Thursday, September 21, 2006

Sea Change? It's Only a Mikveh

In interviews with the Forward, younger Conservative women concurred that the move was unlikely to inspire an immediate sea change.

What are they talking about?

Well:-

Liberal Rabbis Calling on Women To Take the Plunge for Ritual Purity


Top leaders of Conservative Judaism are promoting a plan to encourage female congregants to plunge regularly into a ritual bath, following the adoption last week of rabbinic guidelines by the movement’s central lawmaking body.

At a September 13 meeting held in New York at the Jewish Theological Seminary, the Rabbinical Assembly’s Committee on Jewish Law and Standards voted to approve three opinion papers, or tshuvot, tackling what are traditionally known as the laws of “family purity.” The decision by the 25-member body of rabbis to endorse the varying opinions, each of which offers a slightly different take on the religious laws that require women to bathe each month in purifying waters, is the first time that the Conservative movement has made official its position on sexual relations between men and women following the completion of a woman’s menstrual cycle
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