Photo from bataliyah.blogspot.com
The title sums up the whereabouts of women and older girls at Simchat Torah synagogue services.
Over the last few days I’ve read two articles about the exclusion of women from dancing with the Torah in orthodox synagogues on Simchat Torah. The first article, in Haaretz, asks if Jewish law prohibits women from dancing with the Torah. Many orthodox poskim hold like Rabbi Yosef Dov Soloveitchik, zt”l, who ruled that Halacha is unchanging and not affected by the period in which it is applied:
“According to Rabbis Aryeh and Dov Frimer, Soloveitchik “was worried that if the rabbis gave in on those matters of synagogue practice where there was admittedly some room for flexibility, it might well lay the ground for a call for change in other areas of halakha as well – areas where there was little or perhaps no room for maneuvering.” Thus, Soloveitchik, as he did when asked the halakhic question 40 years ago, would likely resist recognition of additional changes in the modern status of women, continuing to forbid them from dancing with Torah scrolls, for fear of this opening the door to further innovations for women’s roles in the synagogue.”
The Haaretz article also cites a more lenient view which permits each community to decide on halachic matters according to changing social times, as long as Jewish law isn’t being violated:
“Rabbi Eliezer Berkovits, who understands Jewish law as being eternal principles that rabbis are required to adapt to modern circumstances…Each community should, in this view, determine for itself where to draw the line and how far to institute changes….
However, even in the latter view, there are some lines that cannot be crossed. One is when it comes to mixed-gender dancing in public. In Orthodox communities, this compromises the halakhic standard of modesty. Only when doing so would not compromise public modesty, some Orthodox synagogues give women Torah scrolls of their own to dance with in the women’s section.”
The other recent article on women dancing with Torah scrolls appeared in The Jerusalem Post, and highlights an Israeli rabbinic association, Beit Hillel, that agrees with Rabbi Berkovits’s position:
“Simhat Torah, which is one of the high-points of every community, has become a day of happiness for men and a nightmare of a day for many women, who watch the men dancing for hours from the women’s section without being able to take part,” Beit Hillel director Rabbi Ronen Neuwirth said. “Communities must allow and encourage women to take an active part in Simhat Torah. This must grow organically and cannot be done by coercion from above, and it is the mission of communal leadership of a community to allow the participation of women if they are interested in doing so.”
I’m not sure if I agree with calling Simchat Torah a “nightmare of a day for many women,” but calling it a disappointment is certainly within the realm of reason.
As a young girl, I grew up going to shul on rare occasions. One of those occasions was Simchat Torah. The shul we went to was Conservative upstairs and “Traditional” (with a mechitza) downstairs. On Simchat Torah, everyone would gather upstairs. I can remember marching around the shul waving a paper Israeli flag as the rabbi led our kiddie procession with a Torah scroll. Actually, I don’t remember any of the adults dancing at all – they all watched their children happily, as if we were performing a play for them.
As I got older, we stopped going to shul on Simchat Torah, and I was unaware of any discrepancy between how men and women celebrated the holiday.
When I first started becoming frum, I can remember being happily caught up in the entire holiday season, both before and during Simchat Torah. The entire atmosphere of Sukkot, Shemini Atzeret, and the culmination of Simchat Torah seemed a joyful and exciting time. The first few years, my husband and I would go shul-hopping to see the various celebrations each neighborhood synagogue put on for their congregants. We never really stuck around long enough for me to feel bored or left out of the celebrations. There were certain venues that barely had a women’s section, and the ladies were squished behind a curtained partition unable to even watch the men dancing and having a good time.
Although I took note of those places, they were temporary pit stops for me, as we moved on to the next location. I didn’t see women dancing at any of the neighborhood synagogues, but some shuls had more spacious sections for women to mill about and schmooze, other shuls actually allowed women to sit around the perimeter of the room where the men and children were dancing so that they could see the action unencumbered by a large mechitza, and still other shuls had a partitioned off dancing section for women behind a mechitza where women could dance without a Torah scroll.
In order to make women feel included, some synagogues encourage them to participate in Simchat Torah celebrations in other ways. I mentioned having a separate dancing section without Torah scrolls, although to be honest, such sections usually remain fairly empty. The entire point of the dancing is to dance WITH a scroll – the Torah scroll is almost like a bride or groom. At a wedding, the guests don’t start dancing until the chosson and kallah show up after yichud. Until that time, it’s kind of pointless. I think that’s how dancing without a Torah scroll is on Simchat Torah.
Another way women are encouraged to participate at some shuls is by having shiurim for ladies during Hakafot. Knowing that women are feeling left out, some synagogues encourage women to celebrate the Torah by learning Torah that evening. This is a nice idea, particularly for women without children or women with much older children. However, a mother with young kids has to keep an eye on her brood during the busy and chaotic festivities – and expecting the father to keep track of everybody while he is dancing is unrealistic. Also, if you have a daughter who is now unofficially too old to dance with her father on the men’s side, but too young to appreciate a shiur, forget about it.
One of the most common ways women are asked to participate in Simchat Torah evening celebrations is to organize the shul dinners that usually take place after Hakafot. The cooking, set-up, and clean-up of the dinners keep many women occupied while the men and children are dancing the night away.
Once we had babies and stayed at one location for Hakafot, Simchat Torah was something of a letdown. However, as a mother, I did enjoy watching my husband dance with our young children. Now that my kids are older, it’s amusing to watch them for one or two rounds, and then it gets old. The thing that hurt me most was watching my daughter go from being an active participant as a little girl, to being relegated to the women’s seats a few years before her bat mitzvah.
Girls are banished from the dancing when they still very much want to participate. The age when girls can no longer dance with their dads varies between shuls and communities. I think my daughter was around 8 or 9 when she aged out? Sure, girls are allowed to get treats and prizes along with the boys in between Hakafot, and that does make up somewhat for not being able to dance. However, it is a bitter disappointment, especially that first year when it is obvious that none of the other girls their age are dancing anymore, but their brothers can boogie to their heart’s content.
I find it a bit funny that the articles I have read regarding why women are not allowed to dance with a Sefer Torah assume the objection revolves around the dancing. If orthodox Jewish women were not allowed to dance in public, they also would not be allowed to dance at weddings. Obviously, with a mechitza in place, orthodox women dance at weddings all the time. It would be a piece of cake to make a women’s dancing section in shul on Simchat Torah, and as I mentioned above, many shuls do so.
However, in addition to the objection over changing mesorah (women historically did not dance with the Torah, and therefore shouldn’t do so now), the other machloches is over whether or not women may touch a Torah scroll in a state of niddah (ritual menstrual impurity). Although many poskim hold that it is impossible to make a Torah impure through the touch of a niddah, Rav Peretz Moncharsh writes:
“The Rema in Orach Chaim 88 concludes that a nida should not touch the Sefer Torah. Since most single girls are niddos in addition to many of the married women, the Shevet HaLevi concludes that it is inappropriate for women to dance with the Sefer Torah. He writes that this is despite the fact that it would be a significant opportunity to strengthen the women’s appreciation and love of the Torah, still it is not proper.”
In any event, while I would hardly call Simchat Torah “a nightmare,” I do think that it’s important for the community to understand that some women and girls are increasingly unhappy with sitting on the sidelines during such an essential tribute to our holy Torah. I’m not sure if this is because of a larger baal teshuvah population who looks at orthodox customs through a 21st century lens or if it’s simply the infiltration of 21st century sensibilities even among the most insular communities? However, if orthodox synagogues want to keep women engaged, they will need to come up with some creative solutions beyond cooking and serving the shul dinner to keep them connected.
