The Torah Has Always Been Mine.
When did my obsession with Simchat Torah start? For a girl from the former Soviet Union who did not grow up religious, my awareness of Simchat Torah began in my teenage years, when I attended a girls’ high school. In the small community of Richmond, VA, in the nineties, one synagogue had “much better dancing” than the other. Perhaps it had to do with the fact that the bigger synagogue had no space for women to dance, because the presumption was that men dance with the Torah and not the women. Men dance, men sing, men wave Israeli and American flags, men reminisce about how they used to march down the main street with Sifrei Torah and meet up with other men from other synagogues. Women can spectate, if they choose to. Women can be busy with the Simchat Torah luncheon, which inevitably follows such exertions on the part of the men.
For a teenager who was not so interested in the food aspects of the chag, the meaning seemed to come from dancing behind the mechitzah, and hoping that there are enough girls/women to make it fun, and that men will stretch out hakafot long enough and sing the songs that will feel festive enough to make it feel like a celebration. And then men and their Sifrei Torah will disperse, and women will sit at those luncheon tables, waiting for men to finish their all-important aliyot.
For a long time, Simchat Torah felt like a men’s holiday, where, if I was lucky, there was space and place for women’s dancing.
As I moved away, got married, and had children, this nature of Simchat Torah felt reinforced. We lived in the communities where women were literally banished to the backyard with their children in order not to bother the men during reading. In another congregation, the women’s section was clearly lacking any space for women to dance, while the men had a wide area around the bimah. They carried the Sifrei Torah in concentric circles and sang, while I contented myself with my young daughter kissing each Torah as it passed by.
At the same time, I was grappling with homeschooling my children, including some who did not fit the standard mold. One child memorably was so overstimulated by the noise and hustle of hakafot, that he simply laid flat on the floor, right under the dancers’ feet, covered his ears, and screamed. I realized then that my desire to watch, see, feel, and maybe dance would have to be secondary to the needs of my child. At the same time, as more and more limitations were coming up in terms of normative Jewish education, observance, and participation for this child, I was wrestling deeply with what it means to be halachically observant in these circumstances. I came to the conclusion that Torah, in its essence, is democratic: it has been given to Jews of all kinds, equally. Therefore, by its nature, there are many points to access Torah’s wisdom, and that access can take many formats. For example, since this child struggled mightily with reading Hebrew, I have filled my house with as many Jewish books in English as I could find. I spent more time discussing Judaism off the page rather than drilling down into text study. However, I could not help but brush against the very uncomfortable issue of women and Torah: it seemed that as long as you were a male, it was clear that, once you grow up, there is a place and a space for you in the synagogue and in the rituals. You will have physical access to the Torah, because you will get an aliyah. You will get kibbudim/honors, no matter how much or how little you know. To summarize, there is a certain path of belonging within a community simply because you are on the right side of the mechitzah.
Somehow, the same path was much thornier for an Orthodox woman. It was ok to talk about Torah in general, but not in particular. It was ok to feel very spiritual in your Judaism, as long as you didn’t sound too technical, too learned. In a certain community, a women’s class on chumash got a green light, but there was not going to be funding or opportunities for women’s learning of halacha. I remember asking about inreach: how are we, as a community, keeping adults, and particularly women, intellectually engaged and growing in their Judaism? I was told point-blank: there is no inreach. If you have the skills and textual access, you grow in your Judaism. If, for whatever reason, you lack those, your spiritual and intellectual well-being is not a communal responsibility. For me, the biggest manifestation of this phenomenon was the physical barring of women from touching, holding, or physically engaging with the sefer Torah. You can look, but you cannot touch. And if you do not find looking meaningful, well, that’s on you.
