Tag: Women

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Books CCAR Press Women in the Rabbinate

Among the Pioneers: Rabbi Sue Levi Elwell on ‘The First Fifty Years’ of Women in the Rabbinate

Rabbi Sue Levi Elwell is the coeditor of The First Fifty Years: A Jubilee in Prose and Poetry Honoring Women Rabbis, available from CCAR Press. In this post, she reflects on the editing process, her personal path to the rabbinate, and the many meaningful contributions of women rabbis.

Tell us about the process of coediting this book.

I was honored and delighted when Rabbi Hara Person, CCAR Chief Executive, approached me about partnering with her on The First Fifty Years, and was pleased to have the opportunity to work with the talented Jessica Greenbaum as well. I have been blessed to spend my rabbinate exploring—and living—the feminist transformation of Judaism, and collaborating with others on several other books that open new doors to Jewish text and practice.

Collecting and reading the powerful submissions of colleagues who serve in a range of leadership roles was a delight. I learned from each essay, and was moved and lifted up by my colleagues’ thoughtfulness, their insights, their resilience, and their courage. And because we asked for brief essays, the process of editing was a pleasure. As all writers know, it is a greater challenge to write a succinct piece than a longer one, and as editors we benefited from our contributors’ efforts to submit short, well-crafted pieces.

How did you decide to become a rabbi?

I graduated from college in 1970, and to continue my Jewish learning, I moved to Boston to pursue an MA in Contemporary Jewish Studies at Brandeis. A world of intense Jewish life opened for me there; I joined the Zamir Chorale, became a regular davener at Havurat Shalom, joined the editorial staff of Response magazine, and immersed myself in a vibrant, if male-centered, Jewish counterculture. But this was before any of us knew that women could be rabbis! Several years later (1976 or 1977), as the program director at Indiana University Hillel in Bloomington, I met Rabbi Sandy Sasso, the first woman to graduate from the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College. As she spoke to our students, I thought, I can do this! I designed a course on Jewish women’s history for the university, and traveled to the HUC-JIR library in Cincinnati to search for resources to teach the course. Was my moment of revelation standing at the card catalog, thumbing through the small wooden box of cards under the heading “Women”? I don’t remember how the light shone through the library windows that day, but I think I knew then—I belong here.

I completed my doctorate, was accepted at HUC-JIR, and moved to Cincinnati in the fall of 1981 to study intensive Hebrew at the College. My second daughter was born in December, and in September 1982, I joined my classmates as a second year student.

What contributions have women made to the rabbinate?

I think that we have taken the feminist dictum of the late 1960s, “the personal is political,” and expanded it. The College, and the American Jewish world, was not ready for us. Our school had few women’s bathrooms! Many of us felt invisible—or worse, targeted by male professors and mentors who could not see beyond the oppressive patriarchy and overt and covert sexism and homophobia of our texts, and thousands of years of interpretation and practice.

Five decades after Rabbi Sally Priesand smashed the glass ceiling of male rabbinic hegemony, we have challenged and changed both the face and the body of Judaism. We bring our full selves to our work, to our families, to our communities, to our world. We claim kol ishah as a chorus of diverse voices that include many who had not felt heard or seen by the Jewish community. We women rabbis are powerful preachers, scintillating scholars, compassionate comforters, and creators of transformative rituals and liturgies. We build and sustain community with vision and humor. We challenge and comfort, we cajole and console. We are rich and varied.

It is a privilege to be among the pioneers. May we continue to learn from and delight in those who are now shaping the future!

Rabbi Sue Levi Elwell, PhD, serves as Spiritual Director at Hebrew Union College–Jewish Institute of Religion. She is the editor of The Open Door: A Passover Haggadah (CCAR Press, 2002) and coeditor of The First Fifty Years: A Jubilee in Prose and Poetry Honoring Women Rabbis (CCAR Press, 2023).

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News

Funny, You Don’t Look Like A Rabbi

How many times have I been told, “Funny, you don’t look like a rabbi!” Thirty-six years ago, when I was working as a hospital chaplain, that comment was often followed by, “You don’t even have a beard.” I would reply, “No, and I’m not circumcised, either.”

“Funny, You Don’t Look Like A Rabbi”, was the title of the program for the Annual Luncheon of the Jewish Women’s Foundation of Chicago on January 18, 2017. Actually, the full title was “Funny, You Don’t Look Like A Rabbi: Tales from The Sacred Calling: Four Decades of Women in the Rabbinate.” The special guest speakers were the book’s editors, Rabbi Alysa Mendelson Graf and Rabbi Rebecca Einstein Schorr, who carried on a conversation, talk-show style, sharing their personal stories and some of the stories from The Sacred Calling. I was invited to offer HaMotzi at the luncheon, as one of the contributors to the book, as the first female rabbi in Chicago, and as one of the small group who, twenty years ago, brain-stormed about the creation of the Jewish Women’s Foundation. As I listened to my brilliant and funny colleagues entertain and inform this group of well-heeled and well-dressed women at the Jewish Federation building downtown, I was so engaged in their stories that I forgot to take notes for this blog post. Their stories carried me back into some of my own.

Rabbi Ellen Dreyfus Shares Her Sacred Calling from CCAR on Vimeo.

