individual in

question is qualified to serve as a rabbi–higi`a lehora’ah, in Isserles’ phrase–and to perform the functions

generally associated with that office.¹⁸

Similarly, it has long been the minhag among the congregations and institutions of the Reform movement

to recognize as “rabbi” only those individuals who have completed the prescribed curriculum at the Hebrew Union

College-Jewish Institute of Religion or other comparable rabbinical school. The ordination which we have come to

demand as the necessary credential for rabbinic employment is the end result of a formal, organized program of

education which the community has identified as sufficient to bestow the title “rabbi” upon its graduates. This

process reflects our belief that a person must be qualified–intellectually, morally, professionally, psychologically–

to carry that title and that seminary education affords the best objective evaluation of his or her fitness.

True, Jewish tradition does not demand that rabbis graduate from seminaries.¹⁹ We do not say that

seminary training is the only way in which a candidate for the rabbinate can acquire the requisite learning and

skills.²⁰ Nor do we argue that it is a foolproof method: we all know that our rabbinical schools

sometimes turn away good candidates and ordain bad ones. Our seminaries can and should constantly strive to do

better. Nonetheless, as a general rule, we believe that the course of education at a reputable seminary is a better

preparation for the rabbinate than are the available alternatives, whether “private ordination” from an individual

rabbi or attendance at a lowly-regarded rabbinical school. Unlike either of these, the seminary exposes its students

to a diverse and distinguished faculty of teachers, a liberal curriculum of Jewish studies, a decent library, and a

host of supervised field-work practica. Our community has chosen this means to determine whether the candidate

higi`a lehora’ah. And Jewish tradition, which both requires that a student meet this standard and which

has developed the contemporary custom of semikhah in order to test for it, allows us to make this choice.

By contrast, a “private ordination” grants the title “rabbi” to students who have not met this test. It is therefore

destructive to our goal of a rabbinate that measures up to the highest attainable standards.

Moreover, in the case at hand, since the rabbi who asks this she’elah did not teach the student in question,

he or she has no way of determining whether that young man has met the standards we expect of rabbis (hig`a

lehora’ah). Even if it were our custom to accept “private ordination,” it would be inappropriate for this rabbi

to take part in the ordination ceremony. To be sure, it has long been a practice to have rabbis other than one’s

teachers add their names to the semikhah document; in this way, one’s credentials would appear more

impressive to one’s potential employers. Yet some sages have condemned this practice as senseless, a sign of the

intellectual and social decline of the rabbinate.²¹ It seems senseless to us as well. One who has never

taught a student is in no position to testify to that student’s fitness to serve as a rabbi.

3. Ordination and Kevod Harav. In addition to the determination of the student’s rabbinical qualifications,

we have seen that the tradition offers another reason for the contemporary practice of ordination:

semikhah is a license which permits the student to function as a rabbi without violating the principle of

kevod harav, the duty to render honor to one’s teacher. This duty implies that the student must not engage

in a disagreement (machloket) with his teacher over a matter of halakhah.²² The

precise dimensions of this machloket are a matter of dispute. Some authorities hold that a student is

forbidden to establish a yeshivah without his teacher’s express permission.²³ Others allow

the student to teach Torah but forbid him to issue halakhic rulings without the express permission of his

rav.²⁴ While most allow the student to debate his teacher and argue against him “should he

have textual proofs for his contrary opinion,”²⁵ some deny him even that degree of intellectual

freedom without his teacher’s permission.²⁶ At any rate, all authorities agree that even after

ordination, the ordinee is in some way kafuf lasomeikh, subject to the authority of the ordaining

rabbi.²⁷ To act otherwise is detrimental to the kavod (honor) of one’s teacher and, by

extension, of the rabbinate as an institution.

Our sho’el asks whether a rabbi ordained at HUC-JIR may confer “private ordination” upon a student. To

answer this question fully, we must consider whether and to what extent the alumni of HUC-JIR are

kefufim, subject to the authority of those who ordained them.

