debka_notion (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
debka_notion) wrote2006-12-19 08:01 pm
debka_notion) wrote2006-12-19 08:01 pm
Halakhic Thought
So the egal minyan at JTS does not give the first and second aliyot to a kohen and levi, respectively. However today the person to whom they gave the first aliyah was a kohen. And they went on about their usual progression, so the next person was not a levi, nor did they give the second aliyah to the same person. And I understand not giving out aliyot based on that status issue, and since it was established for the sake of peace, I wouldn't complain about a minyan that does not hold by it for the sake of peace. But once you do call a kohen for the aliyah- I do wonder what the best choice of action would have been. On the other hand, they had handed out the aliyot in advance, and I know that once you call someone, you don't replace them, even if you should have called someone else- so maybe handing out the aliyot has some of the same status. It's just an interesting thing to think about.
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"not distinguishing between anyone for any reason"
If that's the goal, why do seminary profs get called up with honorifics?
P.S. Surely you mean Ploni Ben Ploni HaKohein uflonit :-)
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I think it's to avoid the grammatical confusions that arise when one has both male and female olim. Aliyyot do not change gender.
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"Grammar ignorami! I mean, say what you like about the tenets of radical egalitarianism, Dude, at least it's an ethos!"
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I can't say for sure that that's the reason. It strikes me as the most logical one, but what makes sense to me isn't always what makes sense to other people.
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The think with TBL is the first time you see it, it's not like a "wow" hilarious movie. It's more subtle than that, and it takes time to grow on you, like a fungus. Or something.
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People seem to have no trouble with earned distinctions, especially when all they provide is a title (although lord knows that when the folks at the shul at home tacked on herr doktor before and after the title of rav for the rabbi there right after he got his honorary doctorate for 25 years in the pulpit in addition to his earned doctorate, I started getting squirmy). I'm not fond of the "no distinctions for any reason" theory, myself- it just doesn't quite make sense to me...
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"People seem to have no trouble with earned distinctions"
My kashya (not to you, but to the "earned distinctions" people) is to ask: "Who says?" Some people have doctorates that aren't worth the paper they're written on, and we all know the stories about plumbers and street sweepers in 1950s Yerushalayim who knew all of Sha"s by heart.
"I'm not fond of the "no distinctions for any reason" theory, myself- it just doesn't quite make sense to me"
You know I'm with you on this one -- it might be, maybe, a hilkhata de-meshihata, but in the real world I live in it does not correspond either to my lived experience nor to what I consider ideally achievable against my current backdrop. In fact, I think it tends to be quite destructive, allowing us to ignore the very real prejudices we harbor. Plus, it seems to fly in the face of the M. Sanhedrin 4:5 about the utter uniqueness of every human being -- tzelem elokim there doesn't mean that we're all the same, but rather that we're all profoundly unique, and I for one would rather struggle to find everyone's uniqueness (and to preserve rituals one effect of which is to remind us that one's ancestry has profound effects on who one is and one's "role" in society) than to try to lump them all together, effectively obliterating that uniqueness.
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"hilkhata de-meshihata"- this is a new term for me. Define/translate, perhaps?
For me the goal is to recognize uniqueness and at the same time to offer a fairly level playing field for those who want it. And I don't see how specifically not being able to get a particular aliyah really makes a difference in someone's feeling of religious empowerment. And it's traditional, and it does serve a function of identification and a reason to remember our roots- hence I see no reason why giving out a kohen and levi aliyah is such a problem. On the other hand- well, clearly I feel differently about gender-egalitarianism, but perhaps if I hadn't grown up in an egalitarian setting I might feel differently. As it is- in Orthodox contexts, it isn't the seperate seating that I mind, it's not having a Use.
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My point is to say that we often go by presumptions about people without really knowing them and whether they deserve it, and this undermines the sort of true egalitarianism that some people advocate.
Hilkhata de-meshihata = halakha shel ha-mashiah, i.e., a law that will only be enacted in Messianic times.
And your last paragraph, well, right on!
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If someone were to get grumpy about such stuff while I was gabbaying, I'd probably just offer them hagbah, which I'm told gives one much more acquired merit, and would solve the problem of finding someone to do hagbah all at once.
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Litvaks give their rebbe the 3rd aliyah and hasidim give their rebbe the 6th. When I was at the CY, I gave R. Roth the 3rd aliyah and R. Schindler the 6th. I don't think anyone got it, perhaps including themselves ;-)
It's Gelilah.
"Of the ten people who form a minyan to read in the Torah, the one who rolls up the scroll gains more merit than all the rest put together."
Re: It's Gelilah.
Re: It's Gelilah.
Re: It's Gelilah.
Re: It's Gelilah.
Re: It's Gelilah.
Re: It's Gelilah.
Re: It's Gelilah.
Re: It's Gelilah.
Re: It's Gelilah.
Re: It's Gelilah.
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That's not always true. Some Lubovitchers give their rebbe the third. :)
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Ba-dum-cha, thank you David Berger!
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'Zebediah! You wouldn't!' (I was horrififed)
'But I did, Deety. To prove that degrees per se are worthless. Often they are honorifics of true scientists or learned scholars or inspired teachers. Much more frequently they are false faces for overeducated jackasses.'
...
"Grandpa Zach was as contankerous an old coot as you'll ever meet. hated government, hated lawyers, hated civil servants, hated preachers, hated automobiles, public schools and telephones, was comtemptuous of most editors, most writers, most professors, ost of almost anthing. But he overtipped waitresses and porters and would go out of his way to avoid stepping on an insect.
Grandpa had three doctorates: biochemistry, medicine and law- and he regarded anyone who couldn't read Latin, greek, Hebrew, French and German as illiterate."
-Robert Heinlein, Number of the Beast p. 79 (in my copy)
Just felt so relevant I wanted to tack it on here.
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The calling formula is as it is indicated in the "Yad LaTorah" rabbis manual, and as Rabbi Joel Roth instructed us. No idea why.
Honorifics that are earned stay. You don't get a "better" aliyah because you're moreinu harav, but you still get to be moreinu harav, so in that sense, we're still not distinguishing between people.
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You mean forums. Or better, forumses.
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Or better, forumopotomi.
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You know, technically forum just means "hole in the ground," which nicely sums up some LJ communities I know of.
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Honoring a communal leader by calling them up as "moreinu ve-rabbeinu" is emminently reasonable as long as it's done regardless of title (and I'm pretty sure the Ortho-egal minyan at Pardes called up our female teachers w/o semikha as moreinu, and perhaps rabbeinu), but once you've done that, why not have a special aliyah set aside for them as well?
*(And to some degree, it matters much less to me whether they actually go back to Aharon ha-Kohen than that we can maintain a plausible enough local family story that then ties into the greater story of the Jewish people -- i.e., we should have a statistically reasonable number of kohanim and levi'im who can prove their ancestry for a few generations to create plausibility.)
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And in a shul that duchens, it is a mark of something they do for the community, no? So if one's community were to do both, even though that opens another can of worms...