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OTS maintains that women have the same right, ability and capacity as men to participate fully in the Jewish world. The Midreshet Lindenbaum college was founded and indeed, flourishes on this principle, prying open doors that had previously been locked to Jewish women. Since its inception more than two decades ago, Midreshet Lindenbaum has paved new highways in the education and rights of Jewish women, literally changing the course of modern Jewish history.

Oriya Mevorach

“It’s important for women to acquire a broad base of knowledge and to have the capability of contributing to Jewish discourse,” declares Oriya Mevorach, a student in the four-year old “Chachamot” Women’s Leadership Program, where she is following a course of halacha and Talmud study parallel to that of male rabbinical students. Mevorach believes the program will fill a tremendous void in the religious community: the lack of female leaders who are well versed in Talmud and Jewish law and can thus influence the halachic decision-making process for modern Orthodox society. “This is not an important goal only for women,” she says, “it’s a goal that should also be important to men, because halacha directs the lives of men and women alike,” she emphasizes.

“Never before in Jewish history have women scholars studied such a wide body of halacha on such a high level,” confirms Rabbi Ohad Tehar-Lev, director of the Israeli programs at Midreshet Lindenbaum. “When they graduate, they will be qualified to offer true spiritual leadership and authoritative halachic guidance to the entire modern Jewish world.”

“I Can Do That”

Two of the course participants have already begun working in the field: Mevorach and fellow student Nechama Porat are honing their spiritual leadership skills and using the halachic knowledge they have attained in their work as “ramiyot” in the Midreshet Lindenbaum beit midrash. “A ’ram’ is an acronym for ’rav-moreh,’ says Tehar-Lev, and specifically refers to the role of rabbis who teach and counsel students in yeshivot. “Mevorach and Porat are filling that role for students at Midreshet Lindenbaum, teaching and guiding participants in the Tushia, Bogrot, Shachar and Hadas Women’s Hesder Programs. One could say they are ’Apprentice Chachamot.’

”Both women teach classes in Chassidut and Jewish Thought, and both offer classes in Gemara – the hallmark of the Midreshet Lindenbaum curricula. “But we define our position as something broader,” says Mevorach. “On the one hand we teach; we are Torah educators. On the other hand, we offer our students support, warmth, guidance and love. However, the bottom line is that they are able to relate to us as knowledgeable role models in the realms of Torah, spirituality, and halacha.”

“I know the students personally and have a strong connection with each one, to the extent that I discuss everyday things with them, like pregnancies or current events,” Mevorach continues. “But at the same time, Nechama and I are figureheads who serve as personal examples in demonstrating that Jewish knowledge can and should be attained by women. Ultimately, no matter what profession a woman enters she should feel that the Jewish books on the shelf in her home belong to her and not only to her husband.”

“When I was growing up,” says Porat, “I had some excellent Jewish studies teachers, but I did not have a true mentor; there were no women that I could point to and say ’I can do that, I strive to be where she is.’ The women we teach have that. They see us in roles of leadership, and take for granted that they too can study what they want and become influential teachers or mentors without giving up on their femininity,” she says.

Both Porat and Mevorach stress that it was only when they arrived at Midreshet Lindenbaum that they were exposed to inspiring role models in the form of Malka Pietrokowsky and Shani Taragin. “That was a tremendous motivating force,” says Mevorach. “Personally, I try to emulate Malka’s model in my teaching. I feel that there should be more learned women like her and I believe that if I can achieve that, then my students will feel that they can potentially achieve it too.”

A Paradigm Shift

Rabbi Shuki Reich heads the Leadership Program and teaches the halacha classes. When preparing Porat and Mevorach for their new roles as “ramiyot,” he pointed out that the Torah is written completely from the perspective of men, where the first-person word “I” refers to men, while the third-person “she” is used for women. “But at Midreshet Lindenbaum the paradigm has been switched,” he told them. “The women’s perspective is the first-person ’I’ here. Women are the norm, your female students are the mainstream.”

