Review: Brooklyn rabbi pens book for 21st-century Orthodox Jewish women

Brooklyn BookBeat

August 23, 2017 By Celia Weintrob Special to the Brooklyn Daily Eagle

Rabbi Aaron L. Raskin. Next Century Publishing

Share this:

There is a compendium of grievances Jewish women have expressed about traditional Judaism for generations, and Rabbi Aaron L. Raskin has aimed to tackle them in his newest book “Thank God for Making Me a Woman: Empowering Women for the 21st Century.” It’s intended to soothe those smarting at rabbinic rulings they consider harsh and outdated.

Raskin opens with the story of a female congregant in his synagogue, the Orthodox Congregation B’nai Avraham of Brooklyn Heights.

“I really enjoy the services here,” she tells him. “I enjoy the sermons, the spirit and the people. But … I am an intelligent, well-educated, professional woman and I want to know why I can’t participate in the service. Why can’t I be called to the Torah, or be counted in the minyan [quorum of 10 men needed to begin prayer services], or lead the service? I have a nice voice, too. And this mechitza partition that separates men and women, what’s that all about?

“And the biggest problem I have is the blessing men say [each morning]: ‘Thank you G-d for not making me a woman.’ How do you explain that one?”

Raskin goes on to describe additional rules that Jewish women take issue with: According to halacha (Jewish law), women generally cannot serve as witnesses, may not wear tefillin (ritual objects men wear wrap around their arms during prayer) and are dependent on their husbands to provide a bill of divorce.

Raskin, who tells the reader that he wrote this book with his daughter, wife, mother, grandmother and all of his female relatives in mind, points out many ways that Orthodox Judaism protects, cares for and reveres women and their rights, such as the biblical story of the daughters of Zelofchad, who argued that they should inherit the portion of the promised land that their father would have received if he had not died. Moses discusses the case with G-d, who praises the daughters and says they should inherit the land. The book also points to female leaders in the bible, such as the judge Devorah.

However, it’s hard to believe that women who have grown up in a non-Orthodox community will come away satisfied with many of his answers.

The blessing men say each morning, “Thank you G-d who has not made me a woman,” cannot be offensive, he explains, because the Torah views men and women as equally valued, and since the Torah commands us to love our neighbors as ourselves while also forbidding us to embarrass a neighbor, our interpretation of this as insulting is simply a misunderstanding on our part, according to Raskin.

As for men and women separating during prayer services, this is merely a reflection of how services were conducted in the Holy Temple in Jerusalem during ancient times.

Why can’t women be counted for a minyan? “Women have so many responsibilities, they emulate G-d more than men in this regard, and are not counted; they are unique and truly beyond the limitation of numbers,” Raskin writes.

Tefillin are not appropriate for women to wear because it would cause her to roll up her sleeve above the elbow, which would be a breach of modesty.

In a chapter titled “Women Scholars and Torah Study,” Raskin says that women may challenge the status quo but must remain faithful to tradition and not seek rabbinic posts.

Ultimately, Raskin argues there is tremendous beauty, good and logic in the practice of Orthodox Judaism, which many women with one foot firmly in the modern world and the other in traditional Jewish observance understand and appreciate.