I recently had a communication w/ someone I know who is not only in favor of women rabbis but puts heavy money behind it and similar woke, post modern initiatives. He explained that women rabbis are similar to what Sarah Schnierer did when she started the Beis Yaakov school system - so it's great! Until her time girls didn't receive formal education and she went against tradition. So why are women rabbis any different???
That is a fallacious and misleading comparison.
There are [at least] two preconditions for any serious innovation in Jewish practice. 1] There must be serious first rate rabbonim behind it. 2] It must be necessary in order to preserve and enhance Torah. Women rabbis fill neither.
The Conservative movement said that in order to save Torah we need to permit [among other things] people to drive to shul on Shabbos and to have mixed seating in shul. So they fulfilled precondition #2 but of course there was not one serious Rav who sided with their innovations. And we see where they went.... Conservatism and the more lenient Reform have gone downhill the last few decades while "rigid" Orthodoxy [who many thought was about to go extinct] flourishes.
The notion of ordaining women rabbis has no serious Gedolei Torah behind it. Not one. The OU came out against. Numerous YU Rabbonim have signed a long letter it. [They are linked here.] The small number of rabbis in favor are fringe left wing rabbis, none of whom are known as Gedolei Torah by any stretch of the imagination. This person told me that he doesn't care what the rabbis say b/c it makes sense to him to have women rabbis. [I think that his argument from Sarah Schneirer was to convince me. His real reason was that he likes the idea and doesn't care what just about every serious rav alive thinks]. Well, that is not Orthodoxy. You want to be Reform - fine. Just admit it and don't disguise yourself as Orthodox. We follow piskei halacha of rabbonim. That is the way our religion works. To live otherwise is a tremendous breach of tradition. People who don't know one page of gemara properly, who can't read a Tosfos and a Maharsha, think they understand Torah better than people who have Shas and poskim at their fingertips. AMAZING!
Do women rabbis preserve Judaism? People are going off the derech and will be saved if there are women rabbis?? Nonsense. In prewar Europe there was mass assimilation and Sarah Schnierer went to the Gedolim to get their agreement to educate girls and save our people. To compare this contemporary breach of tradition to that is absurd.
Look at the graduates of Beis Yaakov - Do they come out hard core feminists who look to make further changes? Just the opposite. They are the frummest, most devoted to tradition and desire to see their husbands and sons excelling in Talmud Torah [as our tradition dictates] and their daughters being modest G-d fearing pious women. Look at those who favor women in the rabbinate. Do people look at them and say "What incredible Yiras Shomayim!!! What Tzniyus!!! What humility!!!" Hmmmmmm. They also are the same people who encourage girls to serve in the army [which is forbidden by just about every Rav since the birth of the State. For some, such as the Chazon Ish it is יהרג ואל יעבור]. I am not going to get into other breaches of Halacha and Hashkafa. [These radicals can be heard on youtube spewing their derision of rabbonim and halacha]. My point is that this dangerous step of appointing a woman as a rabbi of a shul is an erosion of traditional Torah Judaism - from within.
May Hashem save us. And may people who were gifted by Hashem with a lot of money use it to strengthen Judaism and not the opposite!!!
