Females Help Females Talk About the Halachic Intricacies of Sex

Dina Kraft
Jewish Telegraphic Agency

JERUSALEM

A "yoetzet halachah," or Jewish legal counselor, answers a hotline for women with questions relating to Jewish laws on sex and intimacy. (Photo Courtesy of Nishmat)

With Shabbat fast approaching, the sun was starting to melt in the Jerusalem sky when the telephone rang in Noa Lau's kitchen.

On the line was a woman who spoke in a voice still raw from the grief of a recent miscarriage. She was anxious to ask Lau, trained as a consultant on Jewish law, when she could again visit the mikvah, the Jewish ritual bath, and resume physical intimacy with her husband.

Lau reviewed the relevant Jewish laws with the woman, providing her with an answer both compassionate and in accordance with halachah, or Jewish law.

"At times like this, I tell myself, so what if I have cooked a bit less for Shabbat? I've helped calm and reassure someone who was distraught," said Lau, one of the first women to become a yoetzet halachah, Hebrew for consultant in Jewish law.

Lau is the coordinator of an accreditation course for these consultants at Nishmat, an Orthodox seminary for women. It is the only one of its kind in the Orthodox world; most of its graduates live in Israel.

Lau and the 60 other certified yoatzot -- as the consultants are known in Hebrew -- have become accustomed to women stopping them without notice, often with a whispered, urgent inquiry about Jewish law. Whether on their doorstep, in the synagogue or at the supermarket, females have questions for which they ache for answers, but are sometimes hesitant to ask a male rabbi, especially when it comes to family purity laws -- the laws relating to sex.

The emergence of women scholars serving as authorities in Jewish law marks something of a quiet revolution in an Orthodox world dominated by male authorities, where change has come slowly and incrementally. The emergence of the yoatzot -- 10 years have passed since Nishmat's program was inaugurated -- is also a reflection of the advancement of women's religious education in the modern Orthodox world.

For the women who turn to them, the yoatzot appear to be fulfilling a deep need.

'A Lot of Pain Out There'
Shirley Kapon, a religiously observant doctor in Ramat Gan, met with a yoetzet several times as she prepared to marry a secular man. She wanted guidance on following family purity laws, and sought a trained woman's knowledge and depth of understanding.

"I cannot tell you how many times people have said to me, 'Your yoatzot have saved me,' " said Rabbanit Chana Henkin, dean of the program at Nishmat.

"There is a lot of pain out there," said Henkin. "If you don't have a competent address, people will suffer. Women want ownership of their religious lives, and if they don't understand what they are experiencing and don't understand the laws, they feel left out."

Women who are too intimidated to ask a halachic question often become overly severe in their observance for fear of violating Jewish law. That can lead to months or even years of suffering from unresolved medical or sexual questions -- some needlessly exacerbating fertility problems, several yoatzot said.

With Nishmat, women can ask yoatzot questions either in person, through a telephone hotline -- in Israel (02-640-4343) and from North America (1-877- YOETZET) -- or via e-mail at Nishmat's Web site.

According to traditional Jewish law, married women must refrain from physical intimacy with their husbands for at least 12 days from the onset of menstruation; the period is called niddah and ends with a visit to the mikvah.

Irregular periods, bleeding and other anomalies and ambiguities prompt questions to Jewish legal authorities.

"We are dealing with an area of halachah that affects the core of our marriages," stated Atara Eis, a yoetzet in New York. "I can think of no area of Jewish law that impacts the family more, and having a proper dialogue in this area of law truly affects the bedrock of Jewish life, the family."

Expanding women's leadership in this area is crucial, said Eis, and rabbis are beginning to understand that.

"What happens if a woman's physiology causes that period of niddah to last for six months?" said Henkin. "Yoatzot are finding solutions."

The yoetzet program focuses on the study of family purity laws, along with the other two fundamental areas of observant Jewish life, Shabbat and kosher laws. Students in the program take an intensive two-year course in Jewish law and on women's health, studying fertility, sexuality, prenatal testing, menopause and certain diseases, including breast cancer.

The questions the yoatzot field range from women asking if a baby born to a non-Jewish surrogate will be considered Jewish to questions from observant Israeli backpackers traveling in India asking if the Ganges River qualifies as a kosher mikvah (a mikvah must be a natural body of water).

Nishmat's yoatzot program has a $500,000 annual budget that is privately funded and helps cover the salaries of the women who work on the hotline and the Web site.

Many of the yoatzot go on to work on a volunteer basis; there are few opportunities for pay.

Eis is one of the handful of yoatzot in the United States who gets paid. She works for several congregations in New York, including Manhattan's Lincoln Square Synagogue and Kehilath Jeshurun. She consults by phone and in person at synagogue gatherings on Shabbat.

A Culture of Discussion
Eis affirmed that the idea of using a yoetzet is catching on, albeit slowly.

"We are off to a decent start," she said. "We are changing from a culture of silence to a culture of discussion -- and that takes time."

In the remote West Bank Jewish settlement of Hemdet in the Jordan Valley, yoetzet Ruth Madar dispenses information and counsel to an increasing number of women, many of them the newly married wives of local yeshiva students. She receives no salary for this.

"Especially for young women with no experience before marriage, there is a real lack of information," Madar said of couples who have no physical contact until they marry.

"Sometimes, people just have very little knowledge about their own bodies," noted Lau. "The focus on modesty education has become so central. Women are told to cover up and everything is forbidden, and then suddenly, everything is permitted. The transitions can be very fast, and sometimes, it's very scary."

During a recent morning at Nishmat, women studying in the program sat in study pairs poring over religious texts. Many are mothers; several babies gurgled on blankets near the rows of desks or in women's arms.

One study pair, Judith Fogel and Sara Cheses, discussed a text written in the 16th century dealing with family purity.

"I find it fascinating how early commentators understood the woman's body, and that we are now applying that knowledge and using it today," said Fogel. "It's a wonderful opportunity we have now that women do have access to learning in a way that extends beyond knowledge of kashrut and Shabbat."