Reading From the Torah -- No Longer Just for Men

Gloria Rodríguez

February 9, 2004

As Tamar Blanchard finished her reading of the Torah, the women in the basement area of the New York City synagogue joined and melodically chanted the words with her. What was at first a distinctive 12-year-old's voice, struggling at times to pronounce her Hebrew correctly, soon turned into a chorus of about 100 women, chanting and dancing. The women gathered around her and moved in a circle as they clapped to celebrate her bat mitzvah, or Jewish coming of age.

This was Blanchard's first time reading from the Torah in front of her congregation at Ohab Zedek in the Upper West Side. While the women celebrated the bat mitzvah in the lower level of synagogue, the men attended a service in the main sanctuary. Jewish girls who have just turned 12 often celebrate their bat mitzvahs and boys who have just turned 13 celebrate their bar mitzvahs. "Bar" means son of and "bat" means daughter of, while "mitzvah" means commandment, said Yehudit Robinson, who helped lead Blanchard's service. The reading of the Torah symbolizes entering the adult Jewish community and taking on the commandments of being a Jew.

The practice of Orthodox women celebrating their bat mitzvahs by leading a women's service is becoming more popular in Orthodox synagogues from South Carolina to New York. While many synagogues, especially Hasidic and ultra-Orthodox congregations, still do not allow women to read from the Torah, more modern Orthodox Jewish women are starting to do so.

"It's especially meaningful to me because for a long time, it was not considered the norm," said Robinson, who did not read from the Torah during her bat mitzvah. "It's nice for me personally to participate in this type of ceremony. I'm happy other women are having these types of ceremonies."

Sara Rosen, a member of the Brith Sholom Beth Israel synagogue in Charleston, South Carolina, said she has seen the number of bat mitzvahs increase there. And at The Friends of Chabad in Birmingham, Ala., there is a bat mitzvah club, where young women prepare girls a year before their bat mitzvah by studying about the role of Jewish women. Some girls have a service, give a speech afterwards and have a celebration, but they are not called up to the Torah there, said Rabbi Yossi Posner.

"In many, many communities, they are not called to the Torah," he said. "For us, it marks the stage they become adults. To me, being a Jew is not just about being called to the Torah."

Still, there's no denying the power of the Torah reading in a Jewish service.

"It's a source of our heritage and faith that reminds us we're always supposed to be thinking of the people in the Torah and their narratives," said Robinson, a teacher at Manhattan Day School. "The goal is to connect us to our past and say this past is very much our present and our future as well."

During Blanchard's service, four women, including Robinson, surrounded the Torah scroll on a table in the middle of the room. Two women held each side of the Torah at all times. Blanchard, with golden brown hair, wore a simple long white dress and smiled throughout the service. After Blanchard's reading of the Torah, the women threw fruit candies at her. The candies, soft Sunkist fruit candies wrapped in plastic, are symbolic because of their sweetness, representing the sweetness of the day, said Rachelle Eve Leon, who attended the bat mitzvah, and is a student at Queens College.

The chanting and dancing with Blanchard followed, and the Torah was then given to an older woman who sat with it in the middle of the room. Neshama Carlebach, a singer well known in the Orthodox Jewish community, led the women in a Hebrew song with her smooth, relaxing voice. The women, all wearing skirts below the knees and many married women wearing hats, which most Orthodox married women do, sang and swayed to the melodic Hebrew tune. The woman who was holding the Torah walked to the platform in front of the wall area that stores the Torah, known as the Holy Ark. The singing got more intense as the woman walked up the platform to put the Torah in its storage area.

The women then performed a part of the service called Musaf. At this point, the women bowed repeatedly as they read parts of the Siddur (prayer book) individually. The service book said the women should be silent and undisturbed by interruption. Musaf means an additional prayer for the Sabbath, Robinson said. The words "Blessed art thou God" are repeated throughout the prayer and one often bows before saying God's name, Robinson said.

The service, which lasted over an hour, ended soon after Musaf, and the women joined the men upstairs. The main sanctuary looks similar to that of a Catholic church, with its stained glass windows. The Star of David decorates the dome ceiling at the top of the building.

Blanchard stood at a podium in front of the room and gave a long speech. She thanked several family members, especially those who traveled to New York from Los Angeles, Washington D.C., and other parts of New York. She expressed her thanks to her family and friends, ending with her father, who she told, "Everybody says I'm like you. I hope that's true." Everybody laughed. Perhaps now she can relate to her father in a different way because, she too, read from the Torah on her Jewish coming of age.

(Updated May 12, 2004)