“Ta’amod Rivka Pazit bat Avraham Chaim v’Yehudit Rachel.” The complete pride and worthiness that shot through me when I heard my name called out, the gabbait’s voice as feminine as my own, were paralleled only by what I felt moments later when my friend Leah Slaten began to read from the sefer Torah. We had been learning together every Monday, with me teaching her the significance of the ta’amim and the sound each makes, and Leah readily absorbing everything I taught her. Our diligent learning culminated in her perfect recitation of the beginning of parshat Shemot on a cold Shabbat afternoon in late December. And I could not be prouder to stand by her side, as she sang out the trope I had imparted to her.
I learned to leyn when I was eleven years old, in preparation for my bat mitzvah. The motivation behind leyning was external; I was making a feminist statement. I wanted to show society that I, as a woman, could leyn as well as any man.
And leyn well I did. From the first passuk, “יםִמָי םִיַתָנ ְשׁ ץֵקִּמ יִהְיַו, “to the end of parshat Miketz, I knew my leyning perfectly. I had spent countless hours preparing, and they paid off. I stood before the bimah, dignified and satisfied, having claimed my right to read from the sefer Torah.
I felt personally responsible to “prove” my right to feminism through leyning.
In the years that followed, I often leyned at local partnership minyanim and women’s tefillot. Leyning was a source of satisfaction, but it was also a burden: I felt personally responsible to “prove” my right to feminism through leyning. I had to show I was deserving of a spot at the bimah, and I had to keep going back to maintain that spot.
This obligation began to quench my passion for reading from the sefer Torah. I felt the need to take on aliyot when I was busy or disinterested, the preparation process was a bore, and my leyning often ended up botched and rushed. Ironically, even though the one reason I wanted to leyn was to prove my competence and worth, I ended up doing an incompetent job.
When Leah first asked me to teach her how to leyn, my initial reaction was “Great! Another feminist!” I immediately agreed, and I also talked her into adding her name to an ever-growing petition for women to leyn at our school (which we eventually did attain). I was excited to indoctrinate her with my feminist values and passion about women’s roles in tefillah.
As we began to learn together, however, my focus moved away from the public statement I was making and toward the private connection Leah was forming with the text. She was legitimately inspired by the words and trope themselves, and leyning gave her a newfound connection to Tanakh. Her enthusiasm was infectious, and I began to see leyning not only as a political agent, but also as a medium for personal growth.
Our preparation reached its peak on the last weekend of December, when we spent Shabbat in Manhattan on the Drisha High School Winter Seminar. Leah did not leyn at a public partnership minyan, as I had done, where countless teachers, friends, and strangers could hear me prove my competence and assert my right to stand in a place previously dominated by men. Instead, her debut occurred in a claustrophobic back room at the Drisha center, with just fifteen other girls and a sefer Torah. The hana’ah (satisfaction) and the connection we both got at that moment illuminated the true value of leyning.
Through teaching Leah how to leyn, I initially saw myself passing on a talent and, simultaneously, a feminist message that I had to share with the world. I thought I was imparting an invaluable skill and an equally important agenda. But, in the end, I was the one who truly learned and gained so much more from Leah than a list of ta’amim and a women’s rights sign.
In Miketz, the parsha I leyned for my bat mitzvah, the root word “עמד) “stand) is used repeatedly to signify power and pride. For me, leyning was always a source of power, a way to win back what should have always been rightfully mine. I would cherish the sound of the gabbai’s voice calling out “ta’amod” and the experience of being called up to the Torah because of the “girl power” it gave me. But now, I am learning to gain pride, not just from the act of “ta’amod,” but also from the leyning itself.