Who is best positioned to author the story of how yoatzot halacha, in collaboration with rabbis, rebbetzins, kallah teachers and lay leaders, have impacted our community? Undoubtedly, everyone mentioned above are important voices in the story, in addition to the women and men who address their questions to yoatzot. Certainly the yoatzot who have collectively addressed hundreds of thousands of questions can help form a comprehensive narrative. As shuls in Teaneck have employed a yoetzet halacha for over 15 years, the story has already been and continues to be told. However, it would be incomplete without the voice of Rabbanit Chana Henkin, who envisioned the role of the yoetzet halacha and has catalyzed the placement of yoatzot in dozens of communities across the world.
Rabbanit Henkin served as a rebbetzin and kallah teacher prior to the existence of yoatzot. She witnessed the hesitancy of women to ask intimate questions of even the most sensitive and knowledgeable rabbis, and, as a result, founded Nishmat’s yoetzet halacha program together with her husband, Rav Yehudah Herzl Henkin, z”l. Over the past 25 years, she has facilitated the training of over 150 yoatzot, and has heard stories of impact from thousands of women and couples who have been guided by yoatzot. She has overseen Nishmat’s move to education in online spaces such as yoatzot.org and Zoom, and onto social media channels such as Facebook and Instagram. And, most recently, she has both edited, and contributed her own scholarship, to the newly translated “Nishmat HaBayit,” a book of she’elot u teshuvot (responsa) written by yoatzot halacha. This landmark publication of this volume, in its own unique way, tells the story of how yoatzot have impacted women, couples, families and communities.
At this year’s 10th Annual Teaneck Yoetzet Initiative summer event on August 2, “Bringing It Home: The Story of How Yoatzot Have Impacted Lives,” the women in our community will have the distinct opportunity to learn from Rabbanit Henkin as she joins me for a conversation moderated by Chaya Batya (CB) Neugroschl, principal of Ma’ayanot Yeshiva High School for Girls. Both of these leaders have been instrumental in shaping the religious lives of thousands of women—their observance, their learning and the totality of their experience as religious women.
In this conversation we will explore myriad questions regarding the impact of yoatzot halacha, seeking to also understand how “Nishmat HaBayit” might inform our analysis. What are the emotional tensions and medical factors implicit in the backdrop of many of the questions addressed in this book, and what is the unique contribution of yoatzot in answering them? How did this book come to be? What does it have to offer to women who have a yoetzet to speak with? What informed its unique style of she’elot u teshuvot? Does this book, and exposure to yoatzot, offer something important to women who are not yet married, such as high school students?
Participants are invited to submit questions in advance when they register for the August 2 event at https://www.rinat.org/form/yoetzet-halacha-event-2022.html, as well as anonymously during the conversation.
I look forward to learning from and thinking more deeply with Rabbanit Henkin, CB Neugroschl and all of you about how yoatzot have impacted the lives of those who observe taharat hamishpacha (the laws of family purity), as well as how the experience of halacha for women in general has shifted over time.
To register for the August 2 event, please visit https://www.rinat.org/form/yoetzet-halacha-event-2022.html
Yoetzet Halacha Tova Warburg Sinensky serves the Teaneck, Atlanta and Greater Philadelphia communities. She is also a kallah teacher and consultant for high schools on intimacy education. To follow the Teaneck Yoetzet Initiative on Facebook visit: https://www.facebook.com/TeaneckYoetzet/. To follow Tova on Instagram: @yoezettriathletetova
