Perpetual children

I don't remember where I read this story, but it seems that, many years ago, the entire adult male population of a small Jewish town was drafted. (Was this in Czar Russia, perchance?) The result was that the Jewish observance of the town was radically diminished. Baby boys born shortly after the draft were not given a brit milah (ritual circumcision) because there was no trained mohel left to do the job. The eating of meat ceased because there was neither a shochet to slaughter animals in accordance with Jewish law nor a mashgiach to whom to ask questions if there was any doubt about whether the meat was kosher. The synagogue was virtually deserted, since there weren't enough boys left over the age of thirteen and under the age of conscription to make a minyan.

Imagine what might happen in our day if, heaven forbid, an epidemic swept through a large swath of the United States and killed all females who'd reached the age of puberty. The males would cope, with great difficulty. Enterprising guys would start daycare services to accommodate the 85% of the male population that wouldn't be able to afford to hire imported nannies or become stay-at-home parents and whose jobs didn't give them the liberty of telecommuting. In the Jewish community, considerable effort would have to be made to ensure that all the usual g'milut chassidim (acts of kindness), such as bikur cholim (visiting the sick) and ensuring that mourners' meals were provided, still had volunteers. There would be, obviously, a drop-off in births (and brit milah observances) for the foreseeable future, and young men would have to be sent out of state to find wives. The minyanim, after some adjustment and, possibly, the hiring of babysitters to care for young children during services, would manage. The "public" life of Judaism would continue.

Now imagine what might happen in our day if, heaven forbid, an epidemic swept through a large swath of the United States and killed all males who'd reached the age of puberty. There would be, obviously, a drop-off in births for the foreseeable future, and young women would have to be sent out of state to find husbands. Baby boys born shortly after the epidemic would have to be taken to other states, or mohalim (ritual circumcizers) "imported," for the brit milah. Not only kosher food but mashgichim (kashrut supervisors) would have to be imported for simchas (happy occasions). And, at the High Holidays and Pilgrimage Festivals, dozens of out-of-state yeshivot (Jewish day schools) and kollelim would be besieged with requests to send ten males to make a minyan so that the women could pray a full service with a Torah reading. Imagine the fundraising and stretching of widows' budgets necessary to provide free airfare, room and board to any 10 males at least 13 years old willing to sacrifice a few days with their own families to help make a minyan in towns with no adult males.

Think about that for a minute, folks. That means that a 90-something-year-old woman would have to rely on a group of boys young enough to be her greatgrandsons to (enable her to) say kaddish for her own mother.

I really don't know how else to describe the current approach to public worship in Orthodox interpretations of halachah (Jewish religious law) other than to call it a culture of female dependency, or, in fancier terminology, infantilization. Without 10 men present, women (no matter how many there are, how old we are, and/or how Jewishly learnèd we are) are not permitted to say bar'chu, kaddish, or kedushah, or to read the Torah scroll or haftarah with all the appropriate blessings. We are completely dependent for public ritual on our fathers, our brothers, our husbands, and even our own sons. In other words, even if we're mothers, even if we're gray-haired, in the eyes of Jewish law, we're no more than, and never will be any more than, overgrown children.