The Women of the Wall extend forgiveness to those who wronged them

AUGUST 31, 2020 21:38

Women of the Wall pray at Robinsons Arch after several clashes at the main Western Wall plaza (photo credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM/THE JERUSALEM POST) — Women of the Wall pray at Robinsons Arch after several clashes at the main Western Wall plaza

(photo credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM/THE JERUSALEM POST)

We understand and know that the only way for change to happen is for both sides to extend compassion.

We have entered the season of tshuva, repentance, a time to engage in repair for all we’ve done wrong this past year. The Yamim Noraim, Ten Days of Awe, including Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, are focused on both asking for forgiveness for our own actions, as well as finding grace in our own hearts for those who have wronged us. This year at Women of the Wall, we are prepared to extend our forgiveness to the parties who have caused us heartache and pain in the past year.

Rabbi Shmuel Rabinowitz, we forgive you. As the rabbi of the Western Wall and Holy Sites, we understand that your personal agendas can easily muddy your political responsibilities. We open our hearts and say, let’s begin anew. All of the hateful words you directed at us, wiped clean. For repeatedly ignoring our requests to hold a respectable prayer service at the Wall with a Torah scroll, we put behind us. We forgive you for refusing to meet in order to improve relations.

To the Wall’s security guards, we say, all is absolved. For the manhandling and body searching each Rosh Hodesh, New Moon. For the deliberate profiling of Women of the Wall and its supporters, we forgive. To the police officers and the arrests of women wearing tallitot, we graciously let pass. We forgive you for the police confiscation of a Torah scroll. As for turning a blind eye when violence erupts, standing with your hands in your pockets, we let it go.

To the yeshiva boys and girls who arrive at the Wall each month to plague us with spitting and yelling, we feel only sympathy. We understand you’ve been sent to represent your teachers and institutions, and that you have not yet fully developed your own stance on the issues and cannot draw your own conclusions. For your shaming of us and interrupting our prayer services, we say all is forgiven.

To Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, we say all is well. We forgive you for being weak against the ultra-Orthodox coalition members, canceling the Kotel agreement, and neglecting World Jewry relations. For not keeping your word, and for resisting to make change for women in religious Judaism in the country over which you govern, we forgive. To Benny Gantz we say, although you have not fulfilled the pledge you made as a candidate to nurture pluralistic Jewry in Israel, we absolve you.

Chief Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef, we forgive you for your incitements against WOW and the Reform movement. For referring to Reform Jews as “fake” Jews, and to WOW as “stupid women,” we forgive. For using your voice as a civil servant to bash Women of the Wall and spread hate, we exonerate. We forgive you for refusing to take accountability for your statements and for twisting Jewish law to suit your own needs. Let’s bury the hatchet.

We open our hearts this season to bear no malice for the ways we’ve been wronged. We understand and know that the only way for change to happen is for both sides to extend compassion. We are happy to take the first step, but we need others to take a step as well. We hope that in the same fashion, we will be met with respect and acceptance, and perhaps 5781 will be the year in which we see real change for equality within religious Judaism in Israel and beyond.

The writer is executive director of the Women of the Wall.