Every woman in the rabbinate has her own stories – of stupid comments, of inappropriate questions, of being ridiculed, and of being ignored. We have all been at that meeting where we made a point or suggested an idea, and several minutes later a man said the same thing and was praised for his brilliance. We have all been in the receiving line where some jerk we don’t know thinks it’s okay to kiss us and say, “Gee, I’ve never kissed a rabbi before!” We have all been publicly addressed by only our first names while the male rabbis in the room have been called Rabbi LastName. Most of us have been underpaid and untrained in asking for the compensation we deserved. Those of us with children have gone through agonizing decisions of how to juggle motherhood and our careers, and no matter what the decision, we have been subjected to the criticism of those who think we could have/should have handled it better.

We also have our success stories and our moments of triumph. Those are usually not unique to us as women, but I don’t want to make it sound like our rabbinates are all war stories or tales of conflict and disappointment. There have been people who came to us for counseling because they felt more comfortable talking to a woman. There are those who thrived with a more collaborative style of leadership introduced by their female rabbi. We have had experiences in inter- and intra-faith dialogues with other women that were so much closer and easier than our male counterparts seemed to have.

As Rebecca and Alysa shared their narratives, answered questions, laughed together and delighted their audience, I looked around the room and realized that much of this was new to the women in attendance. Even though there have been women rabbis in Chicago for decades (I moved back here in 1983), and even though some of these women must belong to synagogues where women have served on the rabbinic staff, they were mostly ignorant of the obstacles we have faced and the attitudes that still plague our female colleagues. They had worked with Federation on paid family leave issues, so they resonated to Alysa’s reference to the challenge rabbis face when they give birth or adopt. It was encouraging to them and all of us to hear her frame it as a Jewish issue of supporting families and the Jewish future.

For me, personally, the event was very affirming. I was introduced with several of my “firsts” and was clearly the senior colleague of the many female rabbis present. The speakers kindly referred to me as one of the vatikot (veterans) of the first decade, and I looked upon them almost like a proud parent kvelling while her children succeed. A few days later, at the outdoor Shabbat service prior to the Women’s March on Chicago, one of the rabbis who organized the gathering asked me how it felt to see the next generation of women taking over. I told her how happy it made me to see that there are so many to continue the work I have been doing. It was one of those moments when I could actually see some of the fruits of my labors, and know that the Jewish future in Chicago is in good hands. And yes, she did look like a rabbi.

—

Rabbi Ellen Weinberg Dreyfus is Rabbi Emerita of B’nai Yehuda Beth Sholom in Homewood, Illinois. She is a past-president of the Central Conference of American Rabbis, and was the first woman to be president of the Chicago Board of Rabbis. She and her husband Jim have three grown children and four grandchildren. Her motto for the past several years is: “Grow where you’re planted.”

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Books Torah

The Torah: A Women’s Commentary — A Love Story

It began as many new relationships do:  I was curious but tentative.  How would this new entity fit into my life?  Did I really need it?  Could I make room for it in my over-stuffed brain and on my increasingly crowded bookshelves?

I received The Torah:  A Women’s Commentary as a gift during my fourth year of rabbinical school at HUC-JIR.  My professor, Dr. Andrea Weiss, was one of its editors.  Dr. Weiss was thrilled to share this project—into which so much love, care, and scholarship had been poured—with me and my fellow classmates.  Although I accepted the gift with gratitude, I wondered how much I would actually use yet another Torah commentary.  And what about this commentary’s emphasis on women?  I had read—and felt uncomfortable with—ways of approaching the Bible that sought to project the author’s agenda onto the sacred text.

The goal of the Commentary, I learned, was to share “the variety of Torah interpretations, past and present”[1] that would help its users enter the cross-generational conversation that is Torah study.  Its editors wanted to create a commentary that “would help women reclaim Torah by gathering together the scholarship and insights of women across the Jewish spectrum and around the world.”[2]  The Board of Directors of Women of Reform Judaism, which sponsored the project, wanted the commentary to “provide a way into Torah study for women who had previously felt excluded or marginalized.”[3] The Commentary encompassed recent discoveries about the richness and complexity of life in the Ancient Near East.  Its authors and contributors included scholars such as Dr. Ellen Umansky, Dr. Amy-Jill Levine, Dr. Carol Meyers, Dr. Judith Hauptman, Dr. Tikva Frymer-Kensky, and Blu Greenberg.  This was my kind of agenda!WTC - Jewish Book Award - Updated

I began to use The Torah: A Women’s Commentary in my studies at HUC-JIR, at my student pulpit, and in my work after ordination.  The way in which the commentary combines traditional rabbinic sources and contemporary scholarship dovetails with my own approach to Torah study.  Each parashah begins with an introduction and outline, which provides an overview of the Torah portion and its themes.  The central commentary, a running exegesis, is patterned after the way commentary is presented in Mikraot G’dolot.  Short essays by contemporary biblical scholars elaborate on or challenge the central commentary’s point of view.  Each parashah includes teachings from rabbinic literature and other commentaries, presented by a scholar of rabbinic literature—sources that I could explore in greater detail on my own if I desired.  I liked each parashah’s contemporary reflection, an essay by a current Jewish scholar, about what meaning the text has for us today.  I was often moved by the voices section, which offers creative interpretations—mostly poetry—of the parashah’s themes.

