Jan 28, 2019

Women of the Wall to open tefillin booth for women

As part of the international Jewish project called "International Lay Tefillin Day", also known as "World Wide Wrap Day", on Sunday February 3 2019, the Women of the Wall group has decided to participate and will set up a stand in downtown Jerusalem to offer female passerby, in addition to males, to lay tefillin. This will actually be their fourth year of this project.

Though the Jerusalem City Hall at first rejected the permit request from Women of the Wall, they have now approved it and WoW will move ahead with it.
sources: Jewish Press, Kipa

I admit that when I first heard the news blurb on the radio, I thought Women of the Wall will be opening a tefillin stand at the Kotel, offering female daveners to lay tefillin, "competing" with the Chabad stand on the mens side of the Kotel mechitza. I am a bit surprised that this is not the case and they will be opening a stand only in downtown Jerusalem...

It is surprising they got the permit from the new City Hall. Perhaps that is an indication that there will be little, or no, fighting over this and everyone will just let it pass quietly and uneventfully...



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5 comments:

  1. Michael SedleyJanuary 28, 2019 5:35 PM

    This isn't new, a few months ago a woman at a table in Jerusalem approached my daughter and asked if she wanted to lay Tfillin, and a friend of hers had a similar experience in Tel Aviv.


    Problem is, from what I recall when I studied this issue many years ago, the Halacha is that it is permitted for a woman to lay Tfilin, but only if she accepts the obligation upon herself. i.e., if she agrees to lay Tfilin once (as a shtik in the midrachov), she is obligating herself to put on Tfilin every weekday for the rest of her life (I'm sure one of the Talmedei Chachamim on this blog can back me up with a source, or correct me).
    I wonder if the women running the stand inform people of that before asking them to lay Tfilin.

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousJanuary 28, 2019 6:03 PM

    M.Sedley - you can be sure that those women approaching women to lay tefilin have absolutely NO idea of any halacha pertaining to Tefilin or any other mitzvah. This is just an agenda to water down as much as possible true Yiddishkeit. Would be surprising if they even know what the word 'halacha' means. This is an ongoing battle they have with Torah Judaism, as part of a world agenda of ridding the world of 'religion', in general.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Eliezer EisenbergJanuary 29, 2019 12:43 AM

    It is my contention that Halacha does obligate many women to wear tefillin.
    The reasoning behind my position can be found here - and it is, to the best of my knowledge, rock solid:
    https://beisvaad.blogspot.com/2012/12/women-that-are-obligated-to-wear.html

    ReplyDelete
  4. AnonymousJanuary 30, 2019 1:20 AM

    Eliezer: Whatever, there is good reason, am sure, for millenia, that all of our greatest Sages, etc., never implemented this mitzvah for Jewish women anywhere in the world..

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Eliezer EisenbergJanuary 30, 2019 5:37 AM

      What, the links don't work for you? If you would read the article, you might agree with me.

      Delete