“From Zion will go forth Torah” (Isaiah 2:3).
Today, a new kind of Torah—women’s Torah—is coming out of Israel from an impressive array of high-level batei midrash (study halls) for women. Over the course of Jewish history, only a handful of women have been cited as interpreting Jewish law. The daughters of Zelophehad, who requested an inheritance in the land of Israel because their father had died and left behind no sons, were called by the Talmud (BT Bava Batra 119a–b) “darshaniyot,” or biblical interpreters, because they derived a law from the Bible that even Moses had been unable to find. Today, unlike the daughters of Zelophehad, women educated in Torah and halakha are no longer historical exceptions to the rule. But what roles await them beyond the beit midrash?
Several new programs in Israel are training female leaders for the dati leumi (national religious) community and are raising women’s halakhic education to ever greater heights. Beit Morasha of Jerusalem and Midreshet Lindenbaum have programs that have graduated a small coterie of female Torah leaders, and Matan has announced a new course. What is different about these programs from what has been offered before? And in what venues will these female leaders be active?
Evolution in Women’s Learning over the Past Decade
The opportunities for women to learn Torah have expanded greatly over the past decade. I participated in this development of women’s learning when, more than a decade ago, I studied Torah, Gemara, and halakha fulltime for three years at three different institutions. On one hand, I was incredibly grateful to live at a time when young women had the opportunity to study texts that had not been taught to my mother’s generation. On the other hand, I didn’t realize how limited my choices would be when I left the beit midrash. After completing our studies, my contemporaries and I went on to teach, studied for degrees that would command greater recognition, or built careers in other fields.
I worked for a year as a congregational intern, as the job title was called back then, in a synagogue—a position I now see as a step on the path toward the leadership opportunities now becoming available to women in North America. After that, I made aliyah, with a growing family. Eight years later I am still thrilled to be in Israel, but frustrated by the limited leadership opportunities available to learned women. However, that may be changing.
The first institution to create a comprehensive, structured program in Talmud and Jewish law was the Drisha Institute for Jewish Education in New York. The Drisha Scholars Circle, with a three-year halakha curriculum paralleling that of rabbinical school, was launched in 1992. In Israel, a year earlier, Midreshet Lindenbaum had created a program to train women to become rabbinic court advocates (toanot) to help women seeking a divorce in Israel.
The next major breakthrough for women and halakhic leadership came in 1997 from Nishmat, the Jeanie Schottenstein Center for Advanced Torah Study for Women in Jerusalem with the creation of its yoetzet halacha program. This two-year course of study trains women specifically in family purity law. At the end of the course, candidates take an oral exam given by rabbinic examiners and, if successful, are certified as yoatzot halacha. Significantly, Nishmat has taken an active role in placing these women in jobs in Israel and North America.
The next stage in the evolution of women’s learning was a surge in the number of women teachers. When I was learning in Midreshet Lindenbaum and Matan in the late 1990s, the Gemara ramim (heads of rabbinical studies) were mostly men, even if the heads of some of the programs were learned women, such as Nishmat’s Rabbanit Chana Henkin and Matan’s Rabbanit Malka Bina. Today in a growing list of higher learning institutions, including Midreshet Lindenbaum, Matan, Nishmat, Beit Morasha, Midreshet Ein Hanatziv, and Migdal Oz, women teach Gemara and halakha. The women have acquired the title ramiyot, the feminine equivalent of ramim, the title used for men teaching Talmud in yeshivas.
Emphasis on Leadership
Today the midrashot are focusing more and more on women’s leadership. Last year, Beit Morasha gained notice for honoring its first cohort of women learning in its halakha program. The women study and are tested in the same areas of halakha taught to men in rabbinical schools. The program is headed by Rabbanit Michal Tikochinsky, who holds a law degree from BarIlan University, has studied Talmud at Matan, and is a doctoral candidate in the Talmud department at Bar-Ilan. Beit Morasha has attracted very impressive women, most of whom already work in some form of Jewish education/ leadership. Unfortunately, the program does not yet give much guidance or support to graduates as to new ways to use their knowledge. Nevertheless, these women are beginning to be viewed as halakhic experts. Rabbanit Devora Evron, head of the Elga Stulman Women’s Institute for Jewish Studies at Hamidrasha in Oranim, has completed more than half the program and is already being asked halakhic questions by her students.
Midreshet Lindenbaum has graduated two women to date, both of whom received a heter hora’ah (license to deliver piskei halakha, halakhic decisions) based on five years of serious talmudic and halakhic study and exams. The curriculum is impressively well thought out to impart pedagogical, pastoral, and educational skills. The heads of the Lindenbaum program are dedicated to helping place their graduates in creative positions that until now have been open only to men, such as school “rabbi,” authority on kashrut and family purity laws, and facilitator of lifecycle events. Matan, known for its satellite programs in cities around Israel, has just announced the launch of a program for women’s higher halakhic learning.
Another significant step forward for women’s leadership in Israel has occurred within the relatively new rabbinic organization Beit Hillel, which has brought together mainstream and moderate voices within the religious Zionist camp, including women among their ranks. Beit Hillel decided to give its female members the title rabbanit, which classically has meant rebbetzin, the wife of a rabbi, but has taken on a new meaning as more learned women use the title and infuse it with status and respect. Beit Hillel convenes committees made up of learned men and women and publishes literature on halakha and Jewish thought, composed together by its rabbanim and rabbaniyot.
Unique Aspects of Women’s Leadership in Israel
One of the challenges, and a possible advantage, in the advancement of women’s Torah leadership in Israel is that Jewish communal life in Israel does not always revolve around the synagogue. Whereas in the United States the rabbinic role is very much community- and synagoguebased, in the dati leumi community in Israel the rabbinic role is more diverse. Israeli rabbis almost always work part-time for their synagogues, with very little or no salary and almost always supplement their synagogue commitment with work in an educational institution or a nonprofit organization. Communities that want to have female leadership may have to struggle with how to fund such a role. However, other rabbinic positions exist in schools and organizations that may be more adaptable to women’s participation.
For example, as I write, a group of women trained through Emunah to become kashrut supervisors (mashgihot) in restaurants and the like have been featured in the news. They finished their course of study following the curriculum recognized by the Chief Rabbinate, but are not being certified to work in their profession, even though several prominent rabbis have backed the program and there are no halakhic barriers to women working as mashgihot kashrut.
Women graduating from new leadership programs will certainly possess a wealth of knowledge—not just in a particular area, like Nishmat’s yoatzot halacha, but in broader terms. However, it is not yet clear where these programs will lead in terms of career paths for these soonto-be Orthodox female leaders in Israel. What is truly needed are real job opportunities and sources of funding for talented women, so that their Torah will spread in Israel and beyond.