INTRODUCTION
"There is no honor greater than the honor of a rabbi and no awe greater than that of a rabbi. The sages tell us: Let the honor of your rabbi be as the honor of God and the fear of your rabbi like the fear of Heaven- therefore they proclaimed: Contradicting your rabbi is like contradicting the Divine Presence... a controversy with your rabbi is like a controversy with the Divine Presence...resenting your rabbi is like resenting the Divine Presence."(Laws of Talmud Torah 5:1)
This Maimonidean hyperbole has been translated into modern terms with great expectations of the rabbi as preacher, teacher, scholar, officiant, counselor, community leader, etc. The authority of the Jewish spiritual leader which has always been derived from scholarship or charisma, is a key to the mastery of these many tasks.
The relationship of a rabbi and congregant is often pregnant with an ambivalent admixture of mutual love, respect, and even awe, on the one hand, and, on the other, jealousy, competition, power struggle and perhaps a dash of Oedipus/Electra thrown in.
This volume, Rabbinic-Lay Relations in Jewish Law, demonstrates that such ambivalence is not a product of our time alone. As we look through these pages we are convinced, with Kohelet , that in spite of the upheavals of the generations"there is nothing new under the sun"; or as the French so aptly put it:"plus ca change, plus c'est la méme chose"(the more it changes, the more it's the same thing.)
Yet a closer look at the seven essays of this book reveals a different view of the rabbinic-lay relationship. Rabbinic authority
vii