My relationship with The Torah: A Women’s Commentary entered a new phase when I became one of the writers for its Study Guides. Conceived as part of the original project, the Study Guides are designed to be used in conjunction with the Commentary.  Writing the study guides allowed me to immerse myself in all aspects of the Commentary.  As I prepared each guide, I focused on the overarching themes in each parashah, and sought to understand—with the help of the central commentary—the p’shat of the text.  I thought about the questions I had about the text, and about how I could help those studying the Torah portion to answer these and other questions, using the resources in the Commentary.  With the guidance of Dr. Weiss and Dr. Lisa Grant, editors of the Study Guide project and master teachers of Torah, I learned to ask questions that would help students delve more deeply into the text.  I wrote questions arising from other sections of the Commentary that I hoped would lead to a greater understanding of the biblical text and to how our rabbinic ancestors, contemporary scholars, and poets saw each parashah.  I asked questions that I hoped would allow students using the study guide to think about relationships between the biblical text and their own lives.

The Torah: A Women’s Commentary is the commentary to which I turn first—for my own study, when I am preparing a D’var Torah, or when I am getting ready to teach.  It is the Torah commentary that I recommend most frequently to students.

I often use poems from the voices section in my sermons.  Although it is difficult to choose a favorite, this poem by Barbara D. Holender [4] expresses eloquently the joys of immersing ourselves—aided by this wonderful Commentary—in the sacred song that is Torah:

Torah

 

Even when you hold it in your arms,
you have not grasped it.
Wrapped and turned it upon itself
the scroll says, Not yet.

 

Even when you take them into your eyes,
you have not seen them: elegant
in their crowns the letter stand aloof.

 

Even when you taste them in your mouth
and roll them on the tongue
or bite the sharp unyielding strokes
they say, Not yet.

 

And when the sounds pour from your throat
and reach deep into your lungs for breath,
even the words say, Not quite.

 

But when your heart knows its own hunger
and your mind is seized and shaken,
and in the narrow space between the lines
your soul builds its nest,

 

Now, says Torah, now
you begin to understand.

 

 

—

Rabbi Stephanie Bernstein serves Temple Rodef Shalom in Falls Church, Virginia, as well as teaches the Introduction to Judaism program for URJ in the DC area. She also was one of the writers of the Study Guides for The Torah: A Women’s Commentary.  Purchase the The Torah:  A Women’s Commentary.

[1] The Torah: A Women’s Commentary, “Women and Interpretation of the Torah,” p. xl

[2] The Torah: A Women’s Commentary, “Forward,” p. xxv

[3] Ibid

[4] The Torah: A Women’s Commentary, “Torah,” p. 1234

Categories
Books gender equality

Complete Equality Comes to the Reform Ordination

I recently had the pleasure of sitting with a group of women days before their ordination as Reform rabbis. On that magical cusp between school and new career, they were filled with pride and anticipation. Five years of hard work were coming to an end and the next chapters of their lives were rapidly unfurling. They spoke excitedly of their new positions in congregations and organizations; they showed off pictures of new homes and offices.

As we sat in celebration and reflection, I asked them about the experience of customizing their s’michah documents, the certificate received at the ordination ceremony. For the first time in forty-four years, the women ordained by Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion (HUC-JIR) 1) will receive certificates to document their ordination that are completely equal to the ones bestowed on their male classmates and 2) will have the choice of their Hebrew title. While this event will slip by largely unsung, it is historic and significant.

In 1972, the momentous ordination of Rabbi Sally Priesand, the first woman ordained by a seminary, was celebrated throughout the world. As many fêted this significant step forward for Jewish feminism, it was not noted that Rabbi Priesand received a slightly different s’michah document than her male classmates. Archival evidence, as well as the fact that some of her seminary professors refused to sign her certificate, point to the fact that the new language created for her singular s’michah was born out of great discomfort with a woman being ordained rabbi.

The ordination documents of male and female Reform rabbis have an English and Hebrew side. They are not direct translations of each other. On that historic day, Rabbi Priesand was handed an empty tube, as the faculty took so long to debate the content of her certificate’s Hebrew side. Weeks later when she did receive it, the world was too busy watching her be a rabbi to notice that the title written in Hebrew was significantly different than every other Reform rabbi ordained since 1883. In the English version, all graduates are referred to as rabbi, but in Hebrew Rabbi Priesand was named רב ומורה rav u’morah, while her male classmates were ordained מורנו הרב moreinu harav. The former is a nice title aptly describing what rabbis do, but it lacks majesty and history. The title is pareve, bland. The latter is an historic title used since the 14th century. Its possessive plural, our teacher the rabbi, lends the validation of the community; its provenance gives a nod to the continuity of tradition. This is precisely why, I believe, the Cincinnati HUC-JIR faculty of 1972 avoided extending the title to Rabbi Priesand.

Sometimes inequity is perpetuated because discrepancies blend into our communities, becoming convention. Usually, they are not continued out of malice, but of habit. And so, for forty-three years, Reform women rabbis received ordination certificates containing a tacit slight to the equality of women rabbis. From this year forward, the language has been amended to create complete equality. The new s’michah document is something for the Reform movement to applaud. HUC-JIR adds this step forward to the tremendous transformation of their faculty over the last 20 years to include world class scholars who are women. Now with the process of creating fully egalitarian s’michah language, HUC-JIR is also giving women rabbis the choice of Hebrew title. The new rabbis can pick between using רב rav, the traditional Hebrew word for male rabbi, or רַבָּה rabbah, the emerging word for woman rabbi. Invisibly connecting the Diaspora to Israel, the choice given to the North American ordinees is based on the longstanding approach used by HUC-JIR’s Israeli rabbinical program.Sacred Calling

The soon-to-be rabbis described their reasons for picking their titles. Some explained that they wanted to be referred to as רב rav in order to be completely equal to their male counterparts. They felt it functioned in the manner the word actor does in English. Yet, one woman passionately argued for her choice of רַבָּה rabbah, explaining that with the continued opposition to the nascent group of Orthodox women rabbis, she wanted to stand in solidarity with these colleagues who are beginning to use the title רַבָּה rabbah. It was extraordinary witnessing my new colleagues’ passionate exchange. Perhaps, the choice of Hebrew title will be taken for granted in a few years, but for now there is great excitement over the selection.

