Bo (Sermon): Rights and Responsibilities – A Constant Journey

When I was eight years old, my family moved to Israel for a year. My father was learning how to be a mohel, to perform ritual circumcision, and the whole family relocated to Jerusalem for about 13 months. A lot of things that happened to me that year have stuck with me, even to this day. My ability to speak Hebrew, which is still quite good, I attribute to the foundation that was created for me that year. I still walk through the streets of Jerusalem with nostalgic memories flooding through my mind, and I can still picture our lives there when I walk through the neighborhoods of Backa, the Germany Colony, or Abu Tor, where we lived.

But one experience in particular will never ever leave me. My mother had discovered a fledgling movement that year, one which she joined and participated in quite regularly. One weekday, when I was off from school, she brought me along to a prayer meeting of the Women at the Wall.

As an eight year old, I barely knew where I was, much less how controversial it was for women to try and pray out loud by the Orthodox-run Kotel. But I learned pretty fast. It started out peaceful, but soon I saw Orthodox women yelling at the group, I saw a very short man, standing on a chair on the men's section, banging a folding chair against the mechitzah to try and silence the group. Eventually the women left the Kotel, and decided to pray elsewhere. But the attacks continued, and I remember seeing young Orthodox men throwing water at the group and yelling at them at they tried to get away. It was shocking and disturbing, but it truly implanted in my brain an understanding of the need for equality, and why women must have the same rights to pray out loud, read from the Torah, and wear tallitot.

Two months ago, a woman who was praying with that same group, the Women at the Wall in Jerusalem, was arrested for wearing a tallit. Her name is Nofrat Frenkel, and she was taken into custody and banned from the Kotel area for two weeks for her "offense." In addition, just 10 days ago, one of the founding members of the Women at the Wall, and a friend of my mother's, Anat Hoffman, was questioned AND fingerprinted by police. According to the Daily Jewish Forward, she was told by police that she "may be charged with a felony for violating the rules of conduct" at the Kotel, and that she was being "investigated for violating a decision of the Israeli Supreme Court that prohibits women from wearing prayer shawls at the Wall."

Think about this for a second. Could you imagine if a similar thing had happened anywhere else in the world? That a Jew was arrested or fingerprinted for simply wearing a tallit, or for wanting to pray out loud? The entire Jewish world would be in uproar! But because it's Israel, and we've become desensitized to the antics and the bullying of some ultra-Orthodox Jews, we somehow accept it.

The tallit is one of our most democratic symbols. Even in the Bible, all men were required to wear tzitzit, fringes, regardless of social stature. Rich or poor, learned or ignorant, young or old, religious or secular - all were required to put tzitzit on their four-cornered garments. Professor Jacob Milgrom writes, "The requirement of the blue thread - royal blue - is a sign that Israel is a people of nobility, whose sovereign is not mortal but Divine. But more than this: Israel is a 'kingdom of priests and a holy nation' (Ex. 19:6). The tassels are a reminder of this holiness."

I would also add that praying with a tallit can be a transformative experience. When you come into synagogue and put on a head covering and a tallit, and on weekdays you add the tefillin, you are dressed to pray. You are wearing the uniform of a Jewish person, of all Jewish people, and are ready to give honor to God.

So now I turn this around onto you. I recognize that many people didn't grow up with this religious requirement. I know that it may seem alien to either put on a head covering, or a tallit, or tefillin. But I see this as vitally important to our community and our movement. I often use the term "Rights and Responsibilities." Most of us want to have an equal say in synagogue matters; whether it involves political decisions, religious equality, or budgetary issues. Even in society, we want the right to vote, we want to be able to own property, and we want to drive our cars. However, if we want the rights, we must accept the responsibilities that come with it. These involve paying synagogue dues, volunteering our time with the congregation, but also taking voting seriously and going
to the polls when it's time, taking care of our homes and our neighborhoods, and abiding by the laws of the road when we drive. Subsequently, if you want the right to pray in services as an equal, if you want an aliyah to the Torah, or if you want to lead services, you should take upon yourself the responsibilities of religious prayer.

It is just like the right to vote. We look at oppressive countries around the world and we say, "We shouldn't take for granted our democracy, or our ability to choose our leaders without corruption or political pressures." So too we look at women in Jerusalem who consider it their obligation to wear a tallit but are forbidden to do so. Here you have the right! Here you can pray without fear of attacks, yelling, arrest, or fingerprinting. How can we not, all of us, take advantage of that right?

Now I want to emphasize something before I conclude: I am not judging you if you choose not to. Maybe you don't believe me, that's ok. But I recognize that this is really unfamiliar to many people, and some of you aren't on board theologically. But a major principle of my rabbinate, and a theme for us as a congregation, is being on a journey. Don't leave here feeling like the next time you walk into the sanctuary or the chapel, I'll be expecting you to wear a tallit. I won't be. Just promise me that you'll think about it. If not for yourself, then for your daughters, granddaughters, and even great-granddaughters. I don't want them to grow up in a world where it's weird that women were tallitot or tefillin. Just like voting, I want them to assume that they're supposed to do it, and there's nothing unusual about it. I can't get there –
we can't get there – unless you join me on this journey.
I hope you'll give it some serious thought. And I'm talking to men as well as women! Please think about it for Nofrat Frenkel, Anat Hoffman, for our Conservative Movement and our congregation, and for the next generation of young Jewish women.

To read more about the Women at the Wall, please click on this link.