הגבלת משך כהונתם של רבנים

00:00 The letter is on page eleven. That's today's letter, it's on page eleven. It's from exactly fifty years ago, exactly give or take. It's from Erev Chag Sukkot of Tammuz lamed gimel, so fifty years give or take a couple months. And it's a short little letter, but it has a lot of background. I wanna say the background this time before we read the letter because if you come into the letter with that background, the letter makes a lot more sense. So the background here is actually something we've discussed in prior, in prior letters from the Rebbe, especially from this year. This was a big year for Israeli Rabbinate elections. Um, but going back even further than that particular election, the election we talked about last time was Rabbi Goren becoming the Chief Rabbi of Israel, and he was elected mainly by the secularists who wanted him to rule on a controversial issue between a brother and a sister who are-- were almost certainly Mamzerim. Everybody thought they were Mamzerim. They wanted him to pasque them that they weren't, so they appointed him. If you, uh, if you go back into the, into the sheer list, you'll find the one on Mamzerim, you can hear that whole story. So there was a real controversial, uh, Israeli Rabbinate election at this point. But the Rebbe going way back years and years before had been involved in the Israeli Rabbinate elections for quite some time, and it was always because he had a sticking point. The Rebbe was against

01:05 term limits. There's a term limit when it comes to the Israeli Rabbinate. You're only allowed to be a rabbi in the Israeli Rabbinate, the Chief Rabbi. Chief Rabbi of Israel can only be chief rabbi for ten years. The term limit's a hard limit, and after that somebody runs to replace you. Going back, I didn't go all the way back because the igros go all the way back. But going back again and again throughout the Israeli Rabbinate elections, you always find the Rebbe writing a letter to someone saying, "Hey, I'm pretty sure..." The Rebbe doesn't say pretty sure. "Hey, I'm certain that it is asur for people to have term limits on rabbis. Rabbis can't have term limits." So I have some old letters, uh, about previous elections that I wanna run by you. I have one letter here that he sent to the Sefardim of Yerushalayim. They'd written to the Rebbe saying that they were worried that Rabbi Ovadia Yosef was going to run against the incumbent, Rabbi Yitzhak Nissim. They were very fond of Rabbi Nissim, and they wanted to make sure that he stayed in office. But they were pushing term limits at the time, and his term limit was long since up, and Rabbi Ovadia Yosef was running to replace him. So the Rebbe writes back to them. I wanna read the letter to you. This is not the letter we're reading today. I'm reading a different letter in case you're having trouble following. This is a letter from previously to clarify.

04:05 The Rebbe says, "If you're going to ask me, 'Well, isn't there term limits? It's written into their contract. So now that we have this rabbi's term limit expiring, shouldn't we be voting for one of the two replacements?'" The Rebbe says, "Not at all." This question about precedent, about the contract that existed has nothing to do with the din. The fact that they did things that were asur in the past by setting term limits by , and they're telling you that they plan on doing in the fut-- in the future. This will not turn an aveira into a mitzvah. These are strong words from the Rebbe saying that he's not interested in these Israeli Rabbinate elections because they shouldn't be happening. These rabbis should not be at the end of ten years pushed out of their seat. They should be happening to fill voids when a rabbi dies and when a rabbi steps down, but not when a rabbi is done his term limit. The Rebbe elaborates on this in the letter, uh, to Nissim to Lushkin later that same year. He says, . This one's much shorter. Actually, the letter is very long. I'm giving you just three sentences from it. He's talking about Rabbi Nissim again, who, uh, Rabbi Ovadia Yosef was running against. The Rebbe says it's never been seen that Chilanim, even Baal Habatim, were allowed to . They were allowed to move a rav from his position. He said, "I understand that there was set up, uh, from the beginning that

05:23 there would be a term limit, and that was part of his contract." He goes, "This is not something that is-- can be mevatel, that can get in the way of Kavod Hatorah and Kavod Rav B'Yisroel. The inyan of Hazakah." He goes, "The fact is that I don't care if there were term limits, I don't care if there were contracts. You can't run against a sitting rabbi, and that's that." So coming into this, um, after that election where nobody listened to the Rebbe and Rabbi Ovadia Yosef replaced, uh, Rav Nissim Later on, there was the Ashkenazi election. That's the one that happens in the year that we're studying now. This is Rabbi Untermann is the sitting rabbi. He's up, he's done ten years, and his term's up, and Rabbi Shlomo Goren is running to replace him. As we said at the beginning of this year, and as you remember from prior shiurim, this was very contentious because Rabbi Goren was mainly running to replace him on the, on the ticket that he was going to-- that he was going to mesh together what the secularists wanted with Halakha and sacrifice both. At the time, the Rebbe and Rabbi Goren were quite close before the election. Rabbi Goren was the chief rabbi of Tel Aviv, and before that, he had been the chief rabbi of the Israeli army. He'd written to the Rebbe back and forth extensively, and I have a letter here where the Rebbe writes to Rabbi Goren going into the election, and the-- he

