The Human Spirit: Religious times are a-changin'
May24, 2013
The accusations against the Women of the Wall grow more and more fantastic.
Even if you could or should rate another person's
"prayer sincerity quotient," it would be hard to argue with their perfect
attendance record of over nearly a quarter century, rain or shine, at 7 a.m.
Still, every epithet is hurled at these women. They're also blamed for causing
strife and trashing Israel's image because they have the audacity to pray. In a
recent opinion piece in The Times of Israel, the Women of the Wall were also
faulted for causing deleterious climate change.
I kid you not.
And just as the physical attacks become more
dangerous, so the media attacks become more personal and dangerous, too. This
has to stop. That means that the outrageous comments made about Women of the
Wall and members of other streams of Judaism are evil talk, lashon hara, whether
at your table or speaking as an authority on a so-called religious talk show.
You don't have to join the Women of the Wall, agree with and support the Women
of the Wall, or even like the Women of the Wall, to detest the tone of the
discourse.
In contrast, the
appearance of hundreds of non-violent women, many of them young, at the Kotel at
7 a.m. last Rosh Hodesh should be applauded. The participants in the Women of
the Wall service must have been delighted to see that they had inspired so many
women to come out early in the morning to celebrate Rosh Hodesh. According to
media reports, the women – who unlike the Women of the Wall don't usually come
to the Kotel on Rosh Hodesh – were actually protesting by filling the prayer
area to prevent the Women of the Wall from coming up close – as if it matters
who has orchestra seats at the Wall.
In other words, the protesters came to demonstrate
and to be seen, not specifically to pray. Nonetheless, let's hope that some of
those protesting took advantage of the setting and were uplifted by the
poignant, emotional words of Hallel, even if they felt it too sensuous to sing
the praises of the Creator.
For these young women, this may have been a maiden
experience in taking part in a highly charged ideological demonstration. It must
have been thrilling for them, too. I can still recall my own emotional
participation in demonstrations on behalf of the Jewish people, around the same
age as the seminary students. I wasn't in seminary, but these were seminal
moments in my life. How could taking part in public protest not be empowering to
the majority and even subversive to some? ONCE YOU empower women, you can never
tell just what might happen. The world we religious Jewish women live in is
changing, like it or not. The expressions are many and varied. For example, one
unexpected manifestation is growing number of women who have rejected standards
of modest religious dress – not to be immodest, but to be hyper-modest. The
clothing they choose might be called "prioress garb" or "nun style" dress, but
there are few prioresses these days, and many nuns have given up the
old-fashioned habits for street clothes. Women themselves are out proselytizing
for this increased cover-up.
It's no longer uncommon in Jerusalem to see Jewish
women in capes or dressed with neck and forehead protected from view, a cloth
version of a medieval knight's armor. And not just in Jerusalem. One of my
daughters recently attended a religious class in Rehovot only to discover that
it was a motivational talk for wearing multiple layers of skirts and tops and
capes.
Another unexpected
area of activism is the demand for greater access to ritual baths. Responding to
a petition by the Center for Women's Justice and Kolech, both organizations
created and run by Shabbat-observant Jewish women, the Supreme Court demanded a
response from the Chief Rabbinate about why women using the mikve needed to pass
muster before being allowed to use the facilities. As a result, policy has
changed.
Though the
official position of the Chief Rabbinate still remains that single women are
prohibited from using the mikve, mikve attendants – the gatekeepers to our
ritual baths – must desist from interrogating a potential tovelet, one who
wishes to immerse. The rabbinate has declared that "no woman who comes to use
the ritual bath should be asked any questions regarding her personal status and
that the use of the ritual bath must not be made conditional on that status."
Don't ask, don't tell is the new policy.
What's fascinating is examining who protested against
exclusion from the mikve. The initial case was brought by two single women, at
least one of whom wanted to immerse before the High Holy Days. There were other
complainants whose choice of officiating rabbi was rejected by the rabbinate.
Still another Jewish woman wanted to use the mikve
before she ascended in the group that prays on the Temple Mount. These women
were petitioning to expand the use of the mikve, not to diminish it. Who would
have guessed that single women, independent-minded women and strongly
nationalist women would be grouping together to demand greater access to the
ritual bath? Times are indeed changing.
Every year, tens of thousands of women, many whom are
religiously observant, are impacted by misogynous rabbinical rulings related to
their own divorces or those of their sisters, daughters or mothers. How long can
we expect today's young women to tolerate such abuse? Their secular peers are
already marrying abroad to avoid contact with threatening religious authorities.
I wish joy to all those women who were praying on
Rosh Hodesh; as it says in Hallel, may each one fulfill her wish to be "a happy
mother of children."
Still,
no woman is immune to life's vicissitudes.
