Dear Editor,
Belda [Lindenbaum, z”l] would surely have had what to say about the two pieces sharing the front page of your Spring 2015 issue with Laura Shaw Frank’s appreciation of her.
Judy Heicklen’s article about having consulted her rabbi regarding kitniyot in Israel, and getting the “wrong” answer from him; and Dov Linzer’s essay on figuring out how to accommodate a woman in a mehitza-less minha minyan without having included her in working out the solution.
I think Belda would have said Judy got it right when she considered that she might have not bothered asking her rabbi in the first place, but rather researched the issue herself. The age of asking rabbis yes-or-no questions, and of rabbis assuming the role of “master and commander,” is waning. The Jewish bookshelf is accessible as never before, and even if one isn’t sufficiently comfortable negotiating it in search for opinions on a given halakhic question—as Judy decidedly is—one’s rabbi could point to the relevant sources and assist in learning and understanding them. And then? Leave it to the individual to choose for himself or herself!
I can vividly picture Belda telling the “minha woman”—with her finger pointing right at her face or rib cage—that she ought not have waited to be invited to share in working out the problem, but rather should have invited herself to do so.
ביילה שרה בת רבקה וזאב דב – זכרך ברוך!
Mordy Hurwich-Kehat
Jerusalem