Shortly before Pesach a number of Sephardi rabbis issued a ruling which excited a good deal of attention in Israel. Given the emergency of the pandemic, they said it would be permissible for isolated and vulnerable people to join a family Seder by Zoom, provided the computer was switched on before Yomtov.
Haham Eliahu Abergel, a retired chief judge of the Rabbinical Courts in Jerusalem, who is originally from Morocco, and his associates justified the decision in order to “alleviate the sadness of the older people and the frail elderly, who are alone in their homes during this crisis and to give them the motivation to continue to fight for their lives and to avoid feelings of depression.”
Most Orthodox rabbis rejected their position, which is cited in a short anthology, Memorable Sephardi Voices, which has recently been published in London. Its aim is to give a taste of the moderation that has guided Sephardi halachists, typified by the talmudic dictum koach d’heteira adif, “the strength of leniency is greater”.
When the terrain of halachah sometimes seems dominated by the Ashkenazi yeshivah world, the book offers a corrective balance. As well as extracts from opinions on a variety of subjects, it contains profiles of Sephardi rabbis from Morocco, Yemen, Iraq, Algeria, Djerba in Tunisia and elsewhere; while one or two names such as Israel’s former Sephardi Chief Rabbi, Maran Ovadiah Yosef, may be familiar, others are less well-known.
What is striking is that although some occupied full-time rabbinic roles, others combined their halachic scholarship with earning a living outside; one worked as a blacksmith in Israel, another as a milkman. It is also notable that many had links to Israel before the birth of the state, either moving there or encouraging their followers to go, out of love of Zion.
The overall impression is of sages rooted in their communities and identifying with the problems of everyday folk. Haham Moshe Malka (1911-1997), who was born in Atlas, Morocco and lived in Petach Tikva, taught that it was not only Torah scholars who might attain perfection, but an ordinary person too who “satisfies his Creator by living and dying with a good name”.
One of the most important teachings with far-reaching implications was that the commandment to “love your neighbour as yourself” referred to all people, and not just Jews. Haham Eliahu Ben Amozegh (1823-1900),from Livorno, Italy, explained this was the right interpretation by reference to another verse in Leviticus, to love the ger, the stranger “who lives with you”, as yourself, “for you were foreigners in Egypt”. Rejecting the narrow definition of the word ger as a “convert”, he argued that the phrase “lives with you” must carry the broader meaning of a stranger, since a convert in any case was to be “treated as a Jew irrespective of where he lives”.
Haham Shlomo Malkah (1878-1949), who was born in Morocco and died in Sudan, having spent some time in Israel, counselled that “people of the faith should learn from history the results of destruction, selfishness and religious fanaticism”.
Haham ben Zion Meir Hai Uziel, who was head of the Sephardi community at Israel’s creation, is cited for his lenient stance on conversion. While the Talmud rejected conversion if the only motive were marriage to a Jew without any other reason, he argued that saving a Jew from what would otherwise be an intermarriage could be viewed as a significant reason. His proposal to prevent agunot, chained women, is also quoted, though it has yet to be adopted in practice.
One interesting example of halachic tolerance comes from Rabbi Yosef Messas (1892-1974), the former Chief Rabbi of Haifa, who was from Morocco. Many Orthodox rabbis would regard the obligation for a married woman to cover her hair as a precept derived directly from the Torah.
But noting that many women now went about with loose hair and contrasting social practice in the Arab Middle East with that of French women, Rabbi Messas took the view that hair covering only had the force of custom. “Now that all the daughters of Israel have agreed that to cover the hair is not an indication of modesty, certainly the absence of a head covering carries no disgrace,” he contended.
Other issues range from the use of key cards to open hotel rooms on Shabbat, permitted by the former head of the Sephardi Beth Din in London, the late Dayan Saadia Amor, to reciting Kaddish in English.
The anthology has been compiled by Lucien Gubbay, chairman of the Montefiore Endowment, the charity which supports Jewish learning from the assets bequeathed by the Victorian philanthrophist Sir Moses Montefiore. Other projects include a semichah programme and a course to train future dayanim.
The book was put together with the Eretz Hemdah Institute for Advanced Jewish Studies in Jerusalem, the endowment’s partner on the semichah and dayanut courses, and Kiah-Alliance-Kol Israel Haverim, which is part of the famous French Jewish aid organisation Alliance Israélite Universelle. Those who want to go more deeply into the anthology’s sources can find them in the original on the Eretz Hemdah and Kiah websites.
“The differing and often more lenient legal interpretations of Sephardi rabbis and others need not always be accepted,” says the emeritus spiritual head of the Spanish and Portuguese Jews’ Congregation, Rabbi Abraham Levy in the foreword to Memorable Sephardi Voices, “but they should be respected”.
Memorable Sephardi Voices is available at £9 plus postage from www.cpiyourway.co.uk/uStore/44/Home
