HeterHora'ah; From Women Pleaders to WomenLeaders FromWomen Engaging in HalakhicDiscussion to WomenMaking Halakhic Decisions By ShlomoRiskin

n my lifetime, I have beenprivileged to witness a veri- advancementon.the part of women, one that involves table sea change in observant women's participation the whole of Israeli society and not just the observant, in ritual Jewish life, especiallywith regardto the syna- -goingcommunity. gogue, but also with regard to the beit midrash (study In the first sovereign Jewish political and social entity hall). \X/ehave come a long way from the era when Lin- in close to 2,000 years, we face numerous challenges: coln Square Synagoguewas called "Conservative" by a religion versus nationality in determining critical per- local Young becausewe had allowed hakafot sonal status issuessuch as conversion,marriage, and di- for women on Simchat in a spacecompletely closed vorce; integrating olim (new immigrants) from cultures off from men-and my rebbe, Rav J.B. Soloveitchik,z"/, separatedfrom the mainstream of for centuries; respondedby giving a sbiur in our shul, declaring,"Now organizing Shabbatin the public spacein such a way that let anyone dare say that this synagogueis Conservative!" protects citizens' rights not to work on while (Simchat Torah, 1972). not engenderingcoercion and resentmenton the part of The women who had originally requestedthe hakafot secularJews and non-JewishIsraelis-to mention just a had studied in a "Kollelet" for women (where they few. And becauseJudaism represents both a religious and learnedGemara and rishonim) openedunder the auspices a national identity for us, as expressedin our literature, of Lincoln Square Synagoguein the summer of L969, our festivals,and our life-cyclecelebrations, each of our which, atthat time, was the only game in town. Today, unique challengesaffects women existentially as equal of course, women at Yeshiva University's Stern College citizensof our Jewish state. study on a very high level, as do women in manifold yeshivahigh schoolsand seminariesthroughout the United Statesand Israel. Thus it seemeda natural progressionto read a moving article by Rachel Kohl Finegold (JerwsalemPost, JuIy 7), a recent graduate of Yeshivat Maharat in New York, in which she wrote of her own course of dedicated study of rabbinic texts and issues-and of the increasing demand in the Orthodox Jewish world for qualified women's leadership. She was correct in pointing to a growing continuum of innovative programs that promote women's advancedtalmudic and halakhic study, including MidreshetLindenbaum students exchanging ideas. Nishmat's Keren Ariel Yoatzot Halacha program and Ohr Torah Stone'sMonica Dennis Goldberg School for To give the most salient example, there are no secular 'Women Advocates. marriages or divorces in Israel at the present time. Admirablg Rachel spoke moderately and respectfully This means that, although a person of paternal Jewish of corners within Orthodoxy where certain domains of descent-someone who is not halakhically Jewish, but women's leadershipremain outside their comfort zone- who would have been sent to Auschwitz under Hitler's including the large rabbinic organization, the Rabbinical government-is entitled to immediate Israeli citizenship, Council of America (RCA), which called YeshivatMaha- he or shemay not be married in Israelwithout undergoing rat's ordination of women a "violation ol our mesorah." a halakhically acceptable conversion. Furthermore, secularJews can hardly be expectedto understand why Israeli Reality Prompts a Different Response women cannot sue for divorce in the sameway men are Here in Israel, far from the American Jewish scene able to. Hence, the need for learned women's halakhic m r where the synagogue remains the uncontested center voices in areas of conversion and divorce is even more r n of religious experience (even though this was not true important to be heard in the religious court, the beit din, o of Jewish life historically and probably has much to do than in the synagogueor study hall. .@ Y with Christianity being constituted as a church-centered - religion), our religious life takes a different path. We Heter Hora' ah, a Time-Honored License are not caught up in the RClt's concerns regarding To be sure, women's leadership in any meaningful = halakhic "slippery slopes," and don't have to confront Jewish institution concernedwith Jewish tradition requires -€ the situation that occurs in many middle-American profound knowledge of the traditional libran'. Jewish t Jewish communities, where the rabbi is often the only including the Talmud and the Codes. Hence. tor the past -o capable of reading the Torah B Jew scroll and leading the seven years, Ohr Torah Stone'sMidresher Lindenbaum o prayerservices. Therefore, I believethat the Israelireality has been training women rvith rich pnor backgrounds - calls for a slightly different-and, perhaps, additional- in Thlmud and halakha in an intensive fir'e-r'ear prqg:rm 17 that leads to "heter hora'ah," the time-honored licenseto of responsa,that women may be "gedolei ha'dor, great answer questionsin areasof kashrutrShabbat and festivals, halakhic leaders of the generation, serving as decisors, family ritual puriry and mourning practices. teachersof Torah and dispensersof halakhic rulings." Two years ago, Rav Yehoshua Reich and I certified our Additionallg the recent, well-received publication of first two graduates, Anat Novoselsky and Idit