Rosh Hashana Day Sermon
It has taken some time for American Jews to wake up to the
call of The Women of the Wall. They have endured the scorn and derision of the
black hat and ultra Orthodox sectors of the country, while receiving little
support from the majority secular Israeli population. At the celebration of each rosh chodesh (or
the new Jewish month) these women gather together at the women’s section of the
Western Wall and put on their talitot and kippot and sometimes tephillin,
creating a spectacle which sometimes leads to the arrest of their leader, Anat
Hoffman, who is, by the way, also the director of the Reform Movement’s Israel
Religious Action Center. These
progressive Jewish Israeli women refuse to give in to rejection by their own
people, and to police intimidation, and to the so-called pious men on the other
side of the mechitza who sometimes spit on them or yell at them, and to the
religious women beside them who deride them with every sort of insult that pious
women are not supposed to utter towards their Jewish sisters.
Recently, the courts in Israel ruled that these women had a
right to pray as they wished at the Western Wall and now the police protect
them instead of arresting them. Even Prime Minister Netanyahu realized that the
optic of Jewish women of the wall being hauled off to jail had become a public
relations disaster for Israel in America and around the world. He directed
Natan Sharansky to come up with a plan fix this problem. Sharansky’s plan, it turns out, was to widen
and expand the entire Kotel plaza to include the south end of the wall by
Robinson’s Arch, thereby creating a separate gender- neutral area for worship,
which has garnered cautious bipartisan support amongst religious and secular
parties. We shall see what takes shape in the months to come.
Why should this issue concern us? What is the relevance to
our purpose as Reform Jews? The point here is that we have devoted this
morning’s aliyot to the women of Beth Yam as a sign of support for the Women of
the Wall and for Jewish women who yearn to find their place in Israel to pray
with the same prayer garb that men use and to read the Torah. Today, on Rosh Chodesh Tishrei, or on Rosh Hashana,
we at Beth Yam stand in solidarity with the Women of the Wall and all women in
Israel who seek the right to pray in public places as their Jewish birthright.
Reform Judaism stands for equal justice and especially for equal participation
of both genders in public worship. We
have ignored this cause for far too long and it is time we did something about
it.
We all understand that Israel has many issues more pressing
on its plate that relate to its very survival,
security issues like the threat of Hamas rockets from Gaza, or even more
powerful Hezbollah rockets from Lebanon, or the tumult in Syria and Egypt, not
to mention the existential threat of nuclear weapons being developed in Iran.
But Israel is a vibrant, prosperous and strong nation with a robust economy,
capable of dealing with many different issues. The fact is, however, that the
issue of The Women of the Wall and free access to worship at the Wall is
critical to Israel’s reputation, not only in the American Jewish community and
to Jewish communities around the world but also to nations in the western world,
where Israel knows it must demonstrate that it shares common values with other
democratic societies, and especially regarding the role of women. Resolving
this issue by creating an expanded gender neutral public space at the south end
of the Western Wall will fortify Israel’s standing as a beacon of light for
women’s rights in the Middle East.
Going back to this morning’s Haphtarah and the story of Hannah,
who enters the area of the Tabernacle at Shiloh and prays by herself to God so
that she may become pregnant by her husband. The high priest Eli watches her
and becomes infuriated with her, presuming, just by the movement of her lips in
prayer, that she is intoxicated. He then accosts her, saying,
“How do you propose
to carry on drunk like this? Get rid of your wine!” To which she replies, “‘I am a sober woman: I
have been pouring out my heart before the Lord. Do not think your servant so
debased. All this time I have been speaking out of my great sorrow and
grief.” Realizing his error, Eli
replies, somewhat chastened: “Go in peace and may the God of Israel grant your request.”
Ultimately God does grant her request and she becomes pregnant and gives birth
to a boy who would one day become the great prophet Samuel.
Even then, you see, a woman could be challenged and derided
while at prayer, and so this text reminds us that the women’s desire to
approach God in prayer in a public place was an uphill battle, even in biblical
times, and despite the fact that Eli the priest relented.
Furthermore, traditional Jewish law has created two separate
tracks for men and women in public worship. In Orthodox and Hasidic Judaism, men
occupy a privileged center of public worship, while women, according to
halachah, are not obligated to participate in any mitzvah that is defined as a
time- bound mitzvah, meaning a mitzvah that is performed at a specific time.
The assumption behind this is that women must be free to take care of children
and family first. The problem is that
the term “exempt” or “not obligated” came to mean, as a practical matter,
“forbidden.”
In addition, the law
of our tradition states that the kol ishah ervah, the voice of the woman is a
“temptation.” In other words a woman’s voice in public worship will distract
men to thoughts other than communicating with God, which added further to the
cultural norms throughout history for why women could not occupy a pulpit and
lead a worship service. That is how
Jewish religious practice worked until the 19th century, and until
the advent of Reform Judaism. It is, therefore, an anathema for ultra Orthodox
Jews to watch women put on a talit and tephillin and participate in services
just like men. For them, such religious practices violate every cultural norm
of Jewish religious practice. It is no surprise, therefore, that secular Israelis
do not get behind this issue because they have become so distant from
traditional religious practice that these kinds of issues simply do not appear
on their radar screens.
