By Rita Eichenstein (5-3-09)

Today is twenty-four days, which is three weeks and three days of the Omer.

 

It is a tradition to count the days between Passover and Shavuot, as we mark our freedom from slavery and celebrate our freedom to accept Torah. This is called "counting the omer." This year we will observe the tradition of "counting the omer" by sharing stories about the many different ways that we have been turned on to Jewish learning, and through Jewish learning to Torah.

This story was written in honor of Rabbi Laura Geller.

My high-school friend, Elaine Hantman, lives in Massachusetts now. We stay in touch frequently. She called me recently because she had taught herself how to read Torah using an online source and was now reading parsha in her synagogue in Pittsfield once a month. Her next goal, she explained, was to learn how to do the Haftarah.
 
Of course, neither of us had had Bat Mitzvahs so we hadn't ever learned to read from the Torah, despite a strong Jewish education. It brought back memories of Elaine and me sitting next to each other at the Ida Crown Jewish Academy in Chicago. Although it was a coed school, Hebrew subjects were strictly split with the boys studying Talmud all morning, and the girls allocated to 'lesser' subjects such as Torah with Rashi, Prophets, and Laws.
 
One day in Honors Level Torah class, Elaine asked our teacher, Rabbi Tucker, a question. We don't exactly remember the question, but we do remember his reaction. He clapped his hands to his face and started to moan. When he was done moaning, he said, "Oy! A pity you weren't born a boy!"
 
We learned a lot from that reaction: that although we might all be brilliant  in class, it wasn't going to get us anywhere in the Torah world because we were girls. Unfortunately, women were not going to become Rabbis anytime soon back then, especially in the Orthodox world, and Elaine went on to become a very well-respected psychologist instead.
 
It's never too late, Elaine!
 
By Rita Eichenstein

These stories are brought to you by the Temple Emanuel RE-IMAGINE project, an 18-month initiative sponsored by Hebrew Union College, devoted to re-thinking and re-structuring our religious school.