Susan Reuben: Was a mum right to call her son's barmitzvah photo 'male privilege'?

A few weeks ago, a friend posted a picture on her Facebook page. “To me, this photo just says ‘male privilege’” she wrote.

The picture was of her son, at a weekday shacharit service, being called up to the Torah for the first time. The scene showed a classic synagogue interior with a central bimah, fixed pews all around and, at the back, a thick net curtain for the women to sit behind. The barmitzvah boy was flanked by his father and grandfathers, with other male congregants looking on.

My friend — Eve Sacks — took the photo from the balcony which at least, she acknowledged, meant she could get a good camera angle.

Eve holds a strong and vocal position within her community, and so the response to her post was overwhelming, with many comments both in support and opposition. Some refused to engage with her argument at all, but instead accused her of missing the point. After all, this was her son’s first aliyah. “Why can’t you just enjoy it?” they asked, and “Don’t get so worked up!”, and “Go with the flow!”.

Eve patiently explained that she did feel pride and excitement, but that that made the fact that she was only allowed to be an onlooker all the more painful.

I’m an active member of a fully egalitarian service in two different shuls. In both, women playing an equal role in tefillah is simply a given. It wasn’t always like that for me, however. I grew up attending a synagogue where women were consigned to the role of observers on the balcony and girls didn’t have even a token batmitzvah. For me, Judaism meant chatting with my friends, only tangentially aware of what was going on below; it meant the boredom of a seemingly interminable service and the sigh of relief when Ein Keloheinu began and I knew that the end was in sight at last.

I was in my thirties before things changed: I discovered the first of the two services that have become home to me: a collaborative minyan where anyone who wishes to — male or female — can help to lead. Last year at our son Isaac’s bamitzvah, he, my husband and I led almost the whole service between us and we all leyned from the Torah.

Judaism became vibrant and meaningful for me in proportion to my degree of participation — but of course this isn’t so for everyone. Many people — male and female — just want to sit and listen, or participate quietly from their seats. The essential point, though, is equality of opportunity. As soon as we step out of the synagogue and into the secular world, the very idea of women being excluded from any activity is utterly outrageous. Why is the double standard acceptable?

In 2020 our daughter Emily will be batmitzvah and she’ll have precisely the same choices, the same Jewish education, as her brother. What on earth would we be saying to her about her value in the world if that were not the case? What are we saying to all the girls for whom it is not?

The irony is that the Talmud doesn’t even forbid women to read from a Torah scroll according to halachah, but states that they shouldn’t do so because of the “dignity of the congregation”. The worry was that if women shared the Torah reading, the implication might be that some of the men present weren’t literate enough to read.

Is it just possible that, by the ethical standards of today, the “dignity of the congregation” is fatally compromised by women not being allowed to take part?

We live in different times, with a more highly developed understanding of equality and justice; to insist that we must, nevertheless, follow the teachings of the Talmud, to the letter, in all areas, even when they are utterly at odds with current morality, feels like a grave mistake.

Partnership minyanim, where women are allowed to read from Torah, are a step in the right direction — and JOFA — the Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance — is doing great work. But it feels that many of today’s leading Jewish figures simply do not perceive the subordinate role of women as a problem.

And what of the question of decorum? Surely if we women sit among the men or — worse — daven alongside them, we’ll distract them with our wily feminine charms, making it impossible for them to pray.

Well — even setting aside the incorrect assumption that everyone is attracted to the opposite sex — I think we owe men considerably more respect than that in terms of inner self control.

When we told Emily the date of her batmitzvah, her first question was “Which parashah is that?” If I had had to say to her, “It’s Chayei Sarah but you won’t actually be allowed to read it,” I don’t know how I could have looked her in the face.

I believe that it can — and must — be possible to move towards total gender equality within every branch of Judaism, without undermining all that is essential and precious to those who have chosen that particular Jewish path.

 

@susanreuben