Rahel Berkovits looks into the obligation of women in the reading of the megillah and discusses how things are not as they seem. She goes on to show how the laws are a window to the complexity of the status of women in Rabbinic Judaism and how in the spirit of Purim and Nahafoku, pre-conceived notions will be turned on their head.
Nahafokhu: Women and Megillah Reading – Overturning Assumptions
Introduction
Rahel Berkovits
Rabbi Rahel Berkovits is Senior Faculty at Pardes, where she has taught Mishnah, Talmud and Halakha for more than twenty years. She lectures widely in Israel and abroad on topics relating to women and Jewish law and Jewish sexual ethics. In 2015, Rahel received rabbinic ordination from Rabbis Herzl Hefter and Daniel Sperber.
Rahel is the halakhic editor and a writer for Hilkhot Nashim, the Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance’s halakhic source guide series published by Koren. She is also a founding member of Congregation Shirah Hadasha, a halakhic partnership synagogue in Jerusalem, where she serves on the halakha committee.