The RCA Convention
Below are two takes on the RCA Convention from Morethodoxy.
Rabbi Yosef Kanefsky (full post here):
A couple of important things did actually happen. Many great rabbis worked very very hard to keep the “big tent” intact, to preserve a reasonable amount of unity within the everybody-except-Chovevai, non-Haredi Orthodox rabbinate. And to their great credit, they succeeded. First, by defeating the amendments that (a) would have rendered the sin of ordaining women a capital crime (in organizational terms), and (b) would have declared the sin of belonging to a group that thinks about women’s leadership roles in an expansive way to be an automatic disqualification for RCA leadership. And second, by crafting a resolution that one the one hand applauded and encouraged progress in women’s higher Jewish education and communal involvement, and on the other hand drawing a red line at women’s ordination. I can only imagine the number of hours, and the dedication of mental energy that had to have been invested in drafting a document that would satisfactory to so many members. The preservation of organizational unity was an admirable feat, to be congratulated.
But on the day after (who knows? Maybe it’s my jet lag?), I have an overriding queasy feeling. It feels to me that by drawing such a bright red line, by trying to slam the door shut on the ordination question not just for today, but forever, the RCA has placed itself on the wrong side of history, just as Rav Kook did when he opposed suffrage for women in the 1920’s. Rav Kook’s arguments then were almost identical to the RCA’s arguments today (e.g. time-honored tradition, appropriate gender roles, the surrender to value systems that are alien to Torah) But Rav Kook’s world was moving forward, and it was, in retrospect, a time to get aboard the train, not a time to lie down in front of it. It feels to me that the RCA has made the same miscalculation. Tellingly, the RCA resolution on women’s roles contained no specific forward-looking vision for Orthodox women’s leadership. Only the delineation of its limits. It wasn’t about playing to win, rather about playing to not lose.
Rabbi Asher Lopatin from an interview (full post here):
SW: Do you indeed think the resolution is not binding upon members as halacha?
RAL: Yes. I don’t even know what that means: Is the RCA a body that can “paskin” – rule – a halacha? In fact, a controversial halachic committee of the RCA was recently disbanded. The RCA is not a Beit Din nor a Halachic authority. It is a rabbinic organization devoted to furthering Torah.
SW: If the RCA had represented the resolution as binding halacha at the convention, would you have opposed the resolution?
RAL: I would have voted against it and argued against it if it would have said that ordaining a women to be a rabbi was halachically prohibited. I follow the authorities who are leaders in the RCA itself who argue that it is not halachically prohibited.
SW: What are your thoughts on the RCA’s representation to reporters of the resolution as binding halacha?
RAL: Everyone is trying to do the right thing and keep a great organization and a great group of Orthodox rabbis united. I support that. I also think that every member of the RCA, and perhaps anyone reading the resolution, has a right to interpret it as they see fit. Nechama Leibowitz argued that it might be impossible to say there is one “pshat” of anything. Certainly, there probably is not one “p’shat” of this resolution. Everyone interpreting it, though, should recognize that in explaining it they are giving only their read of it, and they have to recognize that there might be other legitimate interpretations. It was clear at the meeting that that was exactly the way the document was written – to allow for a multitude of interpretations.