“
“I have fond memories of studying
with Rabbi Jacobovitz. We had many long evenings at the old Clark’s. This was before the U had a Jewish studies department and he was our connection to the world of Jewish study.”
– Janet Lackman, Class of 1966,
Hillel UW Board Past President
The term “rabbi” is very different from the term “minister” or priest. The rabbinate is not even mentioned in the Torah, Judaism’s only source of written law. Rabbinical authority, also called Smircha or Semikhah ( סמיכה) has no relationship to passing on an authority to speak for God. Smircha is simply the transmission” of rabbinic authority to give advice or judgment based on Jewish law.
My sister in law Janet, a very proud corporate attorney, ought to understand this. Lawyers in America need to be accepted to the bar, that is accepted by their colleagues. The idea of a law degree is very new and has recently been debated as being of less value than self learning and practical experience … that is apprenticeship.
This oncept of acceptance by the bar is similar to the way , rabbinic authority was given by consensus of the community of Jewish scholars. The existence of rabbinical institutions that claim the authority to award Smircha is a modern development patterned after Christian practice. Even today Haredi rabbis may not be required to hold a “formal” semikhah . It might even astonish Hugh that our father himself was called to the bima (the place in a synagogue where the torah is read) under the name “Reb Ravii,” out of respect for my father’s own learning.
There is a wrinkle in my picture of Rabbis … Rabbis also claim to be able to use the unwritten history of the Jews to interpret Torah. This claim is based on a myth among orthodox Jews is that there is a continuous passage of Smircha back to Moses and his seventy elders. Unlike the Catholic Church that claims an orderly (if also mythical) succession of the Papacy since Peter , Smircha has no connecting thread to Moses’ elders. The last connection may have been in the 12th century when rabbis from Lebanon and Syria were traveled to Israel in order to pass on semikhah to their students. Only very fanatical Jews, including the Lubavitch sect, still insist that there is an unbroken chain of authority dating back to the time of Moses and Joshua. That sect claimed that their rebbe was a descendent of King David. Imagine David with blond eyes and red hair like Reb Schneerson!
I have one more, hopefully charming story and that is about a Lubavitcher Reb. Some years ago this medical school had a rule prohibiting marriage between faculty and residents. The school called that nepotism The Chair of Ophthalmology and one of his residents, however were in love. They went to the Hillel Rabbi, Reb Yacobovitch .. our dear friend “Jake.” Jake was the sone of a Lubavitcher Rabbi and had become our Rabbi after we learned he was a great teacher. Rabbi Jake refused to marry the couple explaining, that no rabbi has nay authority ot marry anyone ..other than whatever authority the state confers. Instead Reb Jake officiated at a wonderful marriage ceremony where he stood aside form the couple and they, with his help0, married each other according to Jewish tradition.