Image by Illustration by Kurt Hoffman

Women are permitted to dance with a Torah scroll on the Simchat Torah holiday, a national-religious rabbinical organization has ruled.

The Beit Hillel organization posted the religious ruling on its website.

The ruling also encourages synagogues to be more inclusive of the elderly, the youth and people with disabilities during the holiday celebration, which includes seven circuits of the Torah scrolls with singing and dancing.

Forwarding the News

Thoughtful, balanced reporting from the Forward and around the web, bringing you updated news and analysis each day.

Terms(Required)

I agree to the Forward's Terms of Service and Privacy Policy

Email(Required)

In the Orthodox community women generally are not permitted to read from the Torah scroll or hold a Torah scroll. “Women who see this as important are permitted to dance with a Torah scroll or around a Torah which is on a table in the middle of the dancing,” the religious ruling read.

“In our generation, many women are active partners in prayers and classes as they are in other parts of community life. … If women’s participation on Simchat Torah amounts to watching from the women’s section or arranging the tables for kiddush then this is a sad fact.”

The ruling also recommended other ideas for involving women more in Simchat Torah celebrations, including designating a woman as the Kallah Torah, or bride of the Torah, in the same way as a man is designated as the Chatan Torah, or groom of the Torah, and to make sure there is enough dance space for the women, as well as consult with the women on the songs that will be sung.

The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.

Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.

This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

2X match on all Passover gifts!

$90 → $180 $180 → $360

$360 → $720

Other amount