For the past few decades, manu Orthodox leaders have reacted to the overall friction between some aspects of feminist ideology and halakhah (Jewish las and ethics) by treating suggestions for increased women's participation in religious activities with suspicion. They feared that these proposals, while benign in appearance, could legitimize feminism in the eyes of the halakhic community. It is now time, argues the author, to move past this fear of feminism. We are fast approaching a "post-feminist" era in which accepting certain initiatives originally promoted by feminists no longer carries with it the implications that we accept feminist ideology as a whole. We should not continue to fight yesterday's battles, confusing a genuine desire to grow in Torah with an attack on Torah values. It is obvious to people who have firsthand contact with women engaged in advanced Torah education in Israeli schools like Michlelet Lindenbaum, Matan, or Nishmat or in American schools like Drisha and Stern College that it is the unparalleled high levels of education attained by these women that now drives this concern, not by any particular feminist agenda. This book explores how this drive for increased women's expression in our homes, at life-cycle events, in our synagogues and in our schools can be realized with complete fidelity to halakhah.
Women at the Seder is a traditional "Passover Haggadah whose commentary celebrates of one of the great transformations of the Torah community during this past century: the emergence of women from the privacy of their home "tents" to the public arena of the synagogue and Torah study halls, without abandoning in any way their central traditional role as the cornerstone of the home and family. The Rabbis had long ago acknowledged that it was in the merit of our righteous women that Israel was redeemed from slavery. The Passover "seder--the home celebration of our national liberation--is an appropriate place to acknowledge and honor women's expanded role in our public as well as private religious life. The commentary includes rabbinic comments on women associated with the Exodus, a discussion of those relevant aspects of Jewish law that apply to women, and homilies--"divrei Torah by women for the "seder, many written especially for this volume. In a generation, it should seem quaint that it was noteworthy that women's "divrei Torah constituted a significant part of a Haggadah commentary. That will be cause for yet additional rejoicing, as women's contributions on all levels of Torah scholarship will have become even more commonplace.
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