The Rabbi: 1966 •
(Early this year, Rabbi Morris Adler wrote “The Rabbi: 1966”
for the spring 1966 issue of Jewish Heritage, the literary
quarterly of B’nai B”rith’s adult Jewish education depart
ment. It was the last article written by Rabbi Adler, chair
man of B’nai B’rith’s Commission on Adult Jewish Education,
before his death.)
By RABBI MORRIS ADLER
Upon no one else in the Jew
ish community have the ham
mer blows of change and mu-
;ation fallen as forcefully as
upon the American rabbi (ex
cepted are those who live
m the few communities of
refuge from modern life to
be found in Brooklyn and
Long Island — the Mea
Shearim of our continent).
None has been more exposed
to the "acids of modernity”
than he; none as storm-tossed
by the multiple revolutions
that have worked such havoc
with the inherited and hal
lowed.
It is small wonder that he
appears to himself as standing
at a crossroad of uncertainty
and ambiguity, without a clear
conception of his function and
baffled as to direction. He does
not define himself either as
prophet or priest, philosopher
or mystic, communal leader or
administrator. He may be
something of each, and the re
sult is a blurred portrait that
is not easily recognizable, and
that except for the designation
'rabbi'" bears little similarity
to that of his predecessors.
How easy it is to pick upon the
weakness he betrays, the inner
contradictions he unites within
him. the corrosions his profes
sion has suffered.
He provides a ready target
for those who delight in mak
ing ironic thrusts at the vul
garities of the organized life
over which he presumably pre
sides in their desire to excul
pate themselves from their
non-involvement in matters
Jewish. He has attained a high
degree of conspicuousness, a
condition which invites critics
'o heap upon him the guilt for
he shallowness, shrillness and
howiness of so much of com
munal activity. (There may be
•' psychological basis to the
need or desire to level critic
s'll at the rabbi.) Yet he is
'tore victim than culprit, more
he object than the shaper of
he forces of Jewish collective
ndeavor. The real power in
die community rests in other
hands, while his own influence
s more apparent than vital,
he Jewish community itself is
in the vortex of powerful
circumstances that have their
origin and locus outside of it.
But it is not to defend him
that leads one to speak of the
rabbi, current vantage—though
obviously one should appraise
his position and work in pro
per perspective. Understanding
should be prior to judgment.
What claims our attention here
is an aspect that goes unnoticed
in the novels in which he is a
character— chief or subsidi
ary—and in the essays which
treat their readers to a philoso
phical or sociological analysis
of the rabbi on the American
Jewish scene. It is an aspect
that lies hidden beneath the
surface of his prominence and
success and seems to be denied
by the adulation accorded him
and the comfortable livelihood
granted him.
His is essentially a life of
pathos. He suffers a score of
alienations and must daily bat
tle for his faith and hope. For
he is isolated at the very center
of the community he “leads"
and serves as the spokesman
of a group-tradition at a time
when the group has become all
but traditionless.
The rabbi is the heir and
teacher of the longest contin
uous history and tradition in
the Western world. From early
childhood he has been trained
to look at life from the vantage
point of a millennial history.
In his father's home, he had be
come rooted in a faith and
background, and its symbols,
institutions and rhythms are
deeply intertwined with his
personal attitudes and beliefs.
History-oriented and tradition-
centered he now sees himself
a stranger in a land not his.
For ours is an age of a reced
ing if it not disappearing past,
in which yesterday quickly
joins antiquity in the mounting
heap of the obsolescent. Daily
are we witness to the prolifera
tion of discontinuities and the
escalation of transitoriness.
Modern man is “isolated" in
time since change, vast, const
ant and relentless, cuts the
ground of the past from under
his feet and allows him but the
immediate moment in which to
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