As we continued to celebrate the up-coming ordination, the conversation shifted to concerns. While recognizing how much has been accomplished in forty-four years, my new colleagues also spoke of great frustrations, including not knowing if they will be paid equally throughout their careers, if they will need to fight for appropriate family leave, and if they will have opportunities for career advancement unfettered by gender bias. A reflection s’michah document remained unequal because a decision steeped in gender bias became habit. I hope we will continue to step back and read the small print carefully in all matters that impact women in order to eradicate injustice in the rabbinate and our greater society.

—

Rabbi Mary Zamore is the Executive Director of the Women’s Rabbinic Network, the international organization of Reform women rabbis. She contributed “What’s in a Word? Inequality in the Reform S’michah” to the recently released The Sacred Calling: Four Decades of Women in the Rabbinate, CCAR Press.  Rabbi Zamore was recently quoted on this subject in an article by JTA.

 

Categories
Reform Judaism Social Justice

Beyond Colorful Socks and a New Outfit

“I like Rabbi Prosnit’s colorful socks,” said a congregant during last week’s synagogue program. This comment was a response to one of our panelist’s statements that whenever she wears the color pink or has a new outfit, a congregant usually remarks on her clothing, yet rarely do her male colleagues receive comments about their attire. She is absolutely right. Rarely does anyone say anything about my ties, shoes, or sweaters, though occasionally, I do get comments about my colorful socks.

Last week, our congregation organized a program titled The Sacred Calling: Four Decades of Women in the Rabbinate in anticipation of the release of the new book with the same title from the CCAR Press. We were privileged to welcome co-editor of the book, Rabbi Rebecca Einstein-Schorr, who facilitated a dialogue with three rabbis from our Temple community, Rabbis Ellen Lewis, Mary Zamore, and Sarah Smiley. The four rabbis took part in a candid conversation, sharing reflections about their education at HUC-JIR, the challenges they have faced as leaders of congregations, and the continued work that synagogues and our Movement need to undertake for women rabbis.

During the conversation, I discovered that the language on my smicha is different than my female colleagues. (Rabbi Mary Zamore has written an article about this in the forthcoming book.) My appreciation deepened for my Temple Emanu-El predecessors’ hard work to create a strong family leave policy at our congregation. I became more aware of the uncomfortable, funny, and challenging conversations that my colleagues have, and continue to have, because of their gender.

Yet, the biggest takeaway for me was the importance of this conversation for our congregants. For many in attendance, particularly our younger Temple members, they never knew the struggle that women rabbis had to go through to establish themselves in their careers. It was an eye-opening conversation as well as an opportunity for self-reflection for our congregants on how they may treat their rabbis differently depending on their gender. People were so drawn in by the stories from our rabbis that they did not want to leave.

I am extremely excited for the release of The Sacred Calling: Four Decades of Women in the Rabbinate and look forward to using the book in our adult education, confirmation, and b’nai mitzvah programs. This book will be a great tool to share the legacy and history of our first women rabbis and also a way to spark conversations with our congregants. I hope that our discussions will transcend colorful socks and a new outfit and will help to create a rabbinate that is fair and equitable for all.

—

Rabbi Ethan Prosnit serves Temple Emanu-El in Westfield, NJ.

To pre-order your copy of The Sacred Calling: Four Decades of Women in the Rabbinate visit our website.

Categories
Rabbis

Reflections on the Rabbiner Regina Jonas Mission

I  never  knew.  I didn’t know about Regina Jonas.  That is until this summer. Regina Jonas was the first woman rabbi.  Ordained in Germany in 1935 she was a graduate of the famous Hochshule fuer die Wiesenschaft de Judentums.

I had the privilege of traveling on a special study mission arranged by our teacher and colleague Rabbi Dr. Gary Zola in his capacity as a member of the United States Commission on America’s Heritage Abroad.  This mission cosponsored by American Jewish Archives and the Jewish Women’s Archive brought together the first women rabbis ordained in each of the American denominations. We were joined by lay leaders of our Reform Movement, women colleagues and Jewish women scholars  and some of our European women colleagues for a week of travel dedicated to re-discovering the life of Rabbiner Regina Jonas.

I was so honored and deeply spiritually moved to be a part of this special trip. Traveling with our own Rabbi Sally Priesand, the first woman ordained by the Reform Movement, Rabbi Sandy Sasso, the first Reconstructionist woman rabbi, Rabbi Amy Eilberg, the first Conservative woman rabbi and Rabbah Sara Hurwitz the first woman ordained as part of the Open Orthodox movement and Rabbi Jackie Tabick the first woman ordained in England in 1975 by Leo Baeck College.  These pioneers brought their wisdom and experiences and together with colleagues, Rabbis Laura Geller, Dena Feingold, Lucy Dinner, Kineret Shiryon, and Alina Treiger (the first woman ordained in Germany since Jonas) and several others including Rabbi Gesa Eiderberg of Berlin and Rabbi Antje Yael Deuser of Bamberg.