Bartov, the Shulban Arukb Hosben Mishpat, published by the who are now teaching, lecturing, and writing halakhic fuiel Institute of Rav Sha'ar Yashuv Cohen' former chief responses. Idit is active in the new Israeli rabbinic rabbi of Haifa, with the imprimatur of former Ashkenazi organization Beit Hillel and participate s rnits beit midrash Avraham Shapira, affirms that a woman is forum. Anat, who additionally holds a B.A. and M.A. in "qualified to render halakhic iudgments (to be a dayan), psychology, also functions as a pleader (advocate) in the if she is accepted by the litigants or by the leader of the rabbinical divorce courts. municipal government, as long as she is learned and 'Sre refer to our graduates as morot bora'ah and expert in laws of the Torah (halakhah pesukah, Hoshen manbigot ruhaniyot (spiritual leaders)' as these titles Misbpat, Laws of Judges,7,L). reflect the areas in which they have been trained.'We opt, It is truly heartwarming to see the large number of however, not to use the title "rabbi" for our graduates women exercising religious and halakhic leadership in because, especially in smaller congregations throughout the Israeli communities today: the Diaspora, the rabbi is expected to read from the . There are now more than 120 functioning women Torah and lead the congregation in prayer, functions that advocates in the Israeli divorce courts' and our own we believe women may not discharge for congregations lobbyist group of Yad Ijlsha has obtained more than fifty divorces in difficult casessince January 1' i, consistingof both men and women. :] Halakha, if understood profoundly, is the ongoing at- r A number of women have positions on local tempt to take the rich and multivocal talmudic tradition communal rabbinical councils, specifically for the of law and custom and the voluminous, wide-ranging re- purpose of answering questions relating to family sponsa literature, and to confront all these texts with the ritual puriry as well as lecturing on philosophic and nuancesof an ever-changingsocial, political, economic' halakhic issues,especially on the night of Shavuot. and sometimes even psychologicallersonal reality. Hal- . A significant number of women are serving as conversation-a mashgihot for kashrut in many places in Israel, l akha is, at its core, a great, ongoing dialogue with the ages for the present age, in all of its including our own city of Efrat. complexities. o Many of the rrtatnasim (JCCs) have full-time :i cultural facilitators teaching Jewish culture and Women as Active Agents in Rabbinic Courts renewal; among the twenty-five facilitators currently Israel Democracy Institute recently published a functioning, four are women (the other tlventy-one The 'Women magnificent policy paper titled "The Status of in are ). r Beit Hillel, the Rabbinical Courts" ('June 2013), wriffen Within the new halakhic movement of by Eliezer Haddad, which documents the integration of many women are involved in leadership roles and ii women into the rabbinical court system: fust as litigants four women are part of the Beit Midrash halakhic il for their own rights as property owners (when industry discussions. ll .In of l:l took over agriculture in Ashkenaz), then as witnesses the Diaspora, as well as in Israel, a number have women interns, teaching Torah and iil (when "women's shuls" developed)'and most recentlyas pleaders or advocates. This third advance was initiated servingas role models for women religious leaders. by Ohr Torah Stone's creating a program of study in When we beganour School for'Women Advocates,we 199L before women pleaders were allowed to appear in had not yet received recognition from the Israeli Chief religious court, and came to fruition when formal status Rabbinate. The recognition came, however, and our was finally granted to women pleaders by a Supreme women are being accepted even in the hareidi religious Court decision in 1993 (Bagatz 5300193). courts. I believe the same thing will happen with our 'We believe the time has come for women judges, women religious iudges in the areas of conversion and especiallyin areasof women's conversionand divorce.To divorce. These issues affect women too deeply for us to cr) r a exclude them from the area of decision making, and the r this end, this year we opened at Midreshet Lindenbaum rn program in dayanut for matters of conversion, which we biblical precedent of Deborah is too powerful a model o voice of loving-kindness .6 hope to expand to include marriage and divorce as well. to be avoided. Perhapsonly the Y from women will finally remove the ; (In the meantime,we can guaranteea degreein'Women's that will emanate o Advocacy.) The halakhic infrastructure certainly exists. blot from the escutcheonof our religious establishment, N In addition to being based on biblical, talmudic, and which still has refusedto invoke the necessarysolutions ,f = medieval precedentsof great women halakhists, judges, to free our sistersfrom the bonds of impossiblemarriages. o c and spiritual leaders,the move to train women poskot tr - (halakhic decisors) and dayanot has been recognized as Robbi Dx is the chief rabbi of Efrat and and desirable by contemporary authorities as the chancellorand rosb yeshiuaof the Ohr Torah Stone o legitimate - well. Rav Bakshi Doron, a former Sephardicchief rabbi lnstitutions; he is the author of seuenbooks, includinga r8 of Israel, wrote in Binyan Au (65:5, p. 287), his book halakhicstudy,-Women and Jewish Divorce.