Partnership Prayer and the Essence of Orthodoxy

Partnership Prayer and the Essence of Orthodoxy

By: Rabbi Alan J. Yuter

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Partnership prayer groups aim to maximize women’s participation in communal prayer to what its community takes to be Halakhah’s red lines.  Mustering every technical legal loophole that can be found, women act as cantors for Qabbalat Shabbat, they serve as Torah readers, they receive aliyyot to the Torah, and communal prayer begins with the quorum of ten men and ten women.  While taking their nod and example from the liberal, egalitarian movements, these semi-egalitarian communities chose to locate themselves within “Orthodoxy,” or Traditional Jewish law.

I. The Hardline Mainstream Opposition to Partnership prayer

At http://torahmusings.com/2013/01/partnership-minyanim/ (full article at https://www.torahmusings.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/partnership-minyanim.pdf), Rabbi Barry Freundel, an unusually energetic, urbane, and learned modern Orthodox rabbi before he fell from grace in scandal, strongly opposed Partnership prayer. The positions he held never deviated from the mainstream modern institutional Orthodox ritual consensus, but he positioned himself as an enlightened spokesman for that consensus.

Women have been forbidden in Ashkenazi Orthodoxy, which R. Freundel takes to be a religiously binding category called “Tradition,” to participate in many public rituals, like slaughtering animals. In popular practice, this social “Tradition” is allowed to override the Oral Torah canonical Tradition, which explicitly permits women to slaughter animals [mHullin 1:1].  Jewish law requires that important women recline at the seder, but by usage this rite is barely tolerated by R. Isserles [OH 472:4]. Based upon a reform of Rabi’a, a leading Tosafist decisor who believes that post-Talmudic usage is authorized to override Talmudic norms, and anticipating the legal “method” of Conservative Judaism, R. Isserles argues that since we do not usually recline when we eat in Western culture, women—but, curiously, not men—are exempt from the requirement to recline at the seder.

However, one would think that Rabi’a is not empowered to override rabbinic rules any more than are contemporary rabbis. If no one need recline at the seder, then this ruling would apply equally to women.  Note well that this “Tradition,” i.e. Rabi’a’s reform, is invoked to limit women’s ritual activity.

By not requiring women to perform the invitation to say the after-meal blessing, and by forbidding a women’s reading of the Scroll of Esther, some within the Orthodox community, in the name of social “Tradition,” ignore the Halakhic Tradition.  It is one matter to forbid women to observe what is permissible; it is quite another to invent a Talmudically unattested—and therefore illegitimate—blessing, “on hearing” rather than “on reading” the Esther Scroll. By being “accepted” by the community of the committed, these reforms become Street Culture Orthodoxy. While R. Freundel’s claims are referenced as if they are Halakhah, the attentive reader realizes that for Freundel, Street Culture Orthodoxy carries the valence of a canonical culture.  Violating this iteration of “Tradition” threatens, at least for its adherents, Orthodox Judaism’s living, sacred essence.  Ironically, what is presented as official religion Orthodox doctrine, when unpackaged, is in reality a patriarchal culture that adopted a Reconstructionist mindset; God’s will is revealed in the communal Orthodox consensus, but not in a plain sense understanding of the Oral Torah canon.

Since this Orthodox Street Culture is called “tradition,” it is reified by association into virtual canonicity and is not subject to review. Accordingly, we are reminded that “the custom of Israel is Torah” in Medieval Ashkenaz. But according to official religion Orthodoxy, Torah is “the word of the Lord” [Isaiah 2:3], not the conventions of culture. As a consequence, commandment benedictions may not be recited before the performance of any act that has not reached the legal threshold of formal Torah or Rabbinic commandment, indicating that authentic Orthodox Judaism is based upon public rules and not private social or elite religion tastes, policies, or intuitions.

To R. Freundel’s view:

“The first point [in opposition to women leading the Kabbalat Shabbat prayers] is that the Hazan or prayer leader at a communal service helps fulfill the prayer obligation of the tsibur or community. Women have no obligation to be involved in tefillah be-tsibur (communal prayer). They, therefore, do not count towards a minyan for a required service such as Maariv. So too, they cannot lead a communal service because they cannot fulfill the obligation for men, who are required to pray communally.”

[Freundel’s transliterations]

Actually, the Partnership prayer groups could have pushed further and assumed an even more radical position. In Ashkenazi Orthodoxy, clapping and dancing are permitted on sacred days even though the Talmud explicitly forbids those acts on the Sabbath and Festival days. [bBetsa 30a] Because times have changed and we are no longer expert in adjusting, fixing, or tuning musical instruments, the clapping and dancing restriction may, to this view, lapse into disuse. [Tosafot ad. loc. And Rabi’a, supra.] If, as argued by medieval French rabbis, the law is allowed to “change” with the times, since we now have printed prayer books and the cantor paces but does not pray in place of the congregant, the concern for a female cantor might even be addressed and overcome.  The Partnership prayer groups want to stay within Orthodoxy’s orbit and have avoided the tendentious casuistry typical of Conservative Judaism’s ideological responsa by permitting women to lead only non-obligatory sections of prayer.

Freundel continues:

“One of the major objections to a woman serving as a prayer leader is that kevod ha-tsibur (the respect of the community, or the respect due to the community or the respect that the community is required to give to G-d) will be violated. In response, adherents of partnership services argue that kevod ha-tsibur[sic.], either does not apply today or that it can be vitiated by the congregation foregoing or forgiving its honor.”

That a congregation may waive its honor is confirmed when communities waive their honor when delaying repeating the standing prayer until the Rabbi completes his private prayers.  The advancing of this communal honor claim reveals that there are unarticulated social considerations at work, [a] that women’s public role in prayer does not “look” Orthodox and, [b] in his apologia outlawing Partnership prayer, R. Freundel would have cited Halakhic statute when opposing these changes, and [c] Street Culture tradition is presented as if it were the canonical Tradition incarnate.  In practice, the congregation has the right to waive its honor.

Respect for human dignity carries sufficient warrant to override a particular negative Torah law [bBerachot 19a and elsewhere], at least according to the Orthodoxy of the Oral Torah. The particular Torah law being addressed is lo tasur, Deut. 17:11, which locates Oral Torah authority in Written Torah text.  For the text based—as opposed to Street Culture biased—Orthodox Judaism, this is a real, authentic, Oral Torah norm.  When a person is ill, the prohibition of Shabbat medication is waived. And when a person’s dignity is diminished, then God’s law supersedes the applicable rabbinic prohibition. This particular nomos, or law, is encoded in Torah narrative.  Genesis 18:1-2 passes Abraham on the morality test when he leaves God waiting in order to attend to what he mistook to be three wandering mortals.  The Judaism encoded in the canon endows human dignity with considerable normative valence.

