Innovation and Authority 17
section to section. Most of the twelve sections are self-enclosed, and some arguments even contradict the premises of others. The arguments fall into three general categories:(1) arguments for women’s attendance at male-led services rather than their own groups;(2) arguments for denying women the authority to innovate; and(3) arguments that women’s activism is forbidden because it imitates the behavior of non-Jews . I will analyze a selection of these arguments.
Arguments for Synagogue Attendance: Commandments Incompletely Fulfilled®
This section rests upon two contentions: First, that if women optionally assume commandments not obligatory for them, they must fulfill them“completely,” according to Schachter ’s criteria. Second, completely fulfilling the commandments of prayer is not in women’s power without dependence on a male minyan. Schachter is on firm ground reiterating the classical post-talmudic precedents excluding women from the structures of communal prayer: women are ineligible for minyan and thus may not say devarim she-be-qedusha(Orah Hayyim 55:1). Because there is no explicit talmudic statement excluding women from minyan for daily prayer, Schachter quotes Berakhot 45b, which in the context of the requirement of three for mezuman for birkat ha-mazon declares that a hundred women are like(that is, as inadequate as) two men; that is, women possess a qualitative lack that renders the presence of any number of them equally insignificant for the purpose of the quorum. The Tosafot to this passage extends the ruling to include any communal prayer situation and any davar she-be-gedusha. Thus, to hear or say a davar she be-qedusha, women are dependent on a minyan of men.*
The organizational premise of the prayer groups is that by forgoing devarim she-be-qgedusha, women at prayer can make themselves independent of the male minyan. Schachter seeks to break the back of this independence by proving that women are unable to pray acceptably without men to pray for them. His first attack is directed toward the heart of prayer group ritual: the Torah service, which symbolizes direct access to Judaism and its Sancta. Schachter argues that it is forbidden to read the Torah