Rabbi

A rabbi (Hebrew רב Rav, Pl רבנים Rabbis, Yiddish Rebbe, Rabbi German Pl ) is a function in support of the Jewish religion. This religious title of Judaism is derived from Hebrew or Aramaic Rav Rabbuni " master teacher." Both go to the common Semitic root raba " be great " back.

In Sephardic rabbis Chacham is the name (Hebrew חכם, German Weiser, see, eg, Chacham Bashi ) are common.

The rabbi in the Jewish tradition

As a special status are Rabbi (since in most German Luther Bibles called scribes ) Bible for the first time in the period named after the Babylonian exile in Ezra 7,6.11, there Ezra the priest is mentioned as an experienced scholar with the law of Moses the Scripture. According to Jewish tradition, Ezra was the Mosaic law, which should be burned in 586 BC during the downfall of Jerusalem and was only passed on orally, newly written. The tasks of the scholars in his tradition were interpreting the Torah and the Jewish teaching concrete practical relevance in everyday life. Resulted from this movement later the Pharisees, who eventually founded the rabbinical Judaism.

Duties of a rabbi

Until the Middle Ages rabbis could not achieve income with the Torah, so they worked in Europe sideline in this office. This was, according to settled extend the requirements eventually abandoned in the 14th century. Even after apparently many rabbis worked primarily as a prayer leader. The duties of a rabbi today is one of the religious doctrine, and as a connoisseur Talmud him the decision comes in religious matters to. In liberal communities of the rabbis often leads the Sabbath and festive church services, while responsible in traditional prayer leader or cantor ( hazzan ). A rabbi is not a priest, would be entitled to the special religious duties alone. Therefore, even lead to any qualified member of a Jewish community worship, vorbeten, read from the Torah, etc. Often, however, have only rabbi the necessary knowledge basically. One of the most important tasks of a rabbi is the pastoral care of parishioners and for people who are in communication with the community ( for example, conversion candidates) nowadays.

In most communities is expected due to its exemplary role of a rabbi that he is married and has children.

Hierarchy

Although Judaism has no central authority, has in its orthodox flow develops a tendency to recognize the top or chief rabbi of a country or community as always the highest religious authority. As a legacy of the British Mandate, there are, for example, the State of Israel a Chief Rabbinate. Today it consists of two members:

• Rishon LeZion the, head of the Sephardim;

Next to the British installed a still

• Rav ha - Rashi, the Ashkenazi chief rabbi.

Training ( Germany )

The training of rabbis usually takes place at a rabbinical seminary at university level or in the context of a traditional Talmud high school, a yeshiva. Germany's only science-based rabbinical seminary is the belonging to the progressive Judaism, Abraham Geiger College at the University of Potsdam. It took in the winter semester 2001/2002 on his work. Dresden were ordained with Daniel Alter, Tomas Kucera and Malcolm Matitiani the first graduates in the New Synagogue on 14 September 2006. By 1939 there were in Berlin with the Academy for the Science of Judaism and the Orthodox, founded by Esriel Hildesheimer Rabbinical Seminary in 1873 to Berlin two science-oriented training centers and in Wroclaw with the Jewish Theological Seminar another. 2009 founded the Ronald S. Lauder Foundation as part of their local yeshiva, the rabbinical seminary in Berlin, which will incorporate the tradition of Orthodox rabbis training in Berlin again. The first graduates - Avraham Radbil and Zsolt Balla - were ordained on June 2, 2009 in Munich synagogue Ohel Jakob. The Heidelberg College of Jewish Studies also has a program of study for the rabbinate to be within differentiated based on different Jewish denominations.

Rabbis and rabbis in Germany are united in the German Rabbinical Conference. Under this umbrella, but two recognized associations of rabbis operate largely independently of each other: the Orthodox Rabbinical Conference Germany and the General Rabbinical Conference in Germany.

Rabbi

In the liberal, progressive and conservative Judaism, women as rabbis for some time worked. The first ordained female rabbi was the long -forgotten Berliner Regina Jonas, who was ordained in 1935 by the Offenbacher Rabbi Max Dienemann. The first woman rabbi in the U.S. was Sally Jane Priesand, which was ordained in 1972 at Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati. Since the 1990s, were in the U.S. also some women ordination as Orthodox rabbis, but without being able to perceive the corresponding functions in Orthodox Jewish communities. In early 2009, Sara Hurwitz of Rabbi Avi Weiss, the founder of the "Open Orthodoxy " (Open Orthodoxy ), ordained as an Orthodox rabbi in New York. She is active in the Orthodox community, " Hebrew Institute of Riverdale " as a rabbi. The title was initially Maharat, an otherwise not in use Hebrew acronym of manhiga hilchatit ruchanit toranit ( German: halachic, spiritual and Torah - head). Since February 2010, she wears as a first Orthodox Rabbi title Rabba, which has been subjected to intense criticism within the Jewish Orthodoxy and ultra-Orthodoxy.

List of selected rabbis

• Asenath Barzani (1590-1670)
• Regina Jonas (1902-1944)
• Judith Hauptman ( b. 1934 )
• Sally Priesand ( b. 1946 )
• Jackie Tabick ( b. 1948 )
• Bea Wyler (* 1951)
• Amy Eilberg (* 1954)
• Antje Yael Deusel ( b. 1960 )
• Elisa Klapheck ( b. 1962 )
• Toba Spitzer ( b. 1963 )
• Pauline Bebe (* 1965)
• Gesa Ederberg ( b. 1968 )
• Sharon Brous ( b. 1974 )
• Sara Hurwitz ( b. 1977 )
• Alina Treiger ( b. 1979 )