A graduation ceremony taking place in New York this week is a historic moment for British Jewry. Rabbi Miriam Lorie is not the first Brit to qualify from Yeshivat Maharat, the pioneering Orthodox academy that ordains women. But she is the first to actually lead a community here, Kehillat Nashira, the independent partnership minyan (PM) in Borehamwood founded in 2013. And she will not be Maharat’s last British student: another three are currently enrolled there.
Quite how historic, however, may not be apparent for a generation. Neither PMs – Orthodox services where women are able to leyn from the Torah and lead parts of the services – nor the concept of a woman rabbi are accepted as valid within Jewish law by the Chief Rabbi. Nonetheless, within the institutional mainstream, women have made gains.
It was just over 30 years ago that Chief Rabbi Sacks gave women the vote at the United Synagogue Council, whereas previously they could attend only as observers.
One by one, the hurdles to greater participation fell. Women were subsequently permitted to become local synagogue officers, then chairs and, more recently, to stand as president of the United Synagogue (US) itself. Whereas the odd women’s-only service used to have take place off synagogue premises, now various prayer groups meet in shuls. It is common practice for US congregations to recruit a rabbinic couple, which recognises the role of a rebbetzin within a community. New courses and qualifications for women educators have been set up, such as the Chief Rabbi’s Ma’ayan programme – even if not everyone may be familiar with what a ma’ayan is (it’s not the female equivalent of a dayan).
Still for some people, as long as the title “rabbi” is considered the preserve of Orthodox men, it enshrines the notion of a male hierarchy. The pace of evolution has been slow. The few PMs that exist tend to meet for Shabbat services every few weeks – although Keshillat Nashira runs other activities during the week; for the rest of the time their supporters attend regular shuls, in a sense leading parallel religious lives.
Three years ago controversy rumbled over the forthcoming ordination of the second British graduate from Yeshivat Maharat. Rabba Dr Lindsey Taylor-Guthartz was told she was going to lose her research fellowship at the London School of Jewish Studies, whose president is the Chief Rabbi.
But after protests, compromise was reached and she was quickly reinstated – even if to outsiders it contains a hint of the absurd. In her LSJS hat, LTG is plain “Dr”: but when she teaches elsewhere, for example on the egalitarian yeshivah Azara she helped to found, she returns to “Rabba Dr”.
The question is what happens next. Some believe Rabbi Lorie’s ordination will be a game-changer. Her appointment shows that PMs are not a passing phenomenon even if their number has not exploded. The conservatism of British Jewry with its institutional loyalties and attachment to tradition should never be under-estimated. Yet as more girls at Jewish schools see their peers reading from the Torah at PM bat mitzvahs and more young women study at seminaries in Israel that teach Talmud, the demand for change is surely going to grow. The present Chief Rabbi may be spared having to grapple with further challenges during his tenure but it may well be unavoidable for his successor.
A British Chief Rabbi, however, is unlikely to act unilaterally without movement elsewhere in the Jewish world. For Modern Orthodoxy to set aside its halachic objections to PMs and women rabbis and accept their validity would be to put clear blue water between it and the growing Charedi right. The risk of a schism within Orthodoxy is why many rabbis would be reluctant to take the plunge.
But if more independent minyanim offering greater religious opportunity for women spring up and lure members away from established synagogue bodies, if more women follow in the trailblazing footsteps of Rabbi Lorie and others, then the pressure on the mainstream may become irresistible.
It is even possible to see even within the current framework that a woman could emerge as nominal head of a US community. Some ritual duties may halachically be denied her. But as a teacher, speaker and pastor, by force of her knowledge and personality, her congregants could acknowledge her as their spiritual leader, with or without the title rabbi.
