Rav Shlomo Dichovsky has completed his term of four years as the Director of the rabbinic courts, the batei din.

Despite the end of his term being no secret or surprise, Justice Minister Tzippi Livni has failed to have an appointment for new Director ready to be made. Instead, Livni has appointed someone to the position as a temporary arrangement until a suitable candidate can be appointed as a permanent appointment.

Livni has appointed Amy Palmor, Director of the Justice Ministry, to the position of Temporary Director of the Batei Din.

Upon the appointment, Livni said she attributes great importance to appointing the right person to the position as it directly affects the daily life of millions of Israelis...

She sees this appointment as being so important that she couldn't work extra hard for the past 6 months to a year to try to find the right person to appoint and be ready for the day Dichovsky would retire?

I suspect there is something else at play here.

One of the big fights between the various politicians has been whether a woman could be appointed to the position of Director of the batei din. I suspect that this is Livni's way of having her way - of getting a woman appointed to the position.

Appointing a woman on a permanent basis right now might be too difficult and might cause a big fight with heavy opposition. By appointing a woman as a temporary appointment, she is cooling the waters, softening the blow, for a full appointment later. It is only temporary, so no big deal.

And later, when she either turns Palmor's appointment into a permanent one or appoints someone new, by then she will be able to turn around and say that a woman has been in the position already for 4 months, 6 months or whatever amount of time it will have been, and nothing bad happened, she did a fine job, etc. The opposition will already have been tempered enough to get it through relatively quietly.