06:25 writes very warmly but also very strongly. The Rebbe tells him that, "I, I expect you not to run." And he says it in a very nice way. I just wanna read a little excerpt of that to you, and then we'll, we'll go into our letter today. So he tells Rabbi Goren, "I don't want you running." It's a PS on one of his prior letters. This is the Rebbe writing to Rabbi Goren when he was still the chief rabbi of Tel Aviv, but had already, uh, declared his candidacy to replace Rabbi Untermann. Says, "I wanna maintain our relationship." "I also don't want you to hear this from somebody else. Uh, I want you to hear this from me, and I wanna maintain our relationship." So the Rebbe's going to tell him something that's hard to hear. I'm gonna write this to you. The same way that I've always stood in the prior-- in prior instances when it came to Israeli rabbinate elections, and I base my position on many places in Halakha, including the Chasam Sofer. The Rebbe says, "I am against pushing out a rav when his term limit's up." This has nothing to do with people who are running against him. I have nothing against the people running against him. I'm just saying you can't run against him. As I said in the last election. I'm gonna jump to the middle of the letter 'cause this is the part I really want you to hear, which is this sentence I put in bold in

07:45 my notes. The Rebbe says, "Because of all of this, it is my hope, that, that, that you will es I hate that word. It's got way too many vowels. The Rebbe says, "I expect you to withdraw from the election, and I can't wait to hear that publicized. I expect to hear ," Rabbi Goren. Uh, "I expect you to withdraw your candidacy because I don't want a rabbi replaced in Eretz Yisrael, um, at the end of his term limit, and I'm waiting to hear this announced publicly." the Rebbe says, "I'm really hoping you'll do it." And then the Rebbe adds, one other important point in your particular election, the Rebbe says, "I can tell they're trying to use you as a pawn to go against Halakha, so that's the second reason why you shouldn't run." Okay, so we have the Rebbe's position very clearly when it comes to the Rav Ashi position. The Rebbe does not want anybody running against sitting rabbonim, and he, uh, he put his relationship with Rabbi Goren on the line, and ultimately, that relationship crumbled under this very issue, as we discussed in previous letters. Looking at our letter today. Our letter today is on page eleven. It's written on Erev Chag HaSukkot, taf shin lamed gimel. The Rebbe writes-- You can open it up. Here we are. This is our letter. The Rebbe says, "Regarding my position on the upcoming Israeli rabbinate elections." Can you guess where the Rebbe's gonna go with this? By now you should be able to.

09:14 The Rebbe says, "I'd like to preface this by saying that my opinion is not specific to Eretz Yisrael. The opinion that I'm about to tell you applies to rabbinate elections everywhere." The same way that I said about the last Israeli rabbinate election. And I based my opinion on many places in Halakha, including the Chasam Sofer that is well known. I am against pushing away a rav at the end of the time of his term limit. And this should have nothing to do with the honor of those who are running against him. As I've written in all prior elections, the Rebbe's signature. There's a note at the bottom of this letter that, uh, Rabbi Holikab was told, was told-- the Rebbe, the Rebbe told Rabbi Holikab to publicize this letter, make sure Rabbi Zevin gets it in Eretz Israel and all the Rabboni Anash and all the Bakrim. Um, oh, excuse me, Rabboni Anash Bechorim, that's a different word. The Rabboni Anash who are going to be voting should all be told this after Yom Tov, that they should all be told that this is the Rebbe's position when it comes to voting rabbis out of office. So that's the letter that we're looking at today. The, um, the Rebbe keeps on saying in this letter that this is not just about Israeli elections, it's about the entire world, not just about Israel, it's about the entire world. So I, I wanted to look into just how far this goes. Um, and the answer is it's

10:30 a little, it's a little trickier when it comes to the brass tacks of Halakha. So there's a Rama, there's a Shulchan Arukh Yoreh De'ah two forty-five twenty-two. You can look it up, Yoreh De'ah two forty-five twenty-two. There's a long Rama at the very, very end of that siman where he talks everything about what Hasagas Gvul is by Rabbonim, whether a rav can move into a rav-- another rav's territory. Basically, the entire sugya of, of rabbis fighting with each other is found in a, in this tiny sif at the end of-- a long Rama and a tiny sif at the end of that siman. Uh, what he says there is someone is hochzak as a rabbi of a city, even if he took that upon himself, you know, he made himself the rav, even if another better rabbi comes, you can't remove him from his post. And this rabbi's children and his grandchildren, they all get the post forever. As long as they are at least a little bit wise and they fill the role of their father properly, this precedent goes to that family forever. But then there's this line in the Rama that a lot of poskim don't know exactly what to do with. In a place where there is a custom to have contracts for a rabbi or term limits, where they have a specific amount of time they'll be serving, there's a minute to vote for the rabbi. The Rama says, it's totally fine. This does not seem to be what the

