Kotel

     All the fighting about which Jews have the last word about who could pray at the kotel was so uncomfortable to listen to . Living in the United States I am so used to live and let live  in regard to non orthodox forms of Judaism. The kotel is a holy site for all Jews. The fact that Jews with different ways of expressing Judaism still hold this site dear is significant. Baseless hatred for our fellow Jews is what caused the destruction of the Beit Hamikdash and our galus.
     Now this war on the temple mount and more senseless deaths.

I have never seen the kotel this empty during the daytime. So sad. I pray for peace sooner rather than later. I love Israel. I pray for achdus of Jewish people everywhere and peace for all of us. 

Women's Prayer Groups

     When I was 12 a good friend of mine was the first person I had ever met to have a bat mitzvah in a woman's prayer group. A few of my friends said that they davened at home before showing up to the bat mitzvah as protest. I remember at the time thinking that a women's prayer group was odd , but not much else. It was not much different than women just praying together . I guess the strangest part was hearing a woman read from the Torah.
      For me the issue of women's prayer groups is not so much whether or not they should read from the Torah with a bracha or if they should call themselves a minyan. I was never the type who wanted to read from the Torah, although the thought of being counted as part of a minyan seems kind of cool. In my mind going to shul is about being a part of the group, not about being separate  though the only shuls I attend have mechitzahs.  I attend shuls where I can see and hear what is going  on from my side of the mechitzah. If I went to a shul where this was not so and if there was a mechitzh kiddush I may think differently.
     My first Rosh Hashana in New York was spent at a shul in Boro Park where the women's section was a floor above the men's section. and there was a square the size of a small box cut into the floor of the women's section which was your only contact with what was going on in the men's section. All the women were chatting. I can't say that I blamed them. You could not hear or see anything that was going on in the men's section. It bothered me that I could not hear the shofar. I never went back there again.
     I have always attended Orthodox shuls so the idea of a mechitzah was never something that I had thought much about. As long as I was able to hear the service and have enough space to to sit in the women's section I was okay. When I went to the kotel it would always bother me that  I never was able to pray with a minyan.  I would always daven on my own. I could never tell what was going on in the men's section even when I knew that there was a minyan.