Women's Learning and Women Rabbis

I surprised myself the other week by engaging in a passionate Feminist speech. I say surprised myself, because as I see it I have never held particularly Feminist views. I have certain problems with Shira Chadasha - the current cutting edge of Orthodox (?) Feminism - and I frequently find Feminist activism as petty, irritating and destabilising/anti-establishment.

So my harangue began as we raised the topic of the Maharat ordination (link1 link2). For the uninitiated, the Marahat is a title aimed at ordaining women as Rabbis in the Orthodox community. It has been instigated by Rav Avi Weiss of HIR in Riverdale and Yeshivat Chovevai Torah.

I guess a few comments are in order as a prelude:

1. I am a big believer in Limmud Torah for women. I believe that true depth in Jewish belief, practice and emotional experience is a function of the extent to which we have learned and absorbed classic Jewish texts into our consciousness. This can only happen through serious and extensive Talmud Torah. I see no difference between men and women in this regard.

2. I have many role models of wonderful women Talmidot Chachamim in my community (Alon Shevut). My neighbours include several women who are widely respected and consulted for their Halakhic knowledge as Yoatzot Halakha (link). Then there are my colleagues and friends - some of the finest and most sought after women Torah teachers in Jerusalem. Alon Shevut has a women's Daf Yomi that meets daily, and every day, I encounter committed, bright, halakhic, spiritually and religiously motivated women who are living exemplars of Torah and who are certainly learned by any definition of the term.

3. I have said for some time, in conversation with my students, that Rabbis serve four primary functions:
#1. psak halakha; #2. teaching; #3. Counseling and giving guidance/advice; #4. A synagogue function.
As for women, functions #1-3 they already do. Women DO pasken (Yoatzot Halakha), DO give guidance and advise, and DO teach men and women Torah (Nehama Leibowitz anyone?) All this is de rigeur in the Modern Orthodox community.

Function #4. is more problematic since we have seperate zones in shul. But effectively, ignoring that, what is wrong with a woman "Rabbi"?

... And having said all of that, I didn't see it important to push for a title, or a communal status. It just didn't seem that important!

So, back to my harangue. It is connected to my experience, and frustration, with my daughter's schooling. My daughter is an excellent student, thank God, and is generally at the top-end of her class. She frequently acts as if school just isn't that challenging.

So imagine my surprise when I discovered that in her school, she has just started a Torah Shebal Peh program this year. Let us begin with the fact that this topic receives only 2 hours/week, and she is in 5th grade...not exactly reinforcing the importance of the topic. But OK, if we do accept that, what are they studying in these 2 hours? - A single Mishna from Pirkei Avot each week. ONE MISHNA! These are Israeli kids who can simply read it. They aren't doing mepharshim. What are they doing???!!! Let me add that I have already studied multiple massechtot of Mishna with my daughter including Massechet Shabbat (24 chapters!) She knows Mishna. Why is Avot the only Toshb"p that she is doing in school?

[Just to make things clear, they study 18 hours+ Tanach a week! It is a high-level seriously religious girls school]

So why are they doing so little? So many excuses were given. But two things stood clear to me after some investigation:

1. The school doesn't particularly see the great need to teach my daughter Torah shebAl Peh. Let me add that in a neighboring school, boys are given the opportunity to study 2 extra hours of Gemara after school (called Tigbur - strengthening!) and the girls simply go home. Apparently girls don't need strengthening! But also it is clear that even in Gush Etzion with so many learned women and the towering institute of Migdal Oz, women's Torah Shebal Peh is not taken nearly as seriously, and is far below the level of their male counterparts.

2. One of the problems was that there simply were no female teachers on the staff of this particular school who felt adequately trained to teach Mishna at the requisite level. After all, a great Mishna teacher has studied Mishna and Talmud for years. He or she knows the material at a very high level and can bring all his or her experience to bear when teaching even basic material (Mishna) thereby injecting interest and investing the subject matter with depth and relevance. No women on the faculty had this capability.

