Beit Din proceeding to Revoke Smicha on Aish Rabbi

Beit Din proceeding to Revoke Smicha on Aish Rabbi
By Rabbi Lamech Somayach
Mashgiach Ruchini, Yeshiva Aishes Eish Hatorah
Special to MeshumadMeshubach.blogspot.com


In a move that has shocked many in the frum and Baal T’shuva world, the Beit Din of the Motezes Gadolim Hador announced they are immediately starting legal proceedings to revoke the rabbinical ordination of Aish HaTorah Rabbi Kalman Packouz of North Miami Beach. The grounds for the revocation come from a d’var torah that Rabbi Packouz sent out in 2004 that contradicts the philosophical goals of Orthodox teachings and has resulted in the falling out of more than six wealthy donors from the Orthodox donors list world wide.

The announcement comes on the heels of a wave of reputation trashings across the world for rabbis who dare to make unpopular comments, often innocently enough at the time but in later light their comment is somehow found to be offensive or else there is a person who is angry and looking for a place to vent their rage.

“This loss of financial clout is unforgivable in how many rabbinical trips to vacation in Israel were lost because of people reading this essay, and that can never be forgiven” said Rabbi Nosson Wolpin, editor of the Jewish Observer, the mouthpiece of the organization. “What, should I start telling people my name is Nathanial now,” he added sarcastically.

The controversial essay was written By Rabbi Packouz on August 29, 2003, was a fairly common commentary that connected the weekly Torah Portion with contemporary events in an extemporaneous essay loaded with donation links and fundraising pleas.

The exact phrase was: “Our lesson? We must learn to be discerning. Even those things that appear to be harmless can be very dangerous. Similarly, there are many things that are detrimental to one's spiritual well-being that at first glance do not seem dangerous.”
This is clearly supposed to be a throw away cocktail party comment, Wolpin said. However, because of its ambiguity several wealthy people came to realize that their ethics had become suspect due to exposure to the Orthodox emphasis on fundraising at any cost. In addition the people realized their personal life was not significantly better after becoming frum than it was before.

“We realized we were so busy with an intellectually vacuous life that we had entirely abandoned the rigorous intellectualism that drew us in and replaced it with constantly running to minyan and watching out for chumras, and we owe this realization to Rabbi Packouz” the people said.

In order to prevent future scandals like this, the Motzes is contemplating implementing guidelines requiring central approval for all sermons before publication, but acknowledges that language can have multiple interpretations, Wolpin said.