Similar experimentation is happening with bat mitzvah ceremonies—again, some emphasizing the sameness of the event marked by a bar mitzvah for boys and some stressing the differences—and with weddings are increasingly involving both the bride and the groom in a more active role in both planning the rite and in participating in it. So, for example, if the groom is going to be called to the Torah in honor of his forthcoming wedding in the synagogue in that he grew up(his aufruf), the bride should be likewise called up for that honor in her home synagogue, assuming that that synagogue calls women to the Torah . In each case, if the person having the aufruf normally gives a homily(devar Torah ) as well, that should be true for both the bride and the groom. Alternatively, at the wedding itself it could be not only the groom who gives a word of Torah in advance of the ceremony(the hatan'’s tisch, the groom's table), but the bride could do so as well. Similarly, if the bride follows the custom of walking around the groom, the groom might then walk around his bride(usually three times each)—and then, for the seventh circuit, both together might walk around the wedding canopy, which symbolizes their new home.
Jewish rites of death and mourning are already egalitarian, in that there is only one thing that we do for men that we do not do for women; namely, we traditionally bury a man’s cut tallit (prayer shawl) with him. Perhaps some ritual object connected with the deceased woman could be buried with her, such as the head covering or the candlesticks she used for lighting Sabbath candles. That men prepare a man’s body for burial and women prepare a woman's is not only important for reasons of modesty, but also to symbolize the embodied and engendered nature of the deceased. The genders are equal but different even in death. I would also encourage women to say kaddish during the year after a parent's death; a daughter's relationship with her parents may be different from a son’s, but it is no less close, and the law demands honor of parents from daughters just as much as it does from sons.
As we continue to experiment with new customs, we must allow some to retain traditional practices without being attacked as somehow anti-women or reactionary, while we simultane
ously permit others to try various forms of egalitarianism. The