A balancing act

Maintaining the balance between modernity and tradition is an age-old challenge for all types of faith communities: When religious leaders make a change, some congregants see it as a move backward, others as a step forward. People may question whether it's driven by core religious values or by a desire to keep pace as society shifts.

Such decisions have been known to split congregations. But a quarter-century of trust has held a Baltimore synagogue together as it prepares to place a partition down its center aisle.

Called a mechitzah in Hebrew, the partition is a traditional fixtureseparating men and women. At Beth Tfiloh, a large Modern Orthodox synagogue, the wide aisle between the women's side and the men's has long sufficed as a symbolic separation to keep them focused on things holy. But it isn't enough for some of the more observant Orthodox Jews in the community.

Modern Orthodox synagogues aren't as strict about traditional practices as their Ultraorthodox counterparts, but very few go without the mechitzah. And for Rabbi Mitchell Wohlberg, adding one was important to securing the Orthodox part of Beth Tfiloh's identity. But he's equally committed to the modern side - especially when it comes to the evolution of women's roles. The synagogue has always tried, he says, "to show that Modern Orthodox is not an oxymoron."

So when he announced his plan to add a mechitzah, he also unveiled a few changes designed to make women feel more valued. During a baby-naming ceremony, for instance, mothers will be able to join fathers on the bimah, the platform from which services are conducted.

The changes at Beth Tfiloh will be a remarkable experiment, says Blu Greenberg, an author and a founder of the Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance in New York. "There are probably fewer than a dozen [Modern Orthodox] synagogues that are trying to find a way in the service to bring women more fully into a participatory role."

Mr. Wohlberg says some congregants are upset about the "feminist changes," but are prepared to go along with them because of the mechitzah - and vice versa. "I never could have done one without the other. It's a very delicate issue. It didn't happen overnight. It took 25 years of credibility."

That's how long Wohlberg has been guiding this congregation, which includes a significant number of Jews who don't consider themselves Orthodox but are attracted by the welcoming atmosphere.

When Wohlberg first arrived at Beth Tfiloh, the membership was less than half of today's throng of 1,300. The current building was constructed in the 1960s, and the use of the center aisle to divide the sexes was a compromise between congregants who wanted mixed seating and those who preferred a mechitzah like the one in their original building in a different part of town.

Wohlberg has long hoped to incorporate a mechitzah. But the time didn't seem ripe until recently, when it became clear that a growing number of graduates of Beth Tfiloh's school wanted to follow more traditional practices - and they wouldn't worship at the synagogue without a mechitzah because they were used to having one when they worshiped at school.

Wohlberg won quick approval from the board of director, and now the only thing he is waiting for is the right kind of hinges. Rather than installing a low wall, the plan is to add small wooden doors to the pews on both sides of the center aisle of the round sanctuary. The doors are only as high as the pews themselves (not high enough, in some Orthodox rabbis' views).

While some might see the partition as a step backward, Beth Tfiloh has long been in the vanguard of expanding what's considered acceptable for women in Modern Orthodoxy. A few years ago, for instance, women here began carrying Torah scrolls in their part of the sanctuary during a celebration called Simchat Torah.

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