I finally figured it out

It was obvious from the first time that our current rabbi officiated at a religious service that he had difficulty reading any text that he didn't already know. (As time went on, it became clear that his social skills were not what one might expect from a person over 30 years old, either. See here.)

So when we heard that he had refused the chazzan (cantor's) offer to teach him how to lein (chant from a sefer Torah) and how to chant a haftarah on the grounds that "it's not in my contract," I didn't believe that that was the real reason.

And when he claimed that he never corrected the leiner/baal koreh (person who chants the reading from a Torah scroll) because he didn't want to embarrass him in public, I didn't believe that, either, especially since he not only never objected when my husband, serving as a gabbai (assistant), corrected the leiner, but also never objected to one of our Israel-American members calling out corrections from his/her m'kom k'vua (customary place) in the back of the room.

But there were some rather odd occurences.

There was the rabbi's initial insistence that he should refrain from teaching the laws of Jewish observance, on the ground that it would be better if we sinned out of ignorance than if we sinned willfully. A few of us gave him quite a lecture about his attitude, stating that it was his responsibility to teach and ours to observe (or not). He later eased up on this.

And there was the rabbi's statement, when asked whether he'd looked for another job to supplement the meager salary that we pay him, that he couldn't job-hunt because looking for work would take too much time away from his studies. Never before had we had a part-time rabbi who showed so little interest in getting another job.

Then there was that interesting conversation about Birkat HaMazon (Grace After Meals). Someone pointed out that Birkat HaMazon was based on the verse "You will eat and be satisfied and bless HaShem your G-d for the good land that He gave you." So the rabbi piped up and said that that verse was part of the Sh'ma. I was flabbergasted. I'm not even a yeshiva graduate, much less a rabbi, and even I know that that quote does not come from the Sh'ma, a series of quotations that appear in both Shacharit (Morning Service) and Arvit/Maariv (Evening Service) every day. The Sh'ma consists of three biblical quotes, the first paragraph being from D'varim, Parshat Va-etchanan/Deuteronony 6:4-9, the second paragraph from D'varim, Parshat Ekev/Deuteronomy 11:13-21, and the third paragraph from B'midbar, Parshat Sh'lach L'cha/Numbers 15:37-41. The quote on which Birkat HaMazon is based is D'varim, Parshat Ekev/Deuteronomy 8:10. Not only did I have to tell the rabbi that he was incorrect, I had to find the correct quote for him in the Chumash.

What really got me thinking, though, was the response to my post about our then-new Shabbos lamp, in which I happened to mention in passing that the rabbi had been unsure about a matter of Sabbath observance, and asked my readers about it. The comments were real eye-openers, ranging from a straightforward answer to my question to a statement that, if the rabbi couldn't answer such a question, we should get a new rabbi. Even more of an eye-opener, however, was the off-blog response than I received via e-mail from an Orthodox rabbi. First, he asked why my rabbi had still not responded to my question. When I wrote back that my rabbi had said that he had to ask his rebbe (teacher), my correspondent responded that, when he'd been a yeshiva teacher, some of his more-advanced 10th-grade students (16-year-olds?) could have answered my question. And he asked me, in polite but pointed terms, whether my rabbi was really the Talmud scholar that he claimed to be. I had to admit that, given the knowledge level of most of the congregants, myself included, the rabbi could make just about any claim he wanted, and most of us wouldn't know the difference.

After that, I began to pay closer attention to the rabbi's actions.

I noticed that, when I asked him a question about halachah/Jewish religious law that he could answer immediately, he answered immediately, but that, when I asked a question for which he didn't have an immediate answer, he would promise to let me know the answer, but would not do so.

I noticed that there were several additional instances in which I was able to locate a quote in the Chumash that he was not able to locate.

And I noticed something that I considered quite unusual for a pulpit rabbi--of all the rabbis in whose synagogues I've worshipped often enough as an adult to have heard many of their sermons, he was the least likely to base a sermon on the Parsha (weekly Torah reading) and/or haftarah.

It was the Shabbos Goy who held the key to understanding my rabbi.

On several occasions, he pointed out that, every year, before the Yamim Noraim/High Holidays, the rabbi took home a Machzor/Holiday prayer book. The Shabbos Goy was convinced that the rabbi did so in order to memorize the English readings that he was expected to lead.

I had not realized that the rabbi's learning disability had such a pervasive affect on his rabbinate.


Here's my current theory:

Since the rabbi clearly has difficulty reading, he's been forced to rely on memorization. Therefore, he's limited his studies to those texts that he believes he needs to know in order to impress the people whom he believes he needs to impress. And those texts come almost exclusively from the Gemara. He studies and memorizes what he needs to know to impress his chevrutas (study partners) and the rabbis who give shiurim (lectures). He studied and memorized what he needed to learn in order to earn a Yoreh Yoreh Yadin Yadin rabbinical ordination/S'michah.

But there are two areas of Jewish knowledge in which he's limited, because he's never needed to memorize material from these areas in order to impress the people he considers it important to impress.

One is Tanach, Bible, which, in the yeshivish circles that he prefers, is considered an appropriate study subject for women and children only. This accounts for his unwillingness to learn to lein or chant a haftarah, his inability to correct the leiner, and his inability to find quotes in the Chumash. It also accounts for his penchant for discussing the Holocaust, Israel, and/or current events rather than the Parsha in his sermons--he doesn't need to read and memorize an entire Torah reading every week to give a sermon based on what he learned from his parents and teachers, from his own life experiences, and from what he hears on the radio.

When I explained this theory to my husband, he was taken aback. "You mean I know the Chumash better than the rabbi does?"

"Yes, and so do I."

The other area in which our rabbi's knowledge is limited is Daat for Dummies--he has little interest in, or talent for, teaching those of us who are not Gemara scholars.

What really strikes me now, re-reading my "Shabbos lamp" post, is my statement that my rabbi "readily admits to not being an expert on hilchot Shabbat (the laws of Sabbath)." That admission of his should have served as a "red flag." How on earth can any rabbi who isn't an expert on hilchot Shabbat and has no interest in becoming one serve in good concience as a pulpit rabbi?

Our rabbi's contract will come to an end before the Yamim Noraim. I sincerely hope that he never accepts a position as a pulpit rabbi again.

[Daat, Da'at, Da'as = knowledge]

I actually published this post on April 7, 2010, but had second thoughts about leaving it at the top of my blog. Given the fact that my current rabbi and I have not always gotten along very well, to say the least, as you can see if you click on the first link here, I'm not sure how visible I want this post to be.