Reflection on My Experience at an Orthodox Synagogue

Through attending this service, I learned many things about the custom of separating men and women in Orthodox Judaism. The prayer service is mainly about men becoming one with
G-d. While women are welcome to come pray, the fact that they do not pray verbally signifies that they do not play a big role in the service. Never once did a women step foot on the bimah, where the prayers are read and where the Torah is stored, because women are not allowed to read from the Torah. Women traditionally are supposed to take care of the children. I saw evidence of this during the service when the children would ask only their mother questions and never once bothered their father.

Reflecting on my experience, I now realize that men and women are separated in Orthodox for a clear reason. The reason is, as I have mentioned before, to avoid distractions. However, I found the service very distracting for the women because their children were constantly running around behind them and asking them questions. Coming from an egalitarian synagogue where men and women pray together and women are able to pray verbally, I felt belittled by attending this service. While it does make sense for people to be separated, I do not like being separated by gender during prayer and prefer to pray out loud