LOOKING AROUND : A new song strives to be heard

By Barbara Sofer
Jan. 30, 2003

Those interviewed in the outdoor markets and soup kitchens in recent weeks complained that politicians remember them right before elections, then disappear for the years in between.
They needn't feel so neglected. One huge group of potential voters didn't even rate the attention of politicians at election time.
I'm talking about women voters. The campaign for the 16th Knesset was devoid of attempts to woo women as a special-interest group with special needs. Even the so-called social lobby that addresses poverty largely ignored us, even though women are the primary caretakers in Israeli families, the ones who have to stretch the budget to buy food and clothing.
In a Right-Left political debate I moderated last week, both the Peace Now activist and the settler found common ground in condemning how regressive Israeli women were within their parties and in the public sphere. We all know the old Israeli cliche about "other issues" getting pushed to the proverbial back burner during wartime - not that the campaign ads were pregnant with innovative ideas to bring back peace and prosperity. But what we used to call "sexual politics" didn't even make it to the back burner. Bad move. We women are actually a majority of those casting ballots, and might have made a difference.
The right of women to vote hasn't been obvious to all parties throughout Israeli history. But look how nicely even the most religious parties have been able to adjust to the women's suffrage they once rejected! In this week's election, not one religious party insisted that its women supporters stay home and avoid the public exposure of a voting station. Was the past year a total loss for women's issues? Maybe in politics, but not if you look within the religious world, where we confront and nurture our inner selves through these difficult days. I take comfort in a quiet but significant change in women's status within the world of the Orthodox synagogue.
Just two weeks ago, on Shabbat Shira, a Jerusalem congregation called Shira Hadasha (A New Song) celebrated the completion of a full-year cycle of weekly Shabbat and holiday services. Shira Hadasha is an Orthodox congregation with a partition (mehitza) dividing the men's and women's sections.
The congregants are Shabbat-observant and include a dozen or so Orthodox rabbis, numerous Orthodox Jewish educators and teachers in religious schools. But unlike most Orthodox congregations, women and men serve on every committee. Women and men give the Torah talks during services. Women and men lead preliminary services. Women and men are called up to the Torah. During a Shabbat celebration it is just as likely to be a bride as a groom reading the haftara (section from The Prophets) before the wedding. A girl celebrating her bat mitzva is given equal status to a boy celebrating his bar mitzva. Sweet little girls' voices are welcomed in singing Shir Hakavod (The Song of Glory) so many Orthodox women's first childhood memory of discrimination.
A full explanation of the halachic underpinnings of the congregation cannot be addressed here. They are best studied in the seminal article by Rabbi Mendel Shapiro on the Edah website, (Qeri'at haTorah by Women: A Halakhic Analysis, at www.edah.org), and the discussion of it. A central difference between Shira Hadasha and most Orthodox congregations is a changed interpretation of the concept of kavod hatzibur, matters of the congregation's public dignity. The core reason women weren't allowed to say the blessing over the Torah relates to this concept, not to a prohibition. After all, the Gemara says, "All are eligible to receive one of the seven aliyot." Even women. Educated Orthodox Jews have long questioned whether the definition of what would offend public dignity should be adjusted to suit new societal norms and better reflect changed gender roles. Here and there, Orthodox holiday and Shabbat services have taken place with separate seating, but with women taking a larger role.
SHIRA HADASHA is the first such weekly Orthodox congregation. A nucleus of young Orthodox couples, most notably Rabbi Dr. Moshe Habertal and Rabbanit Dr. Tova Hartman Habertal, were the prime movers. Almost immediately the congregation outgrew a small room in the International Cultural Center for Youth on Rehov Emek Refaim, and moved to a much larger auditorium in the building. That, too, is always crowded.
Shira Hadasha was a main subject of discussion at the JOFA Conference on Feminism and Orthodoxy in New York last November. But in Jerusalem it has had little publicity, and certainly no advertising. Nonetheless, more than 300 people pray in the makeshift synagogue every Shabbat. At least three forever-religious friends used identical words to describe their experience: "I've finally found a synagogue I like." But there remains a difference between accepting the halachic argument and feeling comfortable. Even for us women getting used to the sound of our own voices in public prayer, taking on the least complicated of public synagogue roles feels scary and ponderous.
I, for instance, feel confident moderating televised public debates, but given the honor of opening the Ark for the first time, my hands shook. What if I didn't do it right? What, I ask you, could have gone wrong in pulling back a curtain?
I'm not alone. A not-uncommon sight in the congregation is that of middle-aged women who have brought up families or educated generations or judged court cases bursting into tears as they say their first-ever blessing over the reading of the Torah. That women love Shira Hadasha makes it an object of suspicion, of course. A well-intentioned person recently called me aside in the supermarket to make dire prognostications about my attending an Orthodox synagogue where a woman's voice is heard. Where can this newfangled New Song congregation possibly lead?
Not to a solution of all our problems, I don't think. But certainly to an impact on the Jewish world. In a commentary on Miriam's Song in a publication by Chabad, based on the teachings of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, I believe I've found an answer. "We don't sing when we are complacent," Rabbi Schneerson pointed out. "We sing when we are striving for something, or when we have tasted joy and are climbing it to the heavens."
Song is prayer, an endeavor to rise above the petty cares of life and cleave to one's source. Song is the quest for redemption.