On Judaism's decentralization

I am thinking about this book that I am reading (more about it when I finish reading it) and it made me think about a few things. One of the most unfortunate things about the current Jewish geographic dynamic, and the nature of global communication and travel is that Judaism risks loosing one of it's most important features - decentralization.

One of the greatest features of Jewish civilization from late biblical times to the present is that, of necessity, there has been no one central authority. Each town did what was was best in its own eyes. Each town had its own economic, demographic, historical, social, and religious situation. Each town had its own customs and practices that were motivated by said situation. They were aware of the religious law in the next town or country, and each knew that they both were following the law, but it never dissuaded them from keeping their own practices.

Often Rabbis from other towns were consulted and deferred to but that was always the town Rabbi's choice.

Judaism today is not like that at all. Today there is Lubavitch. They are Judaism in half the towns that there are Jews. Israel has two chief rabbis. They are elected and their word carries the weight of a central rabbinic authority. The chief rabbi still controls marriage, divorce, Kashrut, and Jewish education. The ultra-Orthodox in Israel have a handful (minus a couple of fingers) of people who male decisions, and it is on the radio or in any case word quickly travels. If a ruling is issued in Bnei Berak (Near Tel Aviv) it instantly becomes "law" in Jerusalem. If some central Lebavitch authority (whatever that might mean these days) says something in New York, it is suddenly "law" in Buenos Aries. The chasm between Israel and the rest of the world is growing smaller too.

Ever since the passing of Moshe Feinstein of New York some 15 years ago, the Unites States has ceased to have one person who was respected as a religious leader by all religious (and some non-religious) Jews. Many Jews therefore began turning to Israel for advice. Moreover because of the general decline of the level of Jewish scholarship, people turn more and more to books for instruction (see the famous article by Soloveitchik some 10 years ago in Tradition, "Rupture and Reconstruction" about this). These books, in order to be published by a mainstream "kosher" publisher, say Artscroll or Feldheimm, must essentially repeat what is standard and acceptable. Moreover we generally find the most strict interpretations which everyone will agree to given in these publications. The inability of any Jewish community to be independent is truly destroying the dynamic that produced all the literature and creative religious thought.

(When we look at the Conservative or Reform movements we are in even a worse position. They started out as centralized movements.)

The fear that all religious communities have of innovation is destroying the need to be able to think in any original way. It has rigidified the law such that it has lost flexibility and adaptability. The conservative movement argued (prior to this occurring) that this is what they are fighting. The Orthodox assumed that they went too far in "adapting". This is one of the biggest dangers of living in the kind of small world we live in for religious Jewry. Community leaders no longer have to be good at solving problems, nor do they need to be able to even figure out how to make a halachic decision. Why learn how to make a decision when you can fob the problem off to the Agudah, or the CCAR, or the Chief Rabbi of Israel.

I wonder how Yeshiva students today learn to make halachic decisions. Of course there is the standard stuff about looking to the sources. But what about new situations? What about new technologies? There are now a handful of people who make those decisions. Once there were thousands. Do yeshiva students learn to think creatively or are they just given the phone number of someone higher up on the halachic chain? the latter would mean a very sad state of affairs for today's Jewry.