Good News from Israel - Changes coming at the Western Wall

Emor 5773/2013

Good News from Israel

Amidst a new wave of terrible devastation, Boston, Bangladesh, Texas, a vicious shooting in Manchester, Illinois, there was some good news out of Israel, some news that marks a hopeful change in the thinking about religious pluralism at the Kotel, the Western Wall, one of the most revered sites for the Jewish people. 

Jerusalem judge Moshe Sobell upheld an earlier ruling that cleared the Women of the Wall from being held on charges of creating a public disturbance by their once a monthly prayer gatherings.  He also ruled that these women, many of whom wear a tallit, who read Torah and daven as a minyan, do not violate ‘local custom’, which was a legal basis for the arrest of 5 women earlier this month.  He based his decision on a 1994 ruling from High Court Judge Shlomo Levin who argued that ‘local custom’ is not limited to traditional Orthodox practice.  Levin argued that custom can change and that the operating principle should be a ‘tolerant approach to the opinions and customs of others.’

The Jerusalem police have agreed to follow the court’s ruling and refrain from arresting the Women of the Wall who for 25 years have been holding services one each Rosh Chodesh, each celebration of the new month.  Over this time, they have been verbally and physically abused at the Wall, detained, shackled, arrested.

Rosh Chodesh is among the days that we celebrate life, hope, and the renewal of time and our people.  Parshat Emor places most of the major Jewish holidays in the foreground, as God asks us not only to know what these days are and when they are, but to actively proclaim them and act on them, to bring the holiness of these days off the pages of the scroll or book and into lived experience.

The writer R. Yakov Zvi Mecklenburg, Haktav ve’Hakabalah, explains that Shabbat, the first and most basic ‘festival’ in the Jewish calendar, a day that sets the example for all other holy days, is a day of rest, pausing, and ceasing from work.  Also, Shabbat suggests a day for opening the mind, a day when we give our physical selves a rest and open up the potential for studying and exploring holy words and ideas.

I believe that Women of the Wall are most interested in being able to do just this, to create meaningful holy experiences, to encourage women by facilitating a sacred space where they may fully express their beliefs in a supportive environment.  For the women in our community, on your next Israel trip, try and schedule your trip so that you can attend a service on Rosh Chodesh with this trail-blazing group.  Their courage gives us strength.  Their vision has motivated the Israeli government to instruct Natan Sharansky to implement a plan that will establish mixed prayer space at the lower part of the wall, Robinson’s Arch, that is regularly open to all who wish to daven this way, rather than the current arrangement that requires reservations.  The new area will be equal in size to the upper plaza and both will be accessible through one entrance.  We should all applaud this significant step and share our appreciation with Israel’s leaders and with the Women of the Wall.

And so amidst more chaos we find a new and hopeful order, amidst political instability in the Middle East we find voices raised up in song a prayer with renewed strength, and we see Eretz Yisrael, the State of Israel, growing, changing, evolving, striving to find a way to live up to the high expectation that Israel, that our people, can be a light that shines out to all nations and peoples of the world.