Women's Ordination: The Price of Choosing Rambam?

The headline isn't clickbait; hear me out, please, on what may be entirely wrong... but I think it's not.

Going back to biblical times, the attitude of Judaism toward foreign ideologies was uniform and simple: Keep them out. It begins with Avraham and the idolatries of Aram and Canaan, it continues when Yaakov's family requests a residence away from that of the Egyptians, and it certainly carries through into the ideology of the Jews who emerge from the wilderness to enter Canaan. Ditto in the time of the prophets, for whom many examples can be brought; the traditional Jewish ideology (whether practiced by all Jews or not) was to exclude foreign ideologies.

The same phenomenon appears in post-biblical times. Consider the reactions to Greek thought in the times of the Chashmonaim, and then the Talmud. Again, some might note that not all Jews were hostile to Greek ideas, and that there is even some respect in certain Talmudic sources for the Greek language. Nonetheless, the victors of that era in Jewish history are the ones who deny Greek culture any place in the life of the Jew.

The theme persists through early Christianity, as well as the rabbinic response to the Sadducees. Where things get interesting is with Islam, as well as the acceptance of certain Greek ideas by Arab thinkers. For the first time, we find serious Jewish thinkers, respected links in our masorah (tradition), defining Judaism in ways that include, rather than reject, apparently foreign ideologies. Rav Saadia Gaon, then Rambam, demonstrate harmonies between Judaism and Arabic/Greek thought.

Neither Rav Saadia Gaon, nor Rambam, accept Arabic/Greek philosophy wholesale, and they are clear about their disagreements. Nonetheless, their approach differs starkly from Rabbi Yehudah haLevi's outright rejection of foreign material. [Note, added in response to Avi's comment: Rabbi Yehudah haLevi does not reject foreign culture - his poetry makes that clear. However, he rejects foreign ideology.]

Fast-forward to the Jewish reaction to the Enlightenment, from the 18th century forward. Some Jewish thinkers rejected Enlightenment ideas entirely, but others - Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch most clearly - explained Judaism in a way that did not write out foreign ideas, which had the effect of leaving the door open for Jewish students of the Enlightenment to make their peace with Judaism. I am not suggesting that they were intellectually dishonest in the name of outreach; I believe that their vision of Judaism was really that broad.

And so we move into our own day, and the debate continues. Chassidim and some of the yeshivish continue the approach of Rabbi Yehudah haLevi, drawing a line between Us and Them. But Yeshiva University argues that Them can still join Us, without surrendering their Them-ish values. And in the world of kiruv, Chabad, Aish and NCSY all hold out that promise to newcomers: There is a place in Judaism for the ideas you bring to the table. Devorah is a feminist! Avraham challenges G-d! The Torah militates on behalf of the needy and downtrodden, and inveighs against unbridled capitalism! Torah can be harmonized not only with science, but with every altruistic ism you can name, from rationalism to egalitarianism to athleticism to universalism.

Which brings me back to the heading of this post. Reading the Times of Israel's piece on women's ordination, and the interviews with various proponents, it dawned on me that this truly is the logical result of choosing the approach of Rav Saadia Gaon and Rambam.

Jewish communities that have kept up the walls will never see this, for all of their problems and failings, because the values that set the table for it are verboten in their camp. But for the rest of us, well, we can't tell people that their egalitarian instincts have a place in Torah, and not expect them to take us at our word.

To be clear: Even though I believe that some of the move for women's ordination is terribly misguided, I am not promoting an exclusion of the modern isms which I mentioned above. I do believe that quite a bit that is modern can be compatible with Torah, and that one can even find their roots, to some extent, in Torah. Intellectual honest demands that acknowledgement.

My point is only to say that when those who are upset about women's ordination try to figure out where to point their disapproving finger, they might consider whether a community that embraced the approach of Rav Saadia Gaon and Rambam, over Rabbi Yehudah haLevi, and that told young men and women that the ideals of the greater world could be reconciled with Torah, didn't bring this upon itself.