"To be a teacher in the right sense is to be a learner. I am not a teacher, only a fellow student." (Soren Kierkegaard)
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Archived Articles: Good and Evil RH
Day 1 Sermon - 2011
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A FEW PRE-SHABBAT WORDS FROM RABBI AARON Something Is Wrong in God's House Take a Step Back... On my personal page within the shul website [professional staff>rabbi>personal page], I've put up a few pages related to the Mishkan. The first few pages connect some pictures (the ark, the table, and the menorah) to the biblical text. The next page attempts to view the Holy Place as an abstraction, an idea that lives within the heart of each person. A famous 16th Century poem by Eleazar Azikri ("Bilvavi" is the popular title - The Hebrew words ring the domed ceiling of our small chapel] paints a portrait of sacred devotion: “In my heart I will build a temple for His glory, and in that temple I will place an altar to His splendor.And as an eternal light I will take the flame of Isaac's binding, and as an offering I will offer my only soul.” The Toxic Politics of Sacred Space Below, I've excerpted a very recent article from the Schechter Institue in Israel. The author, Rabbi David Golinkin, was one of my instructors in Israel, around 25 years ago. If you'd like the complete article, let me know. IS THE ENTIRE KOTEL PLAZA REALLY A SYNAGOGUE? Question: Since the arrest of Nofrat Frenkel in November 2009 for wearing a tallitand trying to read the Torah at the Kotel, there has been much discussion of the Women at the Wall and the right of women to wear a talit in the women's section at the Kotel. There has not been enough discussion, however, of a much greater problem: In recent years, the Rabbi of the Kotel has expanded the synagogue section of the Kotel plaza and the Kotel Guard now patrol the entire Kotel plaza. They have posted large signs warning people to dress modestly. They tell people how to dress and what to wear, they tell women and girls not to sing, they separate girls from boys and they tell Christians to remove the crosses from their necks. The result is that non-Orthodox Jews have begun to avoid the Kotel entirely and many military ceremonies have been moved to other locations. Indeed, a recent poll (December 23, 2009) shows that 90% of Israelis want less gender-separation at the Kotel. Therefore, we are faced with the following questions: II) Why is the Ministry of Religion in charge of the entire Kotel plaza? III) What is the halakhic status, as opposed to the legal status, of the Kotel Plaza; is it really a synagogue? IV) How should the State of Israel deal with the fact that the entire Kotel plaza is slowly but surely becoming a Haredi synagogue? Response: I) There was no synagogue at the Kotel until 1948 and men prayed beside women without any mehitzah. This fact was stressed by Professor Shmuel Shilo in his halakhic article about the Women at the Wall in 1997 and by Dr. Doron Bar in his recent book about the Jewish Holy Places in Israel from 1948-1968. Indeed, A.M. Luncz, Y.Y. Yehudah and Mordechai Hacohen have already assembled most of the sources about prayers at the Kotel from 1520 - when the Kotel became a popular Jewish prayer spot - to 1967. They did not deal with our topic directly, but it is clear from the testimony of Luncz and Yehudah who lived in Jerusalem from 1869-1918 and 1863-1941 respectively and from numerous photographs and paintings, that women visited the Kotel on a regular basis, that women frequently made up the majority of worshippers at the Kotel, and that there was no permanent mehitzah next to the Kotel until 1948 when the Kotel and the Old City were captured by the Jordanians. I have found only two photographs of the Kotel which show men and women separated by a mehitzah. One of them is attributed to a Christian book from 1904 and the other, taken from an Arabic source, shows a portable mehitzah between the men and the women. Indeed, the mehitzah at the Kotel on Yom Kippur became a constant bone of contention between the Jews, Muslims and British. This tension reached its climax in 1928-1929. On September 23, 1928, the Jews set up a temporarymehitzah at the Kotel for Yom Kippur. The next morning, it was removed by Kitroach, the Deputy Governor of Jerusalem. On August 15, 1929, on Tisha B'av, the Betar Youth Movement organized a protest demonstration at the Kotel. The Mufti then organized counter-demonstrations at the Kotel and on the Temple Mount and spread the lie that the Jews were desecrating the Muslim holy sites. On August 23, the Arabs began to riot and subsequently murdered 133 Jews and injured 340 in Jerusalem, Hebron, Safed and elsewhere. The British and the League of Nations then sent commissions to Palestine. The latter Commission decided in 1931 to maintain the status quo at the Kotel. The Jews could pray at the Kotel, read from the Torah on Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, the last day of Pesah and Sukkot and on Shavuot and bring in specific items of furniture such as the Torah reading table. They were not allowed to blow the shofar. Thus, ironically, the attempt to erect a