The Women’s Balcony
by Sarah Shapiro
One evening during the intermediate days of the festival of Sukkot, at the Simchat Beit HaSho’evah celebration held annually at Neve Yerushalayim, a Jerusalem women’s seminary, my daughters and I engaged in four or five hours of nonstop dancing. The boomingly loud music, provided as it is each year by a local women’s band, was earsplitting, irresistible, rhythmic, sometimes sweet and yearning. The women and girls, mostly strangers to each other, came in all ages, and for those uninhibited hours hundreds of us danced and danced and danced as if nothing else in the world existed but our feet, and our songs, and our exhilaration.
On the bus ride home late that night, as my littlest girl fell asleep on my lap and my teenagers talked with their friends, I thought of a Simchat Beit HaSho’evah celebration twenty-five years earlier, when a young Jewish woman, harboring some tender hopes and fervent questions, entered a synagogue. By herself in New York City, she had heard that on this night there would be dancing going on here, and she’d looked forward to it all week. She couldn’t wait to dance, she hoped to find a community that would embrace her, she wanted Jewish explanations for everything in her own life and on the planet. And last but not least, when she walked through those doors, she wanted G‑d Himself to be there waiting for her.
From the women’s balcony of the 72nd Street Synagogue, I looked down upon the men dancing for a Jewish holiday I’d never heard of until that day. Fathers held children aloft on their shoulders as they circled around and around and around; small girls and boys dashed in and out of the delighted procession. These self-inclusive families were everywhere, it seemed. The music was fast and loud and catchy. Outside there was thunder and lightning and cold. In here it was warm and bright. I’d like to know why the women aren’t dancing with the men.
I tapped my foot and looked around discreetly at the women occupying the tiered benches, and when I couldn’t stand it any longer, sidled over to the sedate-looking lady seated a bit to my left. I had recently started recognizing these people’s well-coiffed wigs; this woman had on a brown one, and a little round hat atop that. Excuse me, can I ask you something?
Yes? She turned her head partway. She appeared, I thought, to be some sort of European, in her early thirties: trim, no-nonsense, attractively even-featured, attired in a navy blue suit with a lacy white collar.
Next to her I felt unkempt, but it was the disorderliness of my ravenous heart I had to hide. Excuse me, could you tell me—
Yes?
I’d like to know why the women aren’t dancing with the men.
She stared with large hazel eyes. Her chin drew in. The pretty girl at her side, who I supposed was her daughter, around twelve, with glossy auburn braids, leaned forward slightly and surveyed me with guarded curiosity. I felt like a wild-hearted monster compared to these two. The English, the woman said. I am sorry, I do not know to speak Engl—
I repeated the question, not trying this time to conceal the hard edge beneath my words.
One, two. A few moments stood between us. Then: You should speak to my husband. He is a rabbi. He will know how to answer you very good, he knows better to talk than I. Wait after downstairs and I will bring him.
Afterwards, in the wood-paneled anteroom, I waited. A cloakroom was on one side, an oaken stairway on the other. Girls and women and little children were all coming down the stairs with a lot of conversation and noise, men and boys and more little children were exiting out of some hallway to my right, everyone was getting their coats and wraps. Families reunited, the place gradually emptied out, and I was alone. Suddenly an opaque glass door opened up and a black-suited, bearded man with a large black yarmulka stepped forth. As the door shut behind him, I caught a fast glimpse of the brightly lit synagogue proper within.
He stood before me, wary. Was I scaring these people?
Yes, he said, my wife tells me— Also a European, it seemed, from some vague country like Belgium. You want to know about the dancing?
A sudden bitter irritation twisted inside me. This husband, this rabbi of hers, better prove women weren’t second-class citizens, after all, in this whole get-up. And heaven help him if he couldn’t give me an answer, pronto.
Right. I want to know why the women aren’t allowed to dance with the men. My anger sounded to my own ears flat, cool, confident, the way I wanted it. They should enjoy themselves, too.
