Yesterday was Day 40. It was a busy day, filled with the usual Sunday synagogue stuff. Bar Mitzvah student at 8:15AM, Hebrew School from 9-12. Then we had a shiva minyan/memorial service for the father of a young member. I’ve never done a shiva minyan with that many young children in attendance. We don’t teach life cycle at Congregation Kneseth Israel. We live life cycle. I hope that the service was of some comfort to this young mother of a 2 year old and a 5 year old who lost her father at age 54. Too young. Too young. The evening before when we were preparing this very special service, one person said to me, “I didn’t know a woman could say kaddish.”

In some places they can’t. Sometimes in Israel they can’t. Sometimes a woman can be arrested in Israel for wearing a talit or reading Torah. She can be beaten and kicked for wearing tefilin or sitting in the wrong part of some bus runs. Sometimes a woman can’t even receive an academic award. Shocking? I should say so. But unfortunately not news. Yesterday I presented about Women of the Wall, an organization I have supported since its inception in 1981, to the Central Great Lakes Region of the Women’s League of Conservative Judaism. I was excited to present late breaking news that a judge in Israel, an Orthodox Jew himself had ruled that women do have a right to worship at the Wall how they see fit. Today, unfortunately there is even later breaking news over turning his decision and putting the law of holy places back to 1981 which forbids citizens to pray in ways that are “contrary to the local custom”. The term “local custom” has failed to be defined in the 22 years since passing the addendum to the law, thus the need for legal clarity. To say I am disappointed is an understatement. You see for me, this is very, very personal. In 1981 when I lived in Israel I was attacked by Israeli soldiers. They told me I was worse than Hitler, sitting around my swimming pool in Brooklyn not doing anything to help the Jewish people survive. They, on the other hand, they screamed at me, were spilling Jewish blood to save Jewish lives. My rabbi in Israel at the Orthodox yeshiva I was studying in explained the attack as G-d’s punishment. You see, I am a woman who wanted to be a rabbi and women can’t.
I began to learn the halacha that goes with the usual injunctions. I thought I wouldn’t have to use this knowledge again. I thought we were past this. But apparently we are not. Even with some Orthodox groups now ordaining women (one is leaving Chicagoland for Montreal, her husband rabbi proudly announced at the Chicago Board of Rabbis meeting this morning that he will be a rebbetzin in Montreal)
I keep going over and over these arguments. Am I torturing myself? Maybe. Am I trying to justify myself and prove that I am authentic? Maybe. Does it matter? Certainly. So for the record, here we go again.
Kol isha–the voice of a woman, In three separate places in the Talmud it says that a man cannot hear a woman sing because of the sexual nature of a woman’s voice. (Berakhot 24a, Kidushin 70a, and Sota 48a), Berakhot 24a likens a woman’s voice to nakedness based on a verse in Song of Songs, “For your voice is sweet and your countenance comely.” This gets very complicated but that is the root of the issue. Rabbis through the centuries have tried to interpret the exact meaning here and there are lots of essays and rulings about this topic. For me, I find it difficult to believe that a woman’s voice–my voice, spoken or sung, could be that alluring.

How can a woman read Torah? Won’t she pass any impurity to the Torah scroll if she is menstruating? My understanding is that the issue was not whether she would pass impurity to the scroll, but that even though a woman or a child could be called up to the Torah for an aliyah it was considered unsightly because it might offend the honor of the congregation. What does that mean? Rabbis explain this as saying that a woman actually had time to practice and was better at it then the men who worked all day so she could show up a male Torah reader. It is about not embarrassing someone in public. What I learned working at Mayyim Hayyim, the community mikveh and education center in Newton, is that a person cannot pass impurity to the water of the mikveh. And that impurity is not the best translation. I prefer their formulation of ritually ready. So as my high school students suggested last year, if everyone, male or female goes to the mikveh prior to services at the Kotel, then no one would be ritually impure. An interesting suggestion.

A woman is not obligated to the positive time-bound mitzvoth. There are several explanations of that–we are either spiritually superior to men so we don’t need the structure OR we are too busy running the household, nursing a baby etc that we don’t have time to preform the time bound mitzvot. Specifically there are seven commandments that fall in this category: listening to the shofar, sitting in the sukkah, waving the lulav, wearing tzitzit and hence talit, wearing tefilin, saying Sh’ma in the morning and evening and counting the omer. While we are exempt, it doesn’t mean we can’t. The Talmud teaches: Women, slaves, and minors are exempt from the obligation (to fulfill the mitzvot)of the recitation of the Sh’ma (keri’at Sh’ma) and of t’fillin, but they are obligated to fulfill (the mitzvot of) prayer,mezuzah, and the recitation of the grace after meals (birkat hamazon). (Berachot 3.3)

You may be saying to yourself, huh? Obligated to pray and to recite birkat hamazon but not to say Sh’ma? How does that work? Now you are experiencing the joys of Talmudic logic. It gets even more complicated when it wonders whether someone not obligated (a woman, a child or slave) can fulfill the mitzvah for someone who is obligated (a male).

