Every year, as we study this week’s Torah portion, Bereshit, I find myself thinking of two remarkable rabbis.
The first rabbi I associate with Parashat Bereshit is Rabbi Sally J. Priesand. In 1972, Rabbi Priesand was ordained by the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion and became the first female rabbi in North America. In the more than 50 years since she was ordained, Rabbi Priesand has served the Jewish people tirelessly and has taken every opportunity to, as she describes it, “hold the door open,” for the rabbis of all genders and especially the female rabbis- who have followed in her footsteps.
Several years ago, I had the pleasure of speaking with Rabbi Priesand, and I asked her who her favorite biblical figure was. She replied that she loved, “Eve because she chose knowledge and wisdom over life in the Garden of Eden.”
I was so struck by her answer. For thousands of years- since the time of the Torah itself- Eve’s choice to eat from the tree of knowledge has been denounced, and, yet, in one sentence, Rabbi Priesand had upended all of the assumptions that are behind that denunciation. The more that I thought about her answer, the more it made sense. Of course, Rabbi Priesand admires Eve. Rabbi Priesand is a pioneer who chose to seek her rabbinical education even when many of her professors and classmates denounced her goals. It makes perfect sense that she finds such meaning in the story of another woman who could have lived comfortably within the boundaries she was given but who decided to pursue an unprecedented path to knowledge and wisdom instead.
The second rabbi that I associate with Bereshit is Rabbi Regina Jonas, the first female rabbi. Rabbi Jonas received her rabbinical ordination from Rabbi Max Dienemann in a private ceremony on Dec. 27, 1935. Her ordination certificate was signed by Rabbi Dienemann, the then president of the General Assembly of Rabbis in Germany, and Rabbi Dienemann’s signature was attested to by Rabbi Leo Baeck. For years after her ordination, Rabbi Jonas worked selflessly and courageously for the Jewish people of Germany, even as the Nazis continued to gain more power.
In 1942, Rabbi Jonas and her mother were deported to Terezin where she continued to teach and serve the Jewish people until October of 1944 when she and her mother were sent to Auschwitz and then murdered.
Rabbi Leo Baek, Victor Frankel (author of “Man’s Search for Meaning”), and other survivors of Terezin knew Rabbi Jonas, and, yet, after the war, none of them ever again mentioned her by name in any public writings. Her life, rabbinate, and legacy faded almost completely into obscurity until a researcher discovered a small collection of her surviving writings in 1991. This previously unknown collection included a photo of Rabbi Jonas in rabbinical robes, a few newspaper clippings about her work as a rabbi in various German communities, a copy of her rabbinical thesis, and her ordination certificate (source: “The Sacred Calling: Four Decades of Women in the Rabbinate,” pages 46-48.
Over the last several decades, scholars have used this small, personal archive to fill in Rabbi Jonas’s story and to craft a portrait of a woman defined by her deep commitment to education and by the resiliency and steadfastness that she showed as she encountered and overcame all obstacles in her years-long pursuit of the rabbinate.
In one of the pieces discovered in Rabbi Jonas’s small archive, we find her reflections on her desire to be a rabbi, “If I confess what motivated me, a woman, to become a rabbi, two things come to mind. My belief in God’s calling and my love of humans. God planted in our heart skills and a vocation without asking about gender. Therefore, it is the duty of men and women alike to work and create according to the skills given by God.” — Regina Jonas, C.-V.-Zeitung, June 23, 1938 (source: Jewish Women’s Archive, jwa.org).
We do not know for certain the exact day that Rabbi Jonas and her mother were killed, but based on the timing of their deportation from Terezin and their arrival in Auschwitz, Shabbat Bereshit has been designated as their yahrzeit (their anniversary of passing).
In honor of these two remarkable rabbis, these two pioneers who devoted their rabbinates to serving the Jewish people, I hope that we will all approach the familiar stories of Bereshit with open minds and hearts. I hope that we will honor these rabbis’ commitment to the pursuit of knowledge, even and especially when our pursuit leads us into previously unexplored spaces. I hope that we will allow ourselves to listen to the small voice within our hearts, the same voice that Eve heard within her heart, the voice that asks, “What will happen if we trade comfort for truth? What can we become if we choose knowledge over contentment? What lies beyond the boundaries that we have been told that we must exist within?”
What I have learned from Rabbi Priesand and Rabbi Jonas is that if we are brave enough, determined enough, visionary enough, we can choose knowledge and can become the pioneers on whose shoulders future generations will gratefully stand.
