Efrat, Israel – As Senate confirmation hearings began Monday for US Solicitor- General Elena Kagan’s appointment to America’s Supreme Court, Rabbi Shlomo Riskin recalled teaching the 12-year-old Kagan.
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Riskin is the chief rabbi of Efrat, but made aliya in 1983 from Manhattan’s West Side, where he was the rabbi of Lincoln Square Synagogue.
At the time, Riskin was teaching for the synagogue’s Feldman Hebrew School, where Kagan was a student. During a class there, he began explaining to his students that when a Jewish boy turns 12 he is considered to have begun his journey to adulthood and achieved maturity, and would then prepare for his bar mitzva. At the time, there was no similar ceremony for an Orthodox girl’s bat mitzva.
This didn’t satisfy Kagan. Riskin said she wanted to be able to read from the Torah in the sanctuary on Shabbat morning. Riskin explained to her that because the Lincoln Square Synagogue was Orthodox, this would not be possible, (as was previously reported here on VIN News).
However, an arrangement was worked out and Kagan was able to have her bat mitzva on Friday evening May 18, 1973, in the sanctuary. After the evening service, she was able read the Book of Ruth.
“She raised my consciousness about having a celebration for a woman achieving her age of responsibility, and I was also very impressed. Although I didn’t go as far as she would have liked me to go, I respected the fact that she was very respectful of my response and she went ahead with great elegance, charm, grace, and success,” Riskin told The Jerusalem Post on Monday.
Riskin also imparted another story that he said conveyed Kagan’s character.
One Shabbat, a young man had finished leading the services for his bar mitzva. Riskin was passing through on his way to a classroom when he heard a soft crying from the now darkened sanctuary.
Approaching the young man who was crying (it was the boy who had just had his bar mitzva), he began consoling him.
The young man revealed that his two grandmothers had been arguing in front of him about who he should be sitting with at the luncheon, making him feel caught in the middle.
Riskin took the boy out to the luncheon and Kagan approached the boy. Realizing it was a difficult time for him, she invited him to sit next to her during the luncheon instead, settling the matter and giving the young man a positive experience at his bar mitzva.
“She showed great wisdom and sensitivity,” Riskin said. ”She certainly has only grown with the years. Wisdom of the mind and wisdom of the heart – those are the two most important things that a justice of a Supreme Court requires.”
As for Kagan’s confirmation hearings in the Senate, Riskin said, “I have very good reason to believe it’s going to go well.”
No question that Elena Kagan is a warm caring brilliant person. Everybody has an opinion on whether she’ll be good for yidden or not. But in the end, only Hashem knows for sure. We can only have bitochon in Hashem and hope that she’ll be good.
What was her reason for questioning the Orthodox tradition?
Interesting. I wonder if she does anything yiddish now.
some times even rabbi’s should be quite he has not seen her and has no knoweldge of her sincew 1983 and he is defending this thing.
An endorsement of Kagan from a gadol such as Rav Riskin should itself be sufficient reassurance to those on the Judiciary Committee to vote for her confirmation.
like rush would say feminazi
Another tinuk shenishba and another sad rabbi, what else is new? Can we move on now? Can we stick to politics now? She is a firey liberal
Marx and Lenin probably also had wisdom.
she will try to turn the supre,e court on it’s head. She has made her intentions very clear
as the former chief rabbi of our community said..
“its a risk to have Riskin in our Community”
he “made Aliyah” because he was thrown out!!!!
What does being nice have to do with anything. She is a far left liberal who like obama (not as bad, obama way worst) is anti military, pro abortion, gay marriage. She should not be conformed
She is a (active) supporter of infanticide/murdering baby’s anti-military (not anti war) supported closing a military recruiting center on campus compared the nra to the kkk…
shame on you…he is a rabbi…show him the respect he deserves (and her two).
Lincoln Square Synagogue is actually an offshoot from a Conservative congregation in the early 1960’s. Many of its congregants, especially in the “early days”, were not Orthodox.
the question is, how is r riskin going to modernize our religion in a few years when the modernized orthadoxy of today is no longer modern?
I think Americans have a right to know whether this lady is “straight”, since there are those of us who would hold that her private life does indeed reflect on her professional life. Personally I would never want to support placing a Supreme Court Judge who was not straight–that would override any positive attributes. There was some attempt at discussion about this immediately after the nomination, then quickly suppressed in the media.
wasnt rabbi riskin the one that in december said his rabbi is jesus?
Rabii Riskin has always pushed the envelope. I don’t think most prominent Rabbi’s need a 12year old girl to raise their conscioussness. His remarks add nothing new. They sound like self-promotion.
In the meantime 850 Rabbis, have come out against Kagan, saying she is a misfit (KOSHER) for the Supreme Court.
When your own people realize what, who, and how you are, it is time to sit back and reflect with great trepidation.
She is a pawn of the messiah’s, and reflects his left socialist leanings.
The “true lie” in the Supreme Court nomination process is the statements by both left and right that they want a neutral Justice. They want no such thing: all want a judge that mirrors their own perceptions.
She was a nice 12-year old girl! She may be nice now to someone who is crying over a dysfunctional family!
Actually, she told him to ditch his grandmothers and do something which made himself happy… It may have been a good specific choice, but it’s not a great life value!
And this has exactly what to do with being a Supreme Court judge?
Since departing our shores Riskin has regularly taken the wrong side on matters of critical importance to the Jewish people. Case in point: he favored the Oslo accords and all the subsequent capitulation that has lead us to the brink of destruction. Hashem yishmoreinu. He is wrong on this matter as well. Elena Kagan genuflects exclusively at the altar of the dominant religious philosophy of the ruling elite, relativistic secular humanism, and we should expect nothing else of her when she ascends to the pinnacle of judicial power. Uch und vey.
“Case in point: he favored the Oslo accords”
The first time I heard of Rabbi Riskin was a news report in which he was arrested during a demonstration against Oslo. It’s well know, that R ‘ Riskin is right-wing politically and left-wing religiously. The latter may be highly inappropriate for your typical shul in Brooklyn
“He is wrong on this matter as well.”
He can’t possibly be wrong, since he didn’t take a position. He said some nice things about, pretty much generic praise. He said nothing about her professional capabilities, nor did he make any reference to her politics. Nothing he said can be construed as an endorsement.
In any case, how appropriate would it be for a rabbi, and one residing outside the US, to make such judgments on purely domestic matters?
WHO CARES?? What Kagan thinks now and might do in the future is what concerns me. Liberal ideologues need not apply for judgeships.
This most specious and sophomoric of arguments barely deserves rebuttal were it not that others might fall for it. First, what a person does in the privacy of his home tells us much about that person and often much more than the public persona. Second, if your logic held any water then it follows that if someone mixes volatile and toxic chemicals in his basement, his neighbors needn’t be concerned as it is none of their business. As far as her personal proclivities are concerned I really wouldn’t care less, that is until she seeks to assume a position where she is allowed to decide how I should lead my life. Then it is without question my “damn” business.