This week’s Torah portion, Tazria, begins with the sentence: “God spoke to Moses saying: speak to the Israelites: ‘Esha – a woman!” The verse continues in describing about what a woman should do after giving birth, but I choose to stop it right there. As there is no punctuation in Torah, why not? For too long, women have been forced to the sidelines of the Jewish community. Despite radical changes over the last half century, we still are far away from where we should be. Women still receive less pay and less respect than they deserve within the confines of our institutions.
I spent the past week at the Central Conference of American Rabbis in Cincinnati, Ohio, the birthplace of American Reform Judaism. This was the place where woman were first allowed to read from the Torah and be full participants in community. It is also the place Sally Priesand was ordained as the first woman rabbi in America just a shade under fifty years ago. And, yet the Reform movement has had to take a hard look at itself over the past few years to changing the make dominated culture that still infected its ranks. Luckily that era looks to be ending as Rabbi Hara Person takes the reigns as the first female CEO of the CCAR, joining Rabbi Elyse Wechterman, the head of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association, as the new faces of liberal American Judaism.
I love what Dr. Susannah Heschel, the daughter of Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, said when asked at the convention about what Reform Judaism has to offer the Hasdodic Judaism of her father: Women. Full Stop! End of Sentence! And we are all better off because of it.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Alex
Last Updated on 05/02/2019 by wpadm