Earlier this year I met with two people from the Career Center at Yeshiva University. We were discussing my firm’s campus hiring programs and how YU could channel more graduates to us. They wanted to know what we were looking for in students: Was it specific coursework? Work experience in finance? A certain GPA? “Well, there is a minimum GPA we look for,” I replied, “but after that, the single most important factor is leadership.” We don’t want a candidate who belongs to fifteen different clubs; rather, we want someone who is passionate about one, who has dedicated himself or herself to that cause, and has stepped up to lead it. And it doesn’t even matter what the cause is—it’s the leadership itself we are looking for.
The same calculus applies to our religious/communal lives and commitments. For the past twenty-five years, I have been involved in various boards of my shul, my children’s school, Jewish educational institutions, and Jewish advocacy groups. I enjoy the camaraderie of the boards, I feel good about giving back to my community, and the causes are ones I believe in. Then, four years ago, some of my co-board members of JOFA asked me to consider taking on the presidency. “Eek!,” I blanched. How could I? I already had so much on my plate. I could certainly never measure up to my predecessors, Blu Greenberg and Carol Newman. But how could I not?
At the Yeshivat Maharat graduation in June I saw three young women who had faced that same question. How could they not step up to serve the Jewish people? How could they not use the gifts that God has given them? Thus, a new chapter has opened in our collective history. It is a chapter whose prologue was written by Susan B. Anthony in 1848 at Seneca Falls and Sarah Schenirer in 1917 in Poland. And as women have grown in Torah learning and in secular opportunities, this day was perhaps inevitable.
Halakhic discussions of the permissibility of women’s leadership often start with the story of Deborah the Judge. The rabbis ask how it could be that a woman judged Israel. Various understandings are brought forward. Maybe she didn’t actually judge, but just publicized the laws. Maybe it was OK because the people accepted her leadership voluntarily. Maybe that was what was needed “ba’eit hahi,” at that time. And what is needed in our time? It seems that now is the moment to capitalize on the talents of half our population.
In truth, the part of the Deborah story that I find even more interesting than her ability to judge is her response to Barak when he asks for her help in leading the warriors into battle. She readily acquiesces, but tells him that the glory of winning the battle will not be his, because Sisera will be delivered into the hand of a woman. The commentators see this as a rebuke of Barak; Deborah is ridiculing him for needing a woman’s help. I read it differently. In the next verse, it does not say that Barak protested or changed his course; he simply mustered the troops and set off for battle. He recognized that a woman could lead, that a woman could get credit for the victory, and that he could work together with her for the greater good of the people. Barak—the first feminist ally!
We need—and we have—such allies in our time. On the day I wrote this article, I attended the installation of Yeshivat Chovevei Torah’s new president, Rabbi Asher Lopatin. At the roundtable preceding the installation, Rabbi Elka Abrahamson of the Wexner Foundation emphasized the need to train for leadership skills formally and explicitly as a key component to developing and enriching the larger Jewish community, across all denominations. As Rabbi Lopatin takes on his new role as leader and as the new maharats take on theirs, I wish them all hatzlahah rabbah in leading the Orthodox community forward.
My book club in Teaneck is reading Lean In by Sheryl Sandberg this month. As most of you know, it encourages women at all points of their professional lives to “lean in” to their careers—to be ambitious, to speak up, to take risks. We are expecting a very lively discussion when we next meet. One of JOFA’s goals is to engender a parallel discussion about leaning in to our religious and spiritual lives, whether we express our commitments through ritual participation, lay leadership of communal institutions, deeper learning, or professional involvements. I hope you will join me at the JOFA Conference December 7 and 8, to add your voice to the conversation.