R. Freundel limits the personal dignity application issue to Orthodoxy’s elite rabbinic consensus. This tactic reflects the hermeneutic strategy of an Orthodox elite that opposes changes in usage as if they are reforms of Jewish Law. But Jewish Law does not impose such a consensus upon rabbis who disagree. R. Freundel is uncomfortable with his Torah, because consensus conformity is, to his version of Orthodoxy, more essential than conforming to Torah’s norms. In those community settings where there is no egalitarian pressure, Partnership prayer would indeed be inappropriate.  Similarly, for those for whom personal dignity regarding their exclusion from communal prayer is an issue, Halakhah would take, in their situation, the personal dignity disposition into account. A woman may properly refuse to give her paycheck to her husband, saying “you do not have to support me, and you should not expect me to service your person” [bKetubbot 58b and 70b].  Jewish gender roles are therefore consensual: they express conventional, communal, expectations but are not mandated by Halakhic statute.

Freundel is concerned with the ubiquitous application of this human dignity rule because he fears the slippery slope. After all, a person might claim a loss of human dignity to avoid observing a rabbinic law. But this particular rule regarding human dignity applies to pill taking on the Sabbath as well. A person has the right to say that she or he is in pain. [mYoma 8:5-6]

Freundel then writes that “Daniel Sperber also wrote … that women could get aliyot. He makes direct and repeated use of kevod habriyot as a rationale for this practice in this article.” Freundel argues that the slippery slope is real, that the passage was cited by Conservative rabbis, and he denies Rav Sperber, who for many, including me, is modern Orthodoxy’s most learned authority, his rightful rabbinic title. I suspect that Freundel would have been a tad more respectful were he referencing the Lubavitcher Rebbe, R. Moshe Feinstein, or R. Soloveitchik. This slight is actually a very egregious violation. [bShabbat 119b and bSanhedrin 99b] One has a right to raise issues with R. Sperber’s view, as I will below. But one must always do so with the requisite respect.

Freundel has a right to contend that this technically not forbidden rite—he has after all failed to cite a restricting norm—is unwise, inopportune, or communally disruptive. I find it fascinating that R. Freundel is more collegial with the Orthodox feminists with whom he disagrees but is able to refute than he is with R. Sperber, in whose league he is not. When unable to argue with its opposition, Street Culture Orthodoxy in general, and R. Freundel in particular deride, defame, and dismiss, but do not address.  The claim that Qabbalat Shabbat, once formalized as a regular part of the liturgy, assumes all of the restrictions of public prayer, is dubious indeed. Were this rule really in force, pre-bar mitsvah boys would not be permitted to lead Qabbalat Shabbat prayers. The inventing of legal concepts and assigning normative valence to them is the prerogative of the Bet Din ha-Gadol, the great or Supreme Court, not the Adam Gadol, the individual Great Rabbi. Since the authentic, canonical Tradition does not provide a norm that restricts women leading Kabbalat Shabbat prayers—at least that I could find—it would be improper to regard the practice as non-Orthodox.

I concur with R. Freundel’s finding that “the Posek [legal decisor] has to be sensitive to the potential impact of his decision in the community, and frankly this development [the Conservative movement’s use of R. Sperber’s analysis of kevod habriyot to support a lenient stance toward homosexuality] was, to my mind easily foreseeable.” This argument provides a good reason to disallow partnership prayer in most communal Orthodox liturgical contexts; it is however a bad reason to restrict the practice in every possible context.  If we are permitted to suspend the Law and dance and clap on the Sabbath, we may permit, at least in theory, what in principle is not forbidden.  My challenge to R. Sperber is that the Torah law that is waived when human dignity is compromised is lo tasur, that Israel must treat canonical Rabbinic authority with the gravity of Torah law. This principle would not apply to male homosexual acts, which are forbidden by an explicit Written Torah norm [Lev. 18:22], and lo tasur would not apply.

Failing to understand the penumbra, the legitimate field in which the human dignity principle applies, R. Freundel continues, “I see no obvious reason to argue that a Rabbi should not officiate at an intermarriage. After all a restrictive approach is demeaning and causes pain both to the Jew in love and to her Gentile partner who is also God’s creation. Since officiating at such a wedding is only rabbinically prohibited, kevod habriyot should win out here as well.”

R. Freundel argues that in order to permit Partnership prayer, “one would also need to claim that Kabbalat Shabbat is only tefillat rabim and not tefillah betsibbur; that teffilat rabim is an extension of tefillah beyihidut and not a minor form of tefillah betsibbur; that women count as part of rabim and that unlike the similar structure of zimun women can lead in a mixed setting here even though their basic hiyuv is different than that of a man. Given the overwhelming weight of our sources that oppose every one of those steps, it would appear that no legitimate halakhic conclusion can take the lenient position on this fundamental question central to the reality of Partnership Minyanim.”

This rhetorical exercise illustrates how unorthodox Orthodoxy has become.  Freundel’s transliterations of his Hebrew/Aramaic citations reveal either an apathy toward or an ignorance of Semitic linguistics, which in medieval Judaism was called, not without irony, Masorah, or “Tradition.” Although Street Culture Orthodoxy presents itself as divine law, it is actually a folk religion of nostalgia and not a commitment to a Jewish Law worthy of the name. In response to R.  Freundel’s claims, we offer the following observations.

