Women and Simchat Torah in the Blogosphere

I am joining a long list of Jewish bloggers (see below) who have recently been discussing women's participation in hakafot on Simchat Torah. In my new community of Ra'anana I had the choice on Simchat Torah morning of attending three different tefillot: 1) a shul which does not permit women to dance with the Torah, 2) a shul which not only allowed women to dance with the Torah but also allowed women on the women's side to lead some of the hakafot alongside the men on the men's side and 3) the local women's tefilla, which of course, had a sefer Torah and women led their own hakafot.

Some friends and I debated whether option number 2 or 3 suited us best (I, like Shanna, just feel too sad to daven in a shul where women cannot dance with the Torah. It truly diminishes the amount of simchat yom tov I feel). Some felt it was better to be together with our families in a shul which allowed us to dance with a sefer Torah and participate in hakafot, where there was a real feeling of community. Others felt more comfortable attending women's tefilla, where women could sing and lead hakafot as loudly as they would like without feeling inhibited nor having to worry about issues of tzniut.

I guess I should just feel lucky that I had such choices!

Here is a list of bloggers who discussed women's participation on Simchat Torah. I hope that reading some of these thoughts will help create sensitivity and understanding about why it is so important for women to have the option to dance with the Torah.

• Devarim
• Mirty's Place
• Barefoot Jewess (via Mirty-thanks)
• The Jewish Connection
• Drew Kaplan's Blog
• The Orthodox Paradox
• DovBear
• Hirhurim

If I missed any, let me know.

Comments

[orthomom]

Thanks for the compilation! It's great to be able to read all the posts at once.