An old adage says that homeschooling builds character–in the mother. Part of my search for educational supplementation for my children led me to a trop/cantillation class for women. It was being offered by a very modern local congregation. As someone who was not taught Chumash punctuation beyond “etnachta is a comma, sof pasuk is a period”, I was looking forward to learning more and hoping to enhance my understanding of the Chumash and my kids’ learning. I was attending the class at someone’s home with a baby sleeping in a car seat. I heard the melody of the Torah and practiced alongside other women, also learning this for the first time. For the final project, the class offered optional participation in women’s aliyot on Simchat Torah. I waffled back and forth: is this halachically ok? Will I be able to do it? How will I manage the baby plus the rest of the kids plus meaningful chag/holiday plus the child who gets overstimulated by crowds while reading those pesukim? Some women in the class chose to participate; some chose to conclude their learning by just gaining this skill.
That year, I did end up reading from the Torah for the first time. I was utterly flustered by all of the concerns that I mentioned above. I remember being so nervous, making mistakes, being gently corrected, and almost bolting when it was all over. It did not help that I am not musical and basically tone-deaf. In some ways, I filed this under the life experience tab of “been there, done that, not for me”. Yet I remember thinking that it is so important to send a message, especially to our daughters, that the Torah is yours, it is accessible, and you can engage with it while preserving orthodoxy.
A few more years have passed. Simchat Torah did not grow more meaningful, because I saw the same men holding the Sifrei Torah and gatekeeping them from the women’s side, even when women asked for them. What originally appeared as just simple, innocent custom (only men dance with the Torah), or an oversight (if women were to ask, they could dance with Torah), became either comical or simply misogynistic. One rabbi, whom I asked point-blank about his policy of women dancing with the Torah, said that he does not like it, but if the Torah ends up on the women’s side, then it’s somehow ok. I chuckled: does Torah have legs and wanders around the hall, sometimes ending up among the women? But there were plenty of men in the same congregation who did not hesitate to come to the women’s side and say that the rabbi requested for the Torah to go back to the men.
I would be remiss if I did not mention the attempts to make the aliyah waiting period more meaningful. Some years, in some congregations, there were classes given. There was a group project where women were to divide up the parshiyot or sefarim/chapters, and each one would present a short dvar Torah. Some years I found a quiet corner and delved into my own learning. Each one felt like trying to make the best out of a suboptimal situation. I was searching for more, within the bounds of halacha. I knew firmly in my heart that there is a halachic way to have expanded female participation.
Over the years, my search led me to Yeshivat Maharat. There I have been growing in my personal Torah learning and in my understanding of halacha. At the same time, I had a wonderful chavruta/study partner, who was a committed feminist, but not necessarily of the type to make waves and demands. I remember having her family over for a Shemini Atzeret meal and waffling over what to do: go dance with the few women who will dance? Try to get the Torah from the men? Not to go at all as a protest, because it is too painful?
That year was 2023. And then Oct. 7th happened. For those of us outside of Israel, all of a sudden, we had to dance, while not being able to check the news, while hearing about the horrors and not yet knowing their full scale. That year, we did get the Torah to the women’s section, and we held onto it for dear life. עץ חיים היא למחזיקים בה: the Torah is a tree of life for those who grasp onto it. The Torah that we diligently studied for a few years by that point became our life raft in a sea of pain. I remember the wide-eyed girls dancing around us, touching the Torah, kissing it, having access to this life-giving treasure. I remember refusing to part with the Torah as the men were gathering in for their aliyot and the women… women were being escorted out somewhere. Probably waiting for the luncheon.
Three years have passed since then. One year the Torah did not make it to the women’s section, so I danced with a tikkun, a text of the Torah which is used to practice leining. After all, I was going to need the text later on for a 30-second dvar torah to the women.
Since making aliyah, the options and choices for women’s participation on Simchat Torah have significantly increased. I belong to a partnership minyan, and I am reassured that women will get a sefer Torah to dance with. In an act which feels like a coda, I have signed up to be a leiner, reader for the same aliyah I once read so badly. While I still am tone-deaf and might still need to be corrected, I feel much more confident in my leining. After learning intensively for the past five years, I am looking forward to this pinnacle of access: nestling the mantle against my cheek, holding onto polished wooden handles as I recite the blessings, and seeing the letters in the scroll sing out to me as I vocalize the Torah’s immortal message to the kahal.
