[18]
With the establishment of the rabbinical seminaries and the ukase (May
3, 1855) that only such may officiate as rabbis as have completed a
prescribed course of study, Russian Jewry was placed in a sore
predicament. It was a very difficult task to find men who united secular
knowledge with that thorough mastery of Talmudic literature which the
Jews of Russia exact from their rabbis. Every community was compelled to
appoint two rabbis: an orthodox rabbi (dukhovny rabbin) and a "crown,"
or Government, rabbi (kazyony rabbin). The people recognized only the
authority of the former, the Government that of the latter. The
consequence was that a man with a mere high-school education would apply
for, and would often receive, the position of crown-rabbi. His duties
consisted in merely keeping a register of marriages, births, and deaths,
administering the oath, and the like. The many lawyers and physicians
who were debarred from practicing their professions sought to become
candidates for the rabbinate. To avoid the unpleasant results which
followed, Rabbi Chernovich of Odessa and Rabbi I.J. Reines of Lyda
established seminaries in Odessa and Lyda, to take the place and to
continue the teaching of the Vilna and the Volozhin yeshibot, which had
been closed, and to furnish proper rabbis for the various
congregations.
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