Comments on: Nashot HaKotel

By: Danya Ruttenberg » Blog Archive » Wednesday: Jewish feminists and Writing Process

Fri, 28 Jul 2006 08:43:49 +0000

[…] Anyway, Women at the Wall was packed, lots of students here for the summer and a few friends/colleagues/teachers/rock-star-like acquaintences who happened to be in town, so that was nice too. The presence of so many serious heroes in one place gave the event a nice, extra feeling of weight. […]

By: Soferet

Soferet — Fri, 10 Feb 2006 18:34:00 +0000

בס”ד
Ameyn!

By: Danya

Danya — Thu, 09 Feb 2006 03:54:00 +0000

Nashot haKotel–nashot is a funny construction, not usually used, except with stuff like this.

Nashei HaKotel sounds like “the wives of the Kotel.”

As for all the other stuff–don’t even get me started on the politics of who decides what around that space…..

By: deitybox

deitybox — Thu, 09 Feb 2006 03:35:00 +0000

Hey, loved your post….but shouldn’t it be “N’Shei HaKotel”? I’m really asking that, btw, I’m cramming on dikduk in prep for summer aliyah, b’ezrat Hashem.
I’m becoming more and more disturbed about the huge chunk of space that’s been eaten out of the women’s section of the kotel. They couldn’t have moved the mechitzah a bit, instead of dividing the ezrat nashim in half? Is there any word on whether this is permanent? Personally, I think it’s a shanda for the rest of the world, everyone who visits this “holiest site in Judaism” to see it like this. Not to mention having all those women crammed into half the space doesn’t do much for one’s kavannah.
Sigh.

By: Rachel

Rachel — Tue, 31 Jan 2006 08:39:00 +0000

Gaah! That was me; I didn’t mean to be anonymous.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Tue, 31 Jan 2006 08:38:00 +0000

I’m so glad you posted this — I can imagine a little bit what it was like, and it sounds awesome.

Also, this resonated: I didn’t like the way people treated the wall as an object of veneration–that’s avodah zarah (idolotry), and isn’t God everywhere, after all? — I fret about that one a bunch, about the kotel (and about Jerusalem and about Israel in general). So it’s always good to hear somebody else say something along these lines.

But I waffle especially on the kotel, because as you say, it’s been a holy place for so freaking long — we’ve sanctified it with all that kavvanah, I think, so maybe it really is extra-holy? Except I’m not sure it’s all good kavvanah — and I worry that Diaspora Jews have a tendency sometimes to imagine that “real” holiness is greatest there and that we, out here in chutz l’aretz, don’t have access to the real thing…

Anyway. My larger point is, thank you for posting this, because it is so cool. I hope to davven with Women of the Wall someday.