• b’Eruvin 96b teaches that although women are not required to lean on their sacrificial offerings like men, they may nevertheless elect to do so. For Orthodox Jews, the Oral Torah is revelation and in theory carries far greater valence than the sacred foibles of the Orthodox Street. The Rabbinic sages are here affirming—long before the age of Feminism—that women have the right to perform an act that is [a] associated with and incumbent upon men but [b] not incumbent upon women. Yes, official religion Oral Torah Orthodox Judaism believes in “rights.” In Rabbinic Hebrew the idiom used “rashut,” in modern Hebrew the term is called “zechut.” While R. Freundel appeals to the Sages for the source of his own authority, his restriction of women’s rights to perform male—commanded rites if no halakhic violation occurs violates this rabbinic doctrine.
• Maimonides permits women to shake the lulav and to wear the tallit but not to say the commandment blessing for either rite at Tsitsit 3:9. This opinion is much more logical than the popular Ashkenazi view, that women may not don the tallit at all but may perform the lulav rite with the commandment blessing.
• Freundel rightly requires that changes in Jewish law “must conform with Halakhah and appropriate halakhic epistemology.” But he fails to explain what this epistemology actually is. According to Oral Torah epistemology, an act must be forbidden by an explicit statute in order to be forbidden in practice. The fact that an act was not performed in the remembered past does not mean that the act is forbidden in practice, following m’Eduyyot 2:2.
• According to Halakhic epistemology, an act is permitted and valid if and only if that act does not violate a higher-grade statute [Maimonides, Introduction to the Yad]. Given the impetus for allowing Partnership prayer, how “human dignity” is measured in the present moment, and the Sages’ willingness to indulge artificial ritual gestures to allow women good feeling, R. Freundel has the right to argue that Partnership prayer is unwise, but he has failed to demonstrate what restrictive norm is violated by its implementation.

R. Freundel’s arguments do not reference formal Oral Law statutes; they cite the opinions of creative, Great Rabbis who are uncomfortable with the license allowed by the canonical trove’s actual statutes. The fact that “sources,” for Freundel  the apodictic opinions of Great Rabbis, require the growing of a beard, is an unconvincing claim. The issue here is kavod ha-tsibbur; we are looking for maturity signs and not necessarily masculinity in a cantor. While well-intentioned folk culture wrongly associates normative sanctity with the male beard, Chabad even requires the beard of its Hassidim, maintaining that male facial hair carries religious value [see Be’er Hetev to Yoreh De’ah 181:15]. The opinions of post-Talmudic rabbis do not carry the Halakhically epistemological value of mMo’ed Qatan 3:1, which rules that some people, whom the Mishnah designates, are permitted to shave their beards even on intermediate festival days, when shaving is by this statute normally disallowed. Therefore, according to Oral Torah law, shaving is in principle permitted. To argue that by law shaving is forbidden, or that a cantor must have a beard, the claimant must first prove the claim by referencing an explicit Oral Torah norm. Otherwise, the claim may be dismissed out of hand. Undefended appeals to Lurianic mysticism, personal charisma, or intuition are inadmissible according to Deuteronomy 4:2 and 13:1.  For Maimonides, it is the rationality of the ruling and not the renown of the rabbi that carries weight in Torah [Introduction to Eight Chapters, s.v. ve-ra’iti, and Rabbi Azriel Hildesheimer I YD 203:9 ]. If someone has the ability to defend her or his opinion logically and not dogmatically, that person indeed has a right to his or her opinion.  When Eldad and Medad were waxing ecstatic as prophets, [Numbers 11:27], Moses’ squire Joshua wanted them arrested. [v. 28] Moses sarcastically retorted as if amused, “are you jealous for me” [v. 29]? Moses would happily share the burden and the blessing of divinely inspired talent.

A community has a right to require its cantor to grow a beard, wear a frock or caftan/kapote, don a black fedora, and shake thirty shuckles a minute in prayer.  But these requirements would be no more than local custom which do not apply to and may not be imposed upon all Israel. Orthodox Jews are not supposed to be closet Reconstructionists, but rather strict constructionists of a literary canon whose human words are believed to be God’s word.

By instructing women that Shabbat begins with the candle blessing, one must ignore the fact that with the exception of immersion for conversion, all commandment blessings must precede the commandment fulfilling act [bPesahim 7b] The popular but problematic practice of reciting the commandment blessing after lighting the Shabbat candle is a far greater breach of Jewish law than allowing female Qabbalat Shabbat cantors.  Because the Orthodox laity and rabbinate alike are [a] discouraged to think critically and [b] are not provided with a working Halakhic epistemology or hermeneutic, Street Culture Orthodoxy is able to de-authorize Halakhah as a legal order.

Modern Orthodox rabbis are often asked when we make the argument for innovation, “is it not arrogant of you to question what pious Jews do and have done for generations and what great rabbis command in the present? Do you really believe that they and not you are in error?” First, if my reading is wrong and inconsistent with Halakhic legal theory and epistemology, show what the error is and second, why and how is the popular opinion more reasonable, convincing, and therefore binding, than the view presented here?

Modern Orthodox rabbis often face the challenge, “can the world be wrong and one person—you—be right?” Not only did Avraham our Patriarch think that the “world” could be wrong, but God at Genesis 6:6-8 and Leviticus 4:13 said so as well.

The most troubling aspect of R. Freundel’s presentation is his appeal to the legitimating benchmark of Halakhic epistemology.  On technical grounds, there is no explicit Oral Torah norm that restricts women leading Qabbalat Shabbat liturgies that I could find.  R. Freundel speaks eloquently about process but neither explains what that process entails nor does he detail how this process, which seems to be no more than policy, actually outlaws Partnership prayer.  While he presents himself as an objective scholar of Jewish law, Freundel reifies communal consensus into Jewish law.  In other words, the mind of God is for Street Culture Orthodoxy not revealed in the public words of the Torah canon, it gestates in the esoteric intuition of Great Rabbis and the conditioned expectations of the Orthodox laity.

 

II. The Moderate Opposition to Partnership prayer

At http://torahmusings.com/2010/08/women-leading-kabbalat-shabbat-some-thoughts/, R. Michael Broyde offers a much more nuanced, scholarly, and thoughtful response to women leading Qabbalat Shabbat prayers.

This important post assumes that Halakhah is really Law and, if it is to endure as Law, should not be subject to rhetorical manipulation.  Broyde argues that women’s leading Qabbalat Shabbat and, by implication, Partnership Prayer, may be legally permitted but to his view is bad policy because the public gestures inadvertently give improper and confusing social signals.

The argument that Qabbalat Shabbat is now an obligation and should be governed by the rules of obligatory prayer because the practice to recite it has been “accepted” by all Israel is deemed to be dubious and rightly dismissed by R. Broyde.  I would add that the mindset itself is also dangerous because the locus of rabbinic authority is subtly diverted from the defining canonical text to the subjective, political opinion of the unaccountable Great Rabbi. [See Leviticus 4:3,13, and 32, which maintain that the priest, community, and political head of State are all in principle fallible.]

