NEWS FEATURE: Quest to become Orthodox rabbi puts woman on the cutting edge

c. 1997 Religion News Service JERUSALEM _ If the topic of the 1983 Canadian Bible Contest had been Genesis instead of the Book of Numbers, Devora Shonfeld might never have aspired to become a rabbi _ an Orthodox rabbi. When Shonfeld, a Toronto native, won the Bible contest at age 10, it changed her life. […]

c. 1997 Religion News Service

JERUSALEM _ If the topic of the 1983 Canadian Bible Contest had been Genesis instead of the Book of Numbers, Devora Shonfeld might never have aspired to become a rabbi _ an Orthodox rabbi.

When Shonfeld, a Toronto native, won the Bible contest at age 10, it changed her life. Now living in Jerusalem, she spends her days and nights studying the weighty tomes of the Talmud, the volumes of Jewish law which expound, define and refine the basic commandments handed down to the people of Israel as they wandered out of Egypt and into the Promised Land some 3,000 years ago.”Learning the Book of Numbers gave me the sense that God cares about what we do, and the way to connect to God is by performing his commandments,”Shonfeld recalled.”I always knew I was going to be a rabbi. I knew Jewish text would be central in my life.” Shonfeld’s desire to become a rabbi has put her on the cutting edge of a quiet revolution underway among Orthodox women pushing for a broader religious role in Judaism’s most tradition-bound stream.


Some of the boldest challenges to the traditional Orthodox view of women’s roles are occurring in Israel, where the Orthodox establishment is most entrenched, and the cultural war between liberal and Orthodox Jews is most heated.

For the past three years, for example, Israeli Orthodox women have begun appearing as religious lawyers in state-controlled religious courts _ a position previously reserved for men.

Last year, another new program opened in Jerusalem to train Orthodox women as”respondents”to basic questions of religious law and sexual practice that previously would have been directed to male-only rabbis.

Women’s prayer and Bible-reading services _ in which women assume some of the ritual roles normally filled by men _ also have begun to flourish in Jerusalem synagogues, study houses and even in a select number of state-supported religious high schools normally cautious about such innovations.

In addition, women such as Shonfeld _ many of whom have moved to Israel from North America _ have begun patiently pushing the boundaries of tradition by studying privately with sympathetic Orthodox men. Shonfeld studies with Rabbi Arye Strikovsky, hoping to obtain Orthodox”smicha”(ordination) _ or some equivalent designation bestowed specifically on women.”Speaking in terms of religious law, I don’t have any problem with the ordination of women,”said Strikovsky, a native-born Israeli, who like many rabbis here received his own rabbinical ordination privately from another respected rabbi.

Until recently, most Orthodox women had little choice but to accept the role which they had been assigned for generations, and which kept them on the fringes of Jewish religious life. While Orthodox women have long been able to pursue careers in the secular world, their part in the rich world of Orthodox study and synagogue ritual was limited.

Women did not learn the singsong chants of the Torah service, in which the Bible is ritually read. Nor did they wear ritual garments, such as a prayer shawl, or study the Talmud, the legalistic commentary on the Bible that sets down the fundamentals of religious law.


The first sparks of change began two decades ago in the United States, where small groups of Orthodox women in the New York City area began meeting together to study Talmud and holding their own prayer and Torah-reading services. New York was also the site earlier this year of the first international meeting of Orthodox Jewish feminists, who stressed their desire for a larger religious role.

One of the early supporters of the women’s prayer and study movement, Rabbi Shlomo Riskin of New York’s Lincoln Square Synagogue moved to Israel in the early 1980s. As the dean of Midreshet Lindenbaum, a women’s college in Jerusalem, Riskin launched programs to train women as religious advocates. This year, he began a program training women as”respondents”to religious questions on issues of religious law and sexual practice.

Riskin also was instrumental in paving the way for the appointment of three Orthodox women to the local religious council in the West Bank town of Efrat, where he lives. Those positions were previously the exclusive domain of men.

Many of the changes have been gradual in keeping with Orthodox tradition, which only accepts change that builds on past tradition and does not dramatically break with time-honored practice.

Often, such changes are accompanied by a complex logic hard for outsiders to appreciate.

Riskin, for instance, in describing the programs to train women as”respondents”on matters of Jewish law, does not stress any advance toward equality. Rather, he notes the way in which such training will”increase observance and increase modesty”within the religious community because women no longer would have to address intimate questions of sexual practice to male rabbis.

