Rabbi Charles P. Sherman
November 1, 2002
Thirty Years of Women in the Rabbinate: The Recovery of Hidden Voices
Because I take preaching very seriously, I want congregants to know in advance what I am going to be teaching and speaking about. This requires that before the 15th of each month, our bulletin deadline, I have to figure out my preaching schedule for the following month. Let me give you an insider’s view. Why did I decide to speak about “30 years of women in the rabbinate” tonight?
A number of different factors undoubtedly influenced my decision. This year, 2002, is rapidly coming to a close, and I have been wanting to mark the 30th anniversary of the rabbinic ordination of the first female. This coming March, when the Central Conference of American Rabbis convenes in Washington, D.C., we shall install Rabbi Janet Marder as the first female president in the 113 year history of the Reform rabbinic conference. This coming May, God willing, I shall witness the ordination of our daughter-in-law, Stephanie Alexander. The editor of our Movement’s proposed new Prayerbook, which we are trying tonight for the first time, is a female colleague. So women rabbis are on my mind.
Furthermore, the Torah portion for this Shabbat, Chayay Sarah, is the only sedra named for a woman – our matriarch Sarah. Yet in just the second verse of this sedra, Sarah dies. The emphasis for much of the rest of this sedra is on another remarkable woman, Rebekah. This sedra indicates that women were often given dignity despite their frequent downgrading. When Abraham’s servant asked Rebekah’s parents to let him bring Rebekah to Isaac, the parents did something interesting. They asked her whether she would consent to go along with Isaac’s retainer. Whoever wrote that part of the story conferred upon women more prerogatives than women received during long stretches of human history, when marriages were arranged without consulting the future bride or groom. Furthermore, as many of you know, Rebekah is the dominant member of that marital team. We are the Children of Jacob – become-Israel because Rebekah – not Isaac – chose Jacob to receive the blessing and assume leadership of the family. So this seems an appropriate Shabbat to talk about women in the rabbinate.
We have actually lived through a revolution, friends, and what is interesting is that many of us here today have become so thoroughly accustomed to female clergy that we don’t even think twice about a woman conducting the service, officiating at weddings and funerals, reading from Torah or delivering a sermon. I am proud of that fact because when I came here in the summer of 1976, to the best of my knowledge, no female Jewish clergy-person had ever addressed this congregation. I made it a point in my early years, at least once a year, to expose the congregation to a female rabbi or cantor. Then, of course, one of our own, Sandra Katz, shared her journey to the rabbinate, and we all k’velled when Sandra was ordained. We have had a female Assistant Rabbi and are today truly blessed with a female hazan. Two of our scholars-in-residence have been females, and we have also heard many other female speakers, including a number of female Christian clergy. Finally, Deborah Avery is now in Jerusalem beginning her formal cantorial training.
Interestingly enough, for a Movement committed to the equality of the sexes from its very inception, the fight for ordination lasted almost a full century. In 1890, a young woman named Ray Frank who worked as a Sabbath School principal, preached to the Jews of Spokane, Washington, and urged them to establish a synagogue. Her sermon inspired that small community, and Frank became a well-known preacher, invited to speak at pulpits throughout the west. She went on to study at our Movement’s Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati, but said she did not desire to become a rabbi. The subject of much press attention, Ray Frank was proclaimed “A latter day Deborah”, “the Jewess in the pulpit”, and even, inaccurately, “the only female rabbi.”
In 1903, Hadassah’s future founder, Henrietta Szold, met with Solomon Schechter, President of Conservative Judaism’s Jewish Theological Seminary, to discuss the possibility of studying there. Schechter agreed, as long as Szold could assure him that she sought only education and not ordination.
In 1921, Martha Neumark, enrolled in the undergraduate program that, for men, would ultimately lead to graduate study and ordination at HUC. Her request for a High Holyday student preaching assignment lead to a two-year long debate on women’s ordination. Because of Martha Neumark’s enrollment at the Hebrew Union College in 1921 and its attendant publicity, the rabbis attending the 1922 convention of the CCAR, 80 years ago, voted 56 to 11 “that women cannot justly be denied the privilege of ordination.” In the end, however, the HUC Board of Governors denied Martha Neumark the rabbinical degree, awarding her instead a teaching certificate.
