Peaceful At The Kotel

Regardless of the strong sun and heat at the time we attended a Bar Mitzvah at the Kotel yesterday, all was so peaceful when we were there. We even rushed down via the Arab shuq, which my husband generally takes, and not either of my two  favorite ways. I didn't feel or notice any tension in the air, even though according to the news there was a lot of Arab violence not far from where we were.

Instead of riots there was more a carnival-like atmosphere, especially due to the Maccabiah athletes of all ages from all over the world who were gathering at the Kotel for prayers, dancing and singing.

As you can see, there are also handicapped/special athletes who compete in Maccabiah sports events.

One man leaned over the mechitza/divider to photograph his daughter. I asked which of them had completed, and he answered that both he and his daughter were Maccabiah athletes.

Women courteously accepted the shawls, scarves and wrap-around skirts offered by the soft-speaking polite women who offered them and then told them to keep them on until close to the exit where they could be returned. It was clear that some were even grateful for the protection against the strong summer sunlight which was terribly hard to escape and avoid at high noon.

Yes, contrary to the impression you get from the news, the Kotel has a nice atmosphere. I felt no tension or resentment at all. And there is an egalitarian section, which is perfectly open, for those who want.

Prayer at Kotel, Not Very PC

This was first posted on Israel Blogger

It’s no secret that my views and opinions are far from “politically correct.” And I am 1,000% certain that some people will be awfully angry at what I’m writing. We all know that the secular Left dominates the international media, the Jewish media, the Israeli media etc. If it wasn’t for today’s modern internet and the ability for us bloggers to develop our own independent media, things would be a lot worse.

Of course, people like myself don’t have the readership of the New York Times or the Jerusalem Post, but I’m periodically greeted with:

“Are you really Shiloh Musings?”

Yes, there are people who read blogs.

Now, for the past few years, ever since that group of non-Torah observant women began disturbing the peace and tranquility at the Kotel for their monthly media-fests, I haven’t read what I replied to someone last night. I had gotten a letter from someone who asked for my reaction to the usual anti-establishment accusations that the Israeli Rabbinate is alienating American Jews. This is what I wrote:

“Sorry, but the media and the politicians have it all wrong. There’s a place, the Kotel, which functions as an outdoor synagogue. People come from all over the world, all religions and respect the way it functions. That is except for two hours a month, when a bunch of women garbed in male religious accessories, show up with lots of photographers, and cause a nasty ruckus. After they disturb everybody and get their publicity. They proudly march back home, until their next visit about 29 days later.”

I had no idea of how she’d react, since I don’t really know the person. Also, pretty much everyone who accepts the media’s version would never be open enough to see it in my rather simplistic way. I’m not getting into the obvious right of people to observe how they wish and that it is all between “man/woman and Gd.” My point here is simply about good manners.

These same women have no problem with all of the antisemitic rules forbidding Jews to pray and barely visit the Temple Mount. They are not in favor of religious freedom for all. They just want their monthly publicity. That hypocrisy, of course, is completely ignored by pretty much everyone. They want their rules to rule but don’t support others.

I’ve been going to the Kotel on occasion for almost fifty years. The people who are there 24/7 observe, follow and respect the accepted Torah way, aka Orthodox Judaism. Visitors who don’t live that way, Jews and non-Jews, mostly find that aspect extremely spiritual and uplifting. Most visitors are inspired by the peacefulness of the place. That’s what people come for, to connect to being as close to the location of the Jewish Holy Temple as we can easily get to. Some of us focus our prayers on the Temple Mount, since ascending the Mount isn’t easy.

Just like when you may (if you do) enter a place of worship of another religion, you dress and act respectfully in order not to disturb the peace, one should do the same at the Kotel. Yes, as if it’s another religion, because if you follow different rulings, you have changed things. If you want to be respected, then respect others.

