Halakhic Thought

[debka_notion]

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.

Comments

[gimmelgirl.livejournal.com]

Yes, thank you for catching my extraneous transliterated dagesh. I tend to be a bit sloppy on these fora.

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.

[shirei-shibolim.livejournal.com]

I tend to be a bit sloppy on these fora.

You mean forums. Or better, forumses.

[gimmelgirl.livejournal.com]

No, I meant "fora," as I was likening the communities of livejournal to the ancient Roman public squares or marketplaces used for judicial and other business.

Or better, forumopotomi.

[shirei-shibolim.livejournal.com]

Yes, I caught that.

You know, technically forum just means "hole in the ground," which nicely sums up some LJ communities I know of.

[hotshot2000.livejournal.com]

True, you're not distinguishing between people in terms of the aliyot, but you're doing something much worse (according to the pure egalitarian principle you articulated earlier in the thread), which is distinguishing between people in reality. I would assume the former is supposed to be symbolic of the actualization of this principle in society in general. And my kashya stands -- why should the egalitarian principle be violated for "earned honorifics" and not for every person's unique accomplishments?

[gimmelgirl.livejournal.com]

I disagree with your kashya - I think that calling someone "my teacher" or "my rabbi," (last I checked we don't call people up as "doctor") - does highlight his or her individual accomplishments, unlike the kahuna which is a (doubtful) indication of someone's birth.

[hotshot2000.livejournal.com]

Unless the person is a communal leader, they are called up as haRav, which just the rabbinic equivalent of Dr., and just as doubtful an indicator of their merit as ha-kohen is of their lineage.* I'm not so clear on why putting something particularistic in front of the name is so different than putting something particularistic in back of the name, given that both violate the principle of not distinguishing between people that's under discussion.

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.)

[debka-notion.livejournal.com]

What makes someone a communal leader though? At least "my teacher" qualifies as a direct-judgement call, so it's relational rather than a matter of necessary achievement or not, if the gabbay is allowed to choose when to use the title or not... (Rather like when I heard someone call up his granddaughter as nekhdati, or some such.) But I'd guess that the gabbay isn't so allowed.

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...