In 1935, Regina Jonas of Germany, who had earlier completed course work at Berlin’s liberal rabbinical seminary, was privately ordained. Germany had little history of feminist activism so a woman rabbi was perhaps even more revolutionary there than in America. After ordination, Jonas worked primarily as a teacher, but she occasionally gave sermons and lead congregations before being deported to Theresienstadt in 1942. She was murdered in Auschwitz in 1944.
In the United States in 1939, Helen Levinthal – daughter and granddaughter of rabbis – became the first American woman to complete the entire course of study in a rabbinical school. However, the Jewish Institute of Religion in New York denied her ordination. Instead, she was granted the Master of Hebrew Literature degree, as well as a special Hebrew Certificate.
In 1950, Rabbi William Ackerman died, after having served as spiritual leader of Temple Beth Israel in Meridian, Mississippi, for the previous 26 years. Knowing that finding a new rabbi would be difficult, the congregation turned to his widow, Paula Ackerman, asking her to serve as interim spiritual leader. For the next three years, Paula Ackerman lead weekly and holiday services, preached and officiated at funerals, weddings and confirmations. Like her predecessors, Ackerman was the subject of much media attention and, also like her predecessors, she hoped that her example would inspire other women. Yet nearly another quarter century would pass before our Reform Movement ordained a woman.
By the mid-to-late 1960s, several women were enrolled at the Hebrew Union College, Cincinnati campus, where I studied. Some aimed for teaching degrees, a few for the rabbinate. Sally Priesand was three years behind me at HUC. Sally was the product of a small Reform Temple on the west side of Cleveland.
Sally Priesand was not a feminist in the popular conception of what that term means. She was a serious Jew who simply wanted to become a rabbi and teach Judaism. In some ways, she was the perfect pioneer. There was nothing strident, bellicose about Sally. She was not striking in looks or charismatic in demeanor. Highly intelligent, dedicated, humble, Sally Priesand simply wanted to be a rabbi. For years that had been her career goal. Her classmates – all males you understand – fully accepted her as one of them. That is how they saw her. It was others who made a big deal about her being the first. That was not a banner Sally Priesand waved.
Two years after Rabbi Priesand’s ordination in 1972, Sandy Eisenberg Sasso became the first woman ordained at the Reconstructions Rabbinical College in Philadelphia. The next year, 1975, Barbara Ostfeld was invested by our Hebrew Union College School of Sacred Music as the first female cantor.
Undoubtedly goaded by these three milestones, the Conservative Movement debated the issue of ordaining females from 1977 to 1983, when they voted in favor of admitting women to the rabbinical program of the Jewish Theological Seminary. Amy Eilberg, who had completed most of the course work previously, was ordained in 1985. When JTS did finally accept women rabbinical students, opponents left the Conservative Movement and founded the Union for Traditional Judaism. That extremely small Movement still exists today and is centered in New Jersey. The cantorial school of JTS now invests female Conservative cantors.
The Orthodox Movement, to date, has refused to even consider women’s ordination, yet at least one Orthodox Jewish woman has applied to the rabbinic seminary of Yeshiva University. I understand she never received a reply to her application. Some interesting things are going on in Israel today within Orthodoxy. It will not surprise me if by the middle of the 21st century, or sooner, we don’t have – if not female rabbis in Orthodoxy, at least women functioning in many ways as rabbis.
Let me share with you a few statistics. In the past 30 years, our Reform Movement has ordained 373 women, so about 20% of the Central Conference of American Rabbi’s active membership today is female. Our Movement only began to ordain in Israel ten years ago. Of the 26 Israelis who have been ordained by our seminary in Jerusalem since 1992, six are females. More importantly, rabbinic classes at HUC today are approximately 50% female, 50% male. Since 1975 there have been 154 women invested as cantors. Today more than half of the students in our School of Sacred Music are female.
