Centrist Orthodoxy, and the English Language

YCT is not centrist Orthodox, Its leftist Orthodox.

Id estimate Chofetz Chaim Yeshiva is more centrist. They teach secular studies (serioiusly) and do allow the Bochrim to attend some college courses and do encorage the Bochrim to get jobs instead of lifetime Kollel

PBA: YCT still gets to point to Machon Hadar as being to the left of them.

Old story. R’ Gifter said it about Norman Lamm

Exactly. Centrist is a relative term. That’s why someone from YU can call themselves centrist (YCT on their left, and Popa on their right), someone from Agudah can call themselves centrist (YU on their left and Satmar on their right), Satmar can call themselves centrist (Agudah on their left and Neturei Karta on their right), and YCT people can call themselves centrist (frei Jews on their left, YU/RCA on their right).

Orthodoxy is far too broad and complicated a system to be as neatly categorized and compartmentalized as you would like.

Also, what’s the deal with your constant digs at YCT? I disagree with their hashkafos as well- that doesn’t mean I create entire threads devoted to ridiculing their piskei Halacha, maliciously edit their Wikipedia page to make them look bad, or find every opportunity to criticize/insult them.

I personally am much more worried about rising intermarriage rates, chillul shabbos, and disregard of ALL Halacha by thousands of non observant jews versus a couple dozen YCT rabbis running small shuls that let women lead Kabbolas shabbos.

Mods edit the repeats. And popa, great movie. You’re clearly a kofer for watching movies. That’s not being centrist, just goyish.

Charlie, I was with right up into, you said “YCT pretty much does the same thing.” There’s a reason YCT rabbis cannot be part of the RCA. YU has never gone as far and pushed the boundaries of frumkeit as much as rabbi Avi Weiss and YCT have.

JTS does not push the boundaries of frumkeit- they simply aren’t frum. Maybe decades ago they could be considered frum but not anymore. They’re the ones that ordain women and gays, and are mechalel Shabbos befarhesia! That ain’t frum by any standard.

At least YCT seems to care about most of Halacha, there are many talmidei chachamim in their ranks, and they keep Shabbos, kosher, etc. however, in regards to women’s roles in frum life they definitely push boundaries.

I have yet to meet a person that considers himself to be an extremist.

I firmly believe that every person considers himself to be precisely in the middle.

He or she can always find someone or some group that is to their right and another that is to their left.

Everybody sees him/herself exactly in the middle.

This is the nature of all of us.

Anyone disagree with me?

“There’s a reason YCT rabbis cannot be part of the RCA.”

Correct. The reason is called “politics”. But at least two YCT core faculty, maybe more, are members of the RCA and one, Rabbi Nati Helfgot, is featured on the RCA website.

since the “center” of jewish orthodoxy is the torah, as codified by the shulchan aruch, the correct definition of centrist orthodoxy is to follow shulchan aruch. I myself am trying to be a centrist jew (im not always as succesful as i would like…) as if something is permitted according to halacha I see no reason to prohibit it. similarly if something is prohibited i do not have the audacity to permit it. I am a centrist Jew (and proud)

Popa, I wouldn’t have said it in as an inflammatory or bar plugtadike way as you did. The reason is the RCA disagrees with the quasi-halachic decisions made by YCT’s administration. Of course they’re still Jewish chas vesholom to slander another Jew like that, they’re just making incorrect halachic conclusions. And the line is from a movie, A Few Good Men.

Just a member: JTS isn’t like that anymore. I said it used to be fairly observant, maybe even the MO of its time. But those days are over, and they ended when JTS started ordaining women, later gays, and said that Halacha should change to accomodate women and mechalelei Shabbos. YCT purposefully tries to be creative within the halachic framework- they actually cite mekoros and learn Gemara. They might be wrong but they at least try. Most JTS graduates are not giving advanced Gemara be’iyun shiurim. YCT people often are.

Anyone disagree with me?

I don’t know that NK isn’t aware that they’re on the right. They just don’t care, because they think they are correct.

I don’t know how to measure right, left and center. It’s been argued that “yeshivish” is in the center, right in the middle, between LWMO and Satmar. I say, who cares? What’s correct is correct, no matter how many other ideologies there might be or how many people practice them.

ZDAD,

“Can RCA Rabbi’s be part of the Agudah?”

That does not even make sense. Is RCA a yeshiva?

Does Agudah have member rabbonim?

Your question cannot be answered because it just does not make sense.

It’s like asking what is the difference between a peach.