mehitzah at the Kotel on Yom Kippur 1928 led indirectly to the Arab pogroms of August 1929. It is clear from the above that from 1840 (and probably earlier) and until 1948 when the Old City was captured by Jordan, the narrow alley in front of the Kotel was a place of individual prayer and study for men and women, but not a synagogue. Men and women prayed as individuals or sat in small groups and frequently the majority of the people praying were women. After 1880, some men began to erect portable mehitzot but Rabbi A.M Luncz viewed this as a big innovation which caused constant tension with the Muslims until World War I. After that, the mehitzah at the Kotel became a causa belli between nationalist Jews, the Mufti and the British. II) Why is the Ministry of Religion in Charge of the Kotel? In his recent book about Jewish holy places in Eretz Yisrael from 1948-1968, Dr. Doron Bar, a Senior Lecturer in Land of Israel Studies at the Schechter Institute, devoted a chapter to the Kotel after the Six Day War. In June 1967, the Kotel was under the jurisdiction of Rabbi Goren and the IDF Chaplains. A few days after the war, bulldozers came and cleared away many houses near the Kotel to form a large plaza. At that time, Prime Minister Levi Eshkol and Defense Minister Moshe Dayan wanted to give the responsibility for all the religious and historical sites in Judea and Samaria including the Kotel to the National Parks Authority. Dr. Zerah Warhaftig, the Minister of Religion, was adamantly opposed and by June 26th, the Kotel was under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Religion. At the same time, the Knesset passed the "Protection of Holy Places Law 5727, 1967" which appointed the Chief Rabbis of Israel to set the rules and regulations of the Kotel. Rabbi Shlomo Goren, the Chief Rabbi of the IDF, officially handed over the Kotel to Zerah Warhaftig on July 3, 1967. Until that date, there was no mehitzah at the newly cleared Kotel Plaza. By July 19, 1967, the Ministry of Religion had erected a mehitzah and the men's section was four times larger than the women's section. This led to a public outcry and Prime Minister Levi Eshkol called the area with a mehitzah pens or prisons. Orthodox Jews and the Ministry of Religion reacted strongly and rejected the claims of those who said that the Kotel should be given to the National Parks Authority. Others said that the Kotel is only a retaining wall of the Temple and therefore a secular, historical remnant. The Ministry of Religion later set up Mishmar Hakotel, the Kotel Guard, in April 1968, whose members wore special uniforms. By November 1967, two meters of earth had been dug up near the Kotel which created a plaza with two levels. The lower level was used for prayer and the upper level was already used for military swearing-in ceremonies by September, 1967. In early 1968, a struggle developed between the Ministry of Religion and the Chief Rabbinate vs. Prof. Benjamin Mazar and the Department of Antiquities who began to excavate the southwest corner of the Kotel. The Chief Rabbinate claimed that the Kotel and the entire area surrounding the Temple Mount are holy and may not be viewed as historical or archaeological sites. In the end, they reached a compromise: Mazar may excavate the southwest corner but not the area of the Kotel plaza. Thus, in June 1967, many thought that the Kotel plaza should be a national park. Zerah Warhaftig won the battle and since then the Kotel has been under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Religion and the Chief Rabbinate. Even so, the 1968 episode regarding the archaeological excavations shows that the power of the latter authorities was not absolute and they were only left in control of the Kotel Plaza itself. III) What is the halakhic status, as opposed to the legal status, of the Kotel Plaza; is it really a synagogue? A passage in the Talmud Yerushalmi seems to indicate that you can take an existing courtyard and dedicate it as a synagogue. On the other hand, the Rambam rules that:
The first half of this law is based on the opinion of the Sages in Megillah 26a, but the second half seems to be the Rambam's own opinion. This law was then codified in in various subsequent law codes of several authors. These two laws teach us that:
Therefore, according to Jewish law, there is a clear halakhic difference between the lower prayer area next to the Kotel which has been used as a synagogue on a daily basis since July 1967 and the much larger upper plaza which is only used for prayer on Shavuot or Tisha B'av when 50,000 to 100,000 people come to the Kotel to pray. In other words, the lower prayer area next to the Kotel is a courtyard which was sanctified as a synagogue, while the large upper plaza is a temporary place of prayer which does not have the sanctity of a synagogue. Indeed, there are two ways of proving that the Chief Rabbinate and other prominent Orthodox rabbis also differentiate between these two areas: 1. Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef, the son of former Sefardic Chief Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, wrote in his Yalkut Yosef in 1990:
