Voices of WRJ: Parshat Acharei Mot

by Sheilah Abramson-Miles As I read this week’s parashah, particularly Leviticus 18, my mind returned to an incident in my life long ago. I grew up in a traditional Jewish household attending a traditional synagogue where I was one of the first females in my congregation to attend our community Hebrew school. I made an appointment with my Rabbi to discuss becoming a Bat Mitzvah but I was not prepared for his answer (indeed, his explanation rather traumatized me). He told me that since I was a women and “unclean once a month,” I could not become a Bat Mitzvah and should never touch a Torah. I sadly accepted his dictate. I had no choice. I became familiar with Reform Judaism when I married my husband who was beginning his rabbinic studies at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion (HUC-JIR). This was during a time when women were just beginning to enter the rabbinate and the cantorate. Change was beginning in a faith I thought to be unchanging and unchangeable. Like a diamond, Torah has many facets. As I read the words of Leviticus 18, I know they do not reflect my world or my Judaism. The laws governing sexuality from the Torah are offensive to modern women everywhere, or should be. I studied these concepts from a perspective unheard of until now, “The Torah: A Women’s Commentary.” This work was commissioned by Women of Reform Judaism and published jointly with the Union for Reform Judaism Press. This commentary tells the world that we, the women of WRJ, take our Judaism and ourselves seriously. Indeed, this text challenges the entire Jewish world and us to learn and understand Torah for our own time and situation when it states: “…this litany of sexual laws does not address women. Rather than subjects, women are objects to be or not to be ‘uncovered.’ One wonders how the laws might be different had they been addressed to women and men as equal sexual partners and also what unwritten codes determined the sexual practices of Israelite women  (The Torah: A Women’s Commentary, p. 689).” Recently, I visited the beautiful new mikva at Temple Israel in Detroit with my sister from WRJ Central District. As a girl, the context of the mikva was repellant to me. When I relearned this concept in a liberal Jewish context at Temple Israel, my eyes were truly open to its beauty and spiritual power. I shared the story of my girlhood rejection with my daughter. When she approached becoming Bat Mitzvah, she remembered that story and my pain. She asked me to consider becoming a Bat Mitzvah with her. Her sensitivity and generosity overwhelmed me. I asked her if she was sure. “Yes,” she replied with both tears and a smile. We learned Torah together for an entire year. Looking back, I wish we had “The Torah: A Women’s Commentary” to guide us. Yet, as we stood together on the bimah on that autumn Shabbat over twenty years ago, I knew my world as a Jewish woman had undergone marvelous changes! Sheilah Abramson-Miles is a WRJ Board member, WRJ Central District member, and member of Women of Temple Shalom, Louisville, KY.