Female Presidents at MO Shuls?

This post on Frum Satire's blog really intrigued me. He says:

Dov Bear has a post about a shul in Syracuse (I know the rabbis kids from yeshiva, and have davened there many times) that is being kicked out of the NCYI National Council of Young Israel, because it has a woman president. I always thought that Young Israel was supposed to be “modern” orthodox, yet they have such a rule on the books. Can anyone really say it’s wrong to have a woman as shul president? It just sounds like another rule to prevent women from being leaders in orthodoxy. Although I doubt having the ability to get up at shul and announce the times for mincha that week would be justified as being a leader.

Anyone know if this is true? And why on earth it would be inappropriate to have a woman as a president of an MO (or even an O) shul?

I never even really thought about this as an issue. I just never even considered it. But while I would expect the hoopla over a female rabbi (I didn't even think I'd see such a daring move in my lifetime), this type of reaction over a female president doesn't make sense to me at all.

The "President" position of a shul is certainly a secular invention.... so what's the big deal? And then, when I think about the larger Orthodox organizations, it seems that none of them have women in leadership positions unless its a woman's organization (Am I right about this? I might not be).

Sexism within religion is more justifiable, I guess (I don't really think so, but all I'm saying is that people can claim that this is how "God" or "the rabbis" wanted it...and it's hard to disagree with a God who doesn't [seem to?] communicate back or with people who are long dead), but I don't see how sexism within the secular aspect of the culture can be justified. Especially when there are so many highly educated, highly accomplished women.

The Old & New Faces of Orthodox Womanhood ...I hope?

So, this week I read two articles that seemed diametrically opposed to each other.

The first was about an agunah who was finally freed after 48 years from her "chained" status by her former husband's death at the age of 73. See the full article here.

The second was about the first ordination of a female Orthodox rabbi. (Okay, fine, "rabbah.")

The optimist in me would like to think that this is the beginning of a long path on which Orthodoxy will eventually give women equal status to men. If this is true, these stories might be seen as representative of the old and new faces of Orthodox womanhood, respectively.

Of course, there are still limitations. Rabbah Hurwitz can't serve as a witness (something I find seriously offensive to my morals) and she won't be counted in a minyan. In all probability, she probably also will never be a pulpit rabbi. After all, as someone has commented, "Where would she sit?" and "What Orthodox shul would hire a female rabbi?"

Again, I want to be optimistic and say that even these inequalities will be ironed out in the years to come. Maybe not in this generation, maybe not in the next, but certainly at some time in the future.

That said, there really does appear to be a severe backlash. After all, the RCA are calling Rabbi Avi Weiss (the rabbi who ordained Rabbah Hurwitz) before their disciplinary board over the ordination. And there are rumors that they are considering kicking him out -- a move that, for many Orthodox Jews, is tantamount to calling his status as Orthodox into question.

And let's not forget that, even with all of the public outcry and publicity that the agunah issue has had over the last few years, the issue is still far from being resolved. Indeed, as the first article mentions, a 2006 international convention to discuss the issue was called off by Israel's chief rabbi only five days before it was slated to begin. This is widely believed to be due to pressure from the Ultra-Orthodox community.

But if the Ultra-Orthodox community can't stand behind an issue so widely understood as problematic as the agunah issue, can we really expect them to legitimize Rabbi Hurwitz's ordination? I'm inclined to say no.

Increasingly, this appears to me to be the very beginning of yet another break in Judaism between the RW and LW Orthodox -- one which might very well become the start of a new movement that is no longer called "Orthodox."

Still, the optimist in me can hope, right?

Here's to a filtering through of Orthofeminism...

But What About the Children?

On my last post, Rambling Jew commented:

"what will you do when you have children of your own? How will you educate them?"

The question brings up a really complex set of issues which has weighed on me with growing intensity over the last few years.

Of course, I'm still not sure if I want to have children. I've rarely written about my personal (read: love) life here, just because I feel like said topic might reveal my identity to certain people. Suffice it to say that having children is a possibility for me over the next few years.

