Role Reversal

When I was doing my research, I came across an article discussing women’s prayer groups and a mother’s perspective as her daughter becomes a Bat-Mitzvah. Women’s prayer groups are relatively new and Orthodox women are not supposed to read from or touch the Torah. As Shelly Sher recalls her daughter’s becoming a Bat-Mitzvah, she tells how she sat downstairs for the first time at her Orthodox synagogue:

[A]s the mother of a bat mitzvah girl, Mrs. Sher sat downstairs and up front in her Orthodox synagogue las month, eyes misting over as she watched her daughter, Anna, chant in Hebrew from an open Torah scroll. The rows of folding chairs were filled with women and girls. In the back of the room, in a separate section for men, nine of Anna’s relatives huddled behind a green divider, catching glimpses through a crack.

With its reversal of the genders, this Midwestern bat mitzvah is one sign of the small but steady revolution that is redefining the role of women in Orthodox Judaism. In prayer groups founded and led by women, like this one in St. Louis, Orthodox women in growing numbers are celebrating rites of passage like bat mitzvahs and baby namings. They are teaching one another to read from the Torah and are making sure their daughters learn, too.
Being able to sit in the front of the synagogue and watch her daughter chant from the Torah is a big accomplishment for any woman in Orthodox Judaism. As I explained in an earlier post, women are typically the ones who sit in a separate section of the sanctuary; however, on this morning, the men sat in the back of the make-shift sanctuary behind the mechitza because Anna, a female, was chanting from the Torah. Through my research I have read about the women’s prayer groups and how they strive to give women equal opportunities to pray. In women’s prayer groups, women have freedom to pray and do not have to think about how they are separated from men. Rabbi Abraham Magence, the rabbi at Anna and Mrs. Sher’s synagogue, believes that women’s prayer groups are an excellent idea because “‘[he feels] strongly that if the mother is educated, she is influencing the children”’. When a mother has an education in Judaism and Hebrew, she sets an example to her children that they should become educated in their religion. In reading this article, I now have a better understanding of the role of women’s prayer groups and how they act to give women more rights to pray and participate in their synagogue. Through the prayer groups, women can celebrate important milestones in their lives and their children’s lives. I agree with the women's prayer groups that women should have equal rights as men. However, if women must be separated from men during prayer, they should have another outlet of expression so that they can pray how they want. It is through the women's prayer groups that women can pray out loud and not feel belittled through the separation from men.

Sources:
Goodstein, Laurie. “Women Taking Active Role to Study Orthodox Judaism.” New York Times.
New York Times, 21 December 2000. Web. 17 March 2010.