The role of a rabbi traditionally has been to teach, render decisions, mediate disputes, and provide guidance to families and community—in sum, to act as an authority to his community in all matters religious, moral, and ethical. As the world has become more complex, however, the role has evolved. People can more readily find information […]
RABBINIC OVERSIGHT: Expectations and Limitations Read More »
The Torah teaches us through the dual media of its halakhic, or legal, passages and its narratives, or stories. However, the two approaches are not entirely separate. Rather, some of the events described in the Tanakh’s difficult stories propel the development of remedial halakhot. Storytelling is a powerful tool; through the telling and retelling of
Lessons from the Bible’s Rape Narratives Read More »
The topic of the synagogue mehitzah has generated impassioned discussion spanning more than a century. Widely debated in the United States throughout the twentieth century, mehitzah (and even separate seating) was not always the standard for Orthodox synagogues. In the 1950s, a significant number of synagogues that identified as Orthodox did not use a mehitzah.
The Synagogue Mehitzah Revisited Read More »
In the fall of 2015, a young girl, viewing the synagogue models in the Yeshiva University Museum in New York City, asked, “But where would I have been?” Her question prompted the museum to cosponsor (in conjunction with JOFA) a panel discussion on the women’s section (ezrat nashim) in the synagogue. This article, based on
Where Were the Women? The First Ezrat Nashim Read More »
Item: A Modern Orthodox community in Queens, New York, celebrating an aufruf, holds Shabbat services in the social hall of the local yeshiva. The opaque mehitzah separating front from back is hung ceiling to floor, completely blocking sightlines. The rabbi, much beloved by his community, delivers his sermon in a voice inaudible to the women.
Why Mehitzot Matter Read More »
In Gender Equality and Prayer in Jewish Law, Rabbis Ethan Tucker and Micha’el Rosenberg have produced a book that is noteworthy for its integrity, accuracy, and clarity. The authors worked for many years to refine the book’s content and responded to critiques with thanks and openness to revising their arguments, if not their conclusions. (Full
Gender Equality and Prayer in Jewish Law Read More »
My grandmother, Hannah Bahar, was a yevamah. My grandfather, Sallah Bahar, was a yavam. My grandmother was born in Baghdad around 1908. Her parents were Hacham Ya’akov and Rahel Gubbay. She was one of ten children. When my grandmother was only seven, her father passed away. A year later her family moved to Bombay, India.
Perhaps the Last Yibbum in History Read More »
Although the story of Ruth is not the classic case of yibbum described in Deuteronomy, Shavuot provides an opportunity to focus on this issue which has serious implications, even today, for Jewish women. As is clear from the two articles, historically there was a split as to whether yibbum or halitza takes precedence. Ashkenazim have
Yibbum: Present Day Implications Read More »
The unusual law of levirate marriage in the book of Deuteronomy raises many questions—exegetical, sociological, and philosophical—and definitive answers are hard to find. In a slight reworking of the New Jewish Publication Society translation, the text in Deuteronomy 25 reads as follows: Among other, perhaps more serious, problems, the text seems to contradict directly the
Levirate Marriage: The Limits of the Law Read More »
Embedded in various rabbinic passages is a very basic principle, namely the force of the human element even in divinely given commandments. In Mishnat R. Eliezer (p. 266),1 for example, it is stated that the difference between the first tablets of the Ten Commandments and the second ones was that “in the first, the image