So how can I change things? How can I get the school to take my daughter's brain and soul seriously? How can I get the teachers who know Torah Shebal Peh into the school?

And so, I began to think: In the Western world, when High Schools failed to take girls' physics seriously, someone said: "Well, we need women physics teachers. Until the students see a female role model, they will never take it seriously. And to get women's physics teachers we need female University professors. Because unless we have women teaching physics in University, we will never have physics taken seriously for girls at High School. " And I guess that is Feminism. And maybe - just possibly - it applies to my frustration. Maybe what is true for physics is true for Torah, or in our case, Mishna.

And I suddenly thought, well maybe we DO need to have publicly recognised communal figureheads who are versed in Torah ShebAl Peh. Maybe we do need women Rabbis, or at least women Talmidei Chachamim with some hefty public recognition. Why? -So that someone will take 5th grade Mishna seriously for my daughter!

Now, .... I am still torn, still a little stuck on this one. Maybe I am just torn between innovation and traditionalism. Maybe I am wavering due to my inability to read the long-term implications of such a move. I know that I don't particularly like the Maharat title as such. To be honest, I would like to see the Yoetzet title develop as the prime title that recognises women as masters of Halakhic study, (even if it is in Hilchot Nidda... after all, traditional Semicha is just on Kashrut topics.) I also have no real clarity as to the precise role I want such a women to play in shul, if she were to be the sole spiritual leader of a congregation. And yet, let me reiterate that unless the community see women Talmidei Chachamim ( - It doesn't have to be a Rabbi, or a Maharat, or a Yoetzet - ) and recognise that role of scholar, teacher and religious guide as a valuable pursuit, as a noble status for women; until then, our daughters' Talmud Torah will be relegated to second-rate status. Always.

Scholarly or Hospitable?

I was learning Pirkei Avot with my son yesterday. Studying these two Mishnayot I was struck between the contrasting approaches that they represent.

We are talking about a "pair" of contemporaneous Talmidei Chachamim who together lead their generation: Yosi ben Yoezer of Tzeredah and Yosi ben Yochanan of Jerusalem. Here are their mottos :-

יוסי בן יועזר איש צרדה ויוסי בן יוחנן איש ירושלים קבלו מהם יוסי בן יועזר אומר יהי ביתך בית ועד לחכמים והוי מתאבק בעפר רגליהם והוי שותה בצמא את דבריהם:
4. Yosi ben Yoezer of Tzeredah and Yosi ben Yochanan of Jerusalem received the Torah from them. Yosi ben Yoezer of Tzeredah said: Let your house be a meetinghouse for the sages and sit amid the dust of their feet and drink in their words with thirst.
משנה מסכת אבות פרק א משנה ד

משנה ה
יוסי בן יוחנן איש ירושלים אומר יהי ביתך פתוח לרוחה ויהיו עניים בני ביתך ואל תרבה שיחה עם האשה באשתו אמרו קל וחומר באשת חברו מכאן אמרו חכמים כל זמן שאדם מרבה שיחה עם האשה גורם רעה לעצמו ובוטל מדברי תורה וסופו יורש גיהנום:
5. Yosi ben Yochanan of Jerusalem said: Let your house be wide open and let the poor be members of thy household; and do not talk much with women. This was said about one's own wife; how much more so about the wife of one's neighbor.

Both scholars invite outsiders into their respective homes. But the guests are very different.

For Yossi ben Yoezer (the 1st text - Mishna 4) it is all about ensuring that your home is filled with Torah scholars. One's home is in essence, a Beit Midrash in which a person may learn from the words and personal example of the wise. In one's own home, a person sits in the dust of the feet of the Talmid Chacham. In fact, one "drinks" their Torah with "thirst"...the food and drink served in one's home is the Torah of the wise.