The argument against Partnership prayer from “modesty” is also rightly dismissed. R. Broyde argues that the claim does not “’resonate’ in our community.” In point of semantic fact, “modesty” is a concern when and only when the Law says so. When the Talmud permits an act, like women slaughtering animals, the act is by definition consistent with the “rules” of modesty.  One may argue that we are permitted to enact a custom or local edict to forbid the act.  But such a rule is also open to reconsideration with changing times, tastes, and circumstances.  The argument “the act is forbidden because we never saw the act being performed” cites no restrictive norm whatsoever. Maran Caro in Bet Yosef YD 1:1 very properly requires a citation of Oral Torah documentation for a restrictive norm to be applicable and not the mere non-practice of a particular act, which is Maran’s rejection of the “Tradition” of what has over time become mimetic usage. We would also reject the appeal, accepted today in practically every Orthodox community, of R. Shabbatai Cohen, who forbids women’s slaughter because women have not been seen performing that ritual act [ad. loc.].  R. Broyde subtly, wisely, and responsibly both reveals and conceals his Legal Realism.  Laws that do not “resonate” to him and as noted above by Rabi’a, are not binding laws.  However, the laws of family purity do not “resonate” in Reform communities; the norm forbidding combustion fire on the Shabbat [Exodus 35:4] does not “resonate” for a Conservative Judaism where many even amongst its clergy drive combustion engine cars on Shabbat; and the obligation of both men and women to serve in the Israeli army [bSota 44b] does not “resonate” in the otherwise hyper-strict Haredi world. In other words, what religion is in this reality are those rules that resonate socially, not the legally binding norms of Oral Torah Orthodoxy.

R. Broyde believes that the qol isha, women singing in the presence of men issue is also not an issue. He is again absolutely correct. Orah Hayyim 75:3 restricts singing to the shema recitation alone, following Maimonides, Issurei Bi’ah 21:1-2, which forbids erotic, inter gender physical contact by Torah law and suggestive non-contract gestures by rabbinic law. Women’s singing is placed by Maimonides in this second category. Non-erotic singing, like non-erotic physical contact [between unmarried women and men], is by statute not forbidden by Jewish Law. [See bKetubbot 17a regarding R. Acha’s’ mixed gender dancing, and R. David Novak at https://utj.org/viewpoints/responsa/kol-be-ishah-ervah-the-voice-of-a-woman-is-erotic/].

R. Broyde has every right to argue that Partnership Prayer is a bad idea and that the innovation ought not to be implemented and is to be commended for the intellectual honesty that underlies his intellectual rigor. He offers a popular, but to my mind social and not legal understanding of minhag Yisrael. Literally, the “custom of Israel” the idiom is taken to mean that what Jews descriptively happen to do is taken to be what Jews normatively ought to do. Alternatively, Maimonides, Introduction to the Yad, sees custom as a local by-law or edict which, once accepted by all Israel, becomes mandatory for all Israel, precisely like the Talmud up to the time of Ravina I and Rav Ash. In other words, unlike Freundel, R. Broyde sees custom as a communal convention that may not, given his own taxonomy and epistemology of Jewish law, be confused with formal halakhic norms.  But he does seem to assign normative valence to these usages.  Thus like Freundel, he opposes Partnership Prayer strongly; he also reserves the right to reject the rabbinic consensus—like the founding of a Yeshiva College with its secular studies program —based on the doctrine that if an act is not forbidden, the act is permitted, regardless of the current rabbinic consensus.  Minhag Yisrael so understood seems to be a synonym for the popular religion understanding of “tradition,” the thick culture soup whose reality implies its validity.  Since Freundel presents himself as a student of R. Joseph B. Soloveitchik, it is proper to locate this doctrine in R. Soloveitchik’s writing.  In his landmark essay, “Two Kinds of Tradition,” R. Soloveitchik summarizes, with accuracy and elegance, the Maimonidean Halakhic epistemology.  He then posits a second sense of “tradition,” unattested in Maimonides’ writing, and to his view normative and binding, the “Tradition” transmitted as religious culture.  For  Freundel and his teacher, both of these traditions are binding; for R. Broyde, folk Tradition is less binding than the normative canonical trove because this version is not covenantal, and it may be open to change if the change is deemed to be appropriate by the living Orthodox rabbinical consensus.  According to R. Broyde, mixed gender roles are not wise. At https://www.torahmusings.com/2012/10/womens-only-torah-reading/, R. Broyde affirms that

“My own view is that a women’s Torah reading on Simchat Torah (without brachot), like women’s tefillah groups generally, are unwise and halachically improper, although not a technical violation of halacha. I have two reasons for this position – the first is a halachic approach and the second a sociological one grounded in halachic values. “

R. Broyde rightly, precisely, and astutely distinguishes between law and policy. He finds formal ritual change to be dangerous and unwarranted. Given the halakhic, moral, intellectual, and religious implosion of Conservative Judaism, his fears should not be dismissed. But there is no recorded norm called “halakhic values.” There are only legislated norms. The claim that there are “halakhic values” to be divined by rabbinic elites is also unattested by any rule of recognition in the Halakhic legal order. These “halakhic values” reflect the ethos of the community, not the norms of the Law.

 

III. The Advocate for Partnership Prayer

At The Path of Halacha, Women Reading the Torah: A Case of Pesika Policy, Rubin Mass, Jerusalem, 2007 (Hebrew) and Rabbi Professor Daniel Sperber, Rabbi Mendel Shapiro, Professor Eliav Shochetman and Rabbi Dr. Shlomo Riskin, Women and Men in Communal Prayer: Halakhic Perspectives (KTAV, Mar 10, 2010), the modern Orthodox great sage, R. Sperber makes his case for permissive renderings on women’s issues.  At http://www.edah.org/backend/JournalArticle/3_2_Sperber.pdf, R. Sperber again presents his case clearly, elegantly, and convincingly. According to the paper’s abstract, the principle of human dignity/kevod ha-beriyyot, which in theory overrides at least one Torah law, lo tasur, provides sufficient warrant to override the restriction of women’s aliyyot in those communities where the community is not offended by the practice.  The reason that I do regard R. Sperber to be the poseq ha-dor of and for modern Orthodoxy is because he reads the canonical texts both philologically and juridically better than almost any sage that comes to mind and he is also pastorally attentive to the human condition to which his rulings are applied.

