Sermon: Sh’lach l’cha – Tallit and the Patriarchy

Written by Rabbi Hannah Kingston — 30 July 2024

Two weeks ago, following leading a Shabbat morning service, I headed straight on a train to Liverpool, decked head to toe in glitter for Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour in Anfield stadium. With 152 tour dates across five continents, the tour has broken records as the highest grossing tour, with highest attendance at many of the stadiums, and the highest grossing concert film of all time produced alongside it.

 

It is no wonder the term ‘The Taylor Swift Effect’ has been coined. It captures the impact that Swift has had not just on music but on society as a whole.  Taylor Swift epitomises what many young women want to be – powerful, financially independent, not in need of a man. And by doing this, she is subverting the patriarchal order.

 

Yet her success is being resisted, not just by more conservative men who feel threatened by her refusal to conform to stereotypes, but also by more traditional women, who continue to glamourise the trad wife role of women on social media, seemingly erasing the struggles of generations of women for self-determination.

 

It seems that in every generation, and every societal structure, there are people who fight against the patriarchy, and anti-feminists who fight against them.

 

 

Like most ancient religions, Judaism has been built on a patriarchal social order, placing key religious tasks in the hands of men. The rabbis were a product of their times, and upheld the patriarchy as their mode of social organisation, largely based on the rules of Torah. They did not seek equality for women and therefore it was not achieved.

 

And further there are times when it could be argued that the rabbis actively stopped women from achieving equality by exempting them from things they are obligated to do by Torah law.

 

Today in Torah we read the third paragraph of the Shma, the obligation to wear fringes on the corners of our clothing. Tzitzit the only garment that we are actually commanded to wear by Torah law. And the commandment designates all of Israel, both men and women alike saying:

Speak to the Israelite people and instruct them to make for themselves fringes on the corners of their garments throughout the ages.

 

From this passage, the sages initially deem that women are obligated in the wearing of tzitzit, even giving an example of a sage helping his wife to dress in the ritual garment.

 

 

 

However, the sages later decide that the wearing of tzitzit is a positive time-bound commandment, making it part of the category of mitzvot that women are exempted from. And therefore, women not partaking in the mitzvah of tzitzit or wearing a tallit therefore becomes a new assertion under the patriarchy of rabbinic Judaism.

 

Contextually, there is justification in exempting women from this category of mitzvot. Women as mothers and homemakers may have struggled to partake in commandments where travel or time played a crucial element. However, exempting women from the obligation, and prohibiting them from doing it outright, are two very different things.

 

In orthodox communities today, women are actively prevented from wearing the ritual garment of tallit. One of the arguments against women partaking in this mitzvah is that tallit is viewed as a traditionally male garment. Therefore a woman wearing a tallit is cross dressing, violating the statute that men and women are biblically forbidden to wear clothing associated with the other gender.

 

There is also an argument that by wearing a tallit, a woman draws undue attention to her excessive piety, making the act wearing a tallit by a woman, ostentatious.

 

The 20th century rabbi and legal authority, Moshe Feinstein, argues that a woman who desires to wear a tallit may do so, provided that she wears a distinctively feminine tallit, to avoid the problem of cross dressing.

 

However, he cautions that this applies only to women whose desire to wear a tallit stems from a yearning to fulfil the mitzvah of tzitzit, and not to individuals who don a tallit as a “protest,” a means of challenging what they perceive to be a gender bias in traditional Jewish law.

 

But unfortunately the act of wearing tallit by women will continue to be, in part, an act of protest until we have true equality in our Judaism.

 

It is not that many years ago that over 50 women were arrested at the Western Wall for wearing a tallit. The tallit therefore, has become a symbol for the Women of the Wall and people from all over the world have purchased a tallit from the organisation to show their support for equality Jewish practice.

 

Following their fight for the legal right for women to wear tallit at the kotel, the Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court’s ruled just last year that guards at the Western Wall may no longer search women for Torah scrolls or books, and ritual garments.

 

And yet even though this was major win for women, the battle is not won.

 

Because even in our wonderful, egalitarian community, led in prayer by female and male rabbis and lay leaders, there is still a discrepancy between women and men. Because our boys, once they become Bar Mitzvah, are expected to wear a tallit when on the bimah performing a mitzvah, whilst our girls are only encouraged to do so.

 

It seems strange that we feel unable to equalise this mitzvah throughout reform Judaism, when the ritual garment of tallit is the only garment mandated for all by Torah law, and for which we receive specific reasons as to why we need to wear it. We are told:

look at it and recall all the commandments of God and observe them, so that you do not follow your heart and eyes in your lustful urge.

 

Wearing tallit can be such a powerful act. The tallit is our tangible reminder to behave in a certain way. Further, the tallit binds us to the history of our people. It is a visual symbol of our identity and a sense of belonging.

 

And individually the experience of wearing tallit, can feel like being wrapped in something holy, a way of creating a sacred space for prayer. For we are told to tie tzitzit onto the kanfei big’deihem, “the corners of [our] garments.” The word for corner, kanfei, shares its root with kanaf, meaning wings. The act of wrapping oneself in a tallit, can also be like wrapping oneself in the wings of the divine presence.

 

Wearing tallit as a woman is an act of protest, but it is also a vehicle for spirituality, a wrapping of comfort and protection, a tie to our history, and a commandment that all are bound in.

 

We should feel empowered to try this mitzvah, to see how it feels for ourselves.

And in doing so we begin to challenge the patriarchal norms of our Judaism.

And by doing this we begin work towards a truly equal future, one where as many girls are wearing a tallit for their bat mitzvah, as boys for their bar mitzvah.

And then tallit will no longer be an act of protest, because there will be no gender bias to challenge.

And then we will all have the opportunity to be wrapped in the kanfei shechinah, the wings of the divine presence.