Unfortunate tradition

Your January 26 editorial “Wrong Rabbinate” continues the unfortunate tradition of your paper to confound Halacha (Jewish law) and its institutions with the sins of individuals.

You assert that the pending jailing of former chief rabbi Yonah Metzger “is a glaring indication of how [the Chief Rabbinate] is not needed anymore.” However, you do not similarly assert that the jailing of a former president, prime minister and finance minister are glaring indications of why those avocations are no longer needed.

The editorial goes on to assert that “for more than 2,000 years… the sages recognized that there are many faces of Judaism” as justification for requiring state institutions to recognize the Reform and Conservative movements. Here again, you do not assert that Israel’s judicial system should recognize Shari’a law or even Halacha as alternative legal systems in the land.

You mislabel Orthodoxy as one of many alternatives. In reality, there is Torah law and there are non-Torah alternatives (e.g., Reform). Torah law cannot accept Reform views, which are inherently not based on the divinity of the Torah, any more than Israel’s judicial system can accept alternative legal codes by which to rule on civil matters.

Finally – and most gravely – your editorial continues to drive a wedge between Jews by implying that Orthodox Jews do not consider our Reform brethren to be Jews. This is an oft-repeated falsehood. Orthodox Jews do not consider Reform Judaism to be a legitimate expression of God’s Torah, but they believe that all Jews born to a Jewish mother or who have been halachically converted, regardless of their practices, remain part and parcel of our people and our shared destiny.

You should use your important and influential pulpit with greater discretion and accuracy so as to strengthen our presence in the Holy Land, not weaken it. STEVE M. SOLOMON Efrat