TEMPLE TORAT YISRAEL
  • Home
    • Become A Member
    • Members' Pages >
      • Gabbai Group
      • Yahrzeit Form
      • How to be part of shivah...
      • High Holiday Participation
    • Support Us!
  • About Us
    • Heroes in our Midst Blog
    • President's Page
    • Rabbi Aaron's Blog
    • Professional Staff
    • Lay Leadership
    • Social Action
    • Newsletter/Hadashot
    • Links
    • Hours & Directions
  • Events
    • Community Events
    • Shabbat and Holiday Services
    • RSVP Forms
    • Calendar
    • Flyers
  • Education
    • Cohen School >
      • School Registration Form
    • Torah Sprouts
    • Adult Learning
    • Audio Tutorials
    • Bar and Bat Mitzvah preparation

Shabbat Ki Tissa 5772: Another Kind of Torah from Jerusalem

3/6/2012

0 Comments

 
As we take the Torah scroll from the ark we sing "Ki mitzion teitzei Torah" ... For Torah will emanate from Zion and the word of God from Jerusalem."  Part of the cache of our Holy Land is the unique relationship between God and this Land.  For all that the original revelation of Torah was not in the Land, we Jews have looked to the Land for the wisdom and insight of Torah for millennia.
This makes recent events emanating from Israel all the more disturbing:  Ultra-orthodox Jews have intimidated and attacked females from school-age girls to professional women visiting Orthodox neighborhoods on business.

Make no mistake:  This is not the Torah of 90% of the Jewish world.  

But it's easy to draw attention to negatives.  Congregation Moreshet Israel on Agron Street in the center of Jerusalem has decided to walk the talk of another kind of Torah . . . a truer Torah, from Jerusalem.  Led by Dr. Naomi Sarig (a member of the congregation), Rene Feinstein (president of the congregation) and Rabbi Adam Frank (spiritual leader of the congregation), Moreshet Israel has decided to celebrate this year's confluence of Purim and International Women's Day with a Shabbat led entirely by women.  

I am deeply honored that the congregation is flying me to Jerusalem to serve as "Rabbi in the Congregation" for Shabbat.  I will have the pleasure of welcoming a series of formidable, inspiring Jewish women to Moreshet Israel's bimah to teach, to lead prayer, to preach:  Professor Alice Shalvi, founder of the Israel Women's Network, Naomi Sarig
Project Coordinator, Jewish Art and Visual Culture Research Project at Tel Aviv University, Rachel Azaria, a member of the Jerusalem City Council, Emily Levy-Shochat, Chair of the Masorti Movement in Israel . . . and me! 

When I was a rabbinical student, I was studying in the Israeli rabbinical school at The Schechter Institute of Jewish Studies in Jerusalem.  But Schechter was not officially accepting women at that time, so I was officially registered as a student of The Jewish Theological Seminary of New York.  During the first few years of my rabbinical training, Schechter was undergoing a process of studying and examining and contemplating the ordination of women as rabbis. I was privileged to be a student of Rabbi Zev Falk, z"l ... a brilliant and committed and inspired professor of halacha (Jewish Law).  At one of our very intense school-wide discussions of women's ordination at Schechter, Professor Falk got up and said that the Jewish people had been robbed of the teaching and insights of Torah for too long.  We have the Talmud of the men, Professor Falk declared, it is time to train women so that we can also embrace the Talmud of the women. 

Professor Falk used to be a member of the daily minyan at Moreshet Israel, he would have been so proud of the Shabbat we are about to celebrate there this week:  It will be a Shabbat of women's Torah, Talmud, prayer and inspiration.
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    RSS Feed

    Picture
    Rabbi Amy Levin

    Rabbi Amy Levin

    has been Torat Yisrael's rabbi since the summer of 2004 and serves as President of the Board of Rabbis of Greater Rhode Island.  
    Rabbi Levin lived in Israel for 20 years and was the second woman to be ordained by the Masorti/Conservative Movement in Israel.

    Categories

    All
    Aaron / Kohanim
    Abraham
    Adin Steinsaltz
    Anti-Semitism
    At Times Of Tragedy
    Bar / Bat Mitzvah
    Bin Laden
    Blessings
    Bring Back Our Boys
    Community / Kehillah
    Conservative Movement
    Covenant / Brit
    Deborah
    Democracy/Independence
    Deuteronomy / Dvarim
    Dina
    Diversity
    Environment
    Esau
    Exodus / Shmot
    Exodus / Shmot
    Family
    Festivals
    Genesis / Breishit
    Genetic Diseases
    God
    Gun Control
    Haftarah
    Haiti Earthquake
    Halachah / Jewish Law
    Hanukah
    Harold Kushner
    Holiness / Kedushah
    Holocaust / Shoah
    Humility
    Immigration
    Interfaith Relations
    Interfaith Relations
    Isaiah / Yeshayahu
    Israel
    Israel And Jewish Observance
    Jacob
    Jesus/Christianity
    Jewish Fast Days
    Jewish Holidays
    Jewish Identity
    Joseph
    Kashrut
    Kiddush Hashem / Sanctifying God
    Korban / Sacrifice
    Kvod Habriyot
    Labor Day
    Leadership
    Leviticus / Vayikra
    Light
    Masorti: Israeli Conservative Movement
    Memorial Day / Yom Hazikaron
    Micah
    Miracles
    Miriam
    Mitzvah / Commandment
    Month Of Sivan
    Moses
    Mourning / Aveilut
    Nachamu
    Names
    Natural Disaster
    Nelson Mandela
    Noah
    Numbers / Bamidbar
    Passover / Pesach
    Pete Seeger
    Pidyon Shevuyim / Redemption Of Captives
    Poverty
    Power Of Speech
    President Obama
    Privacy And Security
    Psalm 100
    Psalm 104
    Psalm 121
    Psalm 144
    Purim
    Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel
    Rabbi Avraham Soltes
    Rabbi Brad Artson
    Rabbi Laura Geller
    Rabbinical Assembly
    Rabbinic Judaism
    Revelation
    Reverend Martin Luther King
    Sarah
    Seder
    Shabbat
    Shavuot
    Shekalim
    Shifra Alon
    Sinai
    Slavery
    Song Of Songs / Shir Hashirim
    Tabernacle / Temple
    Terrorism
    Thanksgiving
    Tikkun Olam
    Tikkun Olam
    Tisha Bav
    Torah
    Veterans Day
    Western Wall / Old City Of Jerusalem
    Women
    Yael
    Yom Kippur
    Zachor

    Archives

    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012
    January 2012
    December 2011
    June 2011
    May 2011
    April 2011
    March 2011
    February 2011
    January 2011
    December 2010
    November 2010
    August 2010
    July 2010
    June 2010
    May 2010
    April 2010
    March 2010
    February 2010
    January 2010
    December 2009
    November 2009
    October 2009
    August 2009
    July 2009

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.
  • Home
    • Become A Member
    • Members' Pages >
      • Gabbai Group
      • Yahrzeit Form
      • How to be part of shivah...
      • High Holiday Participation
    • Support Us!
  • About Us
    • Heroes in our Midst Blog
    • President's Page
    • Rabbi Aaron's Blog
    • Professional Staff
    • Lay Leadership
    • Social Action
    • Newsletter/Hadashot
    • Links
    • Hours & Directions
  • Events
    • Community Events
    • Shabbat and Holiday Services
    • RSVP Forms
    • Calendar
    • Flyers
  • Education
    • Cohen School >
      • School Registration Form
    • Torah Sprouts
    • Adult Learning
    • Audio Tutorials
    • Bar and Bat Mitzvah preparation