On the one hand, we reject any such suggestion. Surely we are not prohibited from disagreeing with our teachers

over matters of Torah. Reform Judaism proclaims our intellectual freedom, and our semikhah is testimony

to our readiness to exercise that freedom as rabbis.

Yet on the other hand we feel just as surely a sense of obligation to render honor to our rabbis, those who

instilled Torah in us and prepared us for the momentous task of transmitting it to our people. We, too, recognize

the principle of kevod harav. And this principle, if it means anything at all, must be more than mere lip-

service or sentiment. It implies that we have a duty to promote the welfare of the College-Institute in any way that

we can. It demands at the very least that we avoid taking actions which would undermine the centrality and

integrity of the College-Institute as the agency by which North American Reform Jewry has chosen to train its

rabbinic leadership in accordance with its religious world-view and its educational philosophy. Our

semikhah, whatever powers it confers, cannot entitle us to undermine the school which granted it to us.

Yet “private ordination” does just that. For an ordinee of HUC-JIR to grant such an ordination, offering a shortcut

to semikhah which bypasses the rigors and requirements of a seminary curriculum, is to exceed even the

most lenient interpretation of kevod harav. It is, quite simply, an act of zilzul harav, of scorn and

disrespect to the teachers and the school which gave us the opportunity to become rabbis.

To repeat: we do not claim that our seminaries are perfect, nor do we say that one who has studied for “private

ordination” cannot be a good rabbi. We know nothing of the details of this case. It is quite possible that the young

man in question is a sincere Jew who wishes nothing more than to spend his life in service to his people. Our

answer is not directed toward him as a person but rather toward a practice. It is a practice that, in our view,

undermines the process by which we educate our rabbis and judge their fitness to serve in that position, endangers

the survival of our rabbinical schools, and constitutes an affront to the honor of those who taught us Torah. It

cannot be justified within our community, and those rabbis who engage in it do a profound disservice to the

Reform rabbinate and to Reform Judaism as a whole.

For these reasons, we urge our colleagues in the strongest possible terms to refrain from awarding “private

ordination.”

Notes

The fourth chapter of Yad, Hilkhot Sanhedrin, is a particularly useful summary of the laws of semikhah and of the traditional
understanding of that institution.
See BT. Sanhedrin 5b and 13b.
BT. Sanhedrin 56b.
BT. Sanhedrin 16a; cp. Rashi to Deut. 16:18
See the midrash in BT. Gitin 88b on Ex. 21:1: “these are the commandments which you shall place before them”– before them, and not
before hedyotot (non-ordained judges).
BT. Baba Kama 84a-b.
BT. Sanhedrin 14a; Yad, Hilkhot Sanhedrin 4:6. A form of semikhah, to be sure, was practiced in Babylonia under the auspices of the
exilarch, who regarded himself in many respects the institutional equivalent of the patriarch in Palestine. See BT Hilkhot Sanhedrin 5a on Gen.

49:10 and Yad, Sanhedrin 4:13: the exilarch possessed the power to enforce his decisions, much as the ordained judges of Eretz Yisrael–the elohim–

were entitled to enforce theirs. On the other hand, this enforcement power was seen to be based upon the recognition of the exilarch by the Gentile

government. Moreover, the Babylonians understood that their semikhah did not confer upon them the entire range of juridical power which belonged

to the ordained scholar of the land of Israel. See the letter of R. Shmuel b. Eli, published in Tarbiz 1(1930), no. 2, 82.
Tur, CM 1.
Shelichut dekama’ey avdinan; see BT Gitin 88b and Tosafot ad loc. s.v. bemilta.
Yad, Hilkhot Sanhedrin 4:11 and Kesef Mishneh ad loc.
SA, YD 242:14.
Resp. Rivash, no. 271. Rivash’s words testify that the practice of ordination was not recognized in Spain, ostensibly because the Sefardic
communities were better organized and were able to insure the quality of their rabbinic leadership without resorting to semikhah. For a full historical

treatment, see Mordekhai Breuer, “Hasemikhah Ha’ashkenazit,” in Zion 33 (1968), 15-46, and Jacob Katz, “Semikhah Vesamkhut Rabanit Bimey