What is fascinating about this subject is that if we dig a
little deeper we will find a few examples in the Talmud itself of women who
did, in fact, pray with talit and tephillin. Such women were Michal, the
daughter of King Saul and the scholarly Beruriah the wife of Rabbi Meir. Both
women, the Talmud suggests, wore talit and tephillin. One sage even advised
that they should have recited the traditional blessing before donning these
prayer garments. Modern day scholars are recovering these ancient sources, few
though there are of them, to establish a precedent that women have and can
today participate equally as men do in communal prayer. Even though it has not
been mainstream religious practice in Judaism to allow women to wear talit, or
tephillin or to read from the Torah, these scant examples from the Talmud serve
as precedents for legitimizing the movement toward gender equality in worship
that progressive Judaism must and is making today.
Sadly, on Rosh
Hashana we should be talking about ways to unite the Jewish people and here we
see an issue that divides us. At the same time should we simply cover our eyes
when Israelis who want to practice Judaism out of our movement are not allowed
because of their gender? How can we remain silent to their aspirations to open
the opportunities for diverse Jewish religious practices? Is it ok to bow to
the hordes of Hasidic men and women who represent an image that many non-Jews
consider “authentic” Judaism, even if
the majority of us do not subscribe to, or believe in, that way of being
Jewish? It has been a problem for us and it is a problem for how Israel defines
the religious contours of Jewish identity in this blessed state that struggles
to maintain peaceful co-existence between so many different kinds of Jewish
Orthodoxies and one huge alienated secular majority. If we ignore this issue then I am afraid we
risk committing a communal transgression, as we shall read on Yom Kippur, “We
sin against you when we sin against ourselves: In the category of sins of
Justice and for the sin of silence and indifference.”
We spend so much time training our young girls to become Bat
Mitzvah in this congregation leading them to believe that reading the Torah,
Haphtarah, and delivering a drash is the norm. What are we doing to prove to
them that this effort is not in vain when they go to Israel on their first trip
in high school or college? Do we not have a sacred duty to our young ladies
here to clear the pathway for them and the young ladies of the same age in
Israel?
There is a lot we can do to support this group, from such
simple things as sponsoring an Oneg Shabbat for Women of the Wall at their
monthly celebrations, to going to Israel and participating in their Rosh Hodesh
vigils at the Western Wall. Even buying one of their talitot at their online
store goes a long way towards giving them the financial, moral and spiritual
support they deserve to carry on with their arduous but honorable soul work. In
fact this November fourth Women of the Wall will celebrate their 25th
anniversary. Yes, for 25 years these women have been trekking over to the
western wall and performing their prayers-- and that is all they want to do--
to pray as Jews in the tradition of Jews. Can we at Beth Yam be part of this
historic venture or will we remain on the sidelines?
Reform Judaism was not about creating a rupture in European
Jewry 160 years ago. Instead it intended to provide new opportunities for women
and men to experience Judaism with one foot in the world of tradition and the
other in the modern world. And that is
exactly what these women, our fellow Reform Jews in Israel, want to do beside
the holiest site in the Jewish world.
The prophets called us to stand up for what is just and right and this is not about exposing a weakness of
Judaism but demonstrating our strength to fortify the middle ground of modern
and progressive Judaism in Israel. If
these women succeed it might very well trigger more secular Jewish women to
reclaim their Jewish spiritual heritage in Israel and worldwide. Is this not the
meaning of redemption and renewal, by returning to the sources of the spiritual
core that for many non-observant women was never available to them but for us
could be a watershed in Jewish history? We will not know if we remain silent.
If our beloved Israel will continue to be a cutting edge
society in so many areas, like the sciences and the arts and technology, why
should it not lead the way in its spiritual contribution for the 21st
century? Our people bequeathed the world a faith tradition that produced the
Hebrew Bible and we have saved traditional Judaism from the fires of Hitler’s
furnace. Now is the time for a modern day woman like Hannah who can stand at
the Western Wall in a minyan of women, with her talit, kippah and tephillin and
pray for God to give her a child or any other blessing God should bestow upon her
just like any other pious man would pray to God for while davening at that same
Wall.
The Talmud elaborates the story of Hannah
pleading with God to give her a child by having her say: “Master of the
Universe, is it so hard for you to give me just one son?” Rabbi Elazar explains
her remarks with a parable. “A king made a feast for his servants and a poor
man came in, stood by the door and said to them, “Please give me a piece of
bread, but no one paid attention to him, so he pushed his way into the king’s
chamber and said to him, “Your majesty, seeing that you made this great feast
is it so hard for you to give me this one small piece of bread?” (Talmud
Berachot)
The Women of the Wall are pushing their way in too, and like
Hannah they are asking, is there not room for us to have room for our prayer
–to read torah? All they want is just enough space to meet their needs and not
to take away space or prayer time from the Haredim. They too have been ignored
or denied, but now, like Hannah, they are pushing their way into the king’s
chamber, into the chambers of the Israeli government, and into the chambers of
world opinion. It is the chamber of God as well.
As Hannah asked God to remember her for a child, let us pray
on Rosh Hashana in remembrance not only of Hannah’s prayer for a child, but
also that God remember these women of
the Wall as well who yearn for the natural right to express themselves as Jews
in communal prayer. It is their birthright too.
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