“Love your neighbor as yourself.” (Leviticus 19:18)
Love your neighbor as yourself – Rabbi Akiva said: this is the most important principle in the Torah.
“What is hateful to you, do not to your neighbor. That is the whole Torah. The rest is commentary; now go and learn.” (Shabbat 31a)

When a group brazenly breaks the status quo, like the Women of the Wall, demanding that everyone kowtow to their way of thinking, they are the ones who are going against this basic “Love your neighbor as yourself” principle. If they want to pray differently , there is a different place that already exists near the western plaza. My guess is they reject it, because they know that their followers do not pray 24/7, neither the men nor the women. They fear that if they accept that other location people will publicize how deserted it is most of the time, which proves that they don’t have any real following. It’s all a big publicity stunt.

Yes, I’ve said it. WOW is just a well-funded group to damage the image of the Israeli Rabbinate. Consider it an Israeli J-Street.

"Egalitarian Judaism?" Need it Like A Hole in The Head

It really bothers me when I read these articles claiming that all modern Jewish Orthodox  women are waiting for mainstream Orthodoxy to accept egalitarian dovening.

The motivation behind partnership minyanim is to narrow the wide gap between the relative gender equality that Orthodox women experience in their professional and civic lives and the gender stratification they experience in their religious lives. As Josephine Felix pointed out in an opinion piece in Brooklyn’s The Jewish Press, Orthodox women pursue every career imaginable, and in some circles they do it in greater numbers than their non-income producing, Talmud-studying husbands. “They may become CEO of a company, but when it comes to being president of a shul board, they are forbidden by many Orthodox legal scholars. They may be doctors whose decisions impact the life or death of a patient, but when it comes to deciding halacha, they cannot contribute,” Felix writes.
Women are said to be unable to handle the intellectual rigor of Talmud. When Orthodox women are professors or computer scientists, it makes that argument hard to swallow. Women who live in a civic society where male and female lawyers, witness and judges are treated as equally reliable by the courts may question the validity of the ban on female witnesses in Jewish law. Essentially, despite efforts to prevent it, the positive values of human rights and equality that are the fabric of Western culture are absorbed viscerally by women through their lived experiences, and when compared with the values of traditional Halacha, eventually the cognitive dissonance starts to cause a strain.
Orthodox feminists (both male and female) have been campaigning to make changes to prayer and ritual that empower women within the traditional framework. They do not want to leave Orthodoxy for Conservative Judaism. They like the closeness of the community, the way Orthodoxy permeates and informs all aspects of their lives. As Elana Sztokman put it in these pages, they “love everything about Orthodoxy except for the gender thing.”

Read more: http://forward.com/articles/194998/partnership-minyan-and-the-egalitarian-threat/#ixzz2x2LZO3bv

I don't agree. I'm not interested. I don't see being able to lead prayers, aliyot to the Torah etc as the same as being on the board of the shul/synagogue or studying Talmud.

In Aurora Mendelsohn's Jewish Forward article, she extensively quotes Josephine Felix, but in Felix's Jewish Press article nothing is mentioned at all about egalitarian minyanim. Felix's complaints are more about custom than halacha.  Yes, the make up of a minyan and Torah reading etc are halachik questions, while Women's Talmud Study is a matter of custom.

I know many strictly Orthodox Jewish women who study Talmud and teach it.  I davka study Tanach, Bible at Matan, but Talmud is on the curriculum there and at many other schools and institutes for Orthodox Jewish women.  Some of the women who study Talmud may be members of egalitarian minyanim, but for most Talmud for the love of studying Talmud is the focus on and the reason for their studies. It's not to make a modern feminist point.

As I've written before, I don't go for dabbling, and I don't want new requirements. I doven everyday more than once and have no interest in adding Tefillin to my dovening experience/routine. Years ago when I was on the local synagogue committee I did insist on being included in all sorts of decisions and complained about the custom of having "unofficial meetings between mincha and ma'ariv. They did that out of custom, not Law/halacha.