“Women, slaves and minors are exempt from the recitation of Sh’ma and from tefilin but are obligated for the Amida prayer, mezuza and birkat hamazon.” (Berachot 3:3). This is familiar territory for me, part of the Talmud sugiya that was on my rabbinical school comprehensive exam. I had argued it, puzzled over it and ultimately passed a test about it–but despite the rabbis attempts to explain it in the Gemara and in the other commentaries it does not make sense on the surface. If you argue that Sh’ma and tefilin are time bound so that women don’t need to do them, then what about birkat hamazon and the amidah? Aren’t these also time bound? If you argue that women are obligated in mezuzah shouldn’t they be in tefilin since the commandment is in the same passage of Deuteronomy?

Maimonides writes that women are permitted to perform the mitzvah but should not say the blessing, since they are not obligated and the blessing contains the phrase, “who commanded us.” Rambam wrote: “Women, slaves, and minors are exempt from tzitzit from the Torah…Women and slaves who want to wrap themselves in tzitzit may do so without a berakha. And so too with other such mitzvot from which women are exempt: if they want to perform them without a berakha, one does not protest” (Hilkhot Tsitsit 3:9).However, both the Rashba and Rabbenu Tam hold that they should say the berachot because of Michal. TThe Rashba (1235-1310 Spain) specifically said in a teshuva (responsum): “I agree with those who say that if they desire they can do all such mitzvot and recite the blessings, on the basis of Mikhal bat Shaul who used to wear tefillin and they did not protest; indeed she did so with the approval of the sages (kirtzon hakhamim) and by the nature of the matter since she puts on tefillin she blesses” (Teshuva 123).

So fast forward, what do we do with this today? If you need even more details I encourage you to peruse the JOFA.org site. They have most of the halacha spelled out very clearly. Knowing the halacha helps refute some of the misinformation and misunderstandings that have been handed down from generation to generation and that I still hear today, like the woman who thought that a woman could not say Kaddish.

The Conservative Movement has championed the equality of men and women in our synagogues. We have mixed seating, we allow to be counted in the minyan, to have an aliyah, to read from the Torah, to even be ordained as rabbi. We teach boys about tefilin before their Bnei Mitzvah but not so much the girls. We require boys at Schecter schools and Camp Ramah to put on tefilin but not necessarily the girls. I agree with Rabbi Joshua Cohen writing on the USCJ website http://www.uscj.org/Women_and_Tefillin7649.html that until we require the girls to as well, the Conservative Movement will not achieve the equality of the sexes that has been a hallmark of its tradition.

So this is where I come out–a woman is obligated to pray because as the Talmud text says it brings us, all of us, comfort. Women have prayed out loud–Miriam sang at the shores of the sea, Hannah prayed in the temple, Ruth enjoined Naomi to join her (the very text we will read for Shavuot). Esther found her voice through fasting and prayer and the encouragement, cajoling and begging of Mordechai, Michal, daughter of the Cushite wore tefilin and the sages did not protest.” (Eruvin 96a) In another place it states that Michal, daughter of King Saul laid tefilin.” Rashi’s daughters wore tefilin, one blew shofar and one became a mohel. While some have argued that the evidence that Rashi’s daughters wore tefilin may be shaky, other women of the time period did. Other women in the time period did.  Fazonia, the first wife of Rabbi Haim ben Attar, wore tallit and tefillin, as did Rabbi Haim’s second wife. The Maid of Ludomir (Hanna Rachel Werbermacher) in the 19th century also wore tefillin. Jewish women have written prayers and spoken prayers for centuries. We have collections of tekhinot, women’s prayers on women’s issues.

As someone who has worked on the front lines of preventing domestic violence in the Jewish community, it is never OK to assault a woman, especially a woman who is trying to express her spirituality and draw close to G-d. Period. Women’s voices are not disturbing the peace. Women wearing a talit, a kippah or tefilin are not a violation of Jewish law. Period. Women should not be arrested for any of these seeming offenses.

I am proud that I was chosen to speak at the regional convention yesterday.  The women I spoke with yesterday were enthusiastic and knowledgeble. Some have even had the privilege of davenning with the Women of the Wall. Some have Rosh Hodesh Groups in their Conservative synagogues. Sometimes I feel like I am Esther. The plot of the Book of Esther changes when Mordechai says to Esther, “Who knows, perhaps you have attained your royal position for just this reason. Perhaps you are in this place for just this reason.” May each of us find our voice–as did Esther, Devora, Hannah, Ruth, and Miriam, all who found their voices.