Habeinayim,” in I. Twersky, Studies in Medieval Jewish History and Literature, Cambridge, MA, 1979, 41-56.
See R. Yehudah al-Barceloni (Spain, 12th cent.), Sefer Hashetarot, p. 131: today’s ordination is but a zekher lesemikhah. The same
terminolgy is used in the late-19th cent. Arukh Hashulchan, CM 1:14.
On kevod harav, see M. Avot 4:12 (reverence for one’s teacher is equivalent to reverence for Heaven);BT. Bava Metzi`a 33a (restoring a
teacher’s lost object); BT. Sanhedrin 109a (to dispute one’s rav is tantamount to disputing the Divine Presence), and elsewhere. On the prohibition

against issuing halakhic rulings in the presence or during the lifetime of one’s teacher, see BT. Sanhedrin 5b and Yad, Hilkhot Talmud Torah 5:2-3.
Even should a Gentile king appoint a chief rabbi, which is entitled to do under the rubric dina demalkhuta dina, that rabbi’s rulings are
null and void in the absence of community acceptance (haskamat hakahal); Tur, CM 3. See, in general, Arukh Hashulchan, CM 1:17.
Many medieval communities, particularly Sefardic ones, did not require ordination of their sages; see Resp. Rivash, # 271, and the
other sources cited in note 12, above.
See Isserles at note 11, above.
Arukh HaShulchan, CM 1:14: no one should preside over weddings, divorces, or chalitzot unless he possesses “the customary
ordination” (semikhah hanehugah). See also BT. Kiddushin 6a and Rashi, s.v.lo yehe lo `esek imahen.
Indeed, the style of rabbinical school to which we liberal Jews are accustomed is a relatively recent innovation in Jewish life, the product
of the efforts of nineteenth-century western Jewry to cope with the challenges of modern culture. On the development of modern rabbinic education,

see Simon Schwarzfuchs, A Concise History of the Rabbinate (Cambridge, MA, Blackwell, 1993), 86ff.
In Babylonia during talmudic times, for example, the common method of Torah instruction was
the “disciple circle”; see David Goodblatt, Rabbinic Instruction in Sasanian Babylonia (Leiden: Brill,

1975). Students tended to move on to study with other sages when they had mastered all that a

particular teacher could give them (BT. Avodah Zarah 19a-b and Zevachim 96b). This shows that even

then, during “pre-seminary” times, one gained one’s scholarly reputation as the disciple of many

sages.
R. Shelomo Luria (16th-cent. Poland), Yam shel Shelomo, M. Baba Kama 8:58.
BT. Sanhedrin 110a.
Yad, Hilkhot Talmud Torah 5:2; Bayit Chadash to Tur, CM 242.
Kesef Mishneh to Yad, loc. cit., though the concept of a “halakhic ruling” is also defined rather narrowly; see SA, CM 242:8.
R. Yisrael Isserlein (15th-cent. Germany), Pesakim Ukhetavim, # 238, cited in Isserles, SA, YD 242:3; R. Ya`akov Emden (18th-cent.
Germany), She’elat Ya’avetz, I, no. 5.
Siftey Kohen, YD 242, # 3.
R. Yosef Kolon, Resp. Maharik, # 117; SA YD 242:5-6.
If needed, please consult Abbreviations used in CCAR Responsa.

RR21 no. 5759.3

CCAR RESPONSA COMMITTEE

5759.3

Who Is a Rabbi?

She’elah.

A new congregation has been formed in my city, founded by a woman who has attended the International Institute for Secular Humanistic Judaism (IISHJ), the rabbinical school of the Society for Humanistic Judaism. She serves as the congregation’s rabbi, even though she has yet to be ordained by that school. She has been licensed by the state to perform weddings, and also does conversions. Should we accept these conversions as valid, even though they were supervised by someone other than an ordained rabbi? In general, what is our position with respect to individuals who have received private ordination or who claim to possess ordination from seminaries, schools or yeshivot with which we are unfamiliar? Do we recognize them as rabbis? Do we accept them as colleagues in our communities?

