In screening films for JOFA’s upcoming Film Festival, I watched many films that are conversation-starters. While some of the films are mostly for fun (a great one about going on a wrong blind date), many prompt deeper questions that leave you talking long after the credits have rolled. I continue to think about the following two issues:

How do we negotiate between our personal needs and halakhic mandates? More specifically, would you do something that you know will make you absolutely miserable because some interpret the halakha to say you must? Could we not find an interpretation in order to spare someone suffering? Would such an interpretation be more available with more women serving as halakhic decisors? In watching the movie Shira, in which a woman has five daughters and wants to wait before having another child, but her husband says no, I was left wondering. Would a woman trying to advise her have better understood her suffering? I was moved by her suffering, her husband does not seem to understand it.

What is the best approach to making change in our communities- from within or from without? In a powerful film about a woman seeking change in a mosque, I saw many parallels to life in Orthodox synagogues (balconies for women, attire expectations, etc.). How do we make our communities great places for women? I have been interested for a long time in synagogue change and creating welcoming communities, and this film pushes me to think about how Orthodox synagogues can help women feel that the synagogue is ours too. Especially as we watch the activity across an often-high mechitza.

Last week I attended an Agunah Leyl Iyyun.  One of the speakers noted that halakhic solutions have been put forward in the past 150 years – that these – though not accepted on a widespread basis, are not new. Another speaker emphasized the real need for beit din reform, and the third spoke about the importance of community activism.

Reviewing films for the conference, I watched cuts from Women Unchained, an in-development documentary on the subject, that clearly lays out the plight of the agunah and their families, the anguish of all who are caught up in this horrific ordeal, and the history and attempts to address this issue. I watched rabbis shake their heads in sympathy as they expressed concern, and activists bemoan the situation and lack of movement. And as I watched, my frustration and anger mounted.

How long will we continue to subject ourselves to this injustice? How long will we continue to talk, and talk some more, to listen as others talk – and to accomplish little? I can’t help but ask myself: Where is the communal outrage? Is the apathy we see a result of people feeling they have no power to change the status quo? Where is the rabbinic courage – and leadership? Where is the social justice? We speak of the beauty and pleasantness of the Torah way of life – but the tragedy of the agunah does not fit this picture.

A conference at Fordham University on Jewish Family Law, the Agunah and General Issues in Jewish Law took place on February  7th and 8th,  and YU and the Beit Din of America are co-sponsoring a conference on “The Agunah Crisis” on February 14th.

In the face of this recent and upcoming activity, can we dare to have hope?

Halakhic solutions to iggun have been put forward and used in different communities in response to local situations throughout history. We have only to use them!

 This past Shabbat, a young woman volunteered to deliver one of the weekly text studies in our shul. In honor of Tu Bishvat, she led us through sources she had studied about the significance of trees in Torah and midrash. Six months ago she had celebrated her Bat Mitzvah with a women’s tefilah service and by delivering a drash. We were all amazed by her poise during that celebration, and we were proud of the openness of our community to some innovation. But this past Shabbat was particularly moving for me. Beyond creating an inclusive and empowering lifecycle moment for this young woman and her family six months ago, this past week, our community proclaimed that her voice was welcome and that her ideas deserved a platform. I smiled, watching her confidently share her thoughts, and seeing the younger girls look up to her, maybe envisioning themselves in her place one day.

While there are times when I wish my community could be more progressive in terms of ritual inclusion, I am aware that in small Jewish communities, even progressive Orthodox synagogues must often serve a broad spectrum of Jews. In many of these communities, where maintaining and strengthening unity is of vital importance, ritual innovation is not the be all and end all of feminism. Our challenge is to find ways, beyond ritual inclusion, to welcome women’s voices, scholarship and leadership and to convey to young women, and to all who attend our synagogues, that everyone truly counts. 

“Who is God’s Wife?” my daughter innocently asked me last night as we were reading parsha stories. We were talking about how Hashem, our creator, is like a parent.  The inevitable five year old response followed – “A parent, well who is God’s wife?” Yikes!

So, I started down the path of leading questions: why do you think God has a wife? Is God really like our parent?  Somehow, we even got to the “Sabbath queen” (who, in our Disney-themed mad house, has a tribe of Sabbath princesses too!)  But, for all the provocative questions, I understood my daughter’s instinctive query.

I will admit that I initially had a moment of wondering whether her progressive upbringing was all for naught. Why, after all, didn’t she ask, “Who is God’s husband”?  Though I understand that  ”Who is God’s husband” is not a question any of us tend to ask. Because once a child – or adult – has gone beyond God as corporeal, turning God into a woman just doesn’t resonate, no matter what our feminist inclinations might be. (Or was the question, in fact, super-progressive, because it assumed that God had to include the female?  Any kabbalists out there with a view?)

I also realized, a bit sadly, that this conversation about God’s wife was a rare moment for me. To actually ponder the nature of God.  We were not talking about whether women can leyn in shul, or how to arrange a mechitza to be more equitable, or any of the countless important conversations on how to make Orthodoxy more progressive.  At times I wonder if all the working for change has made me forget about the spiritual urge that encouraged the progressive activism in the first place.

So, despite the fact that I am not prone to ponder God, and, as co-chair of the conference programming committee, I was instinctively more drawn to sessions on leadership, scholarship and social justice, I now find myself – as the conference approaches – eager to attend some of

the spirituality sessions at the conference and ponder together, with, among others, Tamar Ross,  R. Mimi Feigelson and  Nessa Rapaport.  Whether or not, we will answer the question of “who is God’s wife?” is yet unknown.

For so many years I felt all alone with my feelings. Sitting in balconies watching the services go on below as if I were a spectator at the event instead of part of it.

I listened to rabbis give their sermons and for the most part felt excluded. I remember in particular one time when the rabbi stood up in the pulpit and said: How can you tell who is a Jew?

And he answered: By bris milah and teffilin. My teenage daughter turned to me and said: I guess I’m not a Jew!

I had more awful experiences saying kaddish than positive ones.  But the positive ones showed me that little by little my Jewish world was changing. I also felt the change at my granddaughter’s bat mitzvah this year. I did not have one. For my eldest daughter I had to fight so hard that at one point I hung up the phone on the rabbi. My great-niece did a siyyum 9 years ago but was not allowed to say kaddish.

My granddaughter learned for almost 2 years, made a siyyum and said kaddish.

So little by little. With the help of JOFA and like-minded men and women we will move forward. And that gives me the chizuk to continue.