The image is of a father I saw standing on the steps of a synagogue. He was dressed all in black, and on his shoulder was his young daughter, dressed all in white lace and frills. This image is burned into my brain. When I saw this scene, it struck me deeply because of a conversation I had with a Holocaust survivor a few weeks prior. He told me how he had celebrated Simchat Torah before he was captured by the Germans, ?We didn?t have a Torah to dance with, so we raised our children on our shoulders and said, ?This is my Torah!? We danced with the children on our shoulders.?
He cried when he told me the story, and I cried to hear it. It was deeply moving.
I started to think about the connection between children and Torah and what that means in the world today, and the recent holiday of Shavuot made me think even more deeply on this subject. Of course, the first connection between children and Torah is simple. G-d wanted some security for this gift of Torah. G-d wanted to know who would be the guarantor, the underwriter, of this great gift. As expected, great and learned men stepped forward, but G-d refused them. Instead, G-d accepted the children.
But it goes further, because, for religious Jews at least, Torah is not just a document, it is a way of life. The words of Torah are not inanimate objects to be studied and put away ? they are living entities. It is said that the letters on the original Torah that was given to Moses stood off the page, alive and three dimensional. They could not be captured in stone, and this is a lesson in itself. The Torah is a living document, and every letter of that Torah is alive. In this time, when we have lost that original Torah, we may think those living letters and words are no longer present in our world, but they are. The letters and words of Torah live every minute through us, and through our children.
We are required to fulfill the mitzvah of writing a Torah in our lifetimes. Men are required to actually sit, and with pen and parchment, toil to make a perfect Kosher Torah. One object of this mitzvah is to understand how the spirit and perfection of Torah is reflected in the world. When men write a Torah, they see how action becomes words.
Women are also required to write a Torah, but we do not write with a pen on parchment; we write Torah in our children. The object of the women?s mitzvah of Torah is to understand how the spirit and perfection of the world are reflected in Torah. When women write Torah in our children, we see how words become action.
No rabbi would refuse to assist a man who was writing a Torah, or turn his back for one moment on a man who was fulfilling such an auspicious mitzvah. If that man wished to sit in on classes in Gemarah or Mishnah to learn all he could about Torah, or if he asked to study with the rabbi in order to understand more fully the details of his mitzvah of writing a Torah, he would not be denied this access. If that man were to call a learned rabbi and ask a technical question regarding the writing of a Torah, he may be given access to the greatest minds of his generation in answering it, and the answer would come swiftly, as no one would want to delay, even for a moment, the great mitzvah he was performing. If he needed support to finish his task, many would step forward to assist him financially and personally.
However, women are unlikely to have the same sort of assistance in completing their mitzvah.
I am a woman writing three Torahs. I have been blessed with three sons, but I am raising them alone. Fortunately, I am also blessed with a rabbi who always calls me back, who answers my questions and treats my role as a mother with the respect that it deserves, but I know my situation, unfortunately, is the exception and not the rule. Most rabbis are trained in schools apart from women, when they are young they are discouraged from spending time with women ? except for the purpose of finding a wife ? and when they are married, they are careful to distance themselves from impropriety by making sure they do not spend much time with women ? especially single and divorced women. Whereas this is admirable on the side of modesty, it has a definite downside: many rabbis lack the ability to talk to women. They are uncomfortable around women, and some, without realizing the implication, avoid women and send all questions that women ask to their wives to answer. Although their wives are often very sympathetic, and usually well-trained, they lack the formal instruction of rabbis, and much of the time serve as intermediaries between their husbands and the women who ask the questions.
What happens, then, is that a woman, who may be ?writing? one, or three, or eight Torahs simultaneously, feels ignored and marginalized. When she calls, the calls are seldom answered by the rabbi. She is discouraged from, or denied access to, classes that may teach her the details she needs to know of Torah. When she calls and asks a technical question, she is not given access to the greatest minds of her generation; and, if she is taken seriously at all, the answer is usually delayed or put off. Perhaps, if she is married, her husband will intervene with the rabbi, and he can study, get the answers, and teach the children. But, what if she is not married?
We are not living in the world our parents grew up in. Many mothers are widowed or divorced, and they are alone in the raising of their children. Single mothers have a specific need to be instructed in Torah in order to maintain their level of mitzvot, and in order to pass on that instruction to their children, but the rabbis of our generation have not been trained to deal with this reality. No longer can rabbis think they can speak only to men, instruct only men, answer the questions of men first. They must take seriously the issues of women, especially single mothers.
So, right now, in this time directly after our celebration of the giving of Torah, we should rededicate ourselves to the fulfillment of Torah in every part of life, and through every Jew. We must either train our rabbis to speak to women, or we must greatly increase the level of training for a new class of women who can be teachers and leaders to the women around them. Rabbis need to engage women in discussion, and take the issues of women and their children very seriously. We need rabbis who will not, for one minute, turn their backs on our important mitzvah. We need rabbis who realize that we have responsibility for the guarantors of the future of Judaism. Only in this way can we secure the next generation of perfect Kosher Torahs.