Teshuvah.

Conversions Supervised by a Layperson. Your first question has been addressed quite clearly by the Central Conference of American Rabbis (CCAR). We hold that, while “a rabbinical beit din is desirable for giyur,” conversion should at any rate take place in the presence of a rabbi and no fewer than two lay leaders of the community.[1] We base this position upon considerations of both a halakhic and a practical nature.
Our tradition teaches that conversion must take place in the presence of a beit din, a court of Jewish law.[2] The Rabbis derive this requirement through a midrash,[3] the interpretation of biblical verses in which the Hebrew root sh-p-t (“judgment”) appears in connection with the word ger, or “proselyte.”[4] The precise make-up of this court is a matter of dispute in the literature; some contend that the Torah itself requires that a beit din consist of no fewer than three judges,[5] while others believe that one judge is sufficient and that the requirement of three judges in cases other than penal law is a rabbinic stringency.[6] Both views agree, however, that the judges must be knowledgeable of the law and qualified for their task. Although the codified halakhah declares that any three individuals, including those with no special legal training,[7] may constitute a beit din, it justifies this provision on the assumption that among a gathering of three persons “it is impossible that there should not be one who knows something of the law.”[8] It follows that the rule will change should this assumption prove inaccurate: “if there is not one among these three judges who has studied the law, they are disqualified from serving as a court.”[9]

In particular, the beit din which oversees a conversion must be composed of knowledgeable Jews.[10] Conversion, we stress, is much more than the stated desire to become a Jew. Choosing Judaism is a complex and demanding intellectual and emotional procedure. It involves, first of all, the study of Torah and Jewish practice (hoda`at hamitzvot), a curriculum which is taught at least in part by the members of the court.[11] Our tradition also requires that we “examine” the prospective Jew-by-choice, to determine whether his or her decision to become a Jew is sincere, well thought out, and motivated for reasons we find acceptable.[12] The journey by which one enters into the Jewish people, the veritable creation of a brand new identity – indeed, “the proselyte is like a new-born child”[13] – should therefore be supervised by a specialist who possesses the Judaic education and counseling skills necessary for this important task. We would add, moreover, that issues of personal status are among the most sensitive that face our community. It is deeply in our interest that we as a people be able to agree, to the greatest extent possible, upon “who is a Jew”, arriving at a consensus as to the standards by which we determine the Jewish identity of those who claim to possess it. “Conversions” performed by those who are unqualified to do so endanger this vital but fragile consensus, for they are likely to create a class of Jews whose very Jewishness will be suspect in the eyes of many. It is for these reasons, to insure the quality and the validity of conversion procedures, that our Conference along with the rest of the organized Jewish community insists that the supervision of conversion be a rabbinic prerogative.

In principle (l’khatchilah), therefore, conversion should not be supervised by a layperson. We deal here, however, with a situation of “after the fact” (b’di`avad), with conversion ceremonies that have already taken place, with individuals who perhaps have been accepted as Jews-by-choice in your community. And in such a case, the halakhic tradition permits us to acknowledge the conversions, for although it ought to take place in the presence of a knowledgeable beit din, a conversion ritual administered by three unlearned judges (hedyotot) is nonetheless valid.[14] Let us be clear: we are under no obligation to recognize the validity of any “conversion” merely because a ritual bearing that name was performed by a group of three persons claiming to be a beit din. We are entitled to withhold our recognition of the conversion, for example, when we have serious doubts as to the legitimacy of the “court” or the fitness of its members to serve as “judges.”[15] Yet such objections do not apply here. Although we have our religious differences with Humanistic Judaism,[16] we have no reason to doubt the Jewishness or the Judaic sincerity of those who practice it. Similarly, we have every reason to believe that the individuals who have converted with this person demonstrate a genuine desire to live a Jewish life as it is understood by their community. They have made a carefully considered and public decision to take their place in the covenant of Israel, joining their fate to that of the Jewish people. For our part, we do not want to erect barriers to their entry. On the contrary: as Reform Jews, whose movement has distinguished itself by its encouragement of those who wish to choose Judaism, we ought to welcome them actively into our midst.