That road, of course, would open up a pretty messy can of worms. I live my life outside of the bounds of any real Jewish movement. I feel attached to many of the Orthodox rituals and yet find some of the values/philosophies that undergird these rituals problematic for my own worldview (not to mention that I find some of the rituals themselves to be misaligned with my values). At the same time, I am inspired by some of the non-Orthodox movements, but don't really feel comfortable aligning myself with them.

I've already watched this play out for some of my friends. Some have cast aside their own problems with Orthodoxy, embraced the culture as "Orthopraxers," and begun to raise their kids according to the Orthodox way without really bringing up the issue.

For others, the issue seems not as easily resolved. One of my friends, in particular, is currently struggling with whether she should continue to send her nursery-school aged children to day school. It doesn't make sense to her, she says, to spend all that money educating her kids about something she herself doesn't really believe. Still, she says, when she sees the kids that come out of the public schools, it seems (to her) that they don't have a strong value system. Or at least not one that she'd like her kids to have.

For me, the question brings up so many issues:

Of course, should I have kids, I also want them to have a strong system of values that resonate with my own. That's a really hard thing to accomplish, especially when you're bringing said children up in a world that doesn't necessarily agree with those values. Still, if it were only on this level, I don't think I'd have such a problem.

Sure, there are lots of people in the secular world who have values with which I strongly disagree; the same, however, could be said of the Orthodox world. In my nieces' and nephews' schools, for example, gender norms are steeped into every part of the curriculum -- and this is really not what I'd want my children to be taught. Of course, that's a more Ultra-Orthodox world, rather than a Modern Orthodox world. But even the MO world is full of people whose values I strongly disagree with. In my own MO education, some of my teachers espoused their racist, homophobic, and materialistic ideologies pretty consistently.

Mind you, that's not to say that racist/homophobic/materialistic people exist solely within a Modern Orthodox world. Of course not! They exist everywhere, in every corner of society. Nor are these ideologies intrinsic to Modern Orthodoxy. When you come down to the core of the values Judaism espouses, I agree almost all of the time. But at the same time, I see a lot of these values equally espoused in secular society. And, as I mentioned above, the same can be said of negative values.

In the end, I believe that if I choose a good community (i.e., town -- not necessarily Jewish community) with a good school district, and I practice the values that I preach, my children will grow up with a good and solid value system. The tens of thousands of dollars don't seem like a worthwhile investment if it's made for the sake of values alone.

Where the line does start to get murky for me is when I start to think about Jewish tradition. As my posts have reflected, I value my tradition strongly and I'd like to pass that along to any children I might have. But what happens when I don't agree with certain traditions? What happens when there's no school that mirrors what I believe? Do I shell out all those tuition dollars to send my kids to a school that doesn't really reflect my Jewish practices?

It gives me a headache to think about it.

This past Shabbat, I went to a Conservative shul (more on this later, of course!). That weekend, a girl was celebrating her bat mitzvah, was called up to the Torah, etc. There were a lot of positive things I took away from this experience, but one negative for me was seeing how uncomfortable the girl, her friends, and family (who were called up) seemed to be with the Hebrew.

That said, I'm very close friends with a Conservative family in the town to which I've recently moved, and while their kids may not be as comfortable with reading Hebrew as I was during my childhood, Judaism definitely pervades everything that goes on in their home. They do not have a strictly kosher kitchen, do not abide by Orthodox definitions of Shabbat, but they have Shabbat dinner & lunch every week, the holidays are intrinsic to their family life in the same way that they were to my family when I was a child.

Their daughter attended a Jewish school for a while, but is now in public school. That doesn't seem to make her any less excited about going to shul every week, saying brachot, making Sukkah decorations, shaking the lulav, etc..

It's nervewracking territory to venture out into bringing the Judaism you personally believe in into a house without a day school as a support network, but I think it's do-able. If I can bring to my house the enthusiasm that I feel for Jewish traditions and be honest about what I believe and don't believe, maybe that's enough? I'm not sure.

