In the United States the rabbi is a far more personal figure. He is a teacher, speaker and confidant. He is also expected to be somewhat of a social worker, psychologist and counselor. His main task is to care for his flock, which in most cases is limited to his immediate congregation and in certain instances does expand to include the entire Jewish community where he is located.

 

He also has important executive and administrative duties as well as being a fundraiser. This is certainly not the classical job description of rabbis over the past centuries in Europe, the Levant and early American Jewry. While holy men and kabbalists abounded over all of these centuries, those rabbis were not expected to be a dispenser of blessings, an advisor as to business matters or a political guru.

 

His realm of expertise was limited to studying and teaching Torah, writing books, debating halachic issues and being a role model in his community. This type of rabbi in the main did not take hold in American soil. In America the congregational rabbi described earlier in this paragraph came into being and to a great extent still exists today in American Jewish life.

 

It is interesting, if not even distressing, to note that there is a great disconnect between the yeshiva education given to potential rabbis in the United States and the real skills needed when they actually enter the field. This disconnect has caused many personal and communal difficulties and disappointments.

 

In Israel, in most cases, the congregational rabbi as he exists in the United States is absent here. There are neighborhood rabbis, city rabbis, court judge rabbis, chief rabbis, army rabbis, but almost all of them have very little contact with the people or society that they are meant to serve. In Israel the matter is further complicated by the fact that the community that they are meant to serve is not a homogeneous one.

 

The congregational rabbi in the Diaspora may have a diversity of people in his congregation but basically he is serving a particular section of the Jewish society. Here in Israel the rabbi is serving a society that is at one and the same time secular and religious, believing and denying and of a very different social and economic strata.

 

The concept of a congregational rabbi has made some headway here in Israel over the past few years, especially in areas that have absorbed immigrants from English-speaking countries. Nevertheless, the great disconnect between the Israeli rabbinate and the Israeli public is felt in all areas of Israeli life and is a vexing and disturbing issue.

 

In Israel certainly, again with relatively few exceptions, the disconnect between the yeshiva education, the formal exams given for rabbinic ordination and the entire mindset of the educational system with the general society, is glaring and troublesome. Israel needs rabbis desperately but also desperately needs rabbis that can somehow connect to the average Israeli without a demeaning attitude and an always critical eye.

 

In both the United States and Israel the Hasidic rebbe andthe rosh yeshiva haveboth supplanted the roles and authority traditionally ascribed to the rabbi. But these positions have currently expanded so that the rebbe and the rosh yeshiva are not only rabbis but are savants as well. All personal, domestic, social and economic questions are addressed to them for divinely inspired answers.

 

They are all active in politics with all of the baggage that that brings with it. They are somehow to be invested with prophetic powers that can decide life-and-death issues for individuals, institutions and for the State of Israel itself. Over the last few decades this has been shown to be a very slippery slope that bordered on dangerous consequences for many.

 

Great caution should be exercised in appealing to those who proclaim themselves to be all-knowing. Great and wise men should certainly be consulted on issues of importance, and their opinions, if rendered, should be taken into consideration. Nevertheless in the long run of life it is only we that are responsible for our actions and for our behavior and policies.

 

Both rabbis and savants need to be connected to and part of the general society in order to be effective and productive. All of Jewish history bears out this contention. One would hope to see progress in narrowing the disconnects and enhancing the roles of rabbis and savants as well.

 

Shabbat shalom

 

Berel Wein