Thus, our advice is two-fold. We urge you to advocate in your community that conversions to Judaism be supervised and guided solely by ordained rabbis. Such a standard reflects honor to the Torah and the seriousness with which we take the conversion procedure. It will also forestall difficulties by helping to ensure that the validity of conversions is accepted by most of the Jewish population. Yet to reject the individuals already converted by this person would serve no purpose save to embarrass them, sowing the seeds of bitterness and divisiveness within the community. Out of concern for Jewish unity and communal peace, and in recognition of their evident sincerity, you should rather accept them as full-fledged members of the Jewish people.

Rabbis with “Suspect Ordination.” How we are to evaluate the rabbinical credentials of those who have received private ordination? What of those who have graduated from rabbinical schools with which we are unfamiliar or which we regard as inferior in quality? Do we accept these individuals as our colleagues, as rabbis in our communities?
We might begin by considering the nature of the ordination by which we bestow the title “rabbi.” As we know that institution today, “ordination” is but the symbolic representation of the ancient s’mikhah described in the Talmudic sources.[17] Ancient ordination, according to halakhic theory, formed a new link in the chain of s’mikhah from teacher to student that stretched back all the way to Moses. The musmakh, or ordained judge, was therefore the legal successor to the seventy elders who stood with Moses on Sinai, and he was entitled to exercise the full range of legislative, judicial, and executive power pertaining to that exalted station. Among these was the power to enforce his decisions upon litigants even against their will, that is, if they had not agreed in advance to accept him as their judge. The musmakhim who constituted the High Court (beit din hagadol) could issue ordinances (takanot) that were binding upon all Jews everywhere. This s’mikhah was never practiced outside of the land of Israel; the Babylonian amoraim (sages of the Talmudic period) did not possess it, unless they received s’mikhah in the land of Israel. At best, the Babylonian “rabbis” (for without s’mikhah they did not take that title but were rather called rav) could regard themselves as “agents” of the rabbis of Eretz Yisrael, who commissioned them to exercise legal authority (sh’luchotayhu avdinan, “we perform their agency”)[18] within carefully circumscribed boundaries. Today’s rabbis, too, function as the agents of the rabbis of old. Although we do not wield the full legal power which they enjoyed–“today, we are all lay judges (hedyotot); we do not exercise the Toraitic power of jurisdiction”[19] – tradition suggests that they have empowered us to act in their name on matters that occur frequently in the legal life of our community or that are important enough to demand a response from contemporary authorities.[20] The “s’mikhah” that we practice today does not confer this ancient grant of jurisdiction upon the recipient. It is merely an attestation by a teacher that the recipient, his student, “has attained the requisite knowledge to rule on matters of Jewish law (higi`a l’hora’ah) and does so with the permission (r’shut) of the rabbi who has ordained him.”[21] Thus, our ordination does not endow its recipient with the authority to issue rulings that our people must accept. It is merely an expression of a teacher’s opinion that the student is capable of serving as a rabbi for a community which wishes to engage him or her. And nowhere do the sources tell us that a person must be ordained in order to perform rabbinical tasks. Rather, all rabbinical power today flows from the willingness of a community to abide by the rabbi’s rulings.[22]

If this is the case, then no seminary, yeshivah or other institution owns a monopoly over the power to ordain. Any rabbi today is entitled to ordain any student who in the rabbi’s opinion has attained that level of knowledge which qualifies him or her to function as a rabbi. And the community, which has the final say as to who shall perform that function in its midst, is under no obligation to engage the services of an ordained person as its rabbi. From all this, one could argue that there is no substantive, objective content to the title “rabbi.” A “rabbi” is rather anyone who claims to possess some sort of ordination from a teacher. It would follow that we must recognize all such “rabbis” as legitimate possessors of that title.

