Partnership Minyan - Support For Partnership Minyanim

Support For Partnership Minyanim

The existence of partnership minyanim was preceded by an opinion by Modern Orthodox Rabbi Mendel Shapiro in 2001, subsequently joined by Bar-Ilan University Talmud Professor Rabbi Daniel Sperber, claiming that halakha (Jewish law) permits Orthodox women to be called to, and to read from, the Torah on Shabbat under certain conditions. These opinions rely on earlier authorities including the Magen Avraham. Dr. Joel B. Wolowelsky also expressed an opinion which, while not offering a formal opinion on the halachic issues, suggested that the partnership minyan enterprise was not necessarily inconsistent with an Orthodox hashkafah (outlook).

Rabbi Shapiro's analysis focused on a Baraita (non-Mishnaic received oral tradition) in the Babylonian Talmud stating that:

The Rabbis taught (teno) that anyone can be numbered among the seven, even a minor, even a woman. But the Sages said that we do not call a woman to the Torah because of Kevod HaTzibur (the dignity of the congregation). (Megillah 23a).

Rabbi Shapiro's primary argument, based on the language of this baraita as well as traditional commentaries to it, was that women were only discouraged from performing public Torah reading based on a social concern for the dignity of the congregation ("Kevod HaTzibur"). While Jewish law usually demands that public rituals be led by those who are obligated in that particular ritual- and women are generally considered to be not obligated in public Torah reading- R. Shapiro demonstrated that public Torah reading is an exception, based on the baraita's explicitly allowing a minor, who is also not obligated, to lead. therefore, he argued, only "the dignity of the congregation" was invoked to discourage women from reading. He then analyzed the weight of the "dignity of the congregation" prohibition. Analyzing authorities on the law of Kevod HaTzibur, he noted a number of other situations which were rabbinically prohibited due to the "dignity of the congregation", such as rolling a Torah scroll in front of the congregation or having a person too young to have a beard serve as Hazzan (cantor). Citing authorities who held that congregational dignity could be waived in some of these matters, including the common practice of having teenagers lead the congregation in contemporary synagogues, he concluded that a congregation could waive its dignity on this issue as well, and an Orthodox congregation choosing to do so could call a woman to the Torah in much the same way that it could choose to have a teenager lead prayers at a Bar Mitzvah. Rabbi Shapiro also briefly addressed certain other objections, arguing for example that because some authorities have held that women can read the Megilla on Purim to men, chanting the Megilla, and hence the Torah, is not a kind of singing subject to restrictions on the issue of kol isha, the female singing voice.

Rabbi Sperber agreed with Rabbi Shapiro's argument that the baraita in Megillah 23a indicated that the Sages instituted "we do not call a woman" as a later prohibition, and that calling a woman was originally permitted. He focused on the concept of Kevod HaBriyot ("human dignity"), a Talmudic concept by which rabbinical prohibitions are sometimes waived in order to preserve honor or dignity. Noting that the concept had received modern applications by Orthodox decisors including an opinion by Rabbi Eliezer Waldenberg permitting wearing a hearing aid on Shabbat (based on a Talmudic opinion overriding the rabbinic prohibition against carrying on Shabbat to permit a person needing to defecate to carry wiping material), Rabbi Shapiro argued that the Kevod HaBriyot concept could be applied to override the rabbinic prohibition against calling women to the Torah on grounds of human dignity or respect.

Dr. Wolowelsky wrote that although the Talmud appears to have an iron-clad rule that a Kohen should always be called to the Torah first and early practice gave precedence to Torah scholars, the Magen Avraham proposed the then-novel idea that individuals observing special occasions, such as a wedding or Bar Mitzvah, should have precedence. The Magen Avraham's view eventually prevailed, and subsequent commentators, including Rabbi Ovadiah Yosef, developed his ideas to the point of creating various exceptions under which a Yisrael observing a special occasion could sometimes be called first even if a Kohen is present and refuses to waive the first aliyah. Observing that it is important to be able to tell whether a new approach can be considered a legitimate effort to develop the tradition or an illegitimate attempt to manipulate it, he suggested that changes in traditional concepts of respect involved in the idea of sometimes calling a woman to the Torah based on the Magen Avraham's ideas, may not necessarily be any more radical or threatening to the tradition, from a hashkfic (outlook or worldview) point of view, than the changes involved in developments leading to sometimes not calling a Kohen first.