Dear {{first_name}},
Gabbi, Ella, Emma, Noa, Arielle are the five young people who have a Bat Mitzvah at Bonai Shalom between August and October, inheriting the tradition of reading from the Torah. Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah are the five daughters of Zelophohad who stood up for their rights to inherit their father’s land in the absence of male heirs. This powerful story in Parshat Pinchas, this week’s Torah reading, actually results in a change in the established precedents of inheritance law. In a profound way, our celebration of the five girls becoming Jewish women over the next few weeks, and the story of the five courageous daughters are very linked in the challenges of women’s rights in Jewish tradition and beyond. In our liberal communities, we take it for granted that women have equal access to the tradition as men, but it is only 100 years since Judith Kaplan, daughter of Rabbi Mordechai Kaplan came to the Torah as the first ever Bat Mitzvah in New York, and there are so many places in the world where gender equality is far from a reality. Some of the most inspiring and influential rabbis in the world right now, including many of my teachers, are women and yet, in the US, the first woman was only ordained in the Reform movement in 1973 and not until 1985 in the Conservative movement. We have some outstanding women teachers and rabbis in our Boulder and Denver Jewish community and deeply honor the Torah that they teach and the impact they have.
Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg worked tirelessly for justice and gender equality, following in the footsteps perhaps of Zelophochad’s daughters. She helped change so much and her death left a huge gap, and the impact of her inspiring legacy seems under threat. One of the great gifts of my time here in London has been to see a lot of great theater. Last night I took my mother to see A Doll’s House Part Two, which is a contemporary play that leaps forward fifteen years in the story of Nora, the main character of the Danish playwright Henrik Ibsen’s 1879 classic. Trapped in an unhappy marriage, Nora has no legal status or recourse in Denmark at that time and takes drastic action. So many of the themes of the original and modern plays resonate with the plight of women in society throughout history.
On this Shabbat of Pinchas, where we read the epic tale of five strong women who made a difference, let’s honor all of the women who have shaped the social, political, intellectual and spiritual landscapes of our Jewish world and beyond, including some of the incredible leaders we have in our community.
Thanks you to Jason Blau, Larry Ansell, Daniel Turgel and others for leading and teaching us this Shabbat at Bonai Shalom and I look forward to being back on the bimah next week!
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Marc
