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Nov 3, 2014
women aliyot broadening the definition of Orthodox Judaism
Israel Hayom is reporting about an Orthodox minyan in Shoham that has now allowed women to read from the Torah and also is now calling women up to the Torah for aliyot.
The article describes the situation as one in which for a year already women have been participating actively in the services, in the sense of serving as chazzan. Now they have taken the next step and have added women to both ends of the Torah reading in addition to the leading of the services.
Just to point out, for those of you who might say - Shoham? That's Rabbi Stav's town. See, he allows such things? It is a good thing he did not win the chief rabbinate.. of something like that, The article says Rav Stav was against this and said that this goes against halacha.
My question is why this is described, or categorized, as an Orthodox minyan? They are not the only shul in the world to call up women to the Torah, so this does not upset me, but why are they called Orthodox? At a certain point a line is crossed and the subject moves from one category to another. If calling up women to the Torah still allows them to be categorized as Orthodox, what would they have to do to be moved them into Conservative or Reform?
The article describes the situation as one in which for a year already women have been participating actively in the services, in the sense of serving as chazzan. Now they have taken the next step and have added women to both ends of the Torah reading in addition to the leading of the services.
Just to point out, for those of you who might say - Shoham? That's Rabbi Stav's town. See, he allows such things? It is a good thing he did not win the chief rabbinate.. of something like that, The article says Rav Stav was against this and said that this goes against halacha.
My question is why this is described, or categorized, as an Orthodox minyan? They are not the only shul in the world to call up women to the Torah, so this does not upset me, but why are they called Orthodox? At a certain point a line is crossed and the subject moves from one category to another. If calling up women to the Torah still allows them to be categorized as Orthodox, what would they have to do to be moved them into Conservative or Reform?
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It seems to me that having a woman as a chazzan is more problematic than giving them aliyot - unless the "chazzanit" doesn't say any devarim sheb'kedusha.
ReplyDeleteIs Orthodox now another word that can mean anything?
ReplyDeleteI'm surprised that this is new or newsworthy - I thought many "Partnership" minyanim give women Aliyot, and they define themselves as "Orthodox" or "Halachic" minyanim.
ReplyDeleteI'm pretty sure that Darche Noam in Modi'in has been doing this for several years and they regard themselves as "Halachic". They are not sanctioned by the Rabbanut of Modi'in, but they have their own Rabbis who they go to for advise.
I think Shira Chadasha in Jerusalem does the same thing, although I'm sure that someone will correct me if I'm wrong.
Perhaps because they have a prominent Orthodox scholar and Rabbi who says it's OK, albeit controversial?
ReplyDeleteThis is the way these reformists work. Erev Rav are very clever; they are the ones who caused all the tzarot for the Jewish people for over 3000 years and are ready to finish their evil work. Slowly, they make changes until the time when there won't be a remnant of any Judaism left (that's what they think and hope for) but will fail miserably. Their gig is up and all is in the open where any Torah caring Jew realizes or should realize what's up. They are turning the Torah upside down, no different than what they tried, starting from the Eigel Hazahav.
ReplyDeleteI'll guess that they self-identify as Orthodox because that is synonymous with "Jewish community" in Israel, but if Conservative/Masorati/whatever gained popularity or official respect, they would self-identify that way.
ReplyDeleteIn the US such groups tend to call themselves "halachic" rather than "Orthodox," though most members would self-identify as Orthodox. My theory is that's because in the US Orthodox is synonymous with halachicly observant community. Again, if Conservative congregants were to broadly be (known as) keeping Shabbat, kashrut, and taharat hamishpacha, partnership minyans and the like would affiliate that way.