How enormously different is the home of Yossi Ben Yochanan. His home was based upon the principle of hospitality. He advised that a person welcome everyone (not just wise people) into one's home, especially the poor and needy. Moreover the poor will not be "guests" but members of the household. They feel at home there. (And because the house is so open, one must be careful about intimacy with women who are not part of your household.) One imagines that the food and drink in his home was edible. It was real food and not Torah.

What variation in orientation! In the first we see an atmosphere designed for the intellectual elite, based upon personal piety and intense Torah study. In the second, an environment which is accessible to all and without divisions, where all are welcome, based upon giving and love.

What different religious ideologies!

One can only imagine the very different atmosphere, and the contrasting moods between these two homes of Jewish leaders.

Which home would you feel more comfortable in?

Thank You!

I just wanted to thank all of you who kindly donated to Alyn for my wife's Tel-aviv to Jerusalem bike ride.

she brought in $1915.04 for Alyn, and the charity raised well over $2 million.

One wonderful story that aliza told me was that there were over 600 riders at the starting line just waiting to speed away. And then someone got on the PA system and said tefillat Haderech and the entire throng responded with a resounding "Amen!". This was not a religious group by any means, and yet this is Israel, and before they set out, Tefillat Haderech was said. A beautiful kiddush Hashem.

To everybody who supported Aliza's ride, thank you and tizku lemitzvot.

(Next year I think she is going for the 5-day ride. she has caught the bicycle bug! )

When the Bible comes to Life

For those of you who are regular readers, my apologies about the relatively sparse postings as of late. The teaching year has started, so I am busier than I have been for a while. In addition, the teaching year (for me - Elul) started 10 days before my own children began school. It is always a bad combination for me to be at school and my kids to be at home. I won't go into all the irritating details, but let's suffice by saying that there was less blogging time!

On with the show...

Yes - last Friday, we picked our grapes. We have a single vine that produces delicious crisp red seedless grapes. I have no clue what genus or type. I do wonder whether they are Cabernet or Merlot or something else. Maybe I can open a "boutique" winery or something. But they always ripen in the last week of August and we have to pick them otherwise the place smells like a brewery and there are a million fruit flies. Yeuch!

So we picked the grapes. The sheer amount was astounding. We had at least 10 enormous mixing bowls of the stuff. I would imagine it came to 40 kilo of grapes. So we sorted the ones which looked nicer - the "grade A" grapes - and my kids took them to the entire neighbourhood - after all, what are we going to do with so many grapes!

Beforehand, however, we had to take Teruma (Tithes) from the produce. It was more complicated than last year as this year - being year 6 - of the Shemitta cycle, is a Maaser Ani year. So, one has to give a tenth to the poor! How do I find a poor person who wants 4 kilos of grapes? So, this is what we do. I need to give it to someone who can accept it on behalf of the "poor". Then I buy the grapes back from him and that money can be given to the poor. It was a relatively complex halakhic process.

And then we could eat.

With all this - which took about 3 hours last Friday - I had a number of religious thoughts:

1. As I was cutting the grapes, I also cut down half the vine in preparation of Shemitta. I was taking off these long strands of vine just weighed down with luscious grapes. And you get this unbelievable feeling of "plenty", of nature's bounty. This plant just produces an incredible volume of unbelievably lush juicy sweet fruit. It is amazing. My son, Avinoam, was helping me, and we were carrying the branches together. It felt like the verse with the Spies as two of the meraglim carry a branch of a vine to testify as to the fertile nature of the Land of Israel. And here we were carrying the evidence! We were the delegates of the Jewish People showing off the Land's produce, demonstrating just how wonderful this land is!