Yet though this is true according to the theory of Jewish law, our practice – that is, the way in which we live our law – has moved in the opposite direction. We emphatically do not believe that any and every person who is called “rabbi” or who serves some congregation in that capacity necessarily deserves the title. To us, rather, a “rabbi” is someone who is qualified for that distinction. It is therefore the widespread minhag among our communities, liberal and otherwise, to require that our rabbis receive the “customary ordination” before we engage their services.[23] Like our medieval ancestors, we utilize ordination as a criterion to measure one’s qualifications for the rabbinate, to determine that one meets and hopefully exceeds the minimum requirements of knowledge and expertise that we would set for our rabbinical leaders. If ordination is to serve as such a standard, it must surely be something more than an expression of some rabbi’s opinion or a signature on a piece of paper. Ordination must rather attest that its recipient has successfully completed an extended and rigorous program of Torah study and professional training which prepares one to exercise the rabbinical function in our communities.

How do we define this program? Every Jewish community since the Middle Ages has developed its own answer to that question. In our community, that is, in the Reform Jewish community of North America, it is customary to require that those who wish to serve as rabbis graduate from rabbinical schools, seminaries and yeshivot whose curricula in our estimation clearly reach the necessary and desirable standards of educational excellence. We use the phrase “in our estimation” advisedly. We know that it is difficult to define “standards of educational excellence” to the satisfaction of all. Indeed, our rabbinical curricula have always been the subject of much debate among practitioners and educators. We acknowledge that our seminaries are not perfect, that a seminary ordination is no ironclad guarantee that its bearer will be a brilliant scholar and an inspiring religious leader. We believe, however, that as a general rule, the education provided by these schools, with the scholarly resources at their command, is a better preparation for the rabbinate than that afforded by lowly-regarded institutions or by individual rabbis who bestow “private ordination.”

We also assert the right and the duty to act upon this belief. Every profession is entitled to define its own carefully considered educational standards. Those standards will inevitably be the subject of controversy, but at the end of the day it is the responsibility of the members of the profession to decide upon them and to enforce them. To deny us the right to set the standards we would demand for rabbinical education merely because they are controversial is to conclude that there are no standards, that there is no substance to the word “rabbi,” and that a rabbi is legitimately and properly anyone who chooses to assume that title. We do not believe this. The people whom we serve do not believe this. To draw such a conclusion would be absurd, and to act upon it would have destructive consequences for both the rabbinate and Jewish life. The best path, the one we must surely take, is to insist that our rabbis meet educational standards that, in our eyes, do honor to the title they carry.

As a way of distinguishing between those who meet these standards and those who do not, the various rabbinical associations have developed sets of criteria to determine an individual’s fitness to join the rabbinical fellowship. The CCAR’s Admissions Guidelines[24] serve as a good example. The Guidelines specify that all applicants for membership to our Conference must have earned the degree of Bachelor of Arts (or its equivalent) from a recognized institution of higher learning, and the Master’s degree in Jewish Studies (or its equivalent). Rabbinic graduates of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion and of the Leo Baeck College of London are eligible for CCAR membership without interview or examination, provided that they apply within four years after ordination. Rabbinic graduates of other “approved seminaries” may be admitted to the CCAR following a process of interview or examination (which may include academic examination). Graduates of seminaries and yeshivot not on the “approved” list can be admitted following an investigation of the quality of those schools and of their courses of study. This is a crucial point: we do not claim that only the graduates of “approved seminaries” are worthy of admission to the Conference. Others may join as well, provided that they can prove that their rabbinical education meets standards of excellence similar to those of the recognized schools. On the other hand, a private ordination will not be accepted, for the ordination of students by individual rabbis whose programs of study are not supervised by any responsible authority endangers the maintenance of any and all standards of educational excellence.[25] It should go without saying–but, in the interests of clarity we shall say it nonetheless–that students or graduates of “rabbinical” schools affiliated with the various messianic Jewish movements are apostates; they are not rabbis, and our community must not grant them that distinction.