The results of this rapid growth in the number of female clergy has led some sociologists, historians and other students of religion to write about “the feminization of religion,” because what is happening in Liberal Judaism is also happening in Liberal Christianity. But there are also those who write, often with some concern, about the feminization of Judaism. They worry that women’s ascendancy to roles of leadership in the clergy, as well as in other areas of synagogue life, are driving men away. For example, Temple Brotherhoods – other than in Tulsa, thank God – have come on hard times. Brotherhood membership is down; a number of Brotherhoods have gone out of business. Minyanim in Conservative congregations which, of course, were an exclusive preserve of men - no women counted - have in some congregations now become largely female. Females today outnumber men in most adult education programs in Reform and Conservative synagogues.
I have a male colleague in a large congregation on the East Coast who has two female Assistant Rabbis, a female Cantor, a female Educator and female Temple Administrator. The Senior Rabbi is the only male on the senior staff of that congregation. The question already arises: where are the male role models for our young boys?
If this is true, then in my opinion, it is a temporary phenomenon, an adjustment and a very small price to pay for what I believe is most important. Let me share with you then what I think 30 years of women as rabbis means to all of us.
Judith Plaskow writes: “Only the deliberate recovery of women’s hidden voices, the unearthing and invention of women’s Torah can give us Jewish teachings that are the product of the whole Jewish People and that reflect more fully its experience of God.” I agree. We are talking about women’s voices - women rabbis voicing their opinions, wrestling with texts, thinking about God and ritual and the future of Judaism. It is about female scholars sharing their wisdom, their questions, their doubts, their expertise. Women finally are helping to shape the conversation of the Jewish People.
That conversation in our foundational texts was written by men for men; women are largely absent from those sacred texts. It is difficult to break into a conversation when the experience of so many centuries of exclusion is seared into a group’s collective unconscious. In other words, for most of recorded history the world has been viewed through the lens of male experience, which means only half of the community’s experience. It is that kind of exclusion which is not only unjust, but it is also spiritually debilitating for us as a People.
Therefore, if we are truly concerned about Jewish continuity and the survival of Judaism, then we need the gifts and offerings of each and every member of our community – women and men, gay, lesbian, bisexual and straight; young and old. We are a richly varied people; this is one of the main sources of our strength and vibrancy. Exclusion only drains the lifeblood from our community. This 30th anniversary recognizes that now women are contributing to the recovery of women’s hidden voices and the creation of Jewish teachings which are at long last the product of the whole Jewish People. This achievement is worth any growing pains which the acceptance and accommodation of women’s voices causes.
That pioneer, Sally Priesand, is now in her 23rd year as Rabbi of Monmouth Reform Temple in Tinton Falls, New Jersey. In her typical fashion, she summarizes what I see as some of the major contributions of my female colleagues. She says: “It sounds corny to say that I love being a Rabbi, but the truth is that I do and I can’t imagine doing anything else . . .
Among the many lessons my congregants have taught me, three are foremost in my mind . . . First, we have gained a broader understanding that the Rabbi’s primary task is to help other Jews become more responsible for their own Jewishness. In today’s language, that’s called ‘empowerment’, and nothing in my rabbinate gives me greater joy than to see my congregants study Torah, observe mitzvot, and do Judaism for themselves . . . Today there are new opportunities for networking and partnership within Jewish life. While it is not unique to feminism, the women’s movement has served as a catalyst, encouraging us to rethink previous models of leadership in which the rabbi maintained complete control and did everything for members of the congregation.”
Another colleague said: “The push now is to change the image of the rabbi. It is no longer the distant holy man, but rather that of a hand-holder, an educator to inspire and teach . . . The idea is to empower the congregant to be a more active member of the Jewish community.”
The second area Rabbi Priesand refers to is the impact of feminism on Jewish theology. She says: “Like most of you, I too grew up with the image of God as King, omnipotent and clearly male. My congregation has given me the opportunity, through experience and study, discussion and experimentation, to discover new models of divinity, to know that God embodies characteristics – both masculine and feminine – to fashion for myself and hopefully for them, a meaningful theology.”
I think that is absolutely true and I see it and hear it among the teen-agers with whom I work. All of us today have a more inclusive concept of God than many of us did growing up. We struggle with language, deleting “Lord” and changing “King” to “Sovereign” – things you sometimes kid me about. I want you to know that they are important. We are struggling to figure out what it is we really believe about God. Some of the terms that women have come up with are at least as helpful to men as they are to women in our spiritual search.