I learned of Rabbiner Jonas’ courage, light, and strength. While in Berlin, we saw what was left of her letters and notes, a small stack.  We read her ordination letter written by Rabbi Max Dienemann who was the head of the Liberal Reform Rabbinical Association because she was denied ordination when her own teacher and in charge of ordination at the Hochschule,  Eduard Baneth died and his successor Hanoch Albeck refused to ordain her.  I was struck as we read the words conferring her smicha.  She was an outstanding student, writing her thesis on “Can A Woman Be a Rabbi?”.  But more than her academic credentials and her teaching abilities, she was described as “having the heart of a rabbi”.

In those dark hours leading to the Shoah, Rabbiner Jonas taught and comforted the community.  She led worship and visited hospitals and particularly cared for the elderly left behind as their children emigrated to Palestine, England or the US.  She gave lectures until she and her mother were deported to Terezin in 1942.

There she continued to serve the Jewish people.  When we as a group visited Terezin to dedicate a plaque in her memory we saw a list of the classes and sermons she gave while imprisoned there.  Classes that we all have taught: “Women in the Bible”, “Women in the Talmud”, “Shabbat and its Meaning”, “Observing Mitzvot”. She continued to bring hope and tried to use Judaism to sustain the faith of the people. According to records she worked closely with Vicktor Frankel while in Terezin.

Pioneering women rabbis on the Rabbiner Regina Jonas mission
Pioneering women rabbis on the Rabbiner Regina Jonas mission

At the dedication ceremony in the Columbarium at Terezin Sally, Sandy, Amy and Sara read Regina’s words.  Music was played by the child and grandchild of a survivor of Terezin brought us all to tears as we realized the generations lost and the generations who survived. Rabbi Eilberg chanted El Maleh Rachamim and again our group, her spiritual heirs, realized it might have been one of the first times anyone had done so for Regina Jonas.  Chills enveloped me in that space of memorial. Rabbi Zola worked so hard to make this a moment of true memorial for Regina Jonas and helped each one of us pay tribute to this holy rabbi who served with such dignity.

We went on to Prague as part of the mission.  The second spiritual highlight of this mission took place in the Spanish Synagogue in the Old Jewish Ghetto.  On Shabbat Morning, Sally and Amy led us in prayer.  In this ornate and beautiful synagogue, which reminded all of us Plum Street Temple in Cincinnati, we prayed and studied together. Looking up into the second floor was the original pipe organ reminding me of the history of liberal Judaism in this part of the world.

But most moving to me was the use of Mishkan T’filah in our worship.  To me this was a true “l’dor vador” moment.  Here we were the inheritors of Reform Judaism, born in Germany, returned despite the Shoah, despite the loss of so many, even as we rediscovered a true hero of our people, Rabbiner Regina Jonas, and we were using the siddur of our people in this holy space.  We were helping to bring alive in a space that is hardly used at all for worship, a Reform Judaism of the 21st century.  Sally led us in prayer and gave a beautiful sermon that touched each one of us.  Again I had chills to realize how far we all have come.  We stood on Regina’s shoulders and we still stand on Sally’s shoulders and the many women lay leaders who helped pave the way for all of us both men and women.

I was so moved to be a part of this mission.  I was deeply spiritually affected to honor our Jewish history this way and to ponder how each of us who as rabbis serve the Jewish people in some unique.  Each of us whether through synagogue service, organizational work, chaplaincy, writing, or teaching contributes to the sustaining Jewish life. Rabbiner Regina Jonas did it in her way and we in ours.

That is why we went to honor her life, to acknowledge her contributions, to make connections to our European colleagues, and to lift up Jewish life both in Europe and North America.

A project I wish to suggest is that we as a Conference find a way to observe her yarzeit annually.  Although we don’t know her exact date of death, she arrived in Aushwitz in October, 1944, she was another quiet heroine of our people.  Perhaps we can simply observe Rosh Chodesh Cheshvan.  In 1944 Rosh Chodesh Cheshvan was 5 days after she arrived at Aushwitz.  Cheshvan is a bittersweet month of no holy days.  And in the same way, although we mourn her death bitterly, we celebrate her historic life and the dedication as the first woman rabbi.  May her memory live as a blessing.

Rabbi Denise L. Eger is the founding rabbi of Congregation Kol Ami in West Hollywood, CA and president-elect of the Conference. 

Categories
Israel News Prayer Rabbis Reform Judaism Social Justice

I Am The Egg (Wo)Man: Reflections on Rosh Chodesh Av with Women of the Wall

“Jerusalem has greatly sinned, therefore she is become a mockery. All who admired her despise her, for they have seen her disgraced;and she can only sigh and shrink back.”

–Eicha (Lamentations) 1:8

The first 9 days of Av are seen in traditional Judaism as days of, if not mourning, then solemnity. We do not feast, we do not celebrate; we are once again living through the days leading up to the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem. And, as many have already noted, one of the most significant statements the rabbis make about that destruction is that the blame cannot be placed on Roman shoulders. Why, they ask, was the Temple destroyed? Because of sinat chinam–baseless hatred. And so Monday morning, as I looked at the faces of the Haredim crowding the Kotel plaza, as I looked at the faces of these men and women who are supposed to be my kinsmen (and women), I felt not anger and not hatred, but deep, deep sadness.

It seems that the same cannot be said from the other side. It is not sadness that compels one Jew–one human being!–to call another Jew a Nazi. It is not sadness that sent a hard-boiled egg flying through the air as a projectile, landing solidly (and not comfortably) on my neck. And it is not sadness that raised male voices to drown ours out.