The rabbis of your community can certainly develop some admissions criteria of their own, patterned after those of the CCAR and the other rabbinical associations. These associations will certainly assist you as you seek information concerning the programs of study at rabbinical schools with which you are not familiar.

To summarize: not everyone who may be called “rabbi” is necessarily deserving of that distinction. Your community is under no obligation to recognize the rabbinical credentials of those individuals who have received “ordination” privately or from lowly-regarded institutions. The rabbis in your city are similarly under no obligation to accept these persons as colleagues and as members of your local rabbinical association. You should, of course, act towards them with grace, cordiality and tact, with all due concern for communal unity, in the spirit of a tradition that calls upon us to follow “the paths of peace.” Yet the ultimate message is clear: if we as rabbis truly care about the quality and the reputation of our calling, it is our duty to advocate that membership in the rabbinate be restricted to those who clearly meet the proper educational standards.

NOTES

Rabbi’s Manual (New York: CCAR, 1988), 232.
B. Y’vamot 46b and Kiddushin 62b; Yad, Isurey Bi’ah 13:6-7 and 14:6; SA YD 268:3.
The text says “verses” because the Talmud does not specify which verse is the subject of the midrash. According to Rashi (Y’vamot 46b, s.v. mishpat k’tiv beh), the verse in question is Numbers 15:16, and “judgment (mishpat) does not occur with less than three judges”; on the other hand, in Kiddushin 62b, he points to Leviticus 24:22. Tosafot (Y’vamot 46b, s.v. mishpat) offers Deuteronomy 1:16, following a baraita on Y’vamot 47a.
The identification with the biblical term ger with the proselyte is found in the rabbinic literature. In the Bible itself, the ger is not a “convert to Judaism” but rather a “resident alien,” a non-Israelite permitted to dwell in the land and who, though remaining a non-citizen, enjoys certain privileges. For sources and discussion, see our responsum 5756.13.
M. Sanhedrin 1:1; Rava, B. Sanhedrin 3a. The number three is derived by way of midrash on three appearances of the word elohim (“judges”) in Exodus 22; see the baraita near the top of B. Sanhedrin 3b. Rava holds that this requirement applies to all matters of monetary law (mamonot) as well as to matters involving fines (k’nasot).
Rav Acha b. deRav Ika, B. Sanhedrin 3a.
The term used here is hedyotot, which can be translated either as “persons ignorant of the law” or “persons who are not ordained judges (musmakhim).” In this case, the Talmudic text (B. Sanhedrin 3a) makes it clear that we are speaking of the former.
SA HM 3:1. This reasoning is used in the Talmud (B. Sanhedrin 3a) to support the position of Rav Acha: that is, although the Torah permits one person to judge a case, the Rabbis impose the requirement of three so that at least one of them will be gamir, i.e., one who is familiar with the law at least on a basic level (see Rashi, Sanhedrin 3a, s.v. d’gamir: “one who has heard some of the laws from sages and judges”).
Tosafot, Sanhedrin 3a, s.v. ‘i efshar; Hilkhot HaRosh, Sanhedrin 1:1; SA HM 3:1.
The noted nineteenth-century Galician authority and scholar R. Zvi Hirsch Chajes writes in his chidushim to Shabbat 46b that a conversion beit din must be composed of scholars (talmidey chakhamim). The opposite view, however, is taken in Resp. Binyamin Ze’ev (16th-century Greece), 1:72.
B. Y’vamot 47b (according to Rabbi Yochanan’s emendation of the baraita at the top of the page): “three scholars (talmidey chakhamim) stand by him (at the moment of ritual immersion), informing him of some of the lighter and weightier commandments.”
