Women of the Wall

     Yesterday we went on a Jewish History tiyul to the Kotel and joined the women of the wall. It started as it normally would, then without anyone taking notice, a man passes a small Torah from the men's side (he opens the gate and shits it quickly) and U.S. Women continue to pray and begin using the Torah. Once the men realize what has happened, they open the gate and men come rushing in physically pushing their way through women on the women's side of the wall. They were screaming things in Hebrew and yelling הספר שלי (the book/Torah is ours) and women were shouting back הספר שלנו (the book/Torah is ours). It went on like this for about 5 mins with shouting and pushing and men trying to take back the Torah before the guards showed up and got all the men back on their side.

     I grew up in a private (orthodox) Jewish school, and I had an modern orthodox bat mitzvah. I had it at 12 and instead of reading from the Torah, I recited the ashes chayil with translation. Everything I was taught about Judaism is against the idea of women reading Torah. Many of the people that were there think of how terrible the orthodox men are and were acting, and in some sense I can understand why they are mad at them, but thinking deeper about the topic, they have a right to be angry. They have the same right to their belief as we do to  ours. All they saw was a bunch of Reformed Jews taking a Torah from the men's side and reading it with all the women. This is against the entire base of their beliefs and of Hal'cha. I don't know if I can agree or disagree with what happened yesterday 100%, all I know is that I am so happy that I was there to witness the first time a Torah was brought on the women's side at the Kotel. I can't help but feeling an outrage of pride and joy for being there on a very important day in Jewish history/