This Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, Drisha, a New York institute for advanced Torah study for women, plans to conduct a hybrid prayer service. In a synagogue with a mechitzah, women will have aliyos, read from the Torah, and lead part of the tefillah. To support this break from Torah-true tradition, Drisha’s director, Rabbi David Silber, references an online article by one Rabbi Mendel Shapiro.

The article is extensively researched, although his argument seems forced. Still, within the realm of theory, Rabbi Shapiro is entitled to explore his subject. Torah study thrives upon originality within the confines of the study hall. However, when it comes to practice, especially to public practice, there are limits, and it is precisely here that Drisha has crossed the line.

A segregated prayer service has been a touchstone of Orthodoxy since the founding of the Reform movement. No party can deviate and continue to declare itself Orthodox. As Rabbi Eliyahu Henkin, zt’l, wrote, “the Torah custom of Israel is that a woman does not ascend [the bimah for an aliyah].” Furthermore, “whereas women’s aliyos have been used as an opening by the assimilators,” the practice cannot be allowed. This thought has been echoed by other leading authorities.

Almost a century ago, Sarah Schenirer, a’h, opened the first religious school for girls. (She did so only after consulting the Chafetz Chaim, zt’l.) Since then, the quality of women’s education, and the degree of their participation in Orthodox Jewish public life, has flourished. Women now serve as to’anot, advocates, within Israel’s religious court system. A few act as yo’atzot, advising other women concerning the laws of family purity — a matter where some women are embarrassed to directly speak with a man. (The yo’atzot in turn consult a rabbi for specific halachic guidance.) Advanced women’s education, often including Talmud study, is common.

Not all these steps have been accepted in all circles, but each has received the imprimatur of respected halachic authorities. Not so with Drisha’s intent to integrate the synagogue. Not so with ordaining women, or accepting them as witnesses, or allowing them to lead the recitation of Birchot HaShachar, the morning blessings (as is done in one Manhattan shul). In these instances, the envelope has been pushed to the ripping point. Can one justify any of these on halachic grounds? Perhaps. But as a friend said in discussing the Drisha decision, “My zeide didn’t do it.” At a certain point, we fall back on tradition.

Rabbi Yosef Dov Soloveitchik, zt’l, the Torah giant who was considered Modern Orthodoxy’s halachic authority, was approached by a young man living in a town without an Orthodox synagogue. He desired to know whether, on Rosh Hashanah, he should attend the town’s Conservative temple in order to hear the shofar or rather daven at home. Rav Soloveitchik insisted that the man pray at home. Rav Soloveitchik might have called upon his considerable scholarship to justify attendance at the Conservative temple. After all, hearing the shofar is a Torah commandment; why miss out on the opportunity? Nonetheless, the Rav knew intuitively that certain lines may not be crossed. His zeide would not have done it, and the Rav could not permit it.

Readers are certainly familiar with the slippery slope theory, wherein an act or policy that is not inherently wrong can lead eventually to one that is. Is Drisha’s noble mission of educating Jewish women merely a guise for pushing the envelope beyond the accepted norms of Orthodox practice? Is Drisha the Trojan horse out of which a heterodoxy is emerging? One hopes that it is not, but one fears that it is.

There is also a disturbing latent sentiment here that it is not enough for women to be women, that they somehow are incomplete Judaically if they cannot do everything a man does. In truth, Judaism has no comment on equality. It does, however, have a comment on roles. And while there is some flexibility in those roles, in the final analysis, “all the honor of the princess is inward” (Psalms 45:14). A woman’s ideal purpose is to build the home. No amount of sophistry will alter this truism.

(It works both ways. I have on occasion experienced the desire to light the Shabbos candles in our home. However, tradition assigns this privilege to my wife. Regardless of the justifications I may find, nothing will — or should — change this.)

We cannot afford to have Orthodoxy whittled down beyond recognition. We pray that Drisha’s administration will take this admonition to heart. It is not too late for Drisha to abandon its plan and to constitute a minyan that truly will find favor in G-d’s eyes in this season of prayer and repentance. We wish all our readers a happy and healthy New Year.

—Avraham M. Goldstein