Frequently asked questions about davening with Rahmana
what is davening with rahmana like?
We treat prayer as a spiritual practice which aims to cultivate trust and joy, flow between solitude and belonging, relationship with community and with The Divine. We use liturgy as a scaffold through which our many experiences of prayer can be together in community. Prayer with Rahmana is in three languages: Hebrew, silence, and song. We hope you'll feel at home in at least one of them.
why create a separate feminine space for davening?
For the last 3000 years, Jewish men have been developing spiritual practice for communities of men. What might unfold when women – living as full Jewish adults – develop spiritual practice that is of women, for women, serving the divine together? And what expression of divinity might manifest therein?
who is invited to daven with rahmana?
Our community members include women ranging from age 14 to 70+ and our gatherings are intergenerational by design - a quality that young and old alike cherish. Participants regularly express their appreciation for the intergenerational nature of Rahmana.
Our minyan requires ten Jewish women. Jewish-adjacent women are warmly welcome to all of our programs.
In terms of bringing your daughters to davening: if they want to be here and you don't think they will distract you much, they may come. While we are in these early phases on developing Rahmana experiences, we are focused on programming for adult women.
Our minyan requires ten Jewish women. Jewish-adjacent women are warmly welcome to all of our programs.
In terms of bringing your daughters to davening: if they want to be here and you don't think they will distract you much, they may come. While we are in these early phases on developing Rahmana experiences, we are focused on programming for adult women.
HOW OFTEN DOES RAHMANA OFFER DAVENING?
We hold monthly prayer gatherings in a backyard or home. Rahmana is called a Women's Prayer Initiative because we see all of our gatherings as prayer, writ large. Every program we do aims to cultivate listening inward and outward and expressing.
How do you count minyan / dvarim sh'bikdusha at Rahmana?
Rahmana is a normative observant space, where woman are seen as full Jewish adults. When we have ten Jewish women assembled, we pray as a minyan, based on the extraordinary halachic work of Rabbi Hannah's teachers Rabbi Ethan Tucker and Rabbi Micha'el Rosenberg הן הם יודו or Gender Equality and Prayer in Jewish Law.
An on-one-foot version of this model: the Mishna (early rabbinic legal poetry, consolidated c. 200 CE) has poetic groupings of people in society. One such grouping, often discussed in conjunction with conversation about time-bound mitzvot (minyan, tefilin,...), groups "women, slaves, and minors." Another similar grouping in the Mishna is "a deaf person, a developmentally delayed person, and a child." This group is not allowed to exempt others from mitzvot for which they are not obligated because of their status, like reading Megillah (Mishna Megillah 2:4). Rav Osher Weiss in his halachic collection Minchat Asher responds to visiting a school for the deaf, early in the development and standardization of sign language. He witnessed deaf people speaking sign language, and understood that deaf people could be fully thinking and understanding people, and he argued that deaf people should no longer have the same legal exemptions as children or people with significant cognitive disabilities. He argued that the Mishna was describing a societal category, not a biological category. Deaf people were not fundamentally not obligated, they were only not obligated in a world where, without sign language, it was not clear that they could understand or fulfill their obligation.
The grouping of women, slaves, and minors, also was a coherent group at one time: societal adjuncts. Women are not "biologically" exempt from time-bound mitzvot, but rather a social role of care-taker is exempt from time-bound mitzvot. And in the world we live in, where women are running for president, it's no longer aligned with proper Divine service for women to be exempt from the mitzvot to which Jewish adults are obligated. There are many further conversations that need to be had. Let's have them!
An on-one-foot version of this model: the Mishna (early rabbinic legal poetry, consolidated c. 200 CE) has poetic groupings of people in society. One such grouping, often discussed in conjunction with conversation about time-bound mitzvot (minyan, tefilin,...), groups "women, slaves, and minors." Another similar grouping in the Mishna is "a deaf person, a developmentally delayed person, and a child." This group is not allowed to exempt others from mitzvot for which they are not obligated because of their status, like reading Megillah (Mishna Megillah 2:4). Rav Osher Weiss in his halachic collection Minchat Asher responds to visiting a school for the deaf, early in the development and standardization of sign language. He witnessed deaf people speaking sign language, and understood that deaf people could be fully thinking and understanding people, and he argued that deaf people should no longer have the same legal exemptions as children or people with significant cognitive disabilities. He argued that the Mishna was describing a societal category, not a biological category. Deaf people were not fundamentally not obligated, they were only not obligated in a world where, without sign language, it was not clear that they could understand or fulfill their obligation.
The grouping of women, slaves, and minors, also was a coherent group at one time: societal adjuncts. Women are not "biologically" exempt from time-bound mitzvot, but rather a social role of care-taker is exempt from time-bound mitzvot. And in the world we live in, where women are running for president, it's no longer aligned with proper Divine service for women to be exempt from the mitzvot to which Jewish adults are obligated. There are many further conversations that need to be had. Let's have them!