For 15 years (if you include nursery & kindergarten), I went to an MO day school that cost my parents tens of thousands of dollars. I did gain a valuable spectrum of knowledge about Judaism from this (though I'm not sure I can say the same for secular subjects; in high school, at least, the academics at my school were rather pathetic).

With all that education, though, the feelings and attachment I have toward Jewish traditions comes from my parents and my home. So many of the OTD/skeptic friends I have talk about the negativity they feel toward Orthodoxy because of what they experienced in their homes -- their parents screaming and panicking before Shabbos, their being forced to learn and go to/stay in shul in spite of their nature that would have them do otherwise, the emphasis their parents put on the "don't"s, the lack of any excitement in celebrations.

Maybe it was because they were Ba'al Teshuva, maybe it was because of their personalities, I don't know -- but in my house, the emphasis was always on the excitement -- the screaming and panics before Shabbos were minimal or non-existent. For me, growing up, my parents made Judaism feel like something beautiful, something fun, something I wanted to be a part of.

When I got older and became, for intellectual reasons, an agnostic, it was the memories of my parents' practices of Judaism that made me want to stay Jewish in any way at all. When you're dealing with religion and tradition, I really think it's what's in the home that counts more than anything.

I'm still not sure that means I won't send my kids to a Jewish day school. It's something I'll think about when I'm there. But I don't think it's the end-all-and-be-all.

Furthermore, I don't think that Orthodoxy in the home is the only way to raise kids who will feel something for (and continue) their tradition. In fact, if you're Orthodox and don't want to be, your home is more likely to look like the negative OJ home. A positive, inspired, finding-your-own-path Judaism seems like a better, more productive, and more sound way to go.

Wow

The Jewish Press (!) recently published an article called, "Orthodox Women Clergy?"by Michael J. Broyde, in which the author contends that the times in which we live warrant the Orthodox Movement both training women as clergy and giving them recognition as such.

To be honest, this seems way more radical than anything I expected to see in the Orthodox world during my lifetime. But really, really exciting. Yes, he says that women shouldn't be called "rabbi" because of "reasons ranging from formal authority (serarah) being limited to men, to the title being given only to those who can serve as witnesses or function as chazzanim, to it simply being a matter of tradition," but I still think that it would be a huge step for the movement.

I am ridiculously excited that some in the Orthodox movement recognize that women today are capable of holding and should hold clergy positions (and that, in truth, women already perform the duties that warrant them being labeled as clergy). And that this is true to the effect that an Orthodox newspaper like the Jewish Press is willing to publish an editorial to that effect!

This is a huge step from the (Modern Orthodox) world in which I was raised where, a mere 15 years ago, my school gave the girls cooking, sewing, and typing classes while the boys took gemarah and mishnah.

...But I Still Like Tradition!: The Conundrum

On my last post, an anonymous commenter asked that I write about resolving the “‘I like the social parts of Jewish traditions/holidays, etc. but that's it’ conundrum.”

Well, the statement is not completely accurate (is that an actual quote from my blog? If so, oy!), nor am I sure I’ve really resolved that conundrum, but here goes nothing…

I’ll make sure to get my actual feelings on the subject out first.

The phrase “social parts” is sort of vague and I’m not sure it actually describes what I like about Jewish traditions and holidays. As I mentioned in a previous post, I'm traditional, but not a traditionalist, in that I don’t think tradition trumps all. For example, if a tradition violates my deeply held moral/ethical beliefs, I’ll have a big problem following said tradition.

In other words, I do like and have a respect for tradition as a whole. That's partly because I have a respect of my ancestry, my heritage, my fascination with the history of the Jewish people...

But it’s true that many of the Jewish traditions and holidays include rituals, etc., that don’t fit with my worldview. It’s also true that I’m an agnostic, don’t believe in the divinity of the Torah, and have issues with the values of some of the rabbis who constructed the Halachic code by which Orthodox Jews live today. So yes, I’m definitely not Orthodox. And in a lot of ways I’ve stopped even acting as such in my daily life. Though I’m still not fully “out” to my parents, siblings, and certain friends of mine. (They know I’m less religious then them now, but don’t really know to what extent.)

