I run into a bind every time I try to describe Darkhei Noam. I say that it is a minyan on the Upper West Side of Manhattan with a mechitzah, at which a woman leads pesukei dezimrah and the tefillot surrounding kri’at hatorah, a man leads shacharit and musaf, and both men and women layn and receive aliyot. When I rattle off this lengthy descriptive list, I feel more like I am ordering at Starbucks (tall, decaf, skim latte) than describing a minyan. The experience of the minyan—what it means to pray in an inclusive atmosphere, gets lost in all of the words. Therefore, rather than focus on who stands where and who says what, I want to explore what it means to pray in community, and why the atmosphere at Darkhei Noam fosters a positive experience for women.
Tefillah is about transcendence—moving outside of ourselves and connecting to God. Praying be-tzibbur is a prerequisite to transcendence. Joining our voices with others enables us to think beyond ourselves, helping direct our voices to the One beyond ourselves. Similarly, kri’at hatorah was established as a communal learning experience, in which we connect both to community and to our central text. Tefillah and kri’at hatorah—as acts of communal transcendence—establish our identity as a tzibbur. If we maintain that women assume a passive role in these rituals we are in effect saying that, even in our day and age, women are not fully part of the community. We need to ask ourselves if true prayer can occur in an atmosphere of exclusion.
When a group of people met in the winter of 2002 to speak about starting the congregation that became Darkhei Noam, we primarily spoke of creating a meaningful tefillah experience. Part of what this meant to us was being as inclusive of women as possible within our understanding of halakha. But at that initial meeting we spent most of the time discussing other elements of creating a meaningful tefillah, such as how much singing we wanted to incorporate, and what prayers we thought should be recited aloud. Inclusiveness is a means to meaningful prayer, and not an end in itself.
Recently, we conducted an informal survey asking people why they attend Darkhei Noam. We were pleasantly surprised that the most common answer was not “it’s inclusive” but rather, “it’s a good davening.” To those who attend the minyan, active involvement on both sides of the mechitzah enhances the experience of tefillah. When we create an atmosphere of inclusiveness, we have readied ourselves for prayer.
Introducing change in a traditionally minded community is not an easy matter—nor should it be. But people constantly speak of how natural the tefillah feels, of how they do not feel like they are doing something different, or radical. There are many women who attend Darkhei Noam who are still hesitant to take an aliyah. But these women turn down aliyot by saying, “please ask me next time.” And we do. These women come because when public space is shared, we all participate instead of watch, talk less and pray more, and sing louder.
For me, the importance of Darkhei Noam is not that it provides me the opportunity to layn or serve as a ba’alat tefillah. I do not have a deep desire to do either, and if I did, I could fulfill it at a women’s tefillah. The importance of Darkhei Noam is that it creates an authentic community in which the women’s section is active rather than passive, in which I know each time I enter the davening space that I am valued as a member of this community.
The conflict between halakha and inclusiveness is not a new one, and yet the struggle continues to shape the contours of our lives. In situations in which there are halakhic options, the choices we make reveal our values. Derakheha darkhei noam ve-chol netivoteha shalom. The ways of Torah are ways of pleasantness and all of its paths are peaceful. It is my hope that our communities and our leadership value a halakha that is noam, a halakha that will help us experience the transcendence of prayer.