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.
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.
