Two weeks ago, I wrote about my hesitations with the “she-kippah,” which probably gave a few people the impression that I was against women partaking in various rituals and traditions. Which, of course, is completely untrue.
That said, I was absolutely appalled when I noticed that Jewschool had posted that a woman was arrested at the Kotel for wearing a tallit. Are you kidding me?
Jewschool’s post cites numerous respected authorities who say that women are more than welcome to don tallit, for one thing. But even beyond the words of such sages, think about life in the present. Haven’t we gotten beyond such things?
Even though she was later released by police after being questioned, and even though this is apparently the first time in Israel’s history that a woman was arrested for reading Torah at the Kotel while wrapped in a tallit, that doesn’t mean that the police’s behavior is acceptable or should be in any way tolerated. All this woman wanted to do was pray in a Rosh Chodesh ceremony with other Women of the Wall. What is so blatantly offensive about that?
Haaretz quoted the following:
Last week Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, Israel’s chief Sephardi rabbi, said during his weekly sermon that the women in the feminist movement are “stupid” and act the way they do out of a selfish desire for equality, not “for heavens’ sake.”
Rabbi Ovadia also said about the groups’ custom to pray at the Western Wall that “there are stupid women who come to the Western Wall, put on a tallit (prayer shawl), and pray,” and added that they should be condemned.
One doesn’t have to be a feminist to know the feminist movement isn’t “stupid.” A goal of equality is not only admirable, it doesn’t make any sense any other way. I’m not talking about Animal Farm equality, either. None of this “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others” business. Women and men are inherently different, to be sure. Biology and chemistry and other forces of nature dictate these differences. But just because some activities are perhaps more easily or comfortably practiced by one gender or another doesn’t mean that all people, men, women or otherwise, shouldn’t have the opportunity to take advantage of every single custom, action and experience of which he or she is physically capable.
This young woman was not out to offend anybody. Rather, she sought to pray to her G-d–the same G-d that all Jews share–and doing so with a prayer shawl on her back should have lent her closer to G-d’s good graces, not the local prison. A woman praying with a tallit is not in any way equivalent to somebody desecrating holy ritual, and she should not have been treated like a delinquent.
A commentor on Jewschool said in response to the blog post, “She didn’t get arrested for wearing a tallis. She got arrested for being a woman.” As much as I hope that’s not true, I would have liked to have thought we were past this already.