It's human nature to consider oneself in the majority, but I see a danger in the insistence that most Orthodox women in today's world are in favor of these "partnership," aka egalitarian minyanim. I honestly don't see it as the case. I really don't think that most women want more responsibility in their lives.

Most of us are struggling with what we have. Instead of demanding a role in the dovening, let's ask for something much more necessary, the opening of Ezrat Nashim, Women's Sections in synagogues for all the daily prayers. It's very hard for us women when not home to find a suitable location for dovening Mincha, Arvit (Ma'ariv) and saying T'hillim. All over Jerusalem you'll hear calls to gather for Mincha in small synagogues, but those synagogues don't have places for women, or they are full of men. One exception is Jerusalem's Central Bus Station, Egged.

You Can Call Me a "Neanderthal," but I'm Not Looking to Adopt Tefillin, Torah Reading etc. to My Life

Oops!  The title of this post is much too long, but it does summarize how I feel.

OJC Section,
New Montefiore Cemetery

When I was a kid, up to the age of thirteen, studying in a Conservative Hebrew School, Oakland Jewish Center in Bayside, NY, I did enjoy taking my turn to lead the prayer when allowed.  I do have memories of it, so I presume that's what happened there even though this was long before women could be ordained as rabbis or qualified as cantors by the JTS Jewish Theological Seminary. The choir was mixed, and we were children.  The reason I volunteered is that I'm a performer by nature.  Spirituality wasn't on the curriculum.

Immediately after I graduated OJC's five year Hebrew School, we moved to Great Neck and that was the end of our Conservative Jewish affiliation.  My parents ended up joining the Orthodox Great Neck Synagogue which was in their budget and under the leadership of Rabbi Ephraim Wolf, ZaTZaL, very warm and welcoming.  Within a year I became an active member of their Teen Club, which was a founding chapter of NCSY National Conference of Synagogue Youth. In short, through those activities I became religious aka Orthodox.

It was complicated enough for a teenager living at home to observe kashrut and Shabbat.  I had no interest in adding any of the male mitzvot/requirements/customs, such as Tefillin, minyan, public Torah read or aliyot, then or now.  I do doven every day, both morning and afternoon prayers, Shacharit and Mincha, but I enjoy the fact that it's a personal time between me and G-d. I'm not needed in a minyan, required prayer quorum of ten. I don't need the addition of Tefillin to connect to G-d, since G-d chose to make me a woman who has a higher innate spirituality than your typical man.

I'm not a dabbler by nature.  When I take on something I go "all the way" in my commitment.  I don't at all relate to the women who show up at the Kotel one hour a month donned in Tefillin and Tallit surrounded by media crews demanding to be given the same rights and recognition as those women who pray their 24/7.

I consider HaRav Soloveitchik's comment about women's aliyot when "they write the checks" terribly cynical.

The Rav knew exactly what I was asking. He smiled and told me he would not give me a psak halakhah on the subject. However, he said I should go back and assure the students at Brown that, “When the women write the checks, they will get the aliyot to the Torah.” He repeated it three times.
Read more at: http://www.jewishpress.com/blogs/the-talmudic-blog/rav-soloveitchik-told-me-when-women-write-the-checks-theyll-get-aliyahs/2014/02/21/

As I see it, The Rav meant that some things aren't decided by principle/law/halacha but by money meaning financial power. Since I'm a believer in "principles" and not "might makes right," I don't support "egalitarian Judaism."

There are innate differences between men and women.  I'm the mother of five children; men and women aren't the same. To say that being counted in a minyan, wearing Tefillin are the same as allowing women into medical school or be bus drivers or President of the United States (which was once considered unacceptable/unthinkable) are the same is a distortion of the issues. If a Jewish woman feels an irresistible need to pray with Tefillin or doven with a minyan, that's her individual choice, but if she wants to upgrade it to principle for all, she's affecting the religious responsibilities of all women. And that I personally find objectionable. She shouldn't try to speak for all women.