R. Sperber observes that:

• Passages could be stitched together to justify both restrictive and permissive rulings.
• One may view the entire Tradition to isolate a main stream of opinion.
• bMegilla 24a would permit women to read from the Torah were kevod ha-tsibbur/congregational dignity not an issue. However, congregational dignity must be suspended in order to read the Torah from book/codes if no kosher scroll is available. We therefore have precedent as well as sanction for such a waiver.
• Since we are in doubt regarding the reason for the law, what congregational dignity means, doubts in rabbinic law’s impementation may be resolved by applying leniency.
• When there are no other readers, or in a town of Aaronides, who would be permitted to be given but two of the Shabbat aliyyot, congregational dignity must be waived and women in that setting must receive aliyyot.
• The usually liberal R. Yehuda Herzl Henkin argued that women’s aliyyot stands outside the Orthodox ”consensus” and congregations will no longer be considered to be Orthodox if women may receive aliyyot during their prayers. In other words, for Rabbis Broyde and Henkin, and I suspect for R. Freundel as well, Halakhic propriety has to “resonate” to all within Orthodoxy in order to be accepted as “Orthodox.” Hoshen Mishpat 25 and 34 seem to be more tolerant of dissent and error than contemporary Orthodox culture.
• R. Sperber, at footnote 13, cites the great modern Orthodox scholar of the past generation, R. Shaul Lieberman, who demonstrates that tBerachot 2:13 [2:12 in most popular versions] was altered in the Munich mms. in order to suppress the rabbinic license of women to learn Torah. Obviously, we may not change Torah words because we do not accept or agree with what they prescribe.
• At Shulhan Aruch 88:1, Maran correctly permits males to read the Torah in a state of ritual impurity and R. Sperber astutely observes that R. Isserles realizes that the official religion Law is lenient but the popular practice, based on communal sensibilities, does not allow women who are in a state of ritual impurity to enter the sacred synagogue space or to recite blessings. Sperber treats this view with sensitivity—its adherents are sincere–and demurral—its adherents are also incorrect. This folk religion deviation from Torah law, attested in the non-canonical Beraita de-Masechet Niddah, actually may violate Jewish law.  Impurity in Oral Torah religion is a halakhic situation, not a demonic state. [See Numbers Rabba Huqqat 19:8]. If a woman’s state of niddah begins at 3:00 PM on a Friday afternoon, that woman must light the Shabbat candle that afternoon with the required commandment blessing. And by law, since a blessing must be recited before the commanded act, women ought to first say the commandment blessings before both the lighting the Shabbat candle and the monthly miqveh immersion, popular usage notwithstanding. Modern Orthodox Jews should obey God’s Law precisely rather than strictly.
• R. Sperber reports that according to law, [bHagiga 16b] men, and not women, have the obligation to lean their hands [semicha] on the animal that is to be offered as a sacrifice. The Sages viewed the concern for human dignity to be sufficient grounds to permit woman to lean on their offering.  Put in legal terms, the case is not at all revolutionary but is in fact rather pedestrian:
  • Men, and not women, are required to lay hands on the offering.
  • There is no formal restriction forbidding women laying their hands on the offering, only the resonating taste of Street Culture “Tradition.”
• bBerachot 19a teaches that human dignity is a legal norm of higher standing—and therefore legal valence—and is so authorized to override Street Culture Tradition. Therefore, the ethical/legal concern for human dignity and the legal concern for the good feeling of women are both higher—and therefore trumping—norms than the taste culture of the patriarchal Orthodox street.

 

One Great Rabbi opposed women prayer groups because these groups, like Partnership prayer, represent ziyyuf ha-Torah, a falsifying of Torah, without identifying a violating norm. We respond:

• There is no canonical, legal doctrine called ziyyuf ha-Torah in the Torah of Orthodox Judaism. If taken to be more than rhetorical flourish, its advocates have removed themselves from the pale of Orthodoxy [a] by usurping a power for themselves that the Halakhah does not authorize and by [b] improperly inventing a new Law without the vetting approval of the Bit Din ha-Gadol.
• The only example of ziyyuf ha-Torah that might be valid is the textually unattested claim itself.
• At no place in the Oral Torah is there an attested norm according to which an individual rabbi without a Bet Din ha-Gadol is authorized to determine what is and is not permitted without citing a persuasive, canonical norm that is memorialized in the public Oral Torah canon.
• The fact that these objections have not been raised in modern Orthodox settings illustrates the social power of Orthodox Street Culture to de-authorize Torah Law and to replace it with socially conditioned sexist taste.
• The fact that the ziyyuf ha-Torah claim has to date not been subject for censure, along with comments from that same rabbinic figure that women and monkeys have equal claim to reading the marriage document at weddings, Afro-Americans are referred to with the Yiddish “sh” word, modern Orthodox dissenters are designated as “Amaleq,” and an Israeli Head of State should be assassinated should he cede any part of Jerusalem testifies, sadly yet eloquently, that Great Rabbis are not always as prudent with their speech as they should be, as required of religious virtuousi [mAvot 1:11]. Orthodox culture and Orthodox Torah are superficially similar but in realty are non-congruent cultures.

R. Sperber argues that Halakhah is not fixed for all time. As noted above, we argue that the main contours of Jewish law are indeed fixed with the end of apodictic legislation [hora’ah] of which occurred after the Amora’im Ravina I and Rav Ashi [bBava Mezia 86a]; it is one matter to forbid that which the Law permits.  It is quite another unorthodox matter to claim that the social “Tradition” of the Orthodox Street is empowered to override the canonical Tradition of Sinai, that the socially conditioned role of women is identical to the normative role that is attributed to women by men who briskly invent unattested laws yet ignore other laws, as detailed above, that conflict with Torah statute.

 

In my view, R. Sperber is the Ashkenazi gadol ha-dor for Modern Orthodoxy because:

• He only permits the permitted and he only forbids what by formal legal norm is forbidden. He is therefore authentically and not just socially “Orthodox.” He looks into the Torah canon and not over his social shoulder before rendering his rulings.
• He lives in the modern world, he has internalized the modern mind, and he employs scientific method in order to discover what God asks of Jewry based upon the Torah canon’s plain meaning. Some voices, like R. Aharon Soloveitchik’s, claim that his academic method “undermines the sanctity of Torah.” To be valid, authentic Tradition must be recorded in the public, canonical, reviewable Torah text; it is not preserved in the sacred intuition of the Great Rabbi, however pious or renowned he be.  By reading the Oral Torah canon philologically, R. Sperber demonstrates why he takes the positions he does, invoking reason rather than privileged intuitive charisma.
• R. Sperber knows more sources than any community rabbi I know. Since I am not his prime student, or talmid muvhaq, I am permitted to say that his breadth of knowledge is in R. Ovadya Yosef’s league and his intellectual, moral, and theological integrity are beyond compare or peer.

