Do Women Count?

Spirituality is a personal issue and far be it from me to judge where you get yours from. I just spent Yom Kippur in Boro Park together with my father at a Shul under the leadership of a cousin who is a very charismatic Chassidic Rebbe. I would describe the experience as being on spiritual cruise control. I didn’t find spirituality so much as it found me. Much as I loved the experience I couldn’t help but notice that this was strictly an all male affair. And I respect that, I really do.

I also respect a growing movement of observant women who choose to take a more active role in religious life as a means of vitalizing their spirituality. I think it’s a good thing when people want to take on more responsibility than they previously had.  Predictably, every inroad these pioneering women make though, meets with criticism from those who you would expect. I was at a lecture this past summer given by Rabbanit Chana Henkin, the Dean of Nishmaat, an Israeli Yeshiva that trains women to become Yoetzot Halacha, literally a Jewish law advisor. When the question and answer session began, one brave soul asked her, “why just advisor, why not go straight for rabbi?” The Rabbanit answered basically, that it’s too soon.

I don’t know if I will see a major movement towards women rabbis in Orthodoxy in my lifetime. Religion is always the last bastion of change and when it happens it is awfully slow. But I am seeing a paradigm shift in how Orthodox women participate in Jewish life and I like it. I’ve heard scholarly lectures on Torah given by women that would put plenty of male scholars to shame. The fact that women have intelligence and capabilities that is equal to and that often far exceed their male counterparts is a proven fact. I really don’t care if we call them rabbis or not, that’s semantics. What I do worry about though, is the effort to try and retard the advancement of women in Orthodoxy.

Take women’s tefilla groups. We used to have an active one here in the Five Towns. Let’s face it, the Five Towns is not the Upper West Side, so my guess is the reason it’s not so active anymore is a combination lack of interest by the female population here and a lack of rabbinic support. That’s a shame. I’m no Halachic expert but I don’t get the resistance to broader participation especially when it’s backed up by scholarship. Yes I know, the scholarship that allows for these changes is not accepted by the great rabbinic minds of our generation. Just imagine if this group had the support of one or two Orthodox rabbis in the community. By now that tefilla group would be bursting at the seams and would attract like minded people to move to the neighborhood.

Perhaps all these rabbinic minds can find a solution to the aguna problem (chained women). In the modern world a clear majority of agunot are in their situation because some recalcitrant husband refuses to give a Get. One popular solution is for there to be a pre-nuptial agreement. Not too sure that works with all the great rabbinic scholars but it’s a start. But what about the women who get married without the pre-nup? A few years back Rabbi Emmanuel Rackman OB”M, not exactly a religious lightweight, came up with an innovative solution. Through intricate research Rabbi Rackman postulated that a woman would never have married her husband in the first place had she known then that he would deny her a Get if and when the time came. Thus, the marriage can be nullified under a law that invalidates deceptive contracts. The problem was not one other noted rabbinic scholar backed him up. Imagine if one or two did.

I understand the resistance from a purely dogmatic approach; I just don’t understand it from a spiritual one. What disrespect to G-d and Torah is it if women seek greater participation? Especially if they agree to do so in a segregated room so as not to be accused of immodesty?

Not too long ago there was huge kerfuffle here when an area Orthodox shul had as its scholar in residence Rabbah Sara Hurwitz. My understanding of the opposition to her appearance here is that it had more to do with her title than with the fact that she is a woman. After all she was “ordained” by an Orthodox rabbi who under immense pressure had to promise he won’t “ordain” any more women at his Yeshiva or he would face religious sanction. Semantics again. His Yeshiva graduates women every year who for all intents and purposes got the education and training to be a rabbi they just call them something else. The irony here of course is that these same women are so sensitive to religious sensibilities, so “frum” in today’s parlance, that it’s insulting that they are sidelined.          

I’m a live and let live kind of guy. If a woman finds spirituality in baking challah, all the power to her. I just want women who desire a more active participatory role within Orthodoxy to have it. I don’t expect full acceptance but I would love a sort of détente that doesn’t marginalize women’s religious participation. The bottom line is that people who oppose these advancements wouldn’t attend the shul that would allow them under any circumstances anyway. We Orthodox may not ever count women towards a minyan, but make no mistake, now more than ever – women count.