On the requirement of “examination,” see Yad, Isurey Bi’ah 13:14 and SA YD 268:12. The question of motives is discussed in B. Y’vamot 24b. One who wishes to convert for the “wrong” reasons (marriage; hope for financial gain or political power, etc.) Should not, in theory, be accepted, although once accepted is a valid proselyte. And in all cases, the determination of “proper” and “improper” motivation or readiness for conversion is a matter left to the judgment of the beit din (Tosafot, Y’vamot 24b, s.v. lo; Beit Yosef YD 268, end; Siftey Kohen, YD 268, no. 23. That a decision to convert must be “well-thought-out” implies that the Jew-by-choice be made aware of the obligations which Judaism imposes and of the difficulties and even dangers that have historically been the lot of the people of Israel; see B. Y’vamot 47a-b.
B. Y’vamot 22a and parallels.
Yad, Isurey Bi’ah 13:14-17; SA YD 268:12. Maimonides does require that in the case of a ger who converts before a panel of hedyotot who do not properly examine his motivations, we “watch him until his sincerity is proven.” This does not mean that the ger is not a Jew (see Magid Mishneh and Kesef Mishneh to 13:17), but rather that we may not allow him to marry a Jew until we are certain of his proper intent.
For example, if one of the members of the panel were a non-Jew or an apostate.
See Teshuvot for the Nineties (TFN), no. 5751.4, pp. 9-16, https://www.ccarnet.org/ccar-responsa/tfn-no-5751-4-9-15/
For sources and discussion, see our responsum “Private Ordination,” TFN, no. 5753.4, pp. 133-139, https://www.ccarnet.org/ccar-responsa/tfn-no-5753-4-133-140/. Yad, Sanhedrin ch. 4, along with Tur, SA, and Arukh Hashulchan, HM 1, offer useful summaries of the rules and definitions of rabbinic status in ancient times and in our own day.
See B. Gitin 88b, on the coercion of divorce from recalcitrant husbands.
Tur, HM 1.
Today’s judges, who do not possess s’mikhah, are empowered to adjudicate matters which are “frequent” (i.e., normal occurrence in social life, such as torts, contracts, inheritance, etc.) and which involve monetary loss; SA, HM 1:1. Conversion itself is an interesting case. If the Torah requires three judges to preside over giyur, it might be thought that these judges (shoftim) should be ordained according to the biblical standard. This would mean that conversion, in the absence of such judges, could not take place today. Yet conversions manifestly do take place. Therefore, halakhists have developed the theory that the ordained judges of old have also commissioned us to act as their agents in matters of conversion, on the grounds that “we should not bar the door to proselytes”; Tosafot, Y’vamot 46b-47a, s.v. mishpat.
Isserles, YD 242:14, based upon a responsum by R. Yitzchak b. Sheshet (14^th-century Spain/North Africa), Resp. Rivash, no. 271.
We should note that this “willingness” is not an arbitrary matter. In the traditional understanding, a “good” Jewish community certainly wants to live its life in accordance with Torah. While anyone, in theory, can study Torah and apply its provisions to his or her own life, the complexity of the halakhah has led to the long-established minhag to turn to sages and scholars for the reliable interpretation of Jewish law. Rabbis, as these sages and scholars, are therefore indispensable to traditional Jewish life. The point we make here is that no individual “rabbi” can through the power of ordination force any individual or community to abide by his particular interpretations and rulings. Rather, by engaging or recognizing the individual as “their” rabbi, Jews traditionally stipulate their willingness to accept his rulings. Power, in other words, flows from the community to the rabbi and not, as it did in the days of ancient s’mikhah, from the ordaining institution to the rabbi.
See Arukh Hashulchan HM 1:14: no one should preside over weddings, divorces, or chalitzah rituals unless he has received “the customary ordination.”
On file with the CCAR.
See as well TFN, no. 5753.4 (note 17, above), at 137-138: private ordination, which offers a shortcut to s’mikhah which bypasses the rigors and requirements of a seminary curriculum, is surely destructive of our efforts to support the rabbinical schools that meet the standards of educational excellence upon which we insist.

If needed, please consult Abbreviations used in CCAR Responsa.