 

IV. What does this debate tell us about the essence of Contemporary Orthodoxy?

At stake in this debate is the essence of Torah, religious authenticity, and an accurate rendering of authentic Tradition.  If Orthodox folk religion determines propriety, then Street Culture gets to stifle dissident and marginalize dissenting but otherwise valid views.  For Freundel, the Feminist challenge to Orthodox expectations is so threatening that any innovation must be cleared by the Great Rabbis, so we raise larger policy concerns in order to reify communal mimetic usage into official religion Torah Law.  The arguments offered by Freundel do not convince R. Broyde, but for R. Broyde, the Partnership prayer innovation nevertheless does not resonate as socially authentic with mainstream Orthodox Jews.  To this view, the descriptive consensus of the committed community carries an unintended, unstated, prescriptive valence for those who want acceptance in that community.  R. Sperber, whom Freundel dismisses and whom R. Broyde respects but disagrees, is unafraid of offending those who believe they are authorized to veto the views of others.  While Jewish Law gets a veto; mimetic usage only gets a vote. By restricting Feminist innovations to communities that desire them, the onus of complaint falls on the gender role conservatives. They must show what clear and present norm is being violated with Partnership prayer if local communal dignity is not compromised by that change.

The opponents of Partnership prayer have a right, as does R. Broyde, to appeal to policy if and when a restriction is deemed to be situationally appropriate. An act that may be permitted may not necessarily be wisely put into practice. Like R. Sperber, R. Broyde first focuses on the literary legal evidence. On non-ritual matters, R. Broyde regularly takes a moderate, centrist view and never ever advocates abandoning the Torah’s statutory limits.

According to my son, R. Joshua D. Yuter, at http://www.joshyuter.com/2010/08/26/judaism/jewish-culture/land-of-confusion-a-response-to-r-broyde-on-women-leading-kabbalat-shabbat/,

“Since this decision [forbidding women leading Kabbalat Shabbat liturgies] is not halakhic but a social [policy issue], we can defend R. Broyde’s position based on his subjective assessment of the Orthodox and non-Orthodox (including non-Jewish) communities. However it does reveal an attitude and perspective as to how confusion is identified and addressed. In this case, R. Broyde’s response is to preempt confusion by avoiding a particular course of action. But there is, of course, an obvious alternative solution to cure the community’s confusion through reeducation. …Let us compare for example a discussion in the Orthodox world regarding women saying kaddish for a deceased loved one. The practice of saying kaddish is not an obligation, but a custom – albeit one with significant therapeutic and religious value (e.g. sanctifying God’s name in public). There are two important distinctions between women saying kaddish and leading Kabbalat Shabbat. The first is unlike Kabbalat Shabbat, reciting kaddish is personal not communal. On the other hand, the recitation of kaddish is considered a davar she-bikdusha [obligatory prayers requiring a response and hence a prayer quorum], thus requiring the quorum of ten men. Thus while there is an affirmative reason to permit women to say kaddish, the risk of communal ‘confusion’ ought to be greater.”

Modern Orthodoxy’s official policy was eloquently expressed by R. Menachem Penner, at the time Acting Dean of Yeshiva University’s affiliated Rabbinical School, RIETS:

“Rabbinic Ordination from RIETS is a title of honor and authority given to students of its yeshiva who successfully complete their exams in halakhah, prove themselves as competent talmidei chakhamim and complete and (sic) a rigorous curriculum of professional training. It is also, however, an acknowledgement that goes beyond proof of the completion of the sum of the parts of its curriculum. Ordination is a ‘stamp of approval’ through which an institution asserts that its graduates represent the principles of its Yeshiva. The language written upon the klaf of each musmakh – “Yoreh Yoreh” does not imply unlimited permission to guide others in matters of Jewish law; it assumes that the musmakh will provide such hora’ah in keeping with the principles of the granting institution. Semikha is a ‘leaning upon’ – a ritually choreographed transfer of authority for Jewish law passed from one generation to the next, conferred upon the graduates of RIETS as they take their place of leadership in the Jewish community.

“One of the central principles of RlETS is a fealty to halakhah and the halakhic process. The system of halakha at the core of RIETS is one which recognizes that not all individuals given the title of “rabbi” are entitled to serve as decisors of Jewish law. This is especially true when breaking new ground in areas unforeseen to earlier generations or when taking public stances on matters of Jewish law that are in opposition to all recognized poskim. While graduates of RIETS are not necessarily expected to follow the dictates of one of its Roshei Yeshiva, they are certainly expected to discuss sensitive halakhic issues with their rebbeim muvhakím [their main mentors, who shaped their students’ outlook] and look to the psak of individuals who would be recognized by their Roshei Yeshiva as legitimate poskim. Following the halakhic opinion of a scholar or rabbi who is not recognized as a posek would represent a fundamental breach in the mesorah of the establishment of normative halakhah.

“This is even more so in areas involving public worship and other public issues. While a variety of views may be espoused by graduates of RIETS, it is important that any such view to be followed in practice be championed by a recognized posek. This includes areas of established Jewish custom and public ritual where changes represent a significant deviation from time-honored practice – even when there are no purely halakhic issues at stake.”

[http://newsdesk.tjctv.com/2014/02/the-yeshiva-university-letter-thats-riling-up-the-modern-orthodox-world/].

