Egalitarianism is crucial to liberal Judaism, but Orthodoxy differentiates between girls’ and boys’ rites of passage out of a belief in the Torah’s unique roles for each gender

Rabbi N. Daniel Korobkin
Beth Avraham Yoseph Congregation, Toronto

Rabbi Lisa Grushcow
Temple Emanu-El-Beth Sholom, Montreal

Rabbi Grushcow: Recently, these pages have spurred conversation about the phenomenon of group bnot mitzvah. Our congregation currently is re-examining what it means for young people to become bnei mitzvah in our community, and we are asking lots of questions about what we want the kids to learn, what expectations we have of them and what we can offer them. 

In all this discussion, one point of absolute agreement has been the commitment to  egalitarianism: we ask of our girls what we ask of our boys. Both our boys and our girls become bnei mitzvah individually at services, and both read from the Torah. They always rise to the occasion. In Montreal, though, we are well aware that many families choose group bnot mitzvah for the daughters, through their day schools or other community institutions. I’m curious as to your thinking on this issue.

Rabbi Korobkin: We’re worlds apart on this one. 

In liberal Judaism, the 11th commandment
is, “Thou shalt be egalitarian.” In traditional Judaism, the differences between the genders don’t just stop with physiology and morphology, but run far deeper in the way we function, the way we think and the way we relate to God.

As we approach Shavuot, we can look at how the Torah was presented to the Jews at Mount Sinai. The Talmud teaches that God offered the Torah
separately to each gender – women first and then men – precisely because of the differentiated roles of men and women in the home, community and
synagogue. So while egalitarianism is an overriding concern for you, our shul differentiates between bnei and bnot mitzvah precisely because of the Torah’s unique respective assignments to men and women. 

That said, we do our utmost to individually highlight the unique talents and achievements of each and every bar and bat mitzvah. We make every effort to ensure that no one feels “less than” or “more than.”

Rabbi Grushcow: It seems to me that you are presenting the conversation as follows: your approach to Judaism is true to the Torah, while mine is shaped by external values. But as we both know, there is more than one way to understand the Torah.

Two examples leap to mind. First, the Creation story. There are actually two: one, with both man and woman made simultaneously in the image of God, and the other, with Eve formed from Adam’s side. This tells us that there were different understandings of gender even at the beginning of human history.

Second, I am always struck by how Moses’ instructions to the Israelites as they prepare for revelation vary from the instructions given by God. Moses says the people (here, addressing the men) must not go near a woman. God says nothing of the sort. This passage suggests that all this focus on gender may be a human invention, rather than divine intention.

If Torah is central to our shared tradition, how can we say that a girl not reading from the Torah at a bat mitzvah is not “less than” a boy reading Torah at a bar mitzvah? Where else do we accept “separate but equal” as an answer? 

Rabbi Korobkin: If the sole focal point of religious life were the synagogue and only boys were called to the Torah and not girls, then you’d be right. 

But traditionally, there are three focal forums of religious expression: the home, the study hall and the synagogue. The synagogue, which is the forum for public prayer, is the least important of the three. In the study hall (or school), girls have the same opportunity as boys to excel in their religious studies. And the home is the purview primarily of the Jewish woman, who maintains the religious environment and spiritual warmth necessary to foster Judaism and Jewish identity for her entire family. It is that role which is the most important of all, and that is why girls are not “less than” when they don’t read from the Torah in shul.

The fact that the Jewish woman’s role is so vital to the continuity of our people is precisely why God offered the Torah to the women first, knowing that their role in perpetuating Judaism would be the more important of the two gender-specific assignments. Looked upon in this light, the modern-day pantheon of “equality” is truly a non sequitur.