Rabba Sara Hurwitz, Dean
Graduation 2015
It’s hard to believe that this is our 3rd semikha ceremony. It seems strange to be celebrating while Rav Avi, our founder, is sitting shiva for his beloved father, Dr. Rabbi Moshe Weiss, alav hasalom. As Abigail said, last year Rav Avi described this as our chazaka year. The first year, was our breakthrough. The second was a celebration of seconds, of kiddushat Shn’iya. This year, is our chazaka year.
It is the year of ha’chut ha’meshulash (the threefold cord) described in Sefer Kohelet (4:12), that cannot be severed. Miriam, Lila, Anat, and Avital, Melanie and Yaffa will be joining their colleagues, as full members of the clergy, as rabbinic leaders, joining the graduates from the first and second years, doubling our numbers of musmachot. The strength of this moment, of the unbreakable cord implies that women’s leadership and Torah scholarship will only continue to flourish and impact communities around the world. As Rabbi Zi’era in the Midrash in Kohelet Raba explains:
משפחת סופרים, מעמדת סופרים. בני תורה, מעמדת בני תורה..וְהַחוּט, הַמְשֻׁלָּשׁ, לֹא בִמְהֵרָה, יִנָּתֵק
a family of scholars will produce scholars, and a family of Bnai Torah—or Banot Torah will produce more Banot Torah…, ‘for the threefold cord is not easily severed’.
The concept of the chut ha’meshulash was one that resonated deeply with Belda Kaufman Lindenbaum, zichrona l’vracha. Of being part of a chain of women who demanded more for female leadership and scholarship within the bounds of halakha and tradition.
Belda was the founding donor and a board member of Yeshivat Maharat, and today we all feel her loss palpably. This morning, as we celebrate our semicha ceremony, I wanted to describe the impact that Belda, together with Marcel, has had on me, Yeshivat Maharat, and on women’s ordination.
You see, Belda lived her life through the lens that women must be central participants in religious ritual and that the walls of the beit midrash must expand to include women’s Torah. It is these two ethics that actually found its precedent in the home and beit midrash of Yalta, the third generation Babylonian Amora.
The Gemara in Brachot (51b) describes how Ulla a guest in Rav Nachaman and Yalta’s home, refuses to send Yalta the cos shel bracha (cup of benediction), over which birkat hamazon (grace after meals) is made. With frustration, Yalta gets up קמה בזיהרא (in a passion) and breaks four hundred jars of wine.
That’s a lot of spilled wine! And yet, Yalta was demonstrating that sometimes, words aren’t enough. Action is necessary.
Belda was a woman of words. But she also had a passion that was transformed into action. At an early JOFA conference, a rabbi commented that it’s not becoming for feminist to be so angry. Belda stood up and responded: I am angry. It is no longer acceptable for women to be left out of communal leadership, of participating in Torah and in ritual. You see, in her passion, she understood that Yalta wasn’t angry because she wanted to drink the wine. Yalta wanted to participate in blessing the wine. Yalta refused to accept status quo. Her reaction was a tribute to the passion she felt towards religious ritual.
And so too with Belda. She didn’t just talk about women’s scholarship and leadership. She, together with Marcel changed the course of the modern Orthodox community by building Jewish institutions where women’s Torah scholarship, authority and leadership have become part of the fabric of the Jewish communal landscape. She created places, like Yeshivat Maharat, where women could be central to Jewish ritual and leadership.
Another image: in Mesechet Nidah (20b), Yalta enters the beit midrash and has a halakhic debate with the rabbis, concerning her status of nidah. Yalta, knew what the psak was meant to be, and this time, she used her words, and taught Torah, successfully influencing the rabbinic decision, thereby adding her voice to the halakhic discourse.
Belda also knew her Torah. Our conversation ranged from discussing the halakhic ramification of aggunot, akarat hilchati, and one of her favorite topics: opening up umbrellas on Shabbat. She knew Torah. But, she wanted to use that knowledge to expand the walls of the beit midrash, so that women’s scholarship and voices could resonate loudly within its walls. Weeks before she passed away, she was advocating for women’s voices when she heard that her granddaughter would not be allowed to sing a solo at a choir performance.
That was Belda. She wanted to live in a Jewish community, and wanted her children and grandchildren to grow up in a world where women and men have the same access to text and ritual. She knew that women would be held back from the highest positions of leadership, unless they learned Torah. So, like Yalta, she acted with passion, breaking barriers, making an indelible mark on female scholarship.
Belda once wrote: “My mother, myself, and my two daughters represent the “chut hameshulash,” the threefold chain that cannot be broken, that chain of feminist thought and action which will extend to future generations until equity and justice for women become a Jewish religious norm.”
Belda, I wanted to say to you-- you are part of the chut hameshulash, part of the chain that has ensured that women’s semikha is the religious norm. Your dream, is being fully realized, right here, right now.
And so, Miriam, Lila, Anat, and Melanie, Avital, and Yaffa, I want to bless each of you that you emulate Belda’s passion to know when to take a stand, and act; To break through and shatter the chains that hold you back; and I bless you that you use your Torah scholarship, your semicha, your authority as a rabbinic leader (clergy), to expand the walls of the beit midrash to raise the level of discourse to a place where your Torah will ring loud and clear and true. You are now each part of the chut ha’meshulash, the unbreakable chain that will no longer be severed.
I would like to now call up our teachers and students-- all who are part of this chain—Rabbi Jeffrey Fox, Rosh ha’yeshiva and Rabbi Daniel Sperber, both of whom have dedicated their life to raising the level of Torah scholarship for women. Dr Esther Altmann and Dr Erin Leib Smokler, our pastoral Torah faculty, who have carved out a place to nurture the heart and soul of Yeshivat Maharat. The past musmachot, Ruth, Victoria, Rachel, and Abby, representing as well Rori, who could not be here today, each of whom has brought your Torah into your communities, impacting and transforming countless lives, and Alissa, Ramie, and Dasi, representing the student body, each of you who are on the brink of changing the world! Please come forward as we usher in the new class of musmachot together.
I would like to ask First Rabbi Daniel Sperber, followed by our Rosh Yeshiva to offer brachot to our musmachot. Let me just say, once again, how grateful, how indebted we are to you for your leadership and your brilliance, that you impart to our students.