2. The parshat Hashavua kept flashing through my mind repeatedly. The parsha opens with the Bikkurim in which a farmer brings his fruit to God, making a proclamation in the Temple "before God." What does the farmer say? He thanks God! But in his prayer to God the fruits are seen not simply as a source of wealth or sustenance and blessing of God, and the land not merely as a source of prosperity, but the farmer sees these meagre fruits as a connection point with the gigantic idea of the notion of land as a national home. Yes, a simple bunch of grapes, a first fruit reminds us about the significance of a homeland. That our People should not be wanderers and homeless, humiliated victims, but should have their own land. And I felt this deep connection as I took off my Bikkurim, and thinking just how fortunate we are to be picking our own sweet grapes in our own sweet land. Call me a sentimental Zionist. I plead guilty!

3. But the Parsha continues to a second declaration of the farmer: The Tithe Confession. Here the farmer states:

“I have removed all the holy food (truma, ma’aser etc.) from my property and I have given it to the Levi, the stranger, the orphan and widow just as you have commanded me; I have not transgressed nor neglected any one of Your commandments, I have forgotten nothing ... I have obeyed the Lord my God, I have done everything He required of me.” (26:13-14)

Once again, the connection seemed too close to home. I had just taken Teruma and Maaser and the tithe for the poor. And these are acts that I am not practiced at, as I perform them only on occasion, and so they are not routine. They are an "event" for me. Suddenly the parshat Hashavua was alive in my hands!

Of course the parshia ends with the beautiful prayer to God:

"Look down from your holy abode, from the heavens and bless your people, Israel, and the land that you gave to us, as you promised our forefathers, a land flowing with milk and honey." (26:15)

Amen!

4. One last point.

The parsha talks about Eretz Zavat Chalav Udvash - the Land that flows with milk and honey. Obviously the question is, what is the honey and milk of Israel? Most commentators, traditional and mdern, agree that the honey is the sweetness of the fruit of Israel. That figs and dates with their natural sweetness are the honey of the land. But grapes too! The arabs here make a honey out of grapes. My son made it at kindergarted last year! They take the grape juice and heat it up until much of the liquid evaporates and it becomes a sweet honey called "dibb'ess" i.e. "devash)! So here as we picked our grapes, my hands covered in the sweet nectar of the grapes, I really felt the sticky "honey" of Eretz Yisrael.

5. Rabbi Riskin once told a fabulous story. It was related by Yaakov Hazan, one of the founders of the "secular" Kibbutz HaShomer HaZair Movement. Hazan had recounted, in a radio interview shortly before his death, the earliest source of his Zionism. As a ten year old child in the Lithuanian city of Brisk, a doctor suggested the best cure for his anemia would be exercise in the open summer air. Hazan's father apprenticed him to a Gentile farmer, with whom he worked from dawn to dusk.

Despite the hard work, Hazan noticed that the farmer always had smile on his lips, which young Yaakov asked the farmer to explain.

"Don't you hear the land singing?" asked the farmer. Yaakov cupped his ear to the ground, but heard nothing.

"I know why you don't hear the land singing", responded the Gentile farmer. " I hear the song because it is my land. But this is not your land!".

Hazan related that at that moment, he realised that he had to move to Eretz Yisrael!

The Bible calls the special fruits and nuts of Israel "the song of the land" (zimrat ha'aretz). [Bereshit/Genesis 43:18] When it is OUR land, our holy land, we can hear the land singing its song. Last Friday, it was singing the Parashat Hashavua to me!

May we all have a sweet and bountiful year!

Playground Etiquette

The other day I took my two younger kids to a park in Rechavia. After playing for a while on the roundabout, the boys decided to go for the swings. Although the park has six swings they were all occupied. My boys, aged 2 and 5, were interested only in the swings and decided to wait. They were exceptionally patient.

But the people there weren't getting off. There was a family of 4 little girls, aged 2-11 by my estimation. They were sitting on the swings. They weren't even swinging but eating peaches. Once in a while one of them swung a little. Their parents sitting on a nearby bench - 5 yards away - watched smiling, and watched us waiting but didn't say a word! After 2-3 minutes they began to swing, but on a few occasions, one went to get another peach or to push the youngest. Each time, they carefully reserved the swing for their sister.