Shonfeld, similarly emphasizes that her goal of becoming a rabbi is also circumscribed by tradition. She does not aspire to become a pulpit prayer leader, since leading public prayers is decidedly off-limits to Orthodox women. Instead she aspires to become a rabbi in the traditional sense of the term _ a learned person who can render decisions on matters of religious law.”It’s always been clear to me that if someone knows enough about Jewish law to answer religious questions, they would be asked religious questions,”Shonfeld said during a recent interview in her sun-lit living room crowded with religious books.”When there are outstanding women in the Orthodox world who are qualified to answer questions on religious law, then there will be women rabbis. The challenge I took upon myself was to try to become a woman like that.” Strikovsky agreed with Shonfeld that in Orthodox Judaism a rabbi is essentially a learned person qualified to answer basic questions on Jewish law and texts.


Even so, Strikovsky said he may seek an alternative title to”rabbi”for Shonfeld and other female students he is teaching.”In Orthodoxy, the less pretentious the term for the degree is, the more effective it will be,”Strikovsky said.”If a woman was to call herself an `Orthodox’ rabbi, people would say that she must be a Reform Jew.”(Reform Judaism, a liberal movement, has for years ordained women as rabbis.)

Indeed, the most accepted change in the religious role of Orthodox women has been in the area of religious study, where a few Orthodox women have held prominent roles for years.

But in general, the realm of Talmud, or Jewish legal scholarship and commentary, has remained a male preserve until very recently, when a select number of Jewish religious high schools, colleges and institutions in Jerusalem and elsewhere began opening these texts up to women.

The trend has become so pronounced that even ultra-Orthodox women’s schools and institutions have gradually begun expanding the range of religious topics covered by women who previously often grew up Jewishly ignorant only to be married off to husbands who spent much of their time in religious study.

Women who study original Jewish legal sources say they quickly discover that the laws circumscribing their religious role are not as clear-cut as generally assumed. “There is simply nothing in the classical sources which bars women from becoming rabbis,”declared Shonfeld, pulling out a number of books which touch on the topic. She, like other women, can also point to religious precedents in which women donned ritual garments normally reserved for men, or served as rabbis and religious judges.

Male and female scholars alike have begun to make use of the Talmud’s complex logic to arrive at innovative interpretations of religious law and commentary that would permit women a greater role in synagogue ritual.


For instance, when the granddaughter of the respected Orthodox Rabbi David Hartman recently celebrated her bat mitzvah (a ceremony marking a girl’s religious coming of age) in Jerusalem, she read from the Torah in a”women’s reading”_ an alternative worship forum for women gaining increasing acceptance in Orthodox circles.

While technically exclusively for women, the reading was incorporated into the regular Sabbath prayer service, and was attended by men who listened from the other side of a partition.

Hartman said he believed he was correcting a historic injustice by creating a place for adolescent girls in religious rituals that in the Orthodox world traditionally have been reserved for boys.”I hope my daughter forgives me for the fact that she was excluded from significant religious rituals like a bat mitzvah in her youth,”said Hartman.”And I hope that redemption is possible through my granddaughter.” (STORY CAN END HERE)

At times, such innovations provoke angry reactions from ultra-Orthodox Jews. For instance, the mixed group of Orthodox, Conservative and Reform women who worship and read the Torah together once a month at Jerusalem’s Western Wall, Judaism’s most revered holy site, have become the object of violent attacks by ultra-Orthodox men.

Because of this sometimes fierce backlash, most Orthodox women are extremely cautious about pushing for broader rights within Orthodoxy. “It’s an uncomfortable position to be in,”said Becky Avner, whose appointment to the Efrat religious council prompted criticism from some Orthodox religious leaders.”I see myself as a person who follows religious law and I would like the total support of all of the religious personalities in our world.” Despite the incremental nature of the gains, the steps being taken by Orthodox women are still viewed as a genuine revolution.

Haviva Ner David, 27, who studies with Shonfeld and also seeks Orthodox ordination, remembers how boys and girls in her New York religious high school were prepared for the all-important ritual of entry into Jewish adulthood.”When the boys began studying Torah to prepare for their bar mitzvah, we were sent to learn home economics,”said Ner David.”I guess that was the first time I realized that girls were not going to have an equal role in ritual practice.”


MJP END FLETCHER

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