Women of the Wall Making History

I’m not going to lie, when our Madrachiem told us that we were waking up this morning at 5:40, I wasn’t excited. I was thinking about how it would be just another service with The Women of the Wall, meaningful, but also less relatable because it would all be in Hebrew. But I was so wrong, today was an incredible day in the history of Jewish Women. This morning, The Women of the Wall successfully smuggled a Sefer Torah into the women’s section of the Kotel. This is not a legal act and the women could have gotten in a lot of trouble for doing this. The women could not have done this without the help of the men who opened the gate and handed the women the Torah. There was a bit of violence and there is some uncertainty if a man is being charged for helping the women. Clearly before doing this all of the men knew that there could be very severe consequences and they were still willing to risk it to help the women. It was also amazing to see the courage displayed by these women and to see their goal finally being partially achieved after 25 years. 

Even though some of the Haradi were yelling at us and becoming violent, the women still won in the end. We were even able to complete the Torah service and got to celebrate having the Torah. It was amazing to go from being so happy and excited to suddenly being so scared when the Haradi burst on to the women's side and tried to take back the Torah. We couldn't help make a wall to protect it, but I think our presence alone helped. There are no words I can use to describe how amazing that was. I hope that one day we will have the rights to bring in the Torah ourselves. I still get the chills thinking about what happened today and how awesome it was to be a part of it and see how meaningful it was not only to me, but to all of the women who have been trying to get more equality for so long.