Dear Mr. ______________,

I wanted to write to express my appreciation for such a successful simchat torah programme again this year. Coordinating the tefillot and ancillary programming for such a diverse congregation must be incredibly challenging and your success speaks to your abilities. The logistical challenges that must be overcome probably necessitate planning for next year almost right away. To that end, I would offer one small comment with a suggestion for improving the services the shul provides to its varied constituents.

On simchat torah night, the high school girls were assigned the remote and stark classroom on the third floor, as removed from the action and ruach as one could possibly be. The high school boys of course were assigned the beautifully refurbished and expansive [________] Hall on the ground floor. While I appreciate the need for gender segregation, I am wondering if perhaps the shul not only was not successful in attaining that goal but even made its goal less likely to be achieved. The girls felt disenfranchised and removed from any meaningful participation in the festivities. True, they were given platters of food but were without direction or other programming. They were bored and ended up abandoning the classroom while looking for where they would be welcomed. Not being able to find a place, they ended up wandering the halls. They were not permitted in the hall where the boys were dancing due to a lack of an adequate mechitzah separation. In the end, some girls did end up in the [______] Hall but in the absence of an adequate mechitzah separation. In my opinion, the situation with the high school girls was a fiasco.

I would offer two suggestions for improvement for next year:
1. Let the girls dance in the main floor [_______] Hall with adequate direction and let the high school boys have the third floor classroom.
2. Alternatively, just like the shul allows dancing during bar mitzvot and weddings in one room provided there is an adequate mechitzah, let the high school boys and girls dance in the same room albeit separately with an adequate mechitzah.

I hope the Simchat Torah planning committee will consider this issue and I look forward to further discussions with you regarding this matter.

If I still have your attention, I would also suggest that perhaps it would have been appropriate had [the new assistant rabbi] been honoured with Chatan Bereishit.

Sincerely,

Melech [__________]

it's a well thought-out letter, and even includes suggestions for improvement, though i would take this out



by then it just sounds like too much. for some reason, it seems to 'cheapen' the rest of the letter.

OK, good suggestion. Done.

Same with that line. Come on, you know that isn't happening.
(See why Torah Tours is a good idea? Free programming.)

Why would it help to have the girls downstairs and the boys upstairs?

I know that isn't happening. But I thought it was so calmly worded. Nowhere do I inveigh about the Orthodox Power Structure nor do I rant about disempowering and silencing women. Come on, for me, I thought it was so polite.
Interesting that we all know the boys would never be given a third room classroom and the girls a social hall. Why do you think that is?

Nevertheless, keep that line in the letter. My opinion.

I don't think we need to give the boys a message that they are included in the festivities - they can tolerate a remote location without prejudice. They have a sefer torah so I don't think the location really matters as much. The boys get the sefer torah, the girls get the location. Better than giving the boys both and the girls neither.
But really what I was trying to do was demostrate how absurd it would be to send the boys to the third floor classroom with the unsaid implication that it is similarly absurd to send the girls there.

nore reasons i will never become "orthodox"

It WAS. At first I thought someone else worded it. Very nice letter.


What I don't understand is why can't they all daven in main shul or is this the youth minyan thing???


(Either way, I was going to start a thread about having women's simcha dancing in some remote room away from any torahs but I think you basically stated my opinion.)

A little booze and rooms are largely insignificant. (Stairs can be hard to navigate.)

Why should the girls not be allowed to danc in a seperate hall on the main floor?

Why was all this nessecary? Why the apparent ageism? Why are the teens seperated from the rest of the congregation?

why are the girls dancing in a room without a torah? my school used to give chagigas all the time where we could dance, why do they need one on simchas torah?
wouldn't they much rather watch the guys dance? why don't they do what most places do which is set up a semi michitza for the girls to watch. some girls might want to dance, so the third floor classroom should be made available. (my toes were itching to dance this simchas torah, but short of jumping in with the men I couldn't do anything)

Why weren't the women dancing behind the mechitza where you were?

Simchah dancing I think would have been ok, and that was probably the intent of the organizers. However, they did nothing to facilitate simchah dancing other than give the high school girls a classroom and some food. Without an incentive to stay there and at least a role model, there's no way they are going to stay in that room while there is so much going on elsewhere in the shul.


I should scan the bulletin, but basically there were many separate activities going on simultaneously. The main shul was the main hakafot, but the ezrat nashim is a balcony, so there's no opportunity for any women to dance there.

One of the issues I didn't raise in the letter is that this year NCSY was cancelled - there is usually a separate NCSY hakafot, which would have addressed the disenfranchisement of high school girls issue, but it was cancelled for what I can only describe as "reasons indeterminate".

what mechitza? you mean that table? that wouldn't have been very tznius. although someone tried picking me up for moshe emes.