There are several problems with R. Penner’s position as well as the version of Orthodoxy that he and Yeshiva University’s current rabbinic leadership projects:

• There is no body today called “’the’ Poseqim.” This unidentified, ad. hoc. imagined body claims authority over all Israel. According to Jewish law, a post-Talmudic rabbi is a manhig, a leader, the person who is by dint of assuming the Rabbinic office is authorized to make the minhag for the community.  The fact that most rabbis ruled in a particular way in a particular social environment does not oblige a different rabbi to defer to their findings, especially when social situations, realities, and needs are different.  Jewry’s binding benchmark is the Talmudic canon, not nostalgic convention.The consensus of “the Poseqim,” rabbis living within a particular culture, does not necessarily oblige other rabbis who, living in different culture settings, may reach alternate conclusions. While Great Rabbis’ opinions require consideration, respect, and address, these opinions are not themselves binding. The appeal to “the Poseqim” denies the community rabbi who is not “recognized” as a poseq the right to issue a reasoned, legitimate opinion. “The Poseqim” idiom is invoked in order to undermine the personal authority of the Mara de-Atra to legislate for the community he serves based on Oral Torah statute, the heftsa/object of Jewish law.  R. Penner and the Rabbinic faculty whose world view he so ably represents, regards communal rabbis’ authority to be apostolic, i.e. the community rabbi is only authorized to teach the Torah as mediated, understood, and applied by Yeshiva University’s Rabbinical School faculty. The ordaining Rabbi or Rabbinic faculty retains for itself the charismatic gavra/authority to issue normative rules. Consequently, the communal rabbi is only authorized to implement Torah as understood by those who ordained him.  In other words, the ordained rabbi is not permitted to render a ruling based on an informed reading of the sources, even though this is precisely what the Orthodox ordination certificate testifies. Were this principle, that students may only teach what their teachers taught, then Abayee would not have been permitted to disagree with his teacher, Rava. And on six occasions, the Law is according to Abayee, the student [see also R. Hayyim Berlin, Ru’ah Hayyim to mAvot 1:3].
• Jewish law recognizes Torah, rabbinic, and legally legislated customary norms; it does not however recognize a special, non-statutory designation called “sacred traditions” that are not recorded in the Oral Torah to be one of the three categories listed above. Any rabbi with the ability to demonstrate that his view violates no higher grade Oral Torah norm is authorized to make his reading and to render his ruling.
• “Precedent” per se is not a norm in Jewish law. “Precedents” like the Golden Calf are not and cannot be normative for Jewish law. Idolatry remains wrong even if Israelites do it.  Doing an act does not make the act a legally permitted deed; when we claim that doing an act three times renders that act a vow [contra Lev. 5:7], without Oral Torah proof, we have from a legal perspective no claim at all.   [According to the Torah, it is possible that everyone may be wrong [See Numbers 15:26].
• R. Penner’s position is to our view sincere but incorrect. A Halakhic position is valid based on its inner logic and coherence. At no place does the Oral Torah canon require the approval of a self-appointed committee that is authorized to override other rabbis by apodictic declaration and without demonstrations. The Jew must obey Jewish law in the human condition s/he inhabits; the Jew need not observe post-Talmudic precedents that one believes to be incorrect. Historically, the authority to issue normative decisions resides in the communal rabbi’s ordination and office, not the Rosh ha-Yeshiva’s charisma, erudition, or appointment.

R. Penner’s Great Rabbis possess the authority to advocate the standards they wish; they do not possess the authority to outlaw Partnership prayer for those who did not seek their guidance. For Freundel, this Orthodox aesthetic is part of the Oral Torah Masorah, a position that might be taken to be a “Reconstructionism of the Right.” R. Broyde is also committed to the “Tradition” of the Orthodox aesthetic, but he has the intellectual insight and religious integrity to register the valence of the norm appropriately.

Like Maimonides, Rashi logically, rationally, and consistently rules that “one does not utter a commandment blessing for [the observance of] a custom” [Mahzor Vitri].  R. Yehiel of Paris reports that R. Jacob Tam broke with his saintly father-in-law, Rashi, and permitted the saying of commandment blessings for customs. If this innovation, the license to make a commandment blessing for a customary practice, were suggested by a modern Orthodox rabbi, the act would rightly be regarded to be a rogue reform.

If modern Orthodoxy advocates legal readings which permit the permitted while only forbidding that which is by statute forbidden, then modern Orthodoxy, ought out of integrity reconsider Street Culture leniencies, even if popular, convenient, and socially satisfying. We recall that according to the Oral Law at bHullin 44a and b’Eruvin 6b, cherry picking the leniencies of Hillel and Shammai reflects a lack of religious integrity and is unworthy of authentic Jewish Orthodoxy.

Underlying Street Culture Orthodoxy are the following tenets:

1. Orthodox Jews have to have humility. This “humility” requires that good Jews do not challenge the religious authority of the Great Rabbis. There is, in addition to the Oral and Written Torah, a sensibility called “Masorah,” or non-literary culture “Tradition” that both augments and on occasion supersedes the canonical trove, which only Great Rabbis are authorized, without being subject to review, to apply. This Orthodoxy is not guided by the text of the Oral Torah literary canon; instead Torah authority resides in the intuition of the Great Rabbi and not the demonstration, however convincing it may be, of the academic or communal rabbi. Therefore, neither the trained academic scholar nor the modern Orthodox letter-of-the-law rabbi are authorized to read, understand, and apply the classical canon.
2. This version of Tradition does not tolerate dissent and is transmitted and determined by Great Rabbis. Like Sophocles’ Antigone, for whom the “divine” laws are unwritten and intuited, Orthodoxy’s Great Rabbis’ rulings are said to contain the Torah’s tacit teachings, axial ideas, and unwritten laws, including women’s roles, rights, and rites, whereby unattested “traditions,” sacred precedents, and the accepted social habit, called minhag Yisroel, or mimetic culture provide the actual content of popular religion Orthodoxy.
3. The rabbis and our pious ancestors received this semi-secret sacred “Tradition.” We may not sit, with arrogance, in judgment upon those revered usages inherited from the pious past, which must be treated with canonical deference. This “Tradition” requires that we practice as our ancestors practiced, believe as our forbearer betters believed, and transmit their faith, intact and unchanged, to our offspring.
4. Failure to humbly submit to the divinely inspired rulings of Great Rabbis regarding Judaism’s sacred, unwritten laws removes the offender from theological and communal Orthodoxy.