Talking with a mentor last night, I asked. I asked about the deep anger, and hatred. I said: I just can’t understand. Why? Why such deep anger and hatred? And she, who comes from a far more traditional world than I do, said two things. First, the part I know but hate to acknowledge. There are people–and I refuse to paint the entire Haredi world with one brush, just as I wish they would not paint all liberal Jews with one–in that world who truly believe, to the depths of their soul, that I come to Jerusalem, I come to the Wall, I come to the world, to destroy Judaism.

But, she said something else that, rather than enrage me, gave me some hope. She said that their anger came from a place of fear. That these men and women are looking around and seeing a changing world. They are seeing a world that is increasingly adapt or die, and they choose–time and again–not to adapt. And so I thought back over the faces I saw in that space. And I thought to myself–maybe there is one girl, or one boy, there who looked at us and saw not rodfim, those who seek to do harm to Judaism and the Jewish people, but who saw something new. Maybe there was one boy–or one girl–who looked up and saw in my face, or the face of someone standing next to me, something familiar. Maybe there was one girl–or one boy–who heard in my prayers something exciting. Maybe someone there looked up and saw new possibilities, a different way to live, a living and breathing Judaism.

I happened to be standing next to one of my mentors during the tefillot, and she later shared with me the conversation she had with a little girl standing near her–a rabbi’s daughter. This little girl asked the simplest–and of course most difficult–question to answer. Why, she, asked, were the men on the other side of the barricade trying to drown out our prayers? “The women sing so beautifully,” she said. “Why would they do that?”

IMG_2645The men on the other side of the barricades alternated between screaming and blowing whistles to disrupt us, or simply trying to pray louder. I preferred the latter. Because there was a moment, maybe just before the egg jolted me back to reality, where I was able to live in a different reality–a vision of a Jerusalem that is truly ha-banuyah (rebuilt). In that moment, the voices of women were raised in prayer and song, and the voices of the men were raised as well. And I imagined–just for those moments–that together the voices of Israel, the voices of the Jewish people, reached straight up to heaven.

There is much to be said, and much anger to be shared, over the erasure of women’s voices and women’s bodies from the public sphere in Israel, over what seems to be a campaign by the Haredi community to silence women. There is much to be said, and much anger to be shared, over the role of the Haredi community and the rabbanut in controlling religious life in Israel. There is much to be said, and much anger to be shared, that even despite a clear court ruling, we were barred from the Kotel itself for the first time in 25 years. Others have and will say it better than I can. Because on Monday, for me, anger was not the predominant emotion coursing through my veins. Hatred was not the overriding feeling of the day. Sadness was.

But, that being said, I have to point out the feeling is NOT mutual. Only one side has interest in listening to the other, only one side speaks of shared space, and only one side uses vehement hate speech and physical violence to stake its claim. And the government, despite the progress in court, continues to cater to only the one side, the loudest side. And with all of my idealism, all of my hope–I simply don’t know what to do with that. I don’t know where that can go.

As a Reform Jew, I have long struggled with the meaning and ritual of Tisha B’Av. I have learned and studied over the years; this week at the Hartman Institute, we wrestled with the notions of and texts on communal mourning. I do not wish to see the Temple rebuilt speedily in my day, and so what do I do with this holiday?

Yesterday might have given me an answer. I mourn not for what was, but for what could be and isn’t. I mourn for the fact that I, by virtue of biology, am denied full access to the Kotel. I mourn for the fact that this land that I love, this place whose vision was to be a home for the Jewish people, cannot get itself past a single definition of Judaism–even as its people define themselves in all shades of grey. And I mourn, perhaps most of all, for those voices, male and female, that could be rising up to heaven (or wherever I believe the Divine resides) together, indistinguishable by gender or religious definition, simply united in hope and in comfort, in petition and in praise, in sadness and in joy.

The next Rosh Chodesh we will usher in will be Elul, the month of penitence and preparation for the High Holy Days. I will be back in the United States, though my prayers and heart will be with Nashot HaKotel, the Women of the Wall. And as they–and we–pray the words of Psalm 27:

Only this do I ask of God,

Only this do I seek: to live in the house of Adonai all the days of my life,
to behold the beauty of Adonai, to frequent God’s  Temple.

I will be praying that that house, that beauty, is wide and rich and imaginative enough to hold all of us—male, female, Haredi, Reform, and everywhere in between–in one room, with one voice and one vision.

For the sake of Jerusalem I will not, I cannot, I must not be silent.

rabbi_sari_laufer_headshotRabbi Sari Laufer serves Rodeph Sholom Congregation in New York City.

Categories
News Reform Judaism Social Justice

On This Side of History – A Personal Reflection on Marriage Equality

What does it feel like
when a human-made law
tells you your relationship isn’t worth as much as that of others
even when you’ve been together 10 years, 20 years, 60 years?
What does it feel like for your religious marriage ceremony to not be backed by your government?

Before today, I couldn’t tell you, because it was too oppressive,
and I didn’t want to explore the pressures it forced upon my life.

But today, on this side of history, I can say
that the Supreme Court decisions of June 26, 2013
feel like sunshine breaking through the clouds.
That the Creator is shining down
renewing the covenantal promise
that we are indeed created in the Divine image.
It feels like a heavy rush hour traffic suddenly clearing
and all road blocks have been taken away.
It feels like we are 10,000 feet up and now free to move about the cabin.
It feels like news that a disease has gone into remission.

One of life’s major obstacles have been removed
and instead of our government working against our family unit,
it is supporting it, rooting for us.