So how long do you think they persisted? After about 4 minutes, my 5 year old was given a swing by somebody else. They were still not budging. I turned to one of the little girls and said gently, "My little boy has been waiting for a long time!" and she ignored me. She didn't even reply.

And this continued. The parents watching me and my two year old, who was angelic. He's usually VERY active. He clearly REALLY wanted that swing. We waited for over 10 minutes. There we were standing right by that swing. There was no doubt that we were next. I made another 2 comments to the girls, and again was absolutely ignored - not even a reply - until their two-year-old got tired of it. Ten minutes...maybe more! A two year old waiting sweetly and they were taking their time on 3 of the swings! Infuriating.

Needless to say, I was quite shocked at this family's lack of care or consideration for those around them. When you see people waiting for a swing and your kid has had a reasonable turn, you vacate the swing to allow another kid a chance!

Should I have been more aggressive?
Should I have spoken to the parents?
How can parents see such lack of consideration and just sit there calmly? How self-centered can one be?

(One minute later an Israeli lady (Morrocan) came along and very quickly told one of their girls that she had been there quite long enough and being a big girl, how could she not give her swing up to (her) little boy. Her assertiveness made me think that maybe I had been too soft. I think that I expected the parents to do something! Oh! and if it makes any difference, the family were English speaking...American... seemed like Olim and not tourists. Does that make a difference?)

I remember once hearing the quote once that the "Battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eaton and Harrow." What that means is that values of persistence and heroism, leadership and teamsmanship are learned at play, and then put into practice in adult life. Play teaches us interpersonal dynamics, teamwork, endurance, discipline, and much more. (An approximate quote from Rav Lichtenstein: "When someone is paying ball and keeps the ball to himself and won't pass, that isn't simply bad play; it is morally repugnant!")

The park is where kids learn how to relate to other kids!

Some time ago, my same two boys were running along the pavement on their way to Gan (Kindergarten). They were having a race as to who could get ahead. And as they were running my 2-yr-old fell flat on his face. The 5 year old - who is very competetive and hates to lose - kept going. After the little one stopped crying, I called him back and said: "When your brother falls, you ALWAYS run back to help. He's your brother. You always help your brother or friend. When he's down, the competition doesn't matter any more." I think it made an impression, because the next week, in the same scenario he ran back to help his little brother. He gave hima big hug and gave me a knowing smile.

Advanced Theology (from a 5-year-old)

Today, I visited the Beit Midrash of Yeshivat Har Etzion with my five-year-old son. The parochet (curtain) of the Aron Kodesh (the ark) has a large colourful crown embroidered upon it. I pointed it out to my son, Hillel. And then, I asked him a question:

"Whose crown is it? Does it belong to God or the Torah?"

(… after all, we talk about כתר תורה and also, in Nusach Sephard, we say כתר יתנו לך ה' אלוקינו... so it could be either)

He replied with an almost disbelieving tone:

"Well, of course it is the Torah's! How could it be Hashem's crown? He doesn't even have a body!"

And then he continued:

"If Hashem had a crown, he would need to be in one place, but God is everywhere!"

I thought that was rather sophisticated theological deduction for a five year old!

It reminded me of the Rambam in Hilchot Yesodei Hatorah 1:7

רמב"ם הלכות יסודי התורה פרק א

ואילו היה היוצר גוף וגוייה היה לו קץ ותכלית שאי אפשר להיות גוף שאין לו קץ, וכל שיש לגופו קץ ותכלית יש לכחו קץ וסוף, ואלהינו ברוך שמו הואיל וכחו אין לו קץ ואינו פוסק שהרי הגלגל סובב תמיד, אין כחו כח גוף, והואיל ואינו גוף לא יארעו לו מאורעות הגופות כדי שיהא נחלק ונפרד מאחר,