Crossing the Line

The Open Orthodox movement originally presented itself as a more liberal version of Modern Orthodoxy. But with time, it openly embraced a clear departure from halachah and mesorah, promoting ideas and practices that cannot be called Orthodox.
Last week, the Rabbinical Council of America targeted a central pillar of Open Orthodoxy with a resolution prohibiting female clergy, and the Moetzes Gedolei HaTorah of Agudath Israel of America, went even further, placing the schismatic movement beyond the pale of Torah Judaism and denying the legitimacy of Open Orthodox-ordained rabbis. We met with three prominent members of the rabbinate to discuss these recent events and their implications for the Orthodox community.
For several years now, individuals and institutions affiliated with a movement known informally as Open Orthodoxy have roiled the American Orthodox Jewish community by adopting positions and practices that range from nontraditional, but still within Orthodox bounds, to openly heretical. In the last year, however, a steady stream of statements and actions by the movement’s leaders seem to reflect a decision to make a complete break with Orthodoxy.
Teachers and students at the movement’s rabbinical school, Yeshivat Chovevei Torah (YCT) and other Open Orthodox figures have publicly denied the Divinity of part or all of the Torah, disparaged the Avos, and rejected the authority of Chazal. Movement leaders have spoken out in favor of same-gender relationships, engaged in joint services with non-Orthodox and non-Jewish congregations, and innovated the “partnership minyan,” where men and women share equal roles in the prayer service. Full-fledged rabbinic roles for women have become a movement fixture.
This past week, the Moetzes Gedolei HaTorah of America issued a statement declaring Open Orthodoxy a schismatic movement that no longer merits the title Orthodox and whose clergy cannot lay claim to rabbinic authority. Also last week, the Rabbinical Council of America (RCA) voted to prohibit its members from hiring women for any sort of rabbinic position or conferring ordination on women, a move clearly aimed at Open Orthodoxy.
With these steps bringing the confrontation between Open Orthodoxy and the mainstream Orthodox community to a head, Mishpacha sat down with three prominent figures in the rabbinic world to discuss what lies in store for Open Orthodoxy — and the implications of the movement for the American Orthodox community.
Rabbi Avrohom Gordimer is a rabbinic coordinator, group leader, and the chairman of the Dairy Committee at OU Kosher. He is also a member of the Executive Committee of the Rabbinical Council of America (RCA) and a member of the New York Bar. The opinions expressed here are his own.
Rabbi Steven Pruzansky is the spiritual leader of Congregation Bnai Yeshurun, Teaneck, New Jersey’s largest shul, and the author most recently of Tzadka Mimeni: The Jewish Ethic of Personal Responsibility.
Rabbi Yoel Schonfeld, a musmach of Lakewood Rosh Yeshivah Rav Shneur Kotler, is the rabbi of the Young Israel of Kew Gardens Hills. He has been a kashrus administrator at the OU for over 30 years and is a former officer of the RCA.
WHY DOES THE OPEN ORTHODOX MOVEMENT INSIST ON USING THE TERM “ORTHODOX” DESPITE PROFESSING BELIEFS AND ENGAGING IN PRACTICES THAT CLEARLY ARE NOT ORTHODOX?
Rabbi SP: I think the movement’s title comes from the fact that the founders were Orthodox, and almost all of them were musmachim of RIETS. So they just saw themselves within the framework of Orthodoxy.
But the term Orthodox is also a marketing issue. If they stop calling themselves that, it’s easy for people to draw a line and say, “Well, they’re not Orthodox; I don’t want that, I want to be Orthodox.” Once they call themselves non-Orthodox, they would lose the cachet, because people want to be Orthodox. But there’s only so much Orthodoxy can tolerate; after all, “Orthodox” means “correct belief.” Once you start diluting those beliefs, it’s no longer Orthodox.
They’re not going to change their name for the same reason that they’ve kept the mechitzah. Although one of the movement’s major imperatives is feminism and there’s nothing that sticks in the craw of feminists more than the mechitzah, the Open Orthodox retain some sort of mechitzah in every shul. Why? Because that’s a branding issue. Already in the late 1950s, early 1960s, it was established — if you have a mechitzah, you’re Orthodox, if you don’t, you’re not Orthodox. So to take away the mechitzah, notwithstanding the desire they would have to do that, would just brand them as non-Orthodox and that’s why they can’t do that.
I think the adjective “Open” is really problematic because it implies everyone else is closed. But I don’t see myself as “closed Orthodox.” On the contrary, to say that you are open and others are closed is itself divisive.
We need truth in advertising, and you cannot advertise something as Orthodox in any sense when both the hashkafah and the implementation of the hashkafah are not Orthodox. I think I was the one who, three or four years ago, coined the label for this movement as “neo-Conservative,” because they are actually recreating the nascent Conservative movement of over a century ago.
The similarities are actually quite eerie. Many of the early JTS graduates and members of the early Conservative movement were not only Orthodox, many of them had learned in yeshivos in Europe like Slabodka and Lomza. They came to America, and they began to absorb the different values of Western culture that ultimately impinged on the way they understood Yahadus.
I see the exact same thing happening with this movement. One of the things that catalyzes the movement is the introduction of foreign, Western doctrines into the Torah milieu and the sense that somehow the Torah has to accommodate those views even if it means tampering with fundamental ideas and practices of Yahadus. They’re making the same mistakes as the Conservatives did, making the Torah a tool to further a secular agenda. They think they’ll have a different outcome, but of course, they won’t.
WHAT IS THE APPEAL OF OPEN ORTHODOXY TO THE AVERAGE MODERN ORTHODOX JEW?
Rabbi Gordimer: A defining aspect of Orthodoxy is deference to Torah authority, and that doesn’t exist in Open Orthodoxy. They’ll have a 25-year-old who culls sources from the Bar-Ilan database and, based on that, puts together a whole new approach to geirus, which they then actually implement in practice, regardless of how things have been done since time immemorial and what the Torah greats of today say. That runs counter to everything Orthodoxy stands for.
Rabbi Pruzansky: But that’s the issue: From where are they going to derive a deference to authority when the whole Western culture today militates against the acceptance of authority? You’re saying one of the catalysts of the movement should be undone, but if you remove that, the whole movement falls because it’s premised on the fact that there’s no higher authority.
There’s always an attraction, of course, to a religious system in which there’s no authority figure and the laity rule and whatever you want to do you can do, ish kol hayashar b’einav ya’aseh. When you have flexible psak, you’re going to have a much happier laity, because anything goes and if it doesn’t, we’ll find a way to make it go.
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