In note 11, he explains [citing talmudic sources and the Code of Jewish Law] that it is forbidden to eat and drink near the Kotel - based upon the teaching that it is forbidden to eat and drink in a synagogue. In other words, in the opinion of Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef, the area near the Kotel is a synagogue and it is therefore forbidden to eat and drink there. But "outside the area near the Kotel", i.e. in the large upper plaza, it is permissible to eat and drink because it is not a synagogue. 2. Secondly, it is clear from the actual behavior of the Chief Rabbinate, Rabbi of the Kotel and Kotel Guard from 1967 until just a few years ago that in practice it did differentiate between the lower area near the Kotel which it considered a synagogue and the large upper plaza which it did not: IN THE LOWER PRAYER AREA IN THE UPPER PLAZA It is therefore clear that even if someone claims that the established custom of the Kotel was to pray with a mehitzah - a claim we have disproved in paragraph I above - the large upper plaza is not a synagogue according to Jewish law and according to the practices of the Chief Rabbinate itself for about 35 years after the Six Day War. Therefore, the Chief Rabbinate has no halakhic right to demand certain types of dress or behavior in that area. IV) How should the State of Israel deal with the fact that the entire Kotel plaza is slowly becoming a Haredi synagogue? Thus far we have seen that: II. the Ministry of Religion/Chief Rabbinate was given jurisdiction over the Kotel in June 1967 after a political struggle, but the Antiquities Authority managed to limit that authority to the Kotel Plaza and to exclude the much larger areas to the south and southwest of the Temple Mount; III. according to Jewish law and according to the actual practice of the Chief Rabbinate for decades after 1967, the lower area near the Kotel is a synagogue while the larger upper plaza is not; IV. In light of these facts, I would like to agree with the suggestions made in a recent article by Rabbi Barry Schlesinger, the President of the Rabbinical Assembly of Israel: The lower area near the Kotel will continue to serve as an Orthodox synagogue not because it was before 1948 - it was not - but because it has been one since 1967 and it will be impossible to turn back the clock after 42 years; The upper plaza should be turned over to the National Parks Authority or the City of Jerusalem either by a government decision or by changing the law. Item II above serves as a good precedent for this. The Chief Rabbinate and the Ministry of Religion tried to prevent the Antiquities Authority from excavating the areas south and southwest of the Temple Mount. These areas were then removed from their hegemony and the result was the incredible discoveries of Prof. Mazar and others in the area which is now the Davidson Archaeological Park. The same thing should be done now regarding the upper plaza at the Kotel. It must be turned over to a non-partisan government body before the Rabbi of the Kotel, who is Haredi, turns it into a Haredi synagogue. Robinson's Arch was designated by the government in 1999 as a synagogue/prayer area for Conservative and Reform Jews and for the Women at the Wall. This should now be reaffirmed or passed as a law by the Knesset. The government should also provide Torah scrolls, siddurim and talitot and allow use of the area at all hours of the day without paying an entrance fee after 9:15 am. If this plan is adopted, both Orthodox and non-Orthodox Jews will be able to continue to pray in their respective areas of the Kotel and the IDF and all Jews can continue to hold ceremonies and public events in the upper plaza of the Kotel. In this way the Kotel can become a source of peace which unites the Jewish people as envisioned in our ancient sources. David Golinkin Rubinstein's 2 cents I included this excerpted piece of Jewish legal writing for a few reasons. First, because Rabbi Golinkin offers a reasonable solution to a contentious issue. Second, perhaps more importantly for me - this article understates a terribly sad trend with regard to Holy Places and the self-appointed "guardians" of those spaces. When the Kotel Guard begins to resemble the Iranian Basiji, the moderate American Jews [and others] will reconsider their spiritual ties with Israel. We don't like images of Mullahs (or politically appointed rabbis) enforcing their ideas upon the the masses - certainly not in Israel. When ritual enforces take over a space that does not belong to them, it is very hard to envision God's Presence visiting us as we worship in that place. Isaiah also spoke about God's House being a house of prayer for all nations. When Jewish women praying in a non-Orthodox fashion are arrested essentially for refusing to go to the back of the bus, it is shameful for us to look the other way as one small group of Jews decides who prays in which area, what clothing they wear, and what religious articles they may wear. The current Israeli political reality that describes the administration of Jewish Holy Places - should give us pause. God's Presence flees from a place of repression. Shabbat Shalom,
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