Thoughts about the Mechitza – a Religious and Cultural Entity

We have these friends, Ari and Stacy Goldberg who raised an amazing daughter Rina. Unfortunately Rina was a very sick child and yet her intelligence, both the intuitive reactions of a child and the wisdom of an old soul was beyond incredible. At her funeral this past winter (Rina was 15 when she died), Ari told the following story. When the Goldbergs moved to our community in Elkins Park, Pennsylvania some years ago, for a variety of reasons, they decided to call the Young Israel of Elkins Park their shul. They proceeded to explain to Rina that there would be separate seating of boys and girls and that she would sit with Ima while Abba would sit with the boys, as this was not the case in their previous dovenning (prayer) community. They then explained that there would be a divider, the Mechitza. Ari continued that they were unsure of how Rina would respond to this new phenomenon. After she saw it, she was exuberant and claimed that she liked the statement of “Girl Power!”

This story has stayed with me and added an important dimension as I have watched the continuing drama of the Mechitza unfold in our various Orthodox congregations. I want to specify that for the purposes of this discussion I am not discussing the Yeshiva or the Right (more Haredi type) part of Orthodox spectrum, but rather those of us in the Modern Orthodox world in its widest breadth.

Having grown up as a clearly observant Halachic Jew in the Conservative movement (yes, many communities like this existed pre 1975), I remember Conservative shuls that had separate seating options, the low and reasonable (meeting the standards of Halacha) Mechitzas in the Orthodox shuls in which I found myself and of course have very specific memories of the “Mechitza-in-the-round” of Lincoln Square Synagogue during my college years. My world was NOT the world of Ner Yisrael, Black Hats, and floor to ceiling separations between men who were active and women who were passive and barely present. Rather we were all observant of Halacha while interacting with each other as appropriate. This is my history; this is my context!

So, today I am somewhere between amused, confused, and just plain baffled regarding the increasing height and separation wielded by the Mechitzot that people build….. and I am NOT talking about the Yeshiva world! I once had the experience in a Community Jewish Day School where a few young men wanted to build a “bigger and better” Mechitza than the one that was there and as a result the Mechitza in this school now separates and divides more than the one at the local Orthodox Jewish High School in the same community.

People want the most and the biggest and the thickest Mechitza! People hate the Mechitza! People are confused about the Mechitza! Is this political, religious, historical, cultural or some combination of all of the above?

So, now I will continue with a story about a very different Mechitza. In Yerushalayim, the shul of choice for most of our family is Shira Hadasha. They have what we affectionately call “the moving Mechitza.” After so much thought and scholarly study and exploration and learning, this congregation makes the distinction between those things that we do because of obligation (chiyuv) and who has the obligation in certain aspects of the service such as Kaddish and other Devarim she B’Kedusha – thus requiring the needed Minyan of men, davening Shaharit, and so on. In such situations, one is halachically bound to make a distinction between those with the chiyuv (in this case, men) and those who do not have the same level of chiyuv (women). This makes sense in terms of the Mechitza.

True, there are many other explanations – women and men should not look at each other (definitely a problem those years ago at the Mechitza-in-the-round shul in New York), people will talk (don’t even get me started on the lack of success the Mechitza has on this score!) and so many others, some legitimate issues and others, well…. Let’s just say some of the explanations have as much to do with Halacha, I mean actual Halacha, as the decision made in one Israeli community for women to wear Burkas to practice the modesty that is part of our law!

So, in dovenning at Shira Hadasha, given that they push so many limits within the frame of Halacha in terms of what women can and will do in the public domain (i.e. participate in those part of the service dictated by minhag more than chiyuv, give Divrei Torah, make announcements – which by the way, one President of a Modern Orthodox shul recently told me was against Halacha, you can imagine my surprise on that one! --, and just be present and visible and valued as part of the Kehilah), I wonder sometimes about the moving Mechitzah, closed when chiyuv separates the group and open appropriately when it does not.

And then I finally got it, after 10 years of dovenning in this wonderful space. It’s Rina’s voice in my head saying “Girl Power!” Yes, we can come together as men and women, both separate and equal, respectfully and halachically. This was the original idea I grew up with when Modern Orthodox (just called Orthodox in those days, plain old Orthodox!) and Halachic Conservative Jews learned, prayed and lived together in shared Jewish spaces. Funny enough, I meet some of those people from my long ago past in Baltimore from time to time. Guess where… Yes, you guessed, at Shira Hadasha on Emek Refaim in Jerusalem!