response to the new sensitivities we have on these matters vis-avis the relation between the genders. In doing so, we should call attention to the factors that differentiate our age from times past in these matters—especially the new Jewish and general educational opportunities open to women—in order to explain our deviation from previous practices. We should also point out, as| have maintained in this paper, that many of the practices and laws of the past were themselves based on the customs of their times, that law and custom always influence each other, and that in our day, as well, the law must catch up to the new customs emerging in our communities.
At this time, though, we should not institute an amendment (takkanah) totally equalizing the status of the two genders. This should happen only in some future time, if ever, for it would be justified only if and when the customs of our community have totally, or at least overwhelmingiy, become egalitarian. Delaying the institution of such an amendment will enable people of both genders to have some time to get used to women donning tefillin, for example, without prejudging the case from the outset to say that they must. We need to feel our way gradually into our new understandings of what it means to be a man or woman and how we are going to express those meanings in ritual and legal forms, and we must do this with mutual respect both for those of us who want to go more slowly in this process and for those of us who want to proceed more quickly.
When Israel stood at Sinai, the rabbis tell us, each Jew heard God 's voice according to his or her own sensitivities and abilities.* That did not preclude our tradition from having laws that governed everyone, but it did establish the theological basis for a diversity of practice among our ancestors, at least within certain bounds. These practices sometimes served as the source of the law, as they did with regard to most matters concerning the
legal distinctions between men and women. In our own day we
must let custom evolve and determine these matters as it did in the past.