It feels like we are marching through the parted waters of the Red Sea,
on our way to freedom.

It feels like people have confidence in our ability to make the world a beautiful place,
instead of begrudgingly tolerating us.

It feels like justice.
It feels like intentional, sincere hugs and cheers.
It feels joyous, empowering and deeply affirming.

It feels like we are a true part of the community and that we are blessed.

Rabbi Heather Miller serves several congregational communities in Los Angeles, CA. Prior to ordination from Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in 2008, she majored in Peace and Justice Studies and Africana Studies at Wellesley College in Wellesley, MA. She and her wife, Melissa de la Rama, were named the 2013 Liberty Hill Foundation “Leaders to Watch.” Learn more at www.rabbiheathermiller.com.

Categories
News Rabbis

Our Sisters, May We Become Thousands of Myriads: The First Ordination of Yeshivat Maharat

Ordination of Yeshivat Maharat. Photo by Anne Cohen
Ordination of Yeshivat Maharat.
Photo by Anne Cohen

It was a beautiful Sunday and a perfect day for an ordination. The hall was crowded, and everyone joyfully hugged and wished each other a mazel tov. There was a ritual, some spirited singing and clapping, giving of documents, speeches, and of course, food. Just like every other ordination I’ve been to.

But this one was special. On this day, at this event, Rachel Kohl Finegold, Ruth Balinsky Friedman, and Abby Brown Scheier, the three women who were graduates of Yeshivat Maharat, were ordained. Three women who are Orthodox. Three women who will be working in Orthodox synagogues and communities are each called now “Manhiga hilchatit ruchanit v’Toranit” or Maharat.  They were ordained by Rabbi Avi Weiss, senior rabbi at Hebrew Institute of Riverdale and founder of the Yeshiva, Rabbi Daniel Sperber, halachic posek and professor of Talmud at Bar-Ilan University, and Rabbi Jeffrey Fox, their Rosh Yeshiva.  As they were ordained, the women were each  “found worthy and granted authority to teach and determine halachic rulings for the Jewish people, and has been ordained as a spiritual leader and a decisor of Jewish law.” With these words, the three women were authorized to render halachic judgements for the community.  Rabba Sara Hurwitz, the Yeshiva’s dean and Rabbi Weiss’ first ordinee, who blazed the path to this day, called up each woman by name, and blessed each one under a banner embellished with the blessing “At hayi l’alfei r’vava”- “Our Sister, may you become thousands of myriads.”

Each ordination was followed by standing ovations, cheering, clapping. As each woman spoke, with the joy and light of Torah streaming from her soul, all present were carried into the reality and power of the moment. Blu Greenberg presciently spoke of this possibility. And we were there, to see, to witness and to celebrate.

As a Reform rabbi, I found myself wondering about my fascination with this moment, about the reason for my own tears, about the sense of witnessing history in the making. Accompanied by David (Rabbi David Ellenson), and with our trailblazer Rabbi Sally Priesand sitting just a few seats away, I could not help but reflect on how our world and our community have changed.  I found myself wishing that I had been present for Sally’s ordination, even though at the time I was a 16 year old girl who knew nothing about the historic events unfolding in Cincinnati in 1972.  But even though I have been present to witness the remarkable emergence of women’s rabbinic leadership in the Reform, Reconstructionist, Conservative and Renewal movements, even though my work brings me into daily contact with the reality of the lives of women Reform rabbis, even though women rabbis may not be seen as something new or innovative in the liberal Jewish community, I still felt the profound historical power of the day.  I felt deeply that I was witnessing something that for so long and for so many had only been a distant and unattainable dream. Rabba Sara Hurwitz herself said it, “Halom halamti-I dreamed a dream.” Many have dreamed this dream and most of those dreams have not been fulfilled. Many wish they could have become a mahara”t.

Yet, on Sunday, I witnessed women, Orthodox women, taking their rightful place as religious, halachic and spiritual leaders in the Orthodox community. On this day, many dreams came true.

After the ceremony a friend mentioned that she thought the day would soon come when this ceremony wouldn’t be seen as so significant or so filled with history. I had to disagree. I still marvel at the reality of 686 women ordained as rabbis at HUC-JIR in the past 41 years. I don’t ever want to forget how amazing it is, how radical a reconceptualization of Judaism and of leadership it required.  But I do think that one day, we will know that this is normal; that women in religious leadership, no matter what movement they may belong to, are an essential and vital expression of our community’s values.  I don’t ever want to forget the struggles of individuals who blazed the trails in order for me to become a rabbi. But I do want to insure that women rabbis are an integral, integrated and recognized part of the landscape of Jewish leadership, that they claim their rights and responsibilities as legal and religious leaders, that they and their communities see their work as sacred work, that their presence in the religious sphere will have an immeasurable impact on current and future generations. No, I don’t ever want to forget how revolutionary the ordination of women as rabbis and mahara’ts is.  But I do want them to be completely normalized, accepted and celebrated.

I celebrate the rabbis and lay leadership who brought the dreams of this yeshiva and the possibility of women’s ordination into reality, who contributed their halachic and financial resources to create this innovative seminary.  I rejoice in the ordination of Rachel, Ruth, and Abby, and in the fact that all three of them have positions within their communities, and two of them will be working as part of a clergy team in Orthodox synagogues.

