Kol Isha. The voice of a woman. In Orthodox Judaism, this refers to the prohibition against hearing a woman sing. For me, it has an entirely different meaning.
This morning, I woke up at 5:45am and along with Jenn Mager headed to the Kotel to join at least 150 women celebrating Rosh Chodesh with the Women of the Wall. As we headed towards the Wall, the streets were deserted and the shops unopened. The closer we got, though, the more I noticed women carrying tallit and tefillin bags. Once we entered the Kotel plaza, there were many women beginning to gather for prayer.
We headed down into the women’s section and out of nowhere this beautiful voice began singing Shir Lama’alot, A Song of Ascents, the beginning of the morning psalms. I was overwhelmed with emotion. In front of me was the Kotel, this giant, historical wall, surrounding me were women of all ages and all backgrounds joining together in song, and behind me were men who wanted to support a woman’s right to pray at the Kotel. It was a moment I will never forget.
We continued with our prayers, moving from section to section, praying together and praying alone. I was excited when we arrived at the Torah service—reading from the Torah at the Kotel seemed like the penultimate. However there was no Torah this morning due to things happening around Israel (I briefly heard the leaders mention the three boys who were kidnapped). Instead we read the Torah portion out of our siddurim, which I thought would be disappointing, but took on a life of it’s own. The aliyot were extremely meaningful, one recited by a mother who had just given birth and brought the baby to the Kotel to be blessed by the group, another who had never been called for an aliyah in her life before and as a result became a Bat Mitzvah this morning. There were multiple chants of siman tov, u’mazel tov.
After we finished reading the section from the Torah, we said a Mi Shebeirach, a prayer for healing, for all of those whom we know facing illnesses, and I was able to to say all the names of those in my family and in our community/congregation who aren’t well. Shortly thereafter the service ended and we all left, headed to our homes, schools, and jobs like it was any other day.
It’s definitely a morning I will never forget. If you are ever in Israel during Rosh Chodesh, I highly encourage you to join Women of the Wall in prayer. It was such a warm, welcoming group—and chances are you will run into someone you know (I ran into one of my rabbi’s growing up, Rabbi Tara Feldman, which was such a treat!)
Shavua Tov!
Kol Isha
