Not too long ago, I finished reading Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg’s spiritual memoir, Surprised by God. It’s the story of one feisty young woman’s journey from ardent atheism to the rabbinate. With the help of meditation, ritual, and the wisdom of faith traditions, she finds herself overwhelmed by a spiritual consciousness and pulled toward a life of God and Torah. She passionately embraces not only Jewish practice, but also the Jewish language for speaking to and listening for the Divine.

I’m now reading Dani Shapiro’s memoir, Devotion. Shapiro grew up in an Orthodox family, but left religion behind long ago. It was the harshness of life that compelled her, as an adult, to explore anew the world of spirituality generally and Judaism specifically. 9/11 brought a new anxiety into her life: How can one live with global uncertainty? Giving birth to a sick child (now recovered) brought pain into her life: How can one cope with fear and anticipation of loss? Together these questions–inescapably collective and tragically personal–sent her exploring spiritual pathways for sitting with the deep instability at the core of human experience.

The stories of these two women represent to me two places that the spiritual quest can begin: in wonder and in fear. They also represent two modalities of engaging spirituality: through mystical intuition and through raw vulnerability. Impelled from within or compelled from without, these women opened themselves up to the vastness of the Jewish tradition and there they found inklings of a Godly voice waiting to meet them.

Though these stories come from beyond the Orthodox world, they remind all of us that we might ask for more out of our religious lives: not just to orient our behaviors, but to guide us toward a more reflective and more grounded existence. My hope is that women of all stripes can bring this awareness back into the center of our Jewish world.

We strongly reject the statement issued by the Moetzet Gedolei HaTorah, the Council of Torah Sages, that any synagogue in which a woman performs any rabbinic functions represents a radical and dangerous departure from Jewish tradition and can no longer be considered an Orthodox synagogue. This view does not recognize the many women who perform rabbinic functions in major Modern Orthodox synagogues around the country – as teachers, leaders, pastoral counselors, yoatzot halakha and more. The appointment of women in religious leadership roles is a natural evolution of the increased learning and synagogue responsibilities being undertaken by Orthodox women today. Many respected Modern Orthodox rabbis have endorsed women’s new religious roles in synagogue life and have welcomed these new initiatives as a contribution to building up community.

The statement by the Moetzet is clearly a political move, designed to put pressure on both the RCA and the Modern Orthodox community to delegitimize its own congregations and attack its individual leaders. It is also an attempt to pressure Modern Orthodoxy to pull back from the noble and fully halakhic strides it has made in this generation by welcoming women’s spiritual and intellectual gifts for the sake of our people.

For more information about JOFA’s advocacy efforts, please contact Audrey Axelrod Trachtman, VP of Advocacy, at jofa@jofa.org or 212-679-8500.

To read this as a PDF, click here: JOFA Statement Regarding Council of Torah Sages Statement 3 2 10