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Michelle Nevada lives in a small town in rural Nevada. She can be contacted at [email protected].
He cried when he told me the story, and I cried to hear it. It was deeply moving.
I started to think about the connection between children and Torah and what that means in the world today, and the recent holiday of Shavuot made me think even more deeply on this subject. Of course, the first connection between children and Torah is simple. G-d wanted some security for this gift of Torah. G-d wanted to know who would be the guarantor, the underwriter, of this great gift. As expected, great and learned men stepped forward, but G-d refused them. Instead, G-d accepted the children.
But it goes further, because, for religious Jews at least, Torah is not just a document, it is a way of life. The words of Torah are not inanimate objects to be studied and put away ? they are living entities. It is said that the letters on the original Torah that was given to Moses stood off the page, alive and three dimensional. They could not be captured in stone, and this is a lesson in itself. The Torah is a living document, and every letter of that Torah is alive. In this time, when we have lost that original Torah, we may think those living letters and words are no longer present in our world, but they are. The letters and words of Torah live every minute through us, and through our children.
We are required to fulfill the mitzvah of writing a Torah in our lifetimes. Men are required to actually sit, and with pen and parchment, toil to make a perfect Kosher Torah. One object of this mitzvah is to understand how the spirit and perfection of Torah is reflected in the world. When men write a Torah, they see how action becomes words.
Women are also required to write a Torah, but we do not write with a pen on parchment; we write Torah in our children. The object of the women?s mitzvah of Torah is to understand how the spirit and perfection of the world are reflected in Torah. When women write Torah in our children, we see how words become action.
No rabbi would refuse to assist a man who was writing a Torah, or turn his back for one moment on a man who was fulfilling such an auspicious mitzvah. If that man wished to sit in on classes in Gemarah or Mishnah to learn all he could about Torah, or if he asked to study with the rabbi in order to understand more fully the details of his mitzvah of writing a Torah, he would not be denied this access. If that man were to call a learned rabbi and ask a technical question regarding the writing of a Torah, he may be given access to the greatest minds of his generation in answering it, and the answer would come swiftly, as no one would want to delay, even for a moment, the great mitzvah he was performing. If he needed support to finish his task, many would step forward to assist him financially and personally.
However, women are unlikely to have the same sort of assistance in completing their mitzvah.
I am a woman writing three Torahs. I have been blessed with three sons, but I am raising them alone. Fortunately, I am also blessed with a rabbi who always calls me back, who answers my questions and treats my role as a mother with the respect that it deserves, but I know my situation, unfortunately, is the exception and not the rule. Most rabbis are trained in schools apart from women, when they are young they are discouraged from spending time with women ? except for the purpose of finding a wife ? and when they are married, they are careful to distance themselves from impropriety by making sure they do not spend much time with women ? especially single and divorced women. Whereas this is admirable on the side of modesty, it has a definite downside: many rabbis lack the ability to talk to women. They are uncomfortable around women, and some, without realizing the implication, avoid women and send all questions that women ask to their wives to answer. Although their wives are often very sympathetic, and usually well-trained, they lack the formal instruction of rabbis, and much of the time serve as intermediaries between their husbands and the women who ask the questions.
What happens, then, is that a woman, who may be ?writing? one, or three, or eight Torahs simultaneously, feels ignored and marginalized. When she calls, the calls are seldom answered by the rabbi. She is discouraged from, or denied access to, classes that may teach her the details she needs to know of Torah. When she calls and asks a technical question, she is not given access to the greatest minds of her generation; and, if she is taken seriously at all, the answer is usually delayed or put off. Perhaps, if she is married, her husband will intervene with the rabbi, and he can study, get the answers, and teach the children. But, what if she is not married?
We are not living in the world our parents grew up in. Many mothers are widowed or divorced, and they are alone in the raising of their children. Single mothers have a specific need to be instructed in Torah in order to maintain their level of mitzvot, and in order to pass on that instruction to their children, but the rabbis of our generation have not been trained to deal with this reality. No longer can rabbis think they can speak only to men, instruct only men, answer the questions of men first. They must take seriously the issues of women, especially single mothers.
So, right now, in this time directly after our celebration of the giving of Torah, we should rededicate ourselves to the fulfillment of Torah in every part of life, and through every Jew. We must either train our rabbis to speak to women, or we must greatly increase the level of training for a new class of women who can be teachers and leaders to the women around them. Rabbis need to engage women in discussion, and take the issues of women and their children very seriously. We need rabbis who will not, for one minute, turn their backs on our important mitzvah. We need rabbis who realize that we have responsibility for the guarantors of the future of Judaism. Only in this way can we secure the next generation of perfect Kosher Torahs.
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Michelle Nevada lives in a small town in rural Nevada. She can be contacted at [email protected].