Free Women's Minyan by Naomi Ragen Page A

teach me. We’ll spend our lives together, learning and growing. Together we’ll discover the secrets of life. We married—in happiness. I was happy, even though I didn’t know what to expect. I’d never once touched a man. On our wedding night, I sat in our hotel room waiting. Finally, Yankele came over and asked me: What are you waiting for? And I answered: I read in a holy book that it is better for the bride to feel desire before she does the mitzva. And so I’m sitting here, waiting to feel some….
    Reactions of sympathy, laughter.
     
    CHANA : He also laughed.
     
    SHEINHOFF : You were such a beautiful couple.
     
    ETA : It was a match made in heaven.
     
    TOVAH : You looked so happy together.
     
    CHANA : Yes. We kept up appearances…. And maybe, in the beginning, I was content. From a humiliated child I became the honored Rabbi’s wife: Rebbitzen Chana Sheinhoff. All the rabbis sent me women to advise. Yankele learned Torah, and I built the family. I took care of supporting us by working at odd jobs, and tried to keep up my studies in the evenings. But most of all, I gave birth…. [ looks with pride at her daughters ].
     
    TOVAH : [ enters the circle. To CHANA .] I remember how you came to the ritual bath for the first time. Like all the young brides, just a little older than children they are, their skin so pink and creamy, their bodies supple and beautiful. And then, God be blessed, they get pregnant. Years go by, you wouldn’t recognize them. Their eyes are dull, their bodies bloated and neglected and tired. All those beautiful young brides….
     
    SHEINHOFF : This is God’s will, the purpose of woman’s creation….
     
    CHANA : [ to daughters. ] I never regretted a single one of you. You filled my life with joy. Willingly, I gave you my soul. I was prepared to work endlessly. Twelve children!! Soon enough I understood that I had no choice; that I was in this all alone. Yankele made a separate life for himself. He spent his time in the yeshiva, or else alone in his study. He would disappear suddenly, I had no idea where…. I started to feel as if I was rolling a great rock up a mountain alone and with every step it threatened to roll back and crush me….
     
    FRUME : All of us work hard for our homes and our children. It’s God’s will.
     
    ZEHAVA : No, Mrs. Kashman, it’s the men’s will. In our marriage contracts it’s written that the husband has to support his wife. That’s Jewish law.
    Shocked reactions. It is the societal norm for women to support their husbands so that they may study.
     
    GITTE LEAH : [ haughty and indignant. ] The letter of the law. By us , it’s a woman’s duty and honor to be the helpmate of a Torah scholar, if you don’t mind.
     
    TOVAH : [ superior. To ZEHAVA .] Like Joseph’s brothers in the Bible. Zebulun worked so Yissacher could study. “Happy is Zebulun in going out and Yissacher in his tent.”
     
    ETA : She has to be the breadwinner so that he can learn.
     
    GITTE LEAH : And she has to be obedient to the man in everything. You understand?
     
    ADINA : Excuse me, Gitte Leah…. A woman has to be obedient to God and His holy Torah, not to men.
     
    TOVAH : A God-fearing woman accepts the Rabbis interpretation of the Torah, and keeps the commandments as the men explain them. She’s like the earth, a receptacle for the holy seed.
     
    ZEHAVA : And like the earth, the men step all over her…
     
    ADINA : Maimonides says that it’s man’s obligation to love his wife as himself, and to honor her more than himself.
     
    ZEHAVA : True. There has to be love, honor, partnership.
     
    GITTE LEAH : Maimonides doesn’t mean what you mean. This whole business of “love” is foolishness for silly girls. A woman with complete faith doesn’t look for such things. She’s on a higher level.
     
    CHANA : I saw how your ADMOR treats you, there, on that “higher level”…
     
    GITTE LEAH : [ defensively. ] This is our life on this earth! A decent woman