It was an ordination like so many others I’ve been to.  And it was an ordination like none I’ve ever seen.  It was the ordination of women rabbis, something so regular and normal. And it was the ordination of Orthodox women as Maharats, remarkable and innovative.  I remember how revolutionary, radical and controversial our ordinations were at the time. I remember how hard my predecessors worked to pave the road for me, and I know how hard my contemporaries and I worked to pave the road for our younger colleagues.  There is still much to do, but we have also accomplished so much. But I take none of it for granted. It has all been a dream.

But it’s real.

And that’s why I celebrate.

Rabbi Jacqueline Koch Ellenson is the Director of the Women’s Rabbinic Network.

Categories
General CCAR News Rabbis Reform Judaism

Gender and the Rabbinate: Difficult Issues

In the final session of the recent two-day CCAR conference on “Gender: Difficult Issues,” there were no epiphanies.  Instead, we acknowledged that while gender is more fluid than we had once thought, it also can seem more intransigent.  As we talked, we concluded that looking at these difficult issues requires a multi-layered approach to gender.

In the early days of women in the rabbinate, most of us thought that once the novelty wore off, people would relate to male and female rabbis in similar ways. Now we know that they do and yet they don’t.  A story will illustrate. I think of the time I ran into our colleague Rabbi Howie Jaffe in the local supermarket. Two congregants of his passed by and commented on what a terrific guy he was (and he is!), helping out his wife by shopping for her in the middle of the workday.  I remember saying to him, “You know, if you were a  female rabbi, they would have walked past and said to each other, ‘You see? You hire a woman and she’s at the store instead of being at the Temple.’”

This idle comment reflects the deepest layer of gender attitudes and perhaps the one that offers us the greatest challenges.  It reflects the fantasies that exist in the unconscious primitive mind.  In this part of the brain, the Mother Rabbi as the source of unconditional love is enshrined in a way that the Father Rabbi is not.  The Father Rabbi may elicit a desire to feel protected and guided, but when you cry – and sometimes before you cry – it is the Mother you turn to for comfort and sustenance.  The only problem is that no one ever has the perfect mother.  Some are lucky and have a mother who is “good enough” (the idea that the mother only needs to be “good enough” to raise a healthy child is a concept offered by the British pediatrician and psychoanalyst Donald Winnicott).  Real mothers come too late or too early and offer too much or not enough.  So real children necessarily feel deprived and, by extension, so do adult congregants who unknowingly respond to those emotional triggers.  The Father Rabbi in the supermarket might make you feel safe and cared for, while the Mother Rabbi sparks your old feelings of deprivation by putting her family’s needs ahead of yours.

These responses to rabbinic gender aren’t as neat as I make it appear in this story. People can develop a mother transference to a male rabbi or a father transference to a female rabbi. But for this moment in time, it gives us a way of thinking about how our gender affects our rabbinates, what our gender arouses in the people we serve, and what gender inspires in us.  Because these attitudes about gender are unconscious, they aren’t available to us and people aren’t aware they are acting on fantasy. To them, in that moment, it feels real.

Knowing that gender triggers these deep fantasies can help us grasp the practical implications and guide us in our responses. One implication has to do with rabbinic comings and goings. People who are sensitive to deprivation often react strongly to rabbinic absence, whether a long absence when the rabbi goes on vacation or a shorter absence when the rabbi goes to her child’s soccer game instead of going to the bar mitzvah luncheon.  While it is important for rabbis to spend time with our families and to have time to ourselves, we need to think carefully about how we present those needs to our congregations and constituents. It would be nice to think that they want us to lead whole balanced lives and that they are thrilled when we spend time recharging, but even members who have the general appreciation that rabbis have personal needs are likely to feel specifically deprived if their personal event is sacrificed for rabbinic personal happiness.  If you say, “I can’t officiate at your baby naming on that day because my son has a soccer game,” you are more likely to trigger deprivation and anger than if you say, “I wish I could officiate on that day but I am not available.  How about the following Sunday?”

Another implication – this for more discussion another time – has to do with contract negotiation.  Negotiating with a congregant who (unconsciously) yearns for your unconditional love will be highly charged.  Contracts are by definition conditional.  For some members, negotiating with you is like having to pay mother for her love.  And there are also the feelings (often also unconscious) that we bring to these interactions.  Are we wishing for unconditional love ourselves when we negotiate?  Or are we so afraid of wounding our congregants that we hesitate about getting our own needs met, leaving us the ones feeling deprived?

“Gender: Difficult Issues” was an apt title for our two-day conversation.  It was only the beginning of an ongoing conversation we need to have with ourselves, each other, and our leadership.

Rabbi Ellen Lewis (www.rabbiellenlewis.com) has a particular interest in the integration of religious and psychoanalytical concepts and has worked at developing models of clinical supervision for rabbis, cantors, and other religious professionals.  In her private practice, she works with rabbis and cantors in therapy and supervision.  After her ordination at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in 1980, she served congregations in Dallas, Texas, and Summit, New Jersey, where she was named Rabbi Honorata.  Since 1994, she has been the Rabbi of the Jewish Center of Northwest Jersey in Washington, NJ (www.jcnwj.org).  

Rabbi Lewis is also a certified and licensed modern psychoanalyst in private practice in Bernardsville, New Jersey and in New York City. She received her analytical training in New York at the Center for Modern Psychoanalytic Studies (www.cmps.edu) and at present serves on the faculty of the Academy of Clinical and Applied Psychoanalysis (www.acapnj.org).  She is a Fellow in the American Association of Pastoral Counselors (www.aapc.org). She can be reached via email at rabbiellenlewis@rabbiellenlewis.com or in her NJ office 908 766 7586.