A well-known midrash teaches that before birth, God matches each soul with its future mate (B.T. Sotah 2A). We like to think that God has another task relating to those as yet unborn: matching those whose biological parents will be unable to raise them with their future families. The Babylonian Talmud (Sanhedrin 19b) states, “Whoever […]
Welcoming an Adopted Child Read More »
“Sarah lived one hundred years and twenty years and seven years.” Genesis 23:1 Why does the Torah split up the tally of Sarah’s years into three parts [“one hundred years,” “twenty years,” and “seven years”]? To tell us that every day of her life was the equivalent of them all. At the age of one
Living with Joy in the Third Stage of Life Read More »
For twenty years I have been deeply interested in contemporary responsa literature as a source of halakhic discussion, and have specifically taken an interest in the contributions of women to the halakhic discourse. In 1998 we saw the publication of Jewish Legal Writings by Women, which broke new ground as the first book “by observant
Mah She’elatekh Esther Vate’as Read More »
Harassment: An Assault of Human Dignity Following the headlines of the #MeToo movement, one might think that the horrors of sexual harassment had just been discovered. Remarkably, though, already in the second century ce, Rabbi Akiva taught some of the basic lessons of the movement. A close reading of a single mishnah can help us
#MeToo and Sexual Harrassment: A Familiar Mishnah through a New Lens Read More »
“I hope you don’t resent.…” That’s what my boss said to me in the course of the discussion in which I was fired while still new on the job. She agreed that my performance had clearly been affected by my pregnancy. Positive feedback had gone down during my second trimester but up when I hit
Career and Kinder: The Choices We Make, the Challenges We Face Read More »
For the last 75 years or so, Jewish feminists all over the world have successfully enlisted the help of legislatures and secular courts to ameliorate the “plight of the agunah”—the problem of Jewish women held in marital captivity by husbands who refuse to give them a religious divorce (a get). This maneuver has resulted in
The Problem of the Agunah: From Religious Right to Civil Wrong Read More »
One of the greatest obstacles to getting relief for agunot in civil courts is the principle of separation of state and religion ensconced in the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Under this principle, which prohibits government-sponsored establishment of religion, U.S. courts will not get involved in resolving disputes that are
Coercive Control: Defining Get Abuse in Secular Legal Terms Read More »
As a community, we have made some significant advances over the last decade in the area of equal access and membership for people with disabilities, but much work remains to be done. This is true both in terms of our institutions—our synagogues, schools, and camps—and in the area of halakhah. I would divide the halakhic
Redefining Categories and Acts: The Next Frontier in Disabilities Halakhah Read More »
