Contemporary American Jewish women are standing up for their
rights, demanding equality in Judaism. I have heard my
sisters' passionate words of protest and have tried to
understand their complaints, to share their anger. But I
cannot.
Why am I not insulted that Jewish religious law, or halacha,
does not count me as part of a prayer-quorum, or minyan -- or
allow me to be publicly called to the Torah for an aliya?
Why can't I affirm their assertion that traditional
Judaism looks down at women?
With my Ivy League undergraduate education and law degree, I
am fairly certain that I am as bright as they are. Why have I
chosen to become a halacha-observant woman, and experienced
sheer joy in the journey? Why am I not bothered by what
bothers so many others?
The answer lies in a realization that, despite its essential
simplicity, is apparently very difficult for many American
Jewish women to even consider.
We American women have been raised under the banner of equal
rights. We have, and rightfully, insisted on equality in the
work place, on the campus, in athletic competition and in the
financial world. And we have achieved much success.
At the core of our demands lies the ideal of democracy. The
legal, social and political underpinning of American society,
the U.S. Constitution, guarantees the right to equality under
the law and the right of redress in a judicial system.
Nurtured on this tradition, the modern American Jewish woman
tends to absorb the notion of equality within the American
democratic paradigm.
The legal underpinning of the Jewish people, however, is not
the U.S. Constitution but the Torah, a G-d-given code of law
that does not speak in terms of rights, either for men or for
women. It bestows no rights at all, only commandments (or
mitzvos).
And unlike the Constitution, the Torah -- and the legal
corpus that derives from it, halacha, or Jewish religious law
-- cannot be amended, even by a legislature's majority vote.
The Torah does provide mechanisms for interpretation (by
scholars whose sole goal is determining the texts' intent)
but not for interpretation, much less change, born of human
notions or desires.
"You shall not add to the word that I command you," the Torah
commands, "nor shall you subtract from it"(Deuteronomy, 4:2).
The crux of the modern American Jewish woman's discomfort
with her Jewish religious heritage is, I suspect, her
inability, or refusal, to distinguish between what democracy
calls "rights" and what the Torah calls "right." Sadly, that
reluctance to leave the paradigm of entitlements for that of
obligations, prevents so many precious Jewish women from even
seeing, much less embracing, the beauty of the Jewish
religious tradition.
Ironically, it also prevents them from discovering their true
power as women, as commanded beings whatever their particular
commandments. Because being a halacha-observant Jewish woman
is so much more, not less, than being part of a minyan;
more, not less, than donning a tallis or
tefillin. If a woman feels she is equal to a man only
through the donning of a religious object or the execution of
a public synagogue role -- if that is the sum of her
religious expression -- then she is indeed missing out on
something very important. Not men's commandments, though, but
her own.
It is easy to imagine how, for a woman who was denied the
opportunity to play little league when her brother donned his
uniform, old feelings of exclusion and "unfairness" may be
touched off once again when she is told that she is not part
of a minyan, or that certain mitzvos are not incumbent
on her. What has really occurred, however, is a sort of
conceptual short circuit; the "equal rights" mindset has
crossed wires with the "divine obligation" reality.
Fairness and equality, in their everyday senses, in their
proper context, are wonderful; but holiness and Torah occupy
an entirely different universe. True equality -- equality of
worth -- is not measured by equivalent religious roles. If a
Jewish woman is really sincere about being the best she can
be; if she seeks strength, dignity, self-esteem, and true,
lasting happiness; it is not a tallis or tefillin
that she needs, but courage.
Courage to recognize that the American definition of equality
cannot be used to change the Torah; courage to learn, with
pure honest and objectivity, about her remarkable Jewish
heritage; courage to shoulder the obligations and role it
bequeaths her; courage to know that her greatest potential
imaginable lies in being a Torah woman.
And so, to all my Jewish sisters, from the bottom of my
heart: I wish you abundant courage.
Elaine M. Viders, Esq., an adjunct Professor of Law at
Touro Law School, is part of Am Echad Resources' writers
pool.