That said, I do want to keep as much Jewish tradition in my life as possible (as discussed above), so long as it does not contradict my values. And since the Modern Orthodox tradition is the one in which I was raised, it is in many ways the one that’s most comfortable to me (though I’m not necessarily sure comfort is a good way to determine how I should live my life), and therefore is the one that I tend to look toward first for a traditional element in my life.

And I do enjoy what you might call the “social” aspect of it. It means something to me, not only because it’s part of my ancestry, but because it’s part of my life to an even greater degree than American cultural events like July 4^th or New Years (after all, if my family happened to be out of the country on July 4^th, it would go nearly unnoticed; the same can obviously not be said for Jewish holidays). It is, in effect, part of the makeup of who I am.

And I do love it. I love the feeling of sitting in a Succah on Succos…of smell of the etrog…the crazy dancing on Simchat Torah…lighting menorah and eating latkes with my family on Chanukah. And, like I’ve said before, the non-Orthodox versions of these rituals often feel strange to me, almost devoid of “realness."

So what to do? The agnostic, quasi-practicing Jewish girl has an affinity for (some) Orthodox rituals!

Well, like I said, I’m not really sure I’ve solved the conundrum, but here’s what I’ve done in the last year:

I’ve tried out Conservative services. This, as I blogged, was nice in some ways, and really strange in others.

I’ve gone to my parents’ house for holidays/Shabbos, while slowly letting them know (through more subtle conversational hints) that while I do appreciate this way of doing things, I’m not fully in the same boat as them theologically, and I don’t always do things like this on my own. This approach seems to be working in a not-so-painful way. As an aside, every time I’ve been there, I’ve had my also not-so-Orthodox boyfriend (his theology and upbringing is pretty similar to mine) there as a support network. This has been immensely helpful.

For those holidays I’ve done on my own (see fast day posts), I’ve tailored the rituals to fit my life, my reality, and my philosophy. This worked with the fast days. It hasn’t really worked (i.e., hasn’t felt right) with the other holidays.

I’ve gone to Chabad. I like them. Not their theology, but their approach. I know that deep down they’re looking to make me as Orthodox as possible (and that they have some beliefs that go beyond even regular Orthodoxy, with which I do not agree), but it never feels awkward or sinister to me. And the traditions there are done as traditionally as it comes…which is comfortable for me. Though as I said above, I’m not sure that I should be using comfort as a criterion (i.e., I’m offended by the idea of a mechitza and of not being counted in a minyan, etc., even as it feels comfortable to me).

So this is where I am right now. It’s definitely not optimal but it’s better than it was at this time last year! As for where I’m going, I’d like to start looking (more actively) for a community of traditional non-Orthodox Jews to see how that feels. Also, I’d like to start holding non-traditional Friday night dinners (and other Jewish rituals) with my other less-than-Orthodox (and maybe non-Jewish?) friends.

Quick Rant, Just 'Cuz

I'll be posting a more extensive post about tradition and such things later this week, but this whole election has brought out the worst in some people...and I needed to vent...so here it goes.

Was hanging out with an all-Jewish (mostly MO or just straight up O) crowd today. Almost everyone besides me was a McCain supporter. That was fine with me until the reason for their support (or, at least one person's support) was vocalized. This person said, "I would've voted for Obama if he wasn't a black Arab."

This reason? Really not okay with me. I had to bite my lip hard to keep from exploding. Racism disgusts me. The end.

On Intermarriage

I'll start with a little context: a week ago, I attended my cousin's wedding. He married a lapsed Catholic who will not be converting. I celebrated with him. I was as happy for them as I am when I watch two Jewish friends get married.

So, intermarriage: It's one of the biggest taboos I can think of. When, as a teenager, I started to "rebel" and hang out with the non-Jewish kids in my neighborhood, my dad sat me down for a dramatic talk about why I shouldn't date the non-Jewish guys. A lot of the focus was on past Jewish suffering - especially the fact that my grandmother was a Holocaust survivor and that all her family had been killed in the Holocaust.

