Faith Before Gender

Rabbi Lisa Hochberg-Miller remembers the first time she saw a woman lead a man’s prayer.

It was during a kiddush at her St. Louis synagogue, when she was a child.

The traditional Friday evening ceremony has specific gender roles: A woman lights the Sabbath candles, then a man recites a prayer over wine.

But one day the male prayer reader did not show.

Although it contradicted traditional policy, the rabbi asked a woman to take the man’s place reciting the prayer. She did so without hesitation.

“It must have shattered a lot of myths that night,” said Hochberg-Miller, 38.

Nearly three decades later, a Jewish woman’s right to perform religious ceremonies is much more accepted. Women have been ordained as rabbis since 1972.

Hochberg-Miller is in her third week as rabbi of Temple Beth Torah, a 400-family synagogue in Ventura. She is one of two female rabbis in Ventura County. A third will join them next month.

They reflect a nationwide trend: There are more than 300 female rabbis in the U.S., most of whom have been ordained within the past 10 years.

Hochberg-Miller was ordained a rabbi in 1991 at Hebrew Union College in Los Angeles. She said 50% of her classmates were women.

“The women ordained before me fought a number of battles that I never had to fight,” she said. “Being female is [no longer] a defining issue.”

Hochberg-Miller was 13 when the first woman was ordained. She witnessed the gradual change in religious policy. And as female rabbis became less of an anomaly, she said, her friends and family reacted with encouragement.

Her own male rabbi suggested that she pursue a rabbinical career. And her father supported the idea, saying that gender should not keep her from pursuing anything.

Even so, Hochberg-Miller did not recognize the calling right away.

After earning a bachelor’s degree in journalism, she worked in advertising and public relations for a few years. But the job made her feel like she was “just adding footprints in the shopping mall,” she said.

“If you’re going to work really hard the rest of your life,” she decided, “it should be at something that has a real lasting value.”

So she started teaching religious classes at a St. Louis temple in 1983, then went on to pursue two master’s degrees by 1989--in Jewish communal service and Hebrew letters.

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After her ordainment, Hochberg-Miller became an associate rabbi and educator at Temple Israel in Long Beach.

Her husband, Seth Hochberg-Miller, has served as a rabbi at Temple Ner Tamid in nearby Downey and as an educator at Temple Beth El in San Pedro. He now works as an educator at the same temple as his wife.

“We make a very good professional team,” she said.

Ventura County’s first female rabbi was Michele Paskow-Cohen, who took the position at Simi Valley’s Congregation B’nai Emet in 1992. And Rabbi Rebecca Dubowe will head Temple Adat Elohim in Thousand Oaks beginning Aug. 1.

Despite the moves by other branches of Judaism to include women in higher religious service, Orthodox Jews, who adhere to a more conservative interpretation of the Torah, maintain that women should not be rabbis.

The other three branches of the Jewish faith--the Reconstructionist, Reform and Conservative movements--have all ordained women for more than a decade.

But, according to Rabbi Yitzchok Adlerstein of the Jewish Studies Institute in Los Angeles, the Orthodox movement never will.

“Generally, in Orthodox circles, we do believe that there are some global differences between men and women and the courses they take in fulfilling their own spirituality,” he said.

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He described Orthodox women as “the real bearers of the tradition,” touting their role in spiritual education as a prime example of the function of “rabbi,” a word he said stems from the Hebrew word for “teacher.”

Adlerstein also downplayed the importance of the act of ordination. In America, he said, people equate the term to a sort of licensing or degree.

“But there is nothing a rabbi can do that a layman can’t do,” he said, explaining that the reason Orthodox women do not become rabbis is that tradition forbids them from taking a pulpit position as leaders of men and women at the same time.

“[Orthodox women] see that the system works,” he said. “They don’t see it as male domination.”

Miriam Cunin, whose husband is an Orthodox rabbi in Los Angeles, agrees.

“The woman’s role is the mainstay, the foundation of the home,” she said.

“Jewish women are regarded very highly in the Torah, and their role is to educate themselves and their children.”

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Cunin explained that modesty is a key issue for Orthodox women, who believe that becoming a rabbi would compromise that quality by placing them too often in public view.

“The roots of a tree have a monumental effect on the growth of the tree,” she said. “But they do not have to be in the public’s eye.”

Cunin said she believes that allowing women to become rabbis is a way of watering down the Torah, or Jewish Holy Scripture, to appeal to a larger audience.

Hochberg-Miller, whose temple is aligned with the Reform movement, acknowledges that being female sometimes offers a broader appeal to congregants. But, unlike Cunin, she considers that attraction to be an advantage.

“There is a different quality women bring to prayer and preaching,” she said. Though that quality is subtle and somewhat vague, she said it has led many temple members to request female rabbis for important services, such as weddings and funerals.

Despite their conflicting views, Hochberg-Miller said the Orthodox rabbis she has encountered have been very respectful of her position within the synagogue.

As rabbis, it seems they all share the same basic goals.

Hochberg-Miller said she aims to increase lifelong spiritual education for Jewish children and adults, a goal that pervades all branches of the religion, regardless of interpretation.

“This is a congregation of such warm, outgoing and caring people,” she said. “I want people to celebrate that we can all learn together.”