The joining of hundreds of women to Rabbi Teitz’s weekly Gemara class, "Daf HaShavu’i," was welcomed with blessings by great Torah scholars. To understand this, a certain misconception must be corrected.
When people speak of women’s interest in Torah study as a "revolution," they are projecting 20th-century American customs onto the Jewish past. One must realize that there was always a small group of women, mostly from scholarly families, who were interested in and studied Torah seriously. When a girl became talented and learned—coming from the home of a father who was the Mara D’Atra (local rabbinic authority) or a Rosh Yeshiva—the question asked in the town was: who is the young man talented and learned enough to be a match for such an educated girl? The new situation of opening learning opportunities to all women did not constitute a change or a break from tradition, but rather the granting of a right that was previously the domain of only a few individuals to all women.
The Torah education of European Jewish women was varied and diverse, depending on their country of origin, social class, and profession. Matters of Halakha (Jewish law) were common topics of discussion in learned homes, but even secular conversations at all levels of observant society were interspersed with Talmudic references from the sources. "Gut gefregt"—"You have asked well" or "A good question"—is the term for clever questions in Torah circles. Parents who loved Torah study always encouraged their children to research texts or topics.
After World War I, when the "Yavne" school and a seminary for young women opened in Telshe (Telz), Hebrew was the language of speech for both teachers and students in all classes—in Physics and Algebra as well as in Torah and Halakha—and even correspondence between the girls during summer vacations was conducted in Hebrew. In addition to the secular subjects provided in the eight-year Yavne program (which was equivalent to middle school, high school, and the first two years of college in America), and in addition to studying Hebrew, French, German, Lithuanian, and Russian, the girls studied Torah, Prophets, Halakha, Aggadah, and Jewish History. If you check the educational lineage of those few Americans who know Hebrew grammar today, you will often find a graduate of "Yavne" at the head of the lineage. A similar school existed in Kovno.
Although the girls did not have Gemara classes as a separate subject, they nevertheless studied significant chapters of the Oral Law through the study of the weekly Torah portions. It is impossible to study and understand Parashat Mishpatim (Exodus 21), for example, without reference to the Talmudic discussion regarding damages (Nezikin). Distinguished guests lectured at the Yavne school for young women, just as they did at the Telshe Yeshiva for young men.
In the festive broadcasts marking the conclusion of the annual cycles of the "Daf HaShavu’i" radio program between 1954 and 1988, Rabbi Teitz welcomed the female listeners. This was not an innovation, but a continuation of the custom of Lithuanian Torah scholars. He answered all questions directed to him regarding his weekly Gemara lesson, whether the writer was a man or a woman. He dedicated half of the Torah study hour to the memory of important Jewish women, just as he did for men. Like his father-in-law, he believed that knowledge of the Torah is the key to women's fulfillment of mitzvot. Once, when one of his daughters returned from New York and reported a rumor that there were those who opposed girls studying Gemara, Rabbi Teitz replied: "So many challenges face our generation; if only this were our only mistake."
Regarding women’s Torah study, Rabbi Teitz relied on a family tradition stemming from his grandmother, Rebbetzin Rivka Rabinowitz, about whom her son, Rabbi Eliyahu Akiva Poltava, wrote the following tribute in Ha-Peles, Volume 5 (1905), page 720:
"She understood the Holy Tongue and the language of the Gemara very well. On winter Friday nights, she would sit by the stove and study the responsa of the Rishonim (early commentators), such as Tosafot, Rashi, Rambam, the Rosh, and the like, which do not contain [complex] pilpul (dialectic), and she became proficient in many responsa. Sefer Hasidim was fluent in her mouth, and even today I have that book which she would read almost every day. My uncle, the author of Ha-Toldah of blessed memory, once sat before my grandfather, the Gaon, and a doubt arose whether a certain matter they were discussing appeared in Sefer Hasidim. My grandfather replied: 'Let us call our daughter Rivka, and she will tell us clearly, for she is an expert in it.' All her life she strove to bring her children to Torah. She was also an expert in the Aggadot of the Sages and knew which chapter every passage belonged to in every tractate... When I was preparing the lesson on Bava Kamma (4b-5a) and did not fully understand the words of Tosafot... and I needed to look in the chapter 'Shum HaYetomim' but did not know its location, I went to her and asked. After thinking for a moment, she answered: 'I believe it is in [Tractate] Arachin.' Not only that, but she also innovated several insights and good practices from her own mind. I still remember when I and my older brother... and my younger brother... were children, if, Heaven forbid, a funeral passed by, she would not allow us to look out the window at the procession and would scold us severely. Her source for this, I believe, was an insight she developed from the Gemara in Berakhot: 'One who sees a funeral and does not accompany it transgresses [the prohibition of] mocking the poor (Loeg Larash).' Since she did not want us to go to the funeral, she also did not let us see it, so that we would not transgress Loeg Larash. And in the year 5643 (1883), a few days before Pesach Ze'ira (Pesach Sheni), which fell on a Monday, a pamphlet titled Yigdal Torah arrived... containing a note signed by 'a young man and a rabbi' asking whether one is permitted to fast on that Monday... since it is Pesach Katan (the Minor Passover). When my mother heard from us that a note by the Aderet [her brother] had been printed, she longed to read it. She took the pamphlet, read it, and after a few moments approached us and said: 'I do not understand; surely Pesach Katan cannot be more stringent than the Great Passover? On the day of the sacrifice [the eve of Passover], the firstborn fast, but presumably what the Gemara says about Pesach Ze'ira refers to the time of its eating, which is the night of the 15th?' Immediately, my father informed her brother, the Aderet, of her question, and he later published it in her name in pamphlet 9, section 128, and labored greatly there to settle the matter."