This, my father communicated to me without actually using these words:
If all these people died in the name of being Jewish, it's wrong for you to just give it up by inter-dating (presumably followed by intermarrying).

This lesson sunk deep. Throughout my childhood and adolescence, it was compounded by the statistics I would hear in school, at Shabbos tables, in newspapers. "Intermarriage and assimilation are the new genocide," they would say, "Today we are submitting ourselves to a Holocaust-by-choice." And then, the resulting fever: "KIRUV! KIRUV! KIRUV!"

I can remember my own feelings at the mention of someone who was intermarrying - it was this deep ache, this feeling of loss, an almost-panic.

Well, it's been a long road, but here I am, now 29 and not even phased by the idea of my cousin's intermarriage. A few relevant details: he was raised all but completely non-religious (my mom's a baal teshuva), he's currently even less religious than he was growing up. His wife, though brought up Catholic, is similarly non-religious. They share the same values, the same understandings of life, and they make an adorable couple. They dated for six years and have been living together for nearly two.

Of course, my sisters (who are both ultra-frum) didn't come -- even though my cousin & his wife came to their weddings. My parents came, but I recently found out that they came only because my aunt threatened to stop speaking to them if they didn't.

Like I said, having once been theologically closer to where my sisters are now, I know what they feel. That said, I really don't understand the line of thinking anymore. It's so strange to me to disapprove of a marriage simply because of the religious affiliation or lack thereof of one of the parties. My cousin, in many ways, is like a brother to me and I just can't imagine not being happy for his happiness.

One other note on the whole ceremony: I've never been to a secular wedding before. Never, really, even been to a non-Orthodox wedding before. (I will be going to a Christian wedding at the end of the month, though! I'm sure I'll blog about that one, too...) The ceremony was amazing in that it actually involved equal, vocal participation from the bride. This is one thing I absolutely cannot stand about Orthodox weddings - the bride shows up, circles, accepts a ring, drinks from a glass, and never speaks. Also: I (as well as 4 other men & women) was given a poem to read at the ceremony. So cool to actually participate!!

It was also just so much more intimate a ceremony. While large weddings aren't part of the Jewish law in any way, if you were ignorant of that fact, you'd be justified in believing that they are. I've never been to (or heard of) an OJ wedding that had an invite list smaller than 200. My cousin's wedding, with an invite list of 110, was large for his circles. What this meant? I actually got to talk to and celebrate with the bride and groom.

In contrast, I attended an OJ wedding this weekend where I got about five minutes dancing and a quick hello before the bedekin with the bride. And she was my good friend! If nothing else, the OJ community needs to do something about the sheer size of these weddings. They are nauseatingly large. I'm personally prepared not to be offended when I don't get invited to a friend's small wedding.

The "Everybody Hates Us" Complex

Recently, Six Months posted about how she was taught in school that all non-Jews secretly hate Jews no matter how much they pretend otherwise. She wrote:

"In school, it was drummed into our heads that 'the goyim' are only interested in hating us and killing us as quickly as possible. 'If they could get you alone for a second and weren't afraid of being arrested for it, they'd kill you without even thinking about it,' we were told. 'And don't be fooled by the 'kind' grocer in the store or the 'nice' postman who delivers your mail. They just want to get rid of you too.' Where do they get this nonsense from?"

From my understanding, her upbringing was much more Ultra-Orthodox than mine. The day school I attended was quite modern (co-ed, even in high school), I grew up going to a Young Israel, was brought up in a world where it was completely acceptable to wear pants/shorts and go mixed swimming.

That said, I was completely raised with the same idea - that ALL non-Jews secretly hated me, just because I was a Jew. That should the law change, should they be given the opportunity, they would kill me without thinking about it. This was the ideology spouted by some of my (probably Ultra-Orthodox) teachers at my very Modern Orthodox school!!!

I don't think I ever really believed this. Probably because, in some capacity, I always had non-Jewish friends or contact with non-Jewish people.

