Partnership Minyan - Halachic Minyan Guide

Halachic Minyan Guide

In February 2008, Elitzur and Michal Bar-Asher released a guide to partnership minyanim called Halachic Minyan which the Jerusalem Post characterized as "the first official guide of its kind".

The guide, in addition to covering the issues of Torah reading and Shabbat services covered by the Shapiro and Sperber opinions, outlined women's participation in a variety of additional areas, the third aliyah to a daily Torah reading; serving as gabbai for a Torah reading; leading kabbalat shabbat and pseukei d'zimra, the tekiot for blowing the Shofar, leading piyuttim during the repetition of the High Holiday Amidah, and other areas. Audrey Trachtman, a board member of the Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance, characterized it as "an exciting and important step" but as "a discussion, not intended to be uniform practice."

According to the Jerusalem Post, Ramat Gan Chief Rabbi Ya'acov Ariel responded to the publication of the guide by repeating a prohibition against taking part in a partnership minyan, saying that doing so is prohibited by Jewish law.

Alan Haber wrote an op-ed editorial in the Jerusalem Post criticizing the guide. He argued that the guide is "not a work of halacha" because:

• The guide "utilizes sources selectively and partially, without regard to majority opinion or precedent."
• It sometimes issues rulings "in express contradiction to the conclusion drawn by the authorities they cite as proof."
• It assesses sources "tendentiously", seeking to find sources to justify a pre-determined agenda rather than to neutrally discern the intent of the earlier authorities.
• Its authors are not rabbis, and are seeking to determine by lay decision-making matters on which Rabbinic Judaism defers to rabbis. ".

Calling this last point a "much more fundamental deficiency," Haber wrote that

More than anything else, Halacha requires submission to the authority of poskim - halachic decisors. One is free to choose a halachic authority who shares one's world view, and there is also room for debate about the exact scope and extent of the posek's authority. But Halacha is a system of law based on commandments; it is not source material for independent decision-making.".