My husband and I are still discussing the pros and cons of switching affiliations, and will probably continue to do so for some time. It seems to me that we're dealing with four basic challenges:
I've said it before and I'll say it again: for me, it's not the mechitzah (more examples, including a balcony version, here) that's the problem, it's everything that doesn't go with it. By the time my husband met me, I was already wearing a tallit/prayer shawl, though I hadn't advanced to wearing tefillin yet. I'm very used to, and enjoy, being counted in a minyan, leading services (including davar sheh-bi-k'dushah, those sections for which a minyan is required), having aliyot, leining (chanting the Torah/Bible reading from the scroll), chanting haftarot (additional readings, usually from the prophets). Even those Orthodox synagogues that have Women's Tefillah Groups don't usually have them more than once a month, and Partnership Minyanim are not available in every neighborhood.
For the record, my husband is also an egalitarian, and is downright offended by the prayer thanking G-d for not having made him a woman.
It's a bit overwhelming to contemplate all the major and minor changes we'd have to make in our lives to become Shomrei Mitzvot, Observers of the Commandments. We'd both need to study the laws of Shabbat/Sabbath and kashrut/dietary laws just to figure out what we don't know. It's a major commitment. Are we really ready to comply with every detail concerning how to conduct our daily lives halachicly? Do we really want to have to worry about the halachic status of a knife with which we've cut an onion, or what we are and aren't allowed to carry within an eruv?
Neither of us believes in Torah MiSinai, that G-d gave Moshe/Moses the entire so-called Five Books of Moses (Genesis-Deuteronomy) on Mount Sinai. We're both supporters of the Documentary Hypothesis, believing that the Torah was cobbled together from various pre-existing "texts" (written and/or oral).
My views were always anathema to our Orthodox former rabbi because I insisted on distinguishing between Torah sheh-Bi-ch'tav (the Written Law/Bible) and Torah sheh-B'Al Peh (the Oral Law), holding fast to the notion that the Mishnah and Gemara were the work of men (yes, males) rather than their transcripts of what G-d had told Moshes on Sinai. And it irks me no end when people treat midrashim (rabbinic legends and interpretations explaining gaps and difficult passages in the Torah) as if they were written in the Torah itself, not distinguishing between one and the other.
Neither of us believes in miracles that can't be explained by natural phenomena. For example, we're both convinced by the theory that the miracles that occurred at the time of Yitziat Mitzrayim/the Exodus from Egypt were the results of a massive volcanic eruption on the island of Thera/Santorini in the Mediterranean--we read "Exodus: The True Story Behind the Biblical Account," by Ian Wilson, which promulgated this theory, and it makes sense to both of us. That's not to say that G-d couldn't have caused this eruption and/or its timing, but it is to say that the Reed Sea didn't part just because G-d told Moshe to hold his staff over it.
And my husband would love to study cross-cultural influences on Judaism once he retires and has the spare time. He's always been fascinated by the Enuma Elish, the Gilgamesh Epic, and the Code of Hammurabi, for example, and, in his younger days, often expressed an interest in studying Akkadian and Ugaritic so that he could read some of these ancient texts in the original.
One of my husband's chief concerns is that, while he's very interested in studying traditional divrei kodesh/sacred texts, and would love to do some serious learning once he retires, he also wishes to be free to express his opinions. That's a concern of mine, as well. I understand that the rabbis loved to "explain away" problems in the text, and I find their midrashim and other explanatory literature very interesting, if for no other reason than that these explanations demonstrate clearly what the rabbis thought was missing or troubling. But neither of us would particularly appreciate having our own opinions considered unnacceptable simply because they're not necessarily traditional. We don't want to feel that the community that we choose won't accept us unless we keep our opinions to ourselves.
- As the old saying goes, "It takes two to tango."
"Mixed marriages, of sorts" present some very real challenges, and sometimes simple tolerance isn't enough. A "mutual non-interference ageement" doesn't work in the Orthodox community--for example, unless both of you are willingly to be completely Shomer Shabbat/Sabbath-Observant, Orthodox Jews won't eat in your home because they won't trust your kashrut. Unless we both agree to make the switch, it won't happen.
