Parshat Ve’etchanan

SERMON   PARASHAT Ve’etchanan   AUGUST 9, 2025

Rabbi David Edleson     Temple Sinai, South Burlington, Vermont

As I said last night, I went to a huge Jewish music concert Thursday night in Bethel, New York, a sort of Jewstock.   It was great music, full of Jewish joy and a sense of peoplehood, but it was overwhelmingly Orthodox.  While most of those attending were women, including probably 2,000 from girls summer camps, I couldn’t help but notice that there were no women on stage because there are still rules in large parts of the Orthodox world that don’t allow women to sing in front of men.

I think one of the meaningful things about Natalie’s becoming bat mitzvah is being part of the claiming by women of their full voice and authority in Judaism.  The Torah tells us we all stood together at Sinai, both men and women, and by reading Torah, Natalie is joining so many woman that claimed their full voice and place in our tradition.  In so many ways, Natalie and many others here are doing what the smart, capable, devoted Jewish women through many centuries were not allowed to do. 

At that concert, I felt proud that I was part of a Jewish movement that recognized women’s authority and leadership for many decades. 

Of course, the first Bat Mitzvah was in the Conservative movement.  Judith Kaplan was Mordechai Kaplan’s daughter, and her bat mitzvah was in 1922.  But she was only allowed to chant haftarah as so many women that followed were. 

It wasn’t until 1972 that the Reform movement, my alma mater Hebrew Union College ordained Sally Priesand as the first woman rabbi in North America,  When I was ordained in 1990, half my class were women, and today, about ½ of all Reform Rabbis are women.

But some of you might not know that Sally Priesand wasn’t the first woman Rabbi.  Her name was Regina Jonas.  She was born into a poor traditional Jewish family in Berlin in 1902, and by age 11 announced that she was going to become a rabbi.  In the 1920’s, she was admitted to study at the Academy of the Wiessenschaft der Judenthums, of the Science of Judaism, which was the graduate school that ordained Reform rabbis.  She was allowed to take all the same courses, and wrote her dissertation on “Can Women Serve as Rabbis?”, but they would not ordain her upon her completing her studies. 

However,  in 1935, Rabbi Max Dienemann, representing the Board of Reform rabbis in Berlin, ordained her.   She served as several synagogues as Hitler rose to power, but was deported in 1942 to Theresienstadt where she worked with Victor Frankl on helping the others that were there.  She was deported to Auschwitz in 1944 , where she died. 

Today, as Natalie is called to the Torah, I want to honor those women who led the way.  I want to remember Judith Kaplan, Rabbi Regina Jonas and Rabbi Sally Priesand.   And I want to honor Natalie for stepping up an stepping in to that proud tradition.  

Shabbat shalom.

David