October 15: The Women’s Torah

The first complete Torah scroll scribed by women was dedicated on this date in 2010 at the Kadima Reconstructionist Community in Seattle. Notwithstanding Orthodox Jewish legal injunctions against women scribing (or touching) a Torah scroll, the Kadima community had launched the Women’s Torah Project in 2000 and facilitated the training of two women members as sofrot. Four other women trained on their own, bringing the corps to six, from the U.S., Israel, Canada, and Brazil. They were advised and checked in their work by Jen Taylor Friedman, who in 2004 created the first Torah scroll (a scroll of Esther) scribed by a woman in modern times. Seven women artists also created the yad, rimonim (crowns), mantle, wimple and clasp, bima (altar) cloth, Kiddush cup, and eytz chayyim (rollers) for the Torah. “It was disconcerting to comprehend fully that the Torah, feminine in gender in the Hebrew language — the ‘tree of life to those who hold fast to her’” — had never, to our knowledge, been scribed by a woman,” wrote Wendy Graff, a project coordinator, in 2005. “It began to dawn on us that this project could become a catalyst for astonishing and consequential change, a symbol of opportunity for women to move into all areas of Jewish life. It could bring together progressive Jews around the world. It could be a bridge between art and politics, spirit and culture, artifact and symbol.”
“With the aid of revised liturgical texts, thoughtful service leaders, and broad cultural change, many of us have carved out egalitarian ways to see ourselves and our daughters in Jewish practice. But there was something about breaking down this last bastion of discrimination that did more than merely illuminate a dusty corner of traditional practice.” —Wendy Graff