The last point, which tells of Rebbetzin Rivka Rabinowitz's intervention in a question of Halakha, refers to one who was prevented from offering the Passover sacrifice in its proper time on the 14th of Nissan and was permitted to offer it one month later, on the 14th of Iyar, which is called "Pesach Sheni" (the Second Passover). Although we cannot bring the Passover sacrifice today, the 14th of Iyar remains a festive day on which one does not fast. The fasts of Behab (Monday-Thursday-Monday) are fast days practiced in the months of Cheshvan and Iyar following the festivals of Sukkot and Passover. In the year 1883, the second Monday fast fell on the day of Pesach Sheni, and the Aderet had questioned whether one should celebrate Pesach Sheni or observe the fast.
Rebbetzin Rabinowitz delved to the core of the matter: What is the essence of Pesach Sheni? Is it not to provide an opportunity to offer the sacrifice that they missed on the 14th of Nissan. However, the 14th of Nissan is the "Fast of the Firstborn," and the time for eating the Passover sacrifice is at the conclusion of the fast, on the eve of the 15th of Nissan. Therefore, one should not impose a fast on the replacement day—the 14th of Iyar—since he would not be eating the replacement sacrifice until the conclusion of the fast, as occurs on the 1st of Iyar.
The Aderet [Rabbi Eliyahu David Rabinowitz-Teomim] published his sister’s insight to clarify the matter, and no one questioned his judgment.
This story was a favorite in the family. It served as an example of her deep dive into the question through independent thought and reasoning. Here, the words of a woman are treated as equal to the actions of a man. This story was often repeated and analyzed by the Rebbetzin [Rabbi Teitz's wife] in her critiques of conventional ideas. In her speech, she would say:
"Di velt zogt" (The world says), meaning "The world says," and she would continue: "And my father [The Aderet] would say: 'Whose is this child?'"
Through these anecdotes, we can recall the conversations at the tables of Lithuanian scholars of that era as "Torah-centered." The words of Torah, anecdotes, and testimonies from the first source on the actions of great figures were like pearls and unique insights into Torah proficiency. In meetings of families with such awareness, it was common for every boy and girl to be expected to have something to say regarding their studies.
Alongside Torah study, there was the performance of the Mitzvot at the center of family life for both daughters and sons. Every year before Sukkot, the Rabbi would take his children and their friends to a barn in Elizabeth [New Jersey] to see the owners milking the cows by hand, and to see the special food they received in preparation for the festival.
For Sukkot, he would purchase a separate set of the Four Species for the women, as well as separate systems for his daughters so they could participate with their friends when they studied at college or university. The excitement and high spirits of the holiday and the fulfillment of its commandments were shared by everyone, daughters and sons alike. Rabbi Teitz, as a leader of a Lithuanian community with a tradition where Rebbetzins were dominant figures in the field of Torah and also in practical matters, followed this path. Those Rebbetzins were the rulers of the family home, the business, and the community. They were researchers and book-lovers, even if they did not go out on business trips. His sister-in-law, Rebbetzin Ruchama, settled in Israel in the late 1920s, and long before that, she was the head of a household of women who were meticulous in their observance but maintained their home with independent strength in Russia. Could it have occurred to anyone to prevent women such as these from the possibility of blessing the Four Species? Who would dare say of them that "women's commandments are only by the hands of others and not by the woman herself"?
Rabbi Teitz would give a literal interpretation to the saying: "Eizehu ishah kesherah? Kol she’osah retzon ba’alah" ("Who is a worthy woman? She who does her husband’s will" - Tanna Debei Eliyahu Rabba, Chapter 7). "Osah" (does) shares a root with "Yotzeret" (creates/shapes). A worthy woman "makes" (shapes) the will of her husband. Indeed, the Rabbi knew that this was not the simple meaning of the phrase, but he chose this interpretation to highlight the importance of a woman’s status and her influence on her family.
Rabbi Teitz valued the determination of women who, while their sons studied in high-level Yeshivot, decided to learn to read Hebrew and understand the content of their prayers. He was always attentive to the classes on "The Geography of the Siddur." Women who had not prayed until then began to pray, for they now understood the meaning of the words and the reason for the prayer; they would see and hear the entire Torah reading from beginning to end, and like everyone else—men, women, and children—they would treat the Torah scroll with honor when it was taken from the Ark.
Already in the planning of the synagogue in 1947 and 1955, he ensured good acoustics in the women’s section and a good line of sight from it. He was careful to build the women's section on a level floor that was equal to several rows of steps leading down to the men's section and rising towards the Holy Ark, as long as it was built so that the partition did not separate them during the prayer service.
Rabbi Teitz held in high regard the work of Rabbi Yehuda Kupferman, who founded the Michlala for women in Jerusalem, because "he elevated the education of Jewish girls to a higher level than before, and thus set a challenge for all educators of girls to not be content with limited efforts in girls' education."
Our Sages taught that King Hezekiah (Chizkiyahu) supported this work long before his reign by establishing Torah study such that "they searched from Dan to Beersheba and did not find an ignoramus, and from Gevat to Antipatris and did not find a boy or girl, man or woman, who was not proficient in the laws of ritual purity" (Sanhedrin 94b). His unique interest in women’s Torah study derived from his understanding of the statement of our Sages regarding the era of Hezekiah, and therefore he believed that "our generation could be like the generation of the desert." Since after a hundred years in which Jews turned to various "idols" (Communism, Socialism, Bundism, etc.) and were disappointed by them, perhaps the remedy in our generation is to teach Torah to every boy and girl, to every man and woman, until we all know the Torah in its depth, like all the inhabitants of Israel in the era of King Hezekiah.
