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Members of the Rabbinical Council of America adopted the resolution during their three-day conference that began Sunday in Scarsdale, N.Y.
For more information on this subject, and on the history of ordination of women as rabbis, see Women Who Would Be Rabbis by Pamela S. Nadell (Beacon Press: 1998)
Regina Jonas was the first woman ever to be ordained as a (reform) rabbi - in 1935.
Avakesh comments: Basically this is a NO. However, RCA did not say that they will expel members who ordain women. The next step is up to Rabbi Weiss.
For those who celebrate Israel Independence day, I post a summary for a brief shiur which I once gave on the topic of the mitzvah to settle Erets Yisroel(E”Y)
Ramban in his commentary to the Rambam's "Sefer Hamitzvot" (Positive Commandment #4) notes the following.
"That we are commanded to take possession of the Land which the Almighty, Blessed Be He, gave to our forefathers, to Avraham, to Yitzhak, and to Yaacov; and not to abandon it to other nations, or to leave it desolate, as He said to them, You shall dispossess the inhabitants of the Land and dwell in it, for I have given the Land to you to posses it, (Numbers, 33:53) and he said, further, To Inherit the Land which I swore to your forefathers, (to give them,) behold, we are commanded with the conquest of the land in every generation."
What is the nature of the mitzvah?
1.Avnei Nezer – closeness to Hashem
2.Tosafos Gittin 2a (see Sotah 14a) – kedushas haaretz depends on terumos and maasros but Ritvo ibid disagrees
According to the view that EY, it follows that if the mitzvos cannot be preformed becasue of the improverisehd state of the Land, there is no mitsva to settle it(R. Chaim Cohen Tos. Kesuvos 110)
Rambam does not count this mitzva. Many answers have been offered.
1.Megillas Esther – it is time limited and a type of a mitsva which Rambam in the shorashim ot Sefer Hamitsvos explicilty excludes from the count of 613. This is becasue it only applied at times of Moshe and Yehoshua
2.Avnei Nezer – it is a not a mitsva in itself but only a preparation, a heksher to keeping mitzvos
Sources that indicate that it is not a mitsva to settle in EY:
Kesuvos 111 - R. Zeira wanted to go to Eretz Yisrael, so he was avoiding Rav Yehudah (his Rebbi).
1. (Rav Yehudah): Anyone who goes from Bavel to Eretz Yisrael transgresses an Aseh - "They will be brought to Bavel, and there they will be until I redeem them".
(b) R. Zeira himself explains that the verse discusses the Kelim of the Mikdash.
(c) Rav Yehudah holds that another verse forbids people to return - "I put an oath upon you, daughters of Yerushalayim, with deer or wild goats".
(d) R. Zeira holds that this oath forbids Yisrael to return together, by force.
Yirmiah 29:4
This is what the LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, says to all those I carried into exile from
The Torah in parshas Shemini lists two kosher signs. One is hard, the hoof; the other is soft, the digestive organs (chewing the cud). This teaches us that a "kosher" person must know when to be hard and unyielding and when to be soft and forgiving. One who reverses these signs and is hard when he should be soft or soft when he must be hard, is not a kosher animal.
This reminded me of a contradiction:
...R. Elazar immediately entered [the study hall] and taught: "A person should always be soft like a reed and not hard like a cedar." (Ta'anit 20a-20b)
but...
Talmid-Chacham should be hard like iron that breaks up the rock (Taanis 4a).
Don't these two statements contradict?
Isn't this a contradiction?
Here is the solution:
Pirke D'Rabbi Eliezer (CH.1):
Horkonus, the father of Eliezer, was a respected land owner. He had several fields that needed to be plowed. Some of the land was soft earth and some was hard. It is related that Horkonus came out and saw his son Eliezer crying. He assumed that it was because he had been given the task of plowing in the hard section of his father's land.
Horkonus told him to plow in the soft fields instead. When he returned he saw that Eliezer was again crying. "Are you crying because I gave you the easy land to plow?" he asked his son.
"No, that is not the reason" was the reply.
"Then why do you cry?"
"I desire to learn Torah." ...
Here is the explanation:
Torah knowledge enables one to know when to be hard and when to be soft!
R. Eliezer realized that he could not be even a kosher person without learning. He did not know when to plow the soft and when to plow the hard.
...Consider three things and you will not come to sin: Know what is above you: an eye that sees and an ear that hears, and all your deeds are recorded in the Book."
As we discussed, this chapter begins to focus on the personal relationship to Hashem. Personal relationships with others are established primarily through seeing hearing and remembering and that is what the mishna describes.
The commentators, Rabbeinu Yonah and Meiri, for example, are troubled by the ornate way in which the mishna describes the basic dogma of G-d's omniscience. Would it not be sufficient to simply remind us that G-d knows and remembers everything we do? Why phrase it in such a complicated manner? Why bring in the metaphor of the eye and ear that smacks of "hagshama" (ascription of pysicality, something that troubles Rabbeinu Yonah)? Why bring forth the simile of both eye and ear; isn't one of the two enough to get the point across? What is it about "the book" that induces the mishna to use it over saying something like what we enunciate in Unsane Tokef, "remembers all things that are forgotten".
Compare to Akavia ben Mehalalel's formulation in the first mishna of the third chapter.