This was reinforced during a recent visit to the beit midrash at Yeshivat Har Etzion. “We went inside and saw the men learning,” relates Mevorach. “The atmosphere of serious study and vitality in the room was tangible. I kept thinking to myself, our beit midrash is like this too. But afterward, my students said ’you know, their beit midrash is just like ours!’ and I realized that the shift in perspective has already taken root. These young women take the opportunity to learn and achieve as a given.”

Not Just Women’s Issues; Not Just for Women

Nechama Porat

True to its name, the aim of the Women’s Leadership Program is not merely to train women proficient in halacha, but to train women who are capable of true Jewish leadership. “Program graduates will be qualified to answer halachic questions not only for women, and not even only for observant Jews, but for the Jewish people at large,” says Tehar-Lev.

“Women studying at Midreshet Lindenbaum ask me questions and discuss their feelings with me on a variety of subjects that are considered ’women’s issues,’ ranging from head-covering to women singing in public,” remarks Porat. “We are not trying to replace male authority figures; we are women and we are different. As women, we do have the opportunity to delve into areas that men might avoid, and we are naturally more accessible on subjects such as motherhood, sexuality, modesty and couplehood,” she says. “We are capable of providing knowledgeable guidance on so many other subjects as well, such as Shabbat, the laws of mourning, prayer or even common contemporary challenges,” adds Mevorach, “so really, there’s no reason that we should be limited to the area of family purity.”

Porat and Mevorach look forward to the future, where they believe women will be welcomed to apply their education and intelligence to solving contemporary problems and shaping society. “Halachic authorities are the opinion makers,” says Mevorach. “If women who have the same ability as men to understand and interpret halacha are blocked from this leadership, they cannot wield influence. This can change, as more and more women attain knowledge.” She dreams of becoming involved in a movement to educate girls in halacha, “from elementary school through high school and onward, to give them the same background that boys receive so that their opinions will be valued and respected by society from a legal, spiritual and Torah point of view.”

Halacha is Living
In their Gemara classes, Porat and Mevorach strive to address contemporary issues and introduce current themes and applications into the understanding of the material. “We do not teach only from a theoretical perspective,” says Mevorach, “but from one of coming to terms with real life. The halacha is an ever-evolving thing. It’s about life, from life and for the purpose of living. If not, why would people bother studying halacha? They would be satisfied with reading the shulchan aruch and following what it says,” she asserts.

In fact, participants in the program study the evolution of halacha, gaining insight into how laws came to be and how they could possibly even have developed differently. Once the process of ruling is understood, a fully learned and nuanced response can be formulated. “A true spiritual leader will take into account relevant factors, both environmental and individual,” says Rabbi Riskin. “Sometimes things are not black and white.” The program aims to prepare women to be able to respond to current events in which a relevant and moderate halachic voice would benefit general society. “This includes, for instance, organ donations to child abuse; sexual harassment to embezzlement to the redeeming of captive soldiers.”

Not a “Poseket”

“One of my students asked me a question the other day,” relates Mevorach. “I answered her in detail, showed her all the sources, told her what Jewish Law and Thought called for.” But at the same time, Mevorach stressed that if she was looking for a legal decision, she would have to approach a rabbi. “My student was incredulous. ’What do you mean?’ she said. ’You’re my rabbi!’ And that’s the thing, that despite all of the knowledge I have attained, all of my experience and all of my understanding, I am still not qualified to decide halacha. That requires not only knowledge, but the public bestowal of authority and acknowledgment.”

The prevailing view of the Leadership Program’s faculty is that once its graduates have completed the five-year program, they will be heads and shoulders above the average Rabbinate-ordained male rabbi. “And yet,” says Rabbi Riskin “they will not be granted a semicha certificate by the Rabbinate, and their authority as legal decisors and authentic spiritual guides will almost certainly be questioned at first.”

However, Rabbi Riskin believes that the day is not too far in the distant future. “Just as once it was unheard of for women to study Talmud, today women teach it; just as our first class of women rabbinical court advocates garnered tremendous opposition, today they are a natural part of the rabbinical court system and many justices even refer difficult cases specifically to women advocates. Likewise,” he says, “women spiritual leaders and decisors will in fact become an integral part of the Jewish landscape.”

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