These four articles of “faith” animate Haredi and, to an increasingly greater extent in recent times, Modern Orthodoxy’s policy as well.  These doctrines are unknown to, unattested in, and are therefore unrepresentative of that Book-based and covenanted Orthodox Judaism that God had authored, which modern Orthodoxy supposedly maintains, and according to which:

1. The Jew submits humbly before God, [Micah 6:8], respectfully toward all, but obsequiously towards none. When one human being demands deference rather than respect from another, the one making the demand for deference forfeits his own claim to respect because this demand, when made by a fellow mortal, does not reflect humility. Surely a more humble title than “Great one of Israel” could have been found for these rabbis whom we are often told are so “great” that their rulings may not be subjected to review or reconsideration.
2. The authentic Masorah is no more and no less than Judaism’s official religion Oral Law. The Tradition/Masorah that is textually normative and binding ends with the Amoraic period and the consensus document called the Babylonian Talmud. The claims that ordinary ordained rabbis may not issue rulings within the Talmudic parameters unless Great Rabbis approve, that the unwritten Masorah not only refines, but overrides the official religion Oral Law, and that intuition supersedes reason, are unorthodox doctrines both in and of the extreme.
3. The claim that Masorah magically develops through the intuition of “Masters of Masorah” is unattested in the Oral Torah canon, it is not part of the canon, and the claim that it makes must be viewed as a violation of the canon.
4. If Moses and Abraham may argue with God, based on the revealed narrative words of the Torah, any and every Jew has the right to argue with rabbis with modesty and humility and even with the Sages who are “known” on the Orthodox street to be great, if that Jew has done her or his homework. While there are no hidden laws in Torah [Deuteronomy 29:20], there may be claims that are indeed illegitimate.  I claim that the Orthodox synagogue partition, the mechitsa, became a universal practice and is therefore a binding custom. But it may not be “attributed” to an unattested rabbinic edict or to some secret, canonically undocumented “Tradition.” Arguing that one may not hear shofar in a mixed-seating synagogue needs to be explained on the basis of Halakhic demonstration and not merely apodictically proclaimed on the basis of a declared or intuited “Tradition.” Even the greatest of rabbis must justify their rulings; emotional or political antipathy to the excesses of the Jewish Left does not warrant hyperbole, misstatement, misrepresentation or misinterpretation by the Orthodox Right. R. David Halivni has taught us that Torah teaches a “predilection for a justified law.” Intimidation, demeaning, and the stifling of reasoned dissent does not make the intimidator “great.” It does however diminish the moral authority of the intimidator to morally astute observers.
5. Because these Great Rabbis are too great to be questioned, reviewed or assessed, they speak as if they are infallible. God has given a perfect and complete Torah to all Israel; God did not leave anything out of the Torah for Great Rabbis to intuit on God’s behalf.  By making the Law available to the Jewish public, God rendered the rabbis who apply the Torah accountable to that same public.  The claim that the public Oral Torah may only be mediated by breathtakingly great men who are not subject to assessment or review is unattested in the Oral Torah but is contested by Maimonides who rules, like R. Sperber, [a] that a valid opinion may not contradict Oral Torah statute, [b] it needs to convince the Jewish public, [c] it does not require the approvable of any post-Talmudic saintly synod of great rabbis, and [d] it is up to the local rabbi, within his or her local jurisdiction, to decide hard cases, if willing and able, for his or her own particular community. The notion that contemporary Orthodox Judaism is the faith of our ancestors is historically incorrect. Lamentations 5:7 also disagrees with this assertion.  The perfect Law of Sinai is the official, authentic Jewish benchmark, not the Tradition of uninformed, neurotic, Oedipal nostalgia.
6. The sage who is ordained and is therefore vetted to be competent who nevertheless reflexively submits out of intimidation to authority persons is himself religiously inadequate. Moses said “no” to Pharaoh, Noah said “no” to his violent peers, Abraham regarding Sodom said “no” to God, Nathan said “no” to David, and Elijah said “no” to Ahab. Armed with the Torah, intimidation is identified and rejected for the demeaning heresy it is. God gave the whole Torah to all Israel [Deut. 33:4a], which included a public, accessible, and readable Tradition [Deut. 33:4b]. The ultra-Orthodox claim [a] that they alone control Masorah, [b] its own views need not be defended, [c] its folkways bind all Israel, and [d] rational modern Orthodox claims are irrelevant because their Great Rabbis’ private intuitive Torah trumps modern Orthodoxy’s finite, flawed, rationality.  This position is not only wrong, it reveals a “false face in Torah contrary to Torah law,” a very serious religious offense [bSan. 99a].
7. Rabbi Penner presents the emerging doctrine that Orthodox rabbis in the field may not rule according to the plain sense of the Orthodox canon,  as they understand it, but they must defer to the intuition grounded subjectivity of a non-accountable rabbinic elite. Our view is that Orthodox Judaism is defined by the most convincing explanation of the Written and Oral Torah canon. Any act that is not explicitly forbidden may in theory be permitted, with the approval of the local rabbinic authority.
8. Since different communities have different characters, and different rabbis have different leadership styles, we should be respectful of every Orthodoxy that remains faithful to the Law, and may we continue to discuss the many ways the Torah might be read, understood, and applied.

 

Orthodox Judaism is faced with ethical, religious, and political challenges. Torah law is not always the same as socially conditioned taste; Orthodoxy will not be able to convince its adherents unless it is honest to God as well.  Barry Freundel concedes that there may be no formal restriction to joint gender Qabbalat Shabbat and so argues that there are Halakhic values, for Great Rabbis to find, define, and apply, to forbid those rites that are communally inappropriate.  R. Broyde shares  Freundel’s taste, but realizes that usage and statute are norms of very different normative valence. And when there is no formal statutory restriction, R. Sperber insists that when and where it is pastorally appropriate, Partnership prayer is in those situations permitted.  So let the conversation regarding the propriety, wisdom, and fairness of Partnership prayer begin.

 

 

ADDENDUM (8/8/18):

During later discussion of the article on Facebook, a question was asked regarding Rabbi Yuter’s view toward the work of Rabbis Aryeh and Dov Frimer regarding Partnership Minyanim (see here).  The following is his response:

The Frimers’ position is similar to R. Broyde’s and R. Penner’s.  I cannot deal with everyone in a mid-sized article.  Their paper was well done and well-documented. For the brothers Frimer, Orthodoxy’s Law is Legal realism, not formalist. This “religious”  approach reifies the elect community’s sensibility into virtual norm.  It reads to me as the Reconstructionism of the Right because their Great Rabbis cannot ever be wrong.  The brothers Frimer are committed to Halakhah as understood by our ancestors, but not as it stands “on the books.”  Lev. 4:13 and Lam. 5:7 tell me to be more suspicious. The Frimers are sincere and try to be honest. I just find the God who is encoded in the canon to be  a lot more reasonable, open, consistent, and responsive than the Orthodox culture as it is presented today.  I respect Rabbi Broyde’s and Rabbis Frimer’s sincerity, erudition and integrity. But I take God at His word in the canon. I’m a legal formalist. If I’ve misread, I’m not ashamed to recant. Maimonides teaches that the law follows the most logical claim, not the charisma of the claimant. This too is Tradition.