11:46 Rebbe's saying in his letter. The Rama is very specifically saying, you can vote out a sitting rabbi, the term limits are fine, and it's unclear what the Rama means because the next line in the Rama is but if they did accept the rabbi among them, upon themselves, if they accepted his rulership, then nobody can remove him. So the next line in the Rama is from the Debash, and seems to contradict that. Um, the Oneg HaShulchan looks at all of this. He has a, he has a whole halichos in two forty-five twenty-nine, and his bottom line is that nowadays Our minhag is that when somebody becomes a rabbi, we never remove them. That's probably what the Rebbe's basing his position on. He says, "But we haven't seen this minhag from the Rama ." The me-members of a city, they vote in a certain rabbi, even if they write down in a contract that he's only there for a certain period of time, you can simply never remove him. You can't get rid of the guy. That's the psak of the Shulchan Aruch. I went looking for this Chasam Sofer the Rebbe keeps quoting. I'm not sure which one it is. In the lines below, um, in the Igrus where they tell us where to look, that's not exactly how Shut Chasam Sofer is broken up. It's not broken up by simanim, it's broken up by teshuvahs. So it would take me quite a while to figure out which one it is. I think it might be

12:58 the one that's quoted in the Pesach teshuvah in Ches Mishpat in three thirty-three six. That seems probable. The Chasam Sofer there writes, the contract terms, uh, have no bearing on the congregation, they have bearing on the rabbi. That is that if it says if a rabbi has a contract that says that he's a rabbi for ten years, that according to the Chasam Sofer doesn't mean that the kehila can kick him out after ten years. It just means that the rabbi is allowed to leave at the end of ten years, otherwise he'd be stuck there forever. You appoint somebody a rabbi, in theory, he's your rabbi for life. Um, the ten-year contract allows him to leave at the end of the ten years, and the whole reason we write the contract in the first place, according to the Chasam Sofer, is that people won't think we enslaved the guy, because if you hire a rabbi, it's possible that he's stuck there, uh, permanently. So when the Rebbe says, um, when the Rebbe says that he's not in favor of term limits or of removing rabbonim from their posts, he's leaning on a Chasam Sofer and he's leaning on Acharonim. I don't know exactly d- what to do with the fact that it seems to be beferish against a Rama. Um, so this is something to look into in more detail, maybe that we can discuss in the chat. In any case, it's not clear to me exactly how far this applies to contemporary scenarios and to

14:02 rabbonim and to shluchim around the world who are perpetually hiring and firing each other. But at the very least, when it comes to me being a prime example of one of those of one of those rabbonim. Um, I'm not sure exactly how this applies to Halakha Lemaaseh. However, I am certain about how it applies to the Israeli elections at the very least, which is that the Rebbe firmly feels that, uh, that the rabbonim who are appointed to be rav Rashi of Israel and rav Rashi anywhere in the world, that, uh, they are not to be removed from their posts unless they act inappropriately. There are all sorts of teshuvahs about rabbis who act inappropriately. We can get rid of them anytime. But I mean, if they're not doing anything wrong, removing them at the end of a term limit itself is not considered justified in Halakha, according to the Rebbe. And that really is the bottom line no matter what the Rama says. But figuring out how that fits with the Rama can be the aveida for the rest of the day. Questions, comments, concerns. I have a note from Men- from Mendel, uh, that he sent in text asking if maybe this is the reason why the Rebbe refused to meet with Ovadia Yosef. I'm, I'm s-- I don't know, but I am certain that this soured their relationship because Rav Ovadia Yosef later wrote how upset he was about the fact that the Rebbe came out saying that he wasn't allowed to run

15:03 in the election that made him the chief rabbi. So I, I know that at least from one direction, this soured the relationship. Rav Ovadia Yosef never quite forgave the Rebbe for this. And, uh, Shlomo Goren, at least anecdotally, anecdotally, this isn't a good source. This is like from one of his students. They, they say that Rav Shlomo Goren was afraid of the Rebbe after this letter and refused to meet with him after that because he was afraid of the Rebbe. That the Rebbe very specifically told him not to run, and he defied him so then if he, if, if when he came to New York, he would like, he would like avoid streets he thought the Rebbe might be on because he was, he was looking over his shoulder and might get caught. So that's, that's from one of his students. I don't know how reliable that is, but it sounds like that it wasn't, uh, it was a different response from Rabbi Goren, that he wasn't, uh, he wasn't angry. He was, uh, he was embarrassed by himself, uh, which is obviously a, a more appropriate response.