Now I understand that there's a ridiculous amount of precedent for serious anti-Semitism, serious amounts of "friendly" non-Jews turning around and hating/hurting/killing their Jewish neighbors when the times allowed for it. My grandmother was a Holocaust survivor and she had some pretty awful stories about these types of situations that were far from unique.

But it's so important not to forget that this doesn't represent ALL non-Jews. That even in the most vile of times - in Nazi Germany - not only were there non-Jews who disapproved of the Nazi agenda, but there were some who even UNNECESSARILY risked their own lives to save Jews.

How many of us would do the same in a world where another ethnic group was being persecuted? Or not just persecuted but murdered? In a world where if we tried to save members of that ethnic group, we and all our family could be killed?

The mere existence of such "righteous gentiles" stands to disprove all of these theories about non-Jews that I was taught as late as the 1990s.

Not only that, but by perpetuating these ideas from generation to generation, we exacerbate the problem. To wit: if we're scared to talk to non-Jews, we don't; thus, they come to see as "other" (in the same way that we see them); ultimately, they come to hate us (or certainly not risk their lives to save us, if such a situation comes to pass).

It's all about honest dialogue and friendship.

I'm Tired Of... (A Rant/List)

-- Uncertainty. Of vacillating between MO & non-O over and over again.

-- Covering my tracks from the people who would be crushed by my vacillations.

-- Reading religious opinions that are presented as facts.

-- The religious norm of all the "M"O people that I know -- which is moving further and further to the right.

-- My own emotional attachment to things I know, rationally, make no sense.

-- The cover-ups and lies used to hide immorality within a community of people who claim to be certain about religion. If they can't see that their lies allow innocent people to be hurt, aren't they at least scared that God will punish them for their lies?

-- The fact that I've been reading these blogs for over a year and lots of books on Judaism for half a year and have still come to no conclusion about where I want to go from here.

On the Other Side of the Mechitzah

A few days ago, I attended an event organized for people from Chasidic backgrounds who are becoming "modern" and trying to integrate themselves into secular society.

(I'm being especially cautious with this post, as I don't believe there to be many such events [correct me if I'm wrong!] and I do want to remain anonymous.)

My presence there, obviously, was somewhat accidental. I came with a friend whose friend had once been in the abovementioned situation. I was an anomaly there, having come from a Modern Orthodox background. In this way, I was really just a spectator of sorts -- and possibly shouldn't have been there. That said, it was one of the most interesting experiences I've had in the recent weeks.

It was eye-opening to come face-to-face with girls changing from skirts into pants in the bathroom stalls, guys who grew up in America speaking English haltingly, men with payes and women dancing Jewish-style together to Jewish music.

What was strangest for me, though, was that the whole experience was religiously uplifting to me. It had been a long time since I'd been somewhere with so many people singing and playing Jewish music with such exuberance and joy. And it was (unsurprisingly) the first time that I ever found myself dancing in a circle with Chasidic-looking men. In fact, it was really one of the first times I ever interacted with men like these.

The dancing, in particular, was amazing. I've yet to find a women's section with truly exuberant dancing. Maybe it's our own fault, maybe it's the way we were raised, maybe it's the space constraints of women's sections in general. All I know is, with the exception of a few weddings, I've never experienced the kind of dancing I did at this event (and weddings are kind of different, because the focus is on a person, rather than the dancing itself -- and rarely does the exuberant dancing include more than the inner circle of 5-8 people).

For me, this kind of dancing has always been something to stare at from above - or through the mechitzah. I remember specifically, one time in Tzfat, being taken to one of these shuls where the dancing was supposed to be fantastic. Everyone had told me about it, and I was eager to go. When I got there, though, all I found was a horde of women crowded up against the mechitzah, pulling back the little lace curtains, and staring two stories down at the men.

But at this event, it was suddenly like I'd crossed over to the men's section - to the ground floor of the shul in Tzfat - the focal point of the activity. And it felt overwhelming. And it felt uplifting. And it felt beautiful.