A fairly well-known rabbi gave a shiur to my class a few weeks ago. Like any good speaker, he began with a hook. He told my class about a discussion regarding Shabbat he had led at Camp Moshava a few summers ago. When asked what was the first word that came into their minds in relation to “Shabbat,” many of the kids said, “Don’t.” They felt that Shabbat was simply a giant restriction.
Interestingly, I don’t ever remember having that kind of relationship with Shabbat. My Shabbat has always been comprised of all the things I love best.
Starting in second grade, my friends and I studied mishnayot on Shabbat. We used to sit in the shul library during se’udah shlishit, learning and joking and driving our teacher (my friend’s father) absolutely crazy. He walked out on us a couple of times, but he always came back. Between first and fifth grade (at which point we all branched off to do our own studying in preparation for becoming B’not Mitzvah), we miraculously covered about four tractates.
Those elementary school years set my standard for what every Shabbat ought to include: family time, good food, engaging tefillot, friends, and learning. Nearly ten years later, I’m now a senior in high school. My Shabbat still includes all of the above, plus a significant helping of sleep.
My whole family davens Kabbalat Shabbat and Ma’ariv together, and then we sit down to a sumptuous meal. We talk about Torah, the goings-on in our own lives, and world events and politics (which was particularly fun last March, when all four of us supported different presidential candidates). When dinner is over, I generally nap in a chair after a failed attempt to read a book or newspaper. Later, I remove my contact lenses and go to bed.
On Shabbat morning, I wake up early and go to hashkama minyan. Afterward, a friend and I run youth groups for children in grades one to four. We daven, talk about the parasha, and play games. I don’t find this activity particularly meaningful, but as I (and my parents) benefited from these groups when I was younger, I feel compelled to give back to the community.
However, I always wish that I could daven with my synagogue’s main minyan, which is wonderful. The women stand beside the men, but a step higher. The step on the women’s side of the mehitza is surprisingly helpful, because with it, we are equal in height to the men. The davening, leyning, and speeches are of a high quality, and there is relatively little talking. Anyone can give a d’var Torah, including women and young people. The key is having something worthwhile to say.
Kiddush is the social hour, and my friends and I make plans for the afternoon, which we will all inevitably sleep through. After lunch, a sixth grader, who is preparing for her Bat Mitzvah, comes over my house. She’s going to be one of the first Women’s Tefilla B’not Mitzvah celebrated during Shaharit at my shul (the norm is Minhah), and I teach her how to lead the davening. Along with the finer points of Hebrew vowels, we discuss questions of greater interest: why Women’s Tefilla includes certain parts of davening, but not barkhu, kaddish, or hazarat hashatz; why we call Torah reading “limmud Torah” and how that makes sense with the blessings we recite before and after Torah reading; and so on and so forth.
Some weeks, my mother and I walk back to synagogue mid-afternoon for a Women’s Tefilla Minhah. The women in my community have uncommonly good voices, and the service is always beautiful. After Minhah, a woman gives a d’var Torah about the parasha or in relation to an upcoming holiday or event. This is a chance for any woman in the community, whether she has a strong or a weak Jewish education, to share some Torah.
My regular Shabbat is filled with learning and teaching Torah. Occasion ally, I have what I would term an “irregular” Shabbat. From a patriotic Reform Temple with services conducted in English to Sephardi synagogues with divrei Torah and piyyutim in Portuguese, to a Danish shul celebrating two B’nai Mitzvah and two B’not Mitzvah on one Shabbat (with 14 aliyot), to a haredi shteibl with floor-to-ceiling, wooden, soundproof mehitza, I’ve spent Shabbat in a wide variety of communities.
While this variety has generally been enriching, I found the last experience frankly disturbing. As my friend and I walked into the shteibl on Friday night, we found men in the ezrat nashim (here a separate room connected by a wall of curtained windows). Apparently no women ever go to shul on Friday night, so the teenage boys daven there. Upon our arrival, the boys quickly cleared out. We davened alone, struggling to hear the shaliah tzibbur.
Our hosts had invited another family to dinner that night. The father was a rabbi and the mother a preschool teacher, and they had two boys and two girls. Throughout dinner, the father called on his sons to give a d’var Torah or recite the chapter of Mishnah they had studied recently. The daughters and their mother spoke about cooking, clothing, and school. Torah, it appeared, was only for the men.
I was shocked.
At my school and in my home, women study Talmud with as much dedication as the men. In my community, women come to shul, participate in davening, and are full-fledged members of the community. Women give divrei Torah and shiurim. Women may serve as president of the shul and make the announcements. Women bentch gomel and say kaddish. I always imagined that women of our generation who didn’t have these measures of equality would…well…want them.
That is what set this Shabbat experience apart from the other irregular experiences. It baffled me that the women didn’t seem to want to take part in the study of Torah and didn’t seem frustrated by their exclusion from that study.
Thanks to the work of my mother and her generation, I grew up in a feminist Jewish world. My Shabbat is a feminist Jewish Shabbat. Anything else just doesn’t feel like Shabbat. Yet my Shabbat experience in the haredi community left me with questions. Living a sheltered life in a modern Orthodox, transdenominational klal Yisrael bubble, how inclusive am I really? If I can only accept those to my religious left, am I really as tolerant as I think I am?