Nisht, RCA is the rabbinical council of America, a centrist orthodox group that gives semicha and has a few thousand member rabbis. It was led by rav Yosef Dovbear Solovetchik while he was alive. Surprised you’ve never heard of it.

Rational,

RCA is a Rabbinic Membership Organization. To become a member one must have an approved smicha. RCA does NOT issue smicha.

I haave heard of RCA, apparently while you have heard of it, you do not know what they do.

BY the way, they refer to primary leader as R Joseph B. Soloveitchik, ZT’L, not as DovBear, who is a small minded blogger.

The Agudah is not a Rabbinic Membership Organization. It to does not issue smicha. Agudah is a services and representational organization.

ZDs question therefore makes no sense.

“yct is on the same beaten path as jts”

That is not accurate. JTS did start out as Orthodox — their first graduate became the chief rabbi of the UK — but when Solomon Schechter arrived he brought a non-Orthodox hashkafa with him and its co-founder Henry Pereira Mendes disassociated himself from the institution. JTS did have a mostly Orthodox faculty for most of the 20th century — Rabbi Saul Lieberman, who could have taught at virtually any yeshiva in the world, has already been mentioned — but they also tolerated faculty such as Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan, who is one of the rare people of whom it can be said that he was a sufficiently great talmid chacham to be an actual apikoros. JTS even has a few Orthodox faculty today but it ceased to be an Orthodox institution a very long time ago. Worthy of note is that JTS has very rarely in its history given an Orthodox Yoreh Yoreh semichah.

By comparison, all the core YCT faculty are orthodox in both hashkafa and observance. It gives the ordinary Orthodox Yoreh Yoreh semichah and some of its graduates have made aliyah and passed the official semichah exams of the Israeli Rabbinate. They believe and teach Torah Mi Sinai and are fully observant. JTS has not been that way for generations.

The real comparison to YCT is what the Rabbi Yitzchak Elchanan Theological School — now affiliated with Yeshiva University — was like in its early decades, prior to the founding of Yeshiva College. It was a fully Orthodox institution, but with a mission to train English-speaking pulpit rabbis for America. The Eastern European rabbinate in America did not support RIETS. But it is because of the vision of people who started and promoted RIETS, along with other parallel movements such as the Orthodox Union and the Young Israel movement, that Orthodox Judaism survived in America. YCT is very much in that tradition. It fills a void created by RIETS becoming primarily a Torah Lishmah institution (with an absolutely amazing faculty), with a huge fraction of its semichah recipients going on to careers in fields other than the rabbinate. Fortunately, the Eastern European rabbinate in America did not run RIETS out of Orthodoxy. And YCT should not be excluded today.

Let me jump in here. I don’t think the term “Centrist” as used is intended as a comparative term, although it may seem that way. I think it’s a reference to what the Rambam calls the middle path. Modern Orthodoxy has often claimed that they are following the Rambam’s path. As such, the term “Centrist”, in that context, fits.

Nisht,

You were the one who said you didn’t know what it was, and asked if it was a yeshivah! And why did you bring dovbear into this, he has absolutely nothing to do with the discussion at hand.

Popa: You win. Shkoyach.

Everyone else: Once most rebbeim at YCT renounce torah mi-sinai and tell their students they can drive on shabbos I’ll agree with you.

Ration,

I said that rhetorically. I know its not a Yeshiva. How can they issue smicha, they are not a yeshiva.

Your description of RCA was incorrect because you assumed they issue smicha. They do not.

You also referred to Yosef DovBear. (Perhaps he was called Duber, most often though it was Yoshe Ber. DovBear is a blogger, as defined in its most derogatory manner)

I was pointing out that inaacuracy as well.

PBA: I don’t like YCT in the slightest either, but I think you’re greatly exaggerating what they say. I don’t think they’re that bad-yet. The near future will tell if they stay in the fold or move the way JTS did. I personally expect a JTS-type move, but I still hope that it doesn’t happen.

“But then in the next paragraph he writes: ‘Written by male rabbis nearly 2,000 years ago, these words evoke for me the sexism too prevalent in the Orthodox world and beyond… Do I want any part of that sexism? No.'”

First of all, he is not saying that the rabbis that wrote the brocho were sexist but that reading it today it evokes in his mind the sexism that he seas in the Orthodox community today. In other words what bothers him is how the words would be understood today, not their actual original meaning.

Second, even under your reading, he is essentially saying that although he wished the brocho wasn’t sexist, he will say it even though he doesn’t like it. That’s being mevatel your daas to halacha, a good thing.

At the very least this gets us to Chevron step two.