The Forward reports:
Last week the Brooklyn-based Jewish Press published an open letter from Rabbi Moshe Faskowitz announcing his resignation from the RCA in connection to the Tendler controversy. Faskowitz quit the RCA after a Jerusalem regional rabbinical court characterized the organization as being in violation of its rulings.
Tendler had filed a complaint with the Jerusalem court in July, claiming that the RCA had violated rabbinic law by expelling him without bringing the charges to an independent rabbinical court. The RCA has responded that according to rabbinic law, a summons is not to be sent from one city to another if both litigants live in one city, and that therefore the Jerusalem court has no jurisdiction in the matter.
[The RCA's president Rabbi Dale] Polakoff said that his office had received no notice of an official resignation from Faskowitz or anybody else.
RCA sources say that Faskowitz is actually a cousin of Mordecai Tendler's wife, Michelle. Faskowitz could not be reached for comment.
If true, this lack of disclosure is another black eye for the wider Tendler-Feinstein family. The RCA should be happy to be rid of Rabbi Faskowitz.
UPDATE: Jason Maoz, editor of the Jewish Press, tells Steven I. Weiss that Rabbi Faskowitz did not inform the RCA of his resignation or discuss resigning with them before his "open letter" appeared in the Jewish Press. Rabbi Faskowitz used the Jewish Press to ambush the RCA and specifically forbade the Jewish Press from seeking comment from the RCA before his "open letter" ran. This type of conduct is reprehensible and unethical.
Is this another black eye for the Tendler-Feinstein family? You bet it is.
Painful Parting: An Open Letter To The RCA
A newspaper is not the address that one generally chooses to send a letter of resignation from a major Jewish organization such as the Rabbinical Council of America.
I chose this unusual route because I have come to the conclusion that I have no other recourse, as there appears to be no one in the organization's hierarchy I can turn to.
I have been a member of the RCA since 1986 when I assumed my first position as a pulpit rabbi after having spent fifteen years in the Lakewood Kollel. I was embraced by fine rabbonim and outstanding leaders, who, despite recognizing that my hashkofos swung way to the right, were bold enough and honest enough to invite me to serve as executive treasurer for six years. I have always considered this a display of their religious integrity and an expression of the broader scope of interest and responsibility that the organization embraced. The RCA had good and honest leadership — then.
I am afraid that I no longer have the same confidence in the RCA's leadership. It no longer matters who is right and who is wrong in the Tendler affair. (Of course it matters to all of us that Rabbi Tendler has been vindicated, but I now speak with regard to my resignation from the RCA.)
I am so dismayed by the conduct of people whom I respect and call colleagues. I say to them:
Your utter disregard and disrespect for the Bet Din in Yerushalayim is appalling. Do you really believe that traditional "rabbi double talk" is going to fool the rabbis themselves? Do you really believe that your constituents are so simpleminded that they will fall for "Well, we don't have to listen to a bet din but you do"?
To be declared a "lo tzayis dina" by the Jerusalem Bet Din of Israel's Chief Rabbinate is not a slap on the wrist. It means shame on you, shame on everything you are associated with. It means that on public record you are in defiance of the laws of Torah. This is a public pronouncement made by the holy bet din humiliate you into submission. Yet not only do you show no remorse, regret, or contrition — you continue to show defiance. (At least be creative. Come up with something that appears logical instead of continuing to debase yourselves with inane innuendo and lame explanations).
I will tell you what disturbs me most of all. I will tell you why I resign from your midst. In 1987 Rabbi Aron Shurin, z"l, told me this story. The Rav, zt"l, said to him that he was jealous of Reb Aharon Kotler, zt"l, who had "real" talmidim. "But you also have talmidim," protested Rabbi Shurin. Answered the Rav: "Reb Aharon's talmidim ask him ‘Rebbi, can I do this?' Or, ‘Rebbi, can I go there?' Or, ‘Rebbi, can I say that?' My talmidim say, ‘Rebbi, I did this.
Rebbi, I went there. Rebbi, I said that. Is it ok?' He lamented what he perceived to be a lack of real and absolute loyalty by some of his talmidim (not most, who were and are talmidim n'emonim).I am not a talmid of the Rav. I know, however, that the Rav expected, and had the right to expect, obedience from his talmidim. There was no one who protected the honor of and demanded subservience to the Bet Din of Yerushalayim more than did the Rav. B'ksav and b'al peh.
For his talmidim to violate and shame the memory of their rebbi by brazenly ignoring his edict makes those of us, who studied under the tutelage of other rebbeim, carefully contemplate and more clearly understand the words of Rabbi Shurin.
My rebbi, Reb Chaim Shmulevits, zt"l, has a well-known shmues in which he attributes the foibles of Chiel — who sinfully attempted to rebuild Jericho — to his having been sucked into a whirlpool of mistakes, from which he was unable to extricate himself because his understanding became more and more obscured as the mistakes kept piling on. The same has happened to you, unfortunately. I pray that Hashem gives you the einayim lir'os and oznayim lishmoa to recognize and reverse those mistakes.
Until that happens I can no longer be affiliated with an organization whose leadership is declared a violator of Torah law by the Bet Din of Yerushalayim. I sadly submit my resignation from the RCA.
Rabbi Moshe Faskowitz