Take a look at this
picture. What do you see? Are you able to tell the importance of the
moment it captures? A young woman, holding a text is speaking in a
shul or beis midrash. What is she saying? A devar Torah perhaps? If
so, it is a nice but commonplace occurrence. It hardly seems
momentous. Perhaps if we watch
what's going on, with open ears and hearts, we begin to see that this
picture holds a glimpse of the future.
It was not so long ago
that formal Jewish education for women was anything but a given. For
reasons both religious and sociological, the texts which inform so
much of our lives as Jews, were inaccessible to almost all women.
Although we take it as a given, Beis Yaakov was a revolutionary
concept when it began. Even with the founding of these schools for
young women, there was a limit on what was taught. For the most part,
Torah Sh'B'al Peh, the oral law, remained an exclusively male domain.
It is only in the last 40 years, for reasons both religious and
sociological, that women have had the opportunity to learn gemara.
For some within the
Orthodox world, women's learning is seen as a threat. Inherently, as
a break with tradition, it is taken to be problematic. Even if this
view is correct, and I personally think it is not, the phenomena of
serious women's learning can not and will not be turned back. Trying
to block it, is like trying to hold up a dam, as the flowing water,
produces more and more cracks. Neither prohibitions or insults will
do anything. We are in an era where Nashim Melumados, women well
educated in all areas of Torah is becoming more commonplace and
familiar.
For others, the progress
is not happening fast enough. It is not enough for women to have
serious opportunities for learning. Rabbinic ordination for women is
the goal, and it needs to happen now. To me, this push for Orthodox
women rabbis, threatens to diminish the opportunities for serious
learning for women. It feeds fuel to the fire of those who claim that
women's learning is agenda driven, rather than a natural expression
of a desire to learn Toras HaShem. For good and for bad, for change
to take place in the Orthodox world, it needs to happen slowly and
imperceptibly, giving the impression of things remaining as they've
always been. The ancient Greeks discussed the Ship
of Theseus. If the boards of a ship are replaced as they rot,
when there are no more original boards, does it remain the same ship?
It might be perceived as the same ship, but only if the change
happens slowly over time. In the Orthodox world, the connection to
tradition, both real and imagined, calls for slow movement (I than
Elli Fischer for both introducing me to this concept and its
application to the world of Orthodoxy). If women's learning is
allowed to progress naturally and organically, it will not be many
years before there are women with the knowledge to be serious
posekim. Whether that will lead to a formal title, remains to be
seen.
Take a look at the picture
again. Elisheva Finkelman, a young high school student from Israel is
standing in the beis midrash of Rav Meir Shapiro of Lublin. Rebbe
Meir, of course, was the founder of Daf Yomi, a modest and innovative
concept in its time, that today has taken over the world of
Orthodoxy. Elisheva is one of those who, following Rav Meir's
program, learns a daf of gemara each day. On a recent trip to Eastern
Europe, she and her classmates visited Lublin. As luck or fate would
have it, they arrived there when it was time to be mesayem Maseches
Sukkah. When Rav Meir Shapiro started the daf yomi program, did he
ever imagine that women would be taking part? Almost certainly not.
Would he approve? Again, I doubt it, but here's the thing, it doesn't
really matter. Daf yomi succeeded, despite being a new approach to
gemara learning. Just as Beis Yaakov and daf yomi succeeded due to
support of some gedolim, women's learning will succeed for the very
same reason. Change is here. It can not be stopped and it should not
be forced. I hope that we can all answer “amen” to Elisheva, as
she completes the Hadran, asking for continued success in learning
other masechtos.
Post by Pesach Sommer.
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