The Maccabaean

What is the standing of the modern rabbi, I mean of the college-bred, university-trained rabbi in the United States? How is he regarded by the average layman?

The orthodox Jew, to begin with, will never acknowledge the leadership of the modern rabbi. He will even go to the length of denying the latter the right to style himself as rabbi. And in all fairness it must be admitted that from his standpoint the orthodox Jew is right. For, to the orthodox only he may be called "rabbi" who is competent to give decisions on ritualistic questions. The old-time rabbi was chiefly a Passkan. The orthodox Jew can therefore hardly be blamed for his consistency in refusing to acknowledge the graduate of a modern seminary as his rabbi.

The conservative, or reformed Jew, however, expects his rabbi to be chiefly a preacher and to him it matters not whether the latter can decide the momentous question of Tipath Cholov or not. Does he, then. treat the rabbi with the respect and consideration due to one vested with a sacred office, does he acknowledge the dignity and the authority of this office?

No. Denials as to the correctness of this negative answer are often made—as often, indeed, as the question about the equivocal standing of the American Rabbinate is mooted. There is something like a “guild-spirit”—oft mistaken for loyalty—which prompts men belonging to one and the same class or calling to cover up the weak spots of their position. When the founder and present head of the Free Synagogue first sounded the prophetic call for a free, unmuzzled pulpit, the answer came from the rank and file of the American Rabbinate, most of whose

members resented indignantly the statement that the average Jewish pulpit is not free. As a demonstration of truth, their indignation was a failure; but as a demonstration of the existence of a guild-spirit among them it certainly was successful.

The trouble lies not so much in the restricted freedom of the pulpit as in the general attitude of the layman toward the Rabbi. The average layman would look upon the rabbi as a mere hireling, a menial appointed to do certain kind of work for a certain—and in some cases, uncertain—sum. He cannot be made to see that there is an essential difference between the clerk behind the counter, and the clericus behind the pulpit. Both are paid—by him. Both may be dismissed—by him. Where, then, to his commercial mind, lies the defference?

What is the cause of this mental attitude on the part of the laity?

In the first place, as Prof. Schechter has rightly pointed out in his address to the graduating students of his seminary last year, there has remained with us, from early pioneer times, a spirit of indifference as to the qualifications of the rabbi. If the untrained, the untutored, are good enough to fill a Jewish pulpit, what superiority should be assigned to the trained, the learned? In the early pioneer-times, any German Religionslehrer, who came to America became a self-pro-moted rabbi. And his qualifications were not so much learning and eloquence as unctiousness and sycophancy. The ability to fawn up influential laymen was in those days a sure road to success. And much of this policy is still practiced to-day. When a few months ago, I came to New York, one of the self-styled rabbis gave me the fatherly advice to call upon Mr.