Yeshivat Maharat
Founded by Rabba Sara Hurwitz and Rabbi Avi Weiss in New York City in 2009, Yeshivat Maharat is the first Orthodox yeshiva to ordain women as clergy. While women had been serving in clergy-like roles in Orthodox settings for a number of years by the time Maharat was founded, the institution changed the facts on the ground by creating a credentialed pathway for women to serve as Orthodox clergy. Maharat has graduated dozens of women who are serving in synagogues, schools, hospitals, Hillels, universities, and Jewish communal organizations. Dozens more are enrolled in the yeshiva, working toward ordination. Maharat has changed the face of Judaism, enabling Orthodox women clergy to positively impact the Jewish world.
The Roots of Orthodox Women Clergy
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Ordination of Rabba Sara Hurwitz
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Becoming More Established
In the fall of 2015, Maharat moved from its Upper West Side location to the HIR. The move brought Maharat under the same roof as Yeshivat Chovevei Torah (YCT), the male rabbinical school founded by Weiss in 1999, allowing for collaboration between the two schools. Most importantly, however, having Maharat housed in the HIR, a unique synagogue affectionately known as the “Bayit,” or Home, allowed Maharat students to immerse themselves in a living laboratory of a community that espoused the school’s ideals. Students were able to intern at the Bayit, teaching classes, running The quorum, traditionally of ten adult males over the age of thirteen, required for public synagogue service and several other religious ceremonies.minyanim, giving sermons and divrei Torah, and assisting the synagogue clergy as they officiated at life cycle events.
As Maharat settled into its new home, it expanded its operations and took on the patina of a more established institution. The Houses of study (of Torah)Bet Midrash began to hum with more and more female voices engaged in the study of Torah. The yeshiva also began new programs, such as the Advanced Kollel: Executive Ordination Track in 2013. This program allowed women with excellent learning skills and who had already been working for many years in rabbinic or academic roles to learn for semikha through a three-year part-time program that involved weekly Talmud study sessions in Yoreh Deah, the traditional category of Jewish law studied for semikha, and onsite programming during winter and summer academic breaks for intensive study of topics in rabbinics. In 2019, in partnership with Yeshivat Chovevei Torah, Maharat also started a one-year preparatory program called the Beit Midrash program, which allows men and women who do not yet have the learning skills to apply to Maharat or YCT’s semikha programs to increase and improve their skills.
Opposition and Controversy
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Conclusion
Yeshivat Maharat has changed the landscape of the Modern Orthodox community, and indeed the American Jewish community as a whole. Its dozens of graduates ably serve the Jewish community, and the ever-growing number of students in the pipeline prepare to add their mark to American Orthodox Judaism. While opposition to female rabbis persists in many quadrants of the Orthodox community, a new generation of Orthodox young people is growing up in a world in which Orthodox women rabbis are already serving and positively impacting the communities in which they live.
Brown, Elicia and Gary Rosenblatt. “‘Rabba’ Hurwitz Mulling Retracting New Title.” New York Jewish Week, March 18, 2010. <https://jewishweek.timesofisrael.com/rabba-hurwitz-mulling-retracting-n…;
Dolsten, Josefin. “A Decade On, Looking Back At What’s Changed Since Yeshivat Maharat Was Founded.” New York Jewish Week, December 24, 2019.
<https://jewishweek.timesofisrael.com/whats-changed-10-years-after-found… >
Dreyfus, Hannah. “After New OU Ruling, ‘Business As Usual’ At Orthodox Women’s Rabbinical School.” New York Jewish Week, February 7, 2018. <https://jewishweek.timesofisrael.com/after-new-ou-ruling-business-as-us… >
Ferziger, Adam. “Sanctuary for the Specialist: Gender and the Reconceptualization of the American Orthodox Rabbinate.” Jewish Social Studies: History, Culture, Society 23, no. 3 (Spring/Summer 2018): 1–37.
Goodstein, Laurie. “Causing a Stir, 2 Synagogues Hire Women to Assist Rabbis.” New York Times, February 6, 1998, B1.
Harris, Ben. “Amid Furor, Weiss Retreats from ‘Rabba’ Title,” New York Jewish Week, March 11, 2010. <https://jewishweek.timesofisrael.com/amid-furor-weiss-retreats-from-rab…;
Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance. www.jofa.org
Nadell, Pamela. Women Who Would be Rabbis: A History of Women’s Ordination, 1889-1985. New York: Beacon Press, 1998.
Nishmat. “Yoatzot Halacha Milestones.” https://www.yoatzot.org/yoatzot-halacha-intro/tl-display/
Orthodox Union. “Women’s Leadership Initiative.” https://www.ou.org/women/
Yeshivat Maharat. www.yeshivatmaharat.org
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