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.

The last journal issue was on the topic of the relation of Orthodox women to their physical selves and to  issues of clothing and appearance.  Although I had suggested this topic initially, as we solicited and collected articles, I felt a tension in balancing the different viewpoints. I realized that the tension was more striking and pronounced over this issue than over others because how we dress and how we feel about out physical selves is a topic that is immensely personal to all of us. Was I making a mistake by continuing with the topic?  No one wants to feel that their choices are being presented as halakhically unacceptable or as insufficiently feminist.  I became concerned that the journal would promote divisiveness among its readers. Shouldn’t we rather be concentrating on what unites us – the fight to reduce injustice for the agunah, the quest for more women in positions of religious leadership, the expansion of women’s ritual roles and other vital issues? 

  After the journal appeared, I even received an email from a woman complaining that the issue advocated a position with which she was uncomfortable and that she felt did not represent Jewish feminism.  Nevertheless the overwhelming response was positive.  Readers did not agree with every article- that was not the goal – but all thought that the topic was a vitally important one that stimulated and challenged them to think further on its different aspects and ramifications.

My experience with this journal issue confirmed my view that the purpose of the journal and of our spectacular conferences is to present a wide range of viewpoints, experiences and perspectives within Orthodox feminism and to promote sincere, respectful and thoughtful discussion.  We must feel confident that we can all differ as individuals in many ways and still come together on the goals that unite us.

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.

The upcoming JOFA conference invites people to Join the Conversation.  And it’s an important time to do just that.  In some ways, we are in an unprecedented time of opportunity for Orthodox women, and by extension, for Orthodox men.  We can see partnership minyanim starting up around the world, and with them, true chances for women to participate equally in communal tefilla, and we see women rising to new heights in ritual, rabbinic and communal leadership.  We are raising daughters and sons who see opportunities for girls and women where they never existed and we have started to explore deeply personal topics, like sexuality and sexual orientation, previously hidden behind closed doors.  Yet, with these developments, we have to continue to talk to one another about what these developments mean in terms of our relationship with the larger community and with ourselves, and we have to talk about who we have included and who we have excluded through these changes.
  
I myself always wonder whether more doors have been opened than closed through JOFA’s embrace of changes like partnership minyanim and women in rabbinic roles.  Have we made Orthodox feminism more inclusive or exclusive?  I wonder what the value is of change that does not fully extend into the suburbs and smaller communities and I wonder whether we are getting our message out if with each development, we run the risk that fewer people will be willing to listen. Do we stop moving so that others can catch up or in doing so, will we lose those who desperately need to keep moving? How often do we need to check the pulse of the larger Orthodox community when that community seems to move increasingly to the right with every passing day?  Yet, if we don’t check that pulse and question whether we are in time, don’t we chance separating from that community altogether.
  
Conversation brings with it a dynamic, exciting energy and Orthodox feminism needs that energy.  We need a conversation between men and women, between older and younger thinkers, between those who embrace the changes and those who reject them.  We need to identify the topics that are in need of conversation – the personal and the communal and all those in between, and we need to reach deep down within ourselves to find the words that we must exchange.  We each need to Join the Conversation and I look forward to the opportunity to do so.

When my daughter was about 3 years old, we visited a shul where the men broke into joyous song and danced around the bimah during tefillah. She stood on her chair, clapping and swaying and suddenly turned to me and shouted, “I don’t want to be a ballerina any more! I want to be a rabbi!” Years later, when we planned her bat mitzvah, she insisted she wanted to read her entire parsha and haftarah, even though it was far from the social norm in her day school and there was no minyan in our neighborhood to accommodate her.  

Now, at 15, my daughter is vaguely indifferent about issues of Jewish feminism. She comes to the partnership minyan we started (at her urging!) but has to be coaxed into leading pesukei dizimarah  and reading Torah. Maybe it’s because she doesn’t want to be associated with a cause her parents have championed. Or maybe it’s because she goes to a Modern Orthodox school where there are few opportunities for girls to take leadership roles in tefillah. As a result, her peers are largely uninterested in taking on more responsibility in a minyan, fighting inequities or eliminating double standards. The status quo is comfortable and most teenagers don’t want take an unpopular stance alone. That’s why, as a co-chairwoman of the programming committee for this year’s conference, I believe our middle school track and sessions geared to high school students will be a great opportunity for teens to discuss, among other issues, what they believe and how their actions are shaped by peer pressure. Who knows? Maybe my daughter will wander in and be inspired. I hope so because she’d make a great rabbi. Besides, she hasn’t practiced her pirouettes in some time.