"Akavia ben (son of) Mehalalel said, consider three things and you will not come to sin. Know from where you have come, to where you are heading, and before Whom you will give justification and accounting. From where have you come: from a putrid drop (of semen); to where are you heading: to a place of dirt, worms and maggots; and before Whom will you give justification and accounting: before the King of kings, the Holy One blessed be He."
The comparison between the two statements has much to teach us.
1.Our mishna does not mention accounting or punishment. It does not unpack or explain its metaphors, as Akavaia ben Mehalalelel does. It does not explain how the knowledge about the eye, ear and book will keep us from sin.
2.It does not mention G-d at all! In fact, it substitutes "the book" for G-d. What is this book? Is it G-d's book or our own book?
3.What is the difference between "the eye that sees" and "the ear that hears".
I will start with a reinterpretation of the mishna that I believe is compelling but to my knowledge has never been proposed before.
What Rebbi teaches us is that the consideration of three facts about perception and consciousness will keep us from coming to sin. When we think about what is means to see, to hear and remember, when we realize that perception and memory are things of the mind and spirit and not an automatic translation of "what is there" into our brains, we will break the dominion of the body and its impulses over the soul and not automatically be drawn to its dictates, and we "will not come to sin". Rebbi is saying: "Elevate yourself above thyself, know what is above your - your very eye, your hearing and your memory demonstrate that the mind is above the body and you will not come to sin". He also intimates that our actions influence that kind of people we are going to be, sort of like Oscar Wild's book "Picture of Dorian Grey", in which every action is etched on our being and makes us the kind of person that through our actions we will become.
Contemporary psychology taught us much about perception. Above all, we now know that what we see is not what is "out there" but a representation of reality that our minds construct out of sense impulses. This is now the predominant view, called empiricism. The realization that the function of seeing, hearing and writing down a unified picture is above the self, that it is a property of the mind which is above the ego, that we live in the world of mental constructs and not bodily perceptions, is liberating, for it elevates the self above physicality into the realm that "is above of you".
So what does eye and ear represent?
Greek civilization was above all visual. Its gods were concrete and material and so was its conceptual language. Its writers, such as Homer, wrote in long, detail laden paragraphs in order to describe a scene that the readers could visualize, as if it was taking place in front of their very eyes. Homer is famous for the mass of detail and leisurely development of his scenes, dress and deportment of characters, their physical surroundings, their movements and behavior. On the other hand, he is poor in describing their inner states. A picture may be worth a thousand words for an image with all of its attendant detail can be grasped in one glance. On the other hand, a picture is static; it can never be anything more than it is at the moment that it has been grasped. It does not allow for development or progression, only for replacement by another picture. Not so hearing. Although it transmits information but one syllable at a time, speech is dynamic and flexible. Every word and every saying must be actively perceived, related and reconciled with the words, syllables, and units of information that came before and that are yet to come. It is for this reason that Scripture is discontinuous and filled with gaps and apparent contradictions that must be filled in and reconciled by the Oral Tradition. The Jews were above all a nation devoted to hearing. Their Law was spoken and heard at Sinai; beyond this, the world itself came into being in an act of Divine speech. A Jew is not a passive receiver but an active participant in the act of revelation and Revelation and he is constantly in the process of perception and interpretation.
In kabbalistic writings, seeing is associated with Chochma and hearing with Bina. When one sees, he receives the entire picture in a flush. Chochma is open, the stage before verbalizing and describing, the flash of knowing, of perception, the stage before, the preinterpreted kernel of an idea. When hears, he needs to unravel and join what he just heard and join it to what he is hearing now, and then interpret and integrate it. Bina is understanding.
On the other hand, vision is easily blocked by even a flimsy barrier. Not so hearing. It takes an enclosure to block sound. The eys can only see what is nearby. The ear can hear from a great distance.
Vision is individualistic and personal. Hearing is communal and hemmed in by tradition and past experiences.
R. Shlomo Yosef Zevin delivered a speech in honor of the publication of Kol Hanevuah and it is printed in the back of this wonderful work by the Nazir, R. Dovid Cohen. R. Zevin explains our mishna in this fashion. He says that vision ruled in the time of the First Temple, the period of prophecy and Ruach Hakodesh. During the second Temple period, prophecy ceased and hearing took tis place, "they used Bas Kol". After the destruction of the Second Temple, "all that we must do is now written in books", the Talmud, the Mishna, the Shulchan Aruch.
An individual cannot elevate himself except by raising his perceptions above the body into the realm of the spiritual. Rebbi advises us to know that our perceptions, our hearing, our seeing, our remembering are "above" us; they are non-physical functions. Once you know, truly know that, the body has ceased to exert its stranglehold over you and the allure of touch and taste has ceased its hold in favor of "seeing" and "hearing".
Bibliography on whether Gentiles have a portion in the world-to-come
Korn GENTILES, THE WORLD TO COME, AND JUDAISM: THE ODYSSEY OF A RABBINIC TEXT
Modern Judaism.1994; 14: 265-287
Michel S. Nehorai, “Righteous Gentiles have a portion in the World-to-Come, Tarbitz 61 (1992), pp.465-487
Steven S. Schwarzschild, "Do Noachites have to Believe in Revelation?" JQR, 57,.
4 (April, 1962)
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