Communities need rebbetzins. Let’s empower them

My time as rebbetzin has ended, but as I look back, I’m aware of how much more my role could have been.

A lot of what I have learnt comes from being involved in a special community. Though my husband was the rabbi at Beit Midrash Morasha, I always told people how lucky I felt that I got to belong to the community that I would have chosen even if he wasn’t the rabbi. A little more than two years ago, when he stepped down to move into education, I got to prove this.

The title “rebbetzin” is unique in that you obtain it when marrying a rabbi. It’s bestowed on a woman whether she’s capable of taking on the role or not.

I know of rabbis who decided to not take on a community position because their wives weren’t comfortable with being rebbetzins. I respect that.

It’s important to know who you are and who you aren’t.

Being a rebbetzin is hugely rewarding, and can be massively draining. You’re involved in the happiest and saddest moments of your community’s lives. You’re invited into their hearts and into their homes, but you’re required to do the same.

Initially I resisted the title, feeling that it wasn’t who I was. I had a career outside of being a rebbetzin. I met my husband when he had plans to be an actuary. By the time he had changed his mind, I realised I loved him more than what his chosen profession was going to mean to me as his wife, and so there I was.

The shift to embracing the role began when the chairperson at the time gently reminded me that the title wasn’t actually about me. The community needed a rebbetzin. He was right. With at least 50% of a community’s membership being female, communities need rebbetzins.

The problem with a title being attached to one’s husband’s status is that when a rabbi passes away before his wife, what happens to her? I’ll never forget an event we attended. Numerous rabbinical dignitaries were there, and the event began with each of them coming into the banquet hall, marching towards the centre of the room to their seats at a table on a raised platform. Two of the honoured guests were women who had lost their husbands. These husbands had been leaders of the South African community, people who had helped to create the foundation for what we have today. The two wives were giants in their own right, having created incredible programmes and foundations independent of their husbands’ work.

Both had been mentors, and I was proud that they were being acknowledged. I can still feel the room go still and my mouth go dry at the memory of the moment when these two women, who had walked in with the other rebbetzins and rabbis and confidently made their way to the table of honoured guests, were ushered away to our table. No longer having their rabbinical husbands at their sides, they were demoted to sitting with everyone else.

My recollection of their embarrassed, lost, and bewildered faces are a constant reminder to me of how careful we have to be with a person’s kavod (honour). If we’re going to give women titles because they are married to a certain individual, if we are going to ask them to give so much of themselves to this role, we dare not take away this title when rabbis pass away.

When we arrived in Cape Town, my husband was the youngest pulpit rabbi at the time. We had a lot to learn. The best advice we were given was from a senior rabbi who told us not to try to be our predecessors, but to find out what our strengths were and build on that.

I was challenged to do things I didn’t know I could do but which the community needed to be done. Luckily I love research and learning new things.

There’s still plenty I can’t do, and I learnt quickly to say yes to some things and no to others. Rebbetzins have a certain luxury in that way that rabbis may not.

I’ll always be grateful to all the rebbetzins around me who were supportive, and endless sources of information. I feel particularly privileged that the late Rebbetzin Ann Harris was a long-standing patient of mine.

When I would see her name on my calendar, I would plan all the things I wanted to ask her opinion about and see if I could squeeze it into our 45-minute sessions. She became so much more than a mentor. She was a dear friend whom I miss terribly. Her sharp wit, clarity, and world view were refreshing. I appreciated that she was a woman committed to her family, community, and career, but who somehow managed to be there for what sometimes felt like the whole world, never missing a beat.

It inspired me to think that I could maybe juggle a little bit too. I feel for rebbetzins who might not have had the positive experience I have had, who have maybe had things demanded of them that they aren’t skilled in doing and not given the resources to learn how to do them.

As much as the concept of a rebbetzin is a modern one, we’re aware of all our forefathers having equal partners in their wives. I love the story of Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach, who when asked if Mashiach will be a man or a woman, replied that Mashiach will be a couple.

We know that in communities today, rabbis are successful when their spouses are a part of their community roles. It makes sense. A community is so much more than just a minyan, and if we want women to feel comfortable in our shuls, we need leaders in our rebbetzins.

It can take years and years of study to be honoured with the title of rabbi. Rebbetzins earn their title through the years of self-sacrifice and love that they invest in their communities.

But wouldn’t it be awesome if there was a place where women could learn how to fulfil this role? I’m not just talking about how to make a delicious Shabbat meal – although I would have appreciated this training – or how to cater for 30 people when there are 15 minutes until Shabbat comes in and you thought you had only 10 guests coming – again, a skill I would have gladly learnt beforehand. I’m talking about skills in dealing with death and trauma; knowing how to handle the tough situations; self-care; making sure the community is held while not neglecting your own family; how to give a high-level, text-based shiur on par with any rabbi; and answering halachic questions that arise where a woman would much rather approach her rebbetzin than her rabbi.

It’s time we acknowledged that being a rebbetzin is a full-time job for those blessed enough to hold the title. We need to honour our rebbetzins independently of what their husbands have achieved. They are the cheerleaders behind their husbands’ success, but they are successes themselves, and should be recognised as such. Finally, if we expect rebbetzins to be the leaders we need them to be, let’s support them, uplift them, and empower them to tap into their full and unique potential. How much richer we and our communities would be.

This piece is the personal opinion of the author, who has been rebbetzin in a Cape Town community for the past 10 years.