Yes, a rabbi can be stripped of his title, and there is an official ceremony. First the rabbi’s spurs are hacked off; then his armour is dismantled and thrown onto the ground. Finally, his coat of arms is torn off, and tossed into a fire. In extremely serious cases, they may even be replaced by a reversed version of the same arms. If he holds a title of nobility, his children will be unable to inherit it and any lands associated with it.
The notion of being “ordained” a rabbi is I think a fairly modern one. The rabbinate is not, of course, a priesthood, and “ordination” as a rabbi does not have the sacramental connotations that it has for many branches of Christianity.
Ordination as a rabbi comes following the completion of a programme of study at a seminary. I imagine that the principle significance of ordination is that it established that you are qualified by education and training to undertake the role of clergyman to a congregation, and I assume that few, if any, congregations will appoint a clergyman who does not have this qualification. I wouldn’t be surprised to find that it is a formal rule for a congregation to join a synagogue organisation that it will only appoint a clergyman who has been ordained – and, possibly, ordained following study at an approved seminary.
If a rabbi disgraces himself sufficiently seriously and sufficiently publicly, it is likely that he will lose any congregational appointment he has, and that no other congregational appointment will be offered to him. In that situation it hardly matters whether he is a rabbi or not any longer; the positions which would normally be open to him as a rabbi are no longer open. For that reason there probably has never been a great need to develop any kind of “de-ordination” procedure for an erring rabbi.
Before it acquired its modern “clergyman” meaning, the term was applied to a skilled teacher of Jewish law. There was no ordination procedure; the terms was applied as a mark of recognition by students.
Not really. There’s no central authority in Judaism to do so. There’s a guy who has a site called DefrockedRabbi.com, which says
Then there’s the old joke about the guy who used to be a rabbi, and then went on to some other job. A friend asked him “Were you defrocked?” and he said “No, just unsuited.”
I would imagine that the yeshiva that granted the ordination would be able to revoke it.
Only some sacraments.
Not Confession (‘Penance’) obviously; that’s one of the first steps in solving the ‘problem’.
And I think it’s likely that their participation would not affect the validity of sacraments performed on someone at risk of dying – Baptism or Anointing ot the Sick (‘Extreme Unction’), for example. These sacraments can be performed by anyone, they don’t have to be a priest.
Well, absolution might be withheld pending further correction, whatever that might be under the circumstances.
And the absolution can be conditional, too. Most are – if you don’t perform the penance that the priest has assigned to you, the absolution you were given wouldn’t cover that.
Priests can also decline to give you absolution, if you aren’t willing to take action to make amends for your sins. For example, if you confess that you have embezzled money from someone without being discovered, the priest may say that unless you come forward & admit to this, you are not ‘truly sorry’ for your sin, and thus he can’t give you absolution.
I’ll take this question a step further since I was hanging on The Temple Institute’s site a week ago- if/when the Priesthood & Levitical service is reinstituted for Temple work, is there a way for a Priest or Levite to be defrocked/decommissioned? Torah speaks of certain offenses having the penalty of being “cut off” from the people. In some cases, it seems to mean execution, but not always, so I figured it could also include something from shunning-to-exile.
The “cut off” penalty is imposed by God directly, and has nothing to do with shunning, exile, or excommunication. A good starting point for more info is the Wikipedia article on Kareth.
But your question does still have a “yes” answer, though only for Priests, and not for Levites. There are certain acts which the Torah forbids to a Priest, and even nowadays, if he commits these acts deliberately, he loses the priestly status. For example, he may not marry a divorcee; if he does so, he loses the privilege of being called to the Torah for the first aliyah, and he may no longer offer the priestly blessing in the synagogue. Sources available here and here.
To add to Keeve’s point, although he loses his priestly status and can no longer perform Temple sacrifices, the outcome is not absolute or necessarily permanent. See this article by Rabbi Maurice Lamm for more information.
As a bit of trivia, Kohanim/Priests are not allowed to come in contact with dead bodies or attend a funeral unless it is for someone in their immediate family. If they do so, they will become ritually impure and forbidden from performing Temple services (this is different than being defroked). In the times of the Temple, the Kohanim were able to go through a ritual purification process in order to resume services, but nowadays the process is not done.
Kohanim nowadays are strongly encouraged to keep to these restrictions, although many rabbis freely admit that it’s practically impossible for Kohanim to have remained ritually pure in modern times.
For more information see here.
Alternatively, castrate, blind, or cripple him, which is permanent and keep him from carrying out temple rituals.