There are many systems of making decisions as a community – democracy being one of the best. In the ancient world, they often turned to goralot or lots. While there were a variety of different methods of casting lots, as indicated in Hosea 4:12 it usually involved small stones, sticks or even rams knuckles being shaken until one fell out. We see this in this week’s Torah portion, Pinchas, as the Israelites need to divide up their future land into fair and equal parts. Out of this comes one of the first recorded feminist actions in human history. The five daughters of Zelphehad – Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah – protest the fact they have been unable to inherit because their father died in the wilderness and left no male heirs. Standing up for themselves as a group, they protest to Moses that they too deserve a piece of the Holy Land pie. And, Moses, after bringing their case to the Supreme Court of God, agrees with them.
This past week we witnessed the first woman to head a major party ticket. As Hillary Clinton intoned, “we just put the biggest crack in the glass ceiling yet.” The fight by women for equal rights, which in our country began down the road in Seneca Falls in 1848, has been ongoing for time immemorial. I am so proud, as a member of a Reform and Reconstructionist community, to be part of a segment of the Jewish community that has put it on our platform since day one. When Israel Jacobson allowed men and women to sit together, and better yet to sing together, in the first Reform synagogue in 1810 it was a small crack in the glass. When Mordecai Kaplan officiated at the Bat Mitzvah of his daughter Judith in 1922 it was a small crack in the glass. When Sally Priesand and Sandy Eisenberg Sasso became the first women rabbis in America it was a small crack in the glass. When Temple Sinai and Temple Beth Am gladly accepted women as president of their boards it was a small crack in the glass. At Congregation Shir Shalom we see no distinction between gender, race, age, sexual identity, or any other dividing factor. We are all one family of families and I am glad to be a part of it.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Alex
Last Updated on 07/30/2016 by Marc Slonim