I recently attended a Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance (JOFA) Campus Leadership Shabbaton. The program brought together thirty-seven college students from seventeen different campuses. As a Yeshiva University Stern student, I went in expecting to have a different perspective on campus feminism than my peers at secular colleges. However, surprisingly I found most of the conversations and panels relevant, and shared many of the sentiments expressed by the fellow participants. The Shabbat was full of open and honest conversation about the future and vision for Orthodox feminism and the many obstacles that it currently encounters. Many challenges we discussed apply equally not only to any college campus, but also to any stage of life. We spoke of the tensions between creating communities more welcoming to some while isolating certain individuals through the process, and the importance of understanding when it is and is not appropriate to push for change within one’s surroundings.
Yet, there was one major topic of conversation where I found myself an outsider: minyan. For most college students a focal point in their day is attending minyan. It is a time of day when students create a sacred community in conversation with God within a surrounding that oftentimes seem bereft of any consciousness of God. Praying with a minyan is an important self-identifying ritual for Orthodox Jews,particularly those in college. Therefore, it is especially challenging for women to feel insignificant or unequal within a college minyan, often the sole religious communal opportunity they have throughout their day.
Working to enhance a woman’s experience when attending minyan was an im-portant dialogue throughout the weekend. Students expressed frustrations along with ideas regarding innovation, such as changing the height of the mechitza, appointing a female gabaaite, or having a woman carry the sefer torah through the women’s’ section.
These ideas are not completely inapplicable to me either. They are all important suggestions that should be considered regarding the occasional rosh chodesh minyan and co-ed shabbatot that take place at Stern College.
But as the conversation revolved around improving daily minyanim, I found myself primarily absorbed in the mere idea of attending a minyan each morning. As a student at Stern College, I do not have the opportunity to partake in my community’s minyan each day. The rich experience of coming together as a community each morning for something holy, taken for granted by students at secular colleges, is foreign to me. Though my day is filled with opportunities to learn and think with my peers, with the exception of Shabbat, I never stand before God with them. At Stern, we each pray alone.
I know there is something beautiful about the personal nature of tefillah at Stern. When choosing to pray in such a setting, one does not do so to fulfill social or communal obligations, but because they are personally deciding to talk to God. When praying alone one can feel more comfortable displaying emotion; one can choose to recite the words more quickly or slowly, or even meditate upon certain phrases. Standing as an individual before one’s creator often makes it easier for the world to fall away and to enter into a transcendent relationship with God.
And yet, I find myself craving to not always pray on my own. I am also aware that I can choose to go to a shul nearby and attend minyan each day. But that is not what I yearn for.
I long for part of my college experience to be praying to God as a part of my community. In Stern people often talk about the lack of community we have. For centuries, Jewish communities have been centered around shuls and minyanim. And I wonder, how can we build a strong community of women without a minyan, when we lack the obligation to pray communally?
Perhaps we can still come together and pray as a group without the formal structure of a minyan, or alternatively work to bring a daily minyan to Stern. Or maybe we can create a community that learns about tefilla for a few minutes each morning. I don’t know if any of these ideas are viable. The thought runs through my mind that maybe it is impossible to create such a space in an Orthodox, all women, setting. But even if this is so, we should try to create some sort of experience where we stand before God together.
Tefilla is important to us as individuals but it should be important to us as a community as well. It is not enough to learn and perform acts of kindness together. It is essential to also frame one’s actions as a community as part of something greater; a minyan allows a community to do so through acknowledging and relating to God together.
I am not writing this to criticize anyone at Stern. Rather, I ask you to join me in thinking about how we can encounter God together. Maybe we can find a way, or at least create a consciousness, of coming together as a community before God.