The third lesson Rabbi Priesand says she has learned from her congregation is that success does not mean bigger. “Twenty years ago, I thought the ultimate goal was to become a rabbi of a large congregation; Indeed, as the first woman to be ordained, I thought it was my obligation . . . Fortunately, for my own well-being, my congregation taught me to reject that notion. Life is not measured by wealth or power, material possessions or fame. Life is counted in terms of goodness and growth. Someone once said that our purpose in living is not to get ahead of other people, but to get ahead of ourselves, always to play a better game of life. That’s what success is all about. Have we done our best? Are we continuing to grow?”
I want you to know that women have changed the placement system of the Reform Rabbinate. It is becoming harder and harder to get candidates for large pulpits. We wondered at the beginning why more women were not applying for these positions. The answer is because they’re putting a much higher priority on family time, on personal relationships, and we men are learning from them.
If I may speak very personally, I grew up in a congregation of 1800 families. I spent the first seven years of my rabbinate as Assistant then Associate Rabbi in a congregation of 1400 families. That is more than 4,000 souls. We had 50 to 60 b’nai mitzvah a year – doubles regularly on Shabbos morning. People came and went and the rabbis may never have even met them, let alone have gotten to know them.
I choose to serve a congregation of 500 families, where I know just about every member. I know many of our Religious School students by name and last month, I had the great joy of officiating at 2 Bar Mitzvah ceremonies of children whose parents I had welcomed as a Bat Mitzvah and Bar Mitzvah. Toward the end of this month, I trust that many of you will help celebrate with Nancy and me the upcoming marriage of our son, who grew up in your midst and whom you all know.
Speaking at The Women in the Rabbinate: Dynamics of Change conference, Rabbi Debra Cantor warned her colleagues to protect themselves against the expectations of being “superwomen.” “Our calling, however lofty, does not demand that we sacrifice our lives in the process of serving God and Israel. Self-destruction, the neglect of family and friends, workaholism, these are pernicious, late 20th century American values. They are not Jewish values.” Rabbi Cantor’s male colleagues can only say “amen” to that.
I want you to know that I hold rabbis to the highest standards. I hate lazy, sloppy, uncaring colleagues and am pleased that there are so few of them. I can tell you that my female colleagues are every bit as competent and dedicated as my male colleagues. Rabbi Ellen Lewis wrote as follows: “Women rabbis are perceived differently from our male colleagues; in many ways, we are different. You have read the theories about how women and men operate differently. In Deborah Tannen’s latest book, she claims that women and men use language differently; Carol Gilligan . . . describes how women work differently from men to achieve community. I think a lot of this is true; and yet it is also important to remember that not all women work in the same way. For all our shared experiences, we do not all have the same personalities, strengths and weaknesses, nor do we have the same goals. Some of us are nurturing, others are not; women rabbis certainly do not have a corner on nurturance. Some of us prefer to be in small congregations; others enjoy the resources and stimulation of a larger congregation. Some of us prefer Hillel to congregations, part-time to full- time, chaplaincies, religious education, federation, or UAHC work. In this sense, we are no different from our male colleagues. We look to the rabbinate to welcome us with all our differences, to affirm what each individual rabbi can contribute, to broaden the diversity of the rabbinate.”
The Biblical text is the product of its time, even if its message is eternal. We are the products of different circumstances and of different needs. Yet these modern circumstances and needs may find an echo in the ancient characters, despite the sexist writing. Sarah may indeed represent the feminine side of Judaism in exactly the same way as Abraham represents the masculine , and Rebekah is the strong, feminine counterpart of Isaac. Therefore, it is especially legitimate to stress the importance of Jewish women’s leadership and passionate, committed service on this Shabbat to which Sarah has given her name.
In that spirit, I predict that we are very quickly approaching the time when female rabbis will be accepted as absolutely the equals of males, and we will not make any distinctions between male and female rabbis. Then the rabbinate will be a better place for all, allowing us to be responsive to our congregants and responsible to our families and ourselves. Each of us, male and female, want to do our part to continue Jewish tradition - l’dor va-dor may- atah v’adolam – from generation to generation, from now and forever. Amen
This message is dedicated to my daughter-in-love.
I look forward to her also becoming my colleague with anticipation and confidence.
