MARK WASHOFSKY

Put differently, the dichotomy between elite and folk religion which we find in the Talmud and the halakhic literature reflects the reality of shared ritual authority between rabbi and ritual committee. And the heritage of this scholarly activity can and should inform the efforts of both. That is, it is the function of the ritual committee to preserve the local minhag and to suggest, even in the face of a skeptical rabbinic leader, that the community's observances do represent a tradition of"ritual instinct." The role of the liberal rabbi, while not that of mara d’atra, is the same as that of the scholar-rabbi, in the traditional literature: To examine these minhagim under the light of halakhah, the rules and principles which define and give structure to Jewish observance. This examination need not be a sometime thing. While the committee is the conservative element in this model, the rabbi can take the initiative in bringing the entire range of congregational ritual practice before the committee’s attention. The results of this process will be as varied as those in the medieval halakhic texts. Under the rabbi’s careful guidance and instruction, the congregation may discover that a certain practice stands in sharp contradiction with a higher ritual value. The committee may well determine that the practice is a minhag ta’ut, a mistake which carries adverse religious implications. In other instances, the rabbi can explore with the committee the possibility that local custom, though not in his or her opinion the best or most desirable ritual option, can be justified according to the theory, rules, and principles of Jewish observance. The minhag, of course, will in all probability survive the failure to arrive at such a justification. Still, the rabbi will have fulfilled the supreme rabbinic duty: to encourage the community to study Torah, to measure the reality of its religious life against the ideal standards taught in text and tradition.

Shared authority in matters of ritual need not be grounds for irresolvable conflict. Indeed, such sharing of authority is well attested in the history of Jewish law, in the creative tension between halakhah and minhag. As that tension resolved itself in

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