What role does feminism play in changes occurring in modern-day Judaism?
It’s been said that feminism is the single biggest contemporary threat to Judaism, and I think that’s true. I also think, more to the point, that feminism (and, I’d argue, queer- and trans-liberation) has the ability to save Judaism, to help it return to our highest ideals. Religion can and should help us to live our greatest aspirations, and any time that it fails to help us, individually and as a community, live out our potential in the greatest possible way, it fails us. Feminism has asked vitally important questions of Judaism and Jewish life, and its ability to respond to those questions has helped it to grow—not only to remain relevant (which is a pretty unimpressive goal, really), but to continue the process of unfolding Torah, of uniting Heaven and Earth. The great 20th-century theologian Abraham Joshua Heschel suggested that God’s revelation to us is ongoing, and I count feminism, and feminism’s impact on Judaism, as part of that. In other words, the religion we have today and
