Rav Moshe Feinstein (1895–1986) explains why he believes these sources provide a sufficient mandate for the use of the mechitza: “The rule that even if the men are on one side and the women on the other it is forbidden without a mechitza… is a biblical rule.  And the proof is from [Massekhet] Sukka… [the gemara] questioned… [how they built a balcony in the ezrat nashim given] that it is forbidden to add anything to the Temple and the courtyard, and Rav answered that they found a verse [which states] that it is necessary to separate men from women…” Feinstein goes on to say that the purpose of mechitza is to “prevent frivolity.”

In 1959, Rabbi Norman Lamm wrote in defense of mechtiza in an article entitled, “"Separate Pews in the Synagogue: A Social and Psychological Approach.” He writes, “[A Jew] approaches God out of solitude and insecurity, relying completely upon Him for his very breath.  This complete concentration on God, this awareness only of Him and nothing or no one else, is called kavana… without kavana, prayer becomes just a senseless repetition of words…” His argument is that mixing genders “undermines one’s kavana.”

 

Contemporary Concerns Surrounding Mechitza

 Today, many people are raising concerns about the potentially harmful effects of mechitza. One of the concerns raised is about how mechitza inherently sexualizes a space. In her work, “On the Margins and Other Impossible Spaces,” Naomi Seidman talks about the synagogue as a place filled with “symbolic architecture.” She uses Kafka’s “The Animal in the Synagogue” as a lens through which one can discuss the effect of mechitza. In this work, the “animal” creates a barrier between men and women. Seidman writes, “The normative sacral content of the synagogue, a community of men praying to their God with women as marginal spectator-participants, is disrupted by and subsumed to (or perhaps translated into) the sexual drama of women ogling a strangely compelling animal (and men ogling both the women and the animal.)”  She goes on, “The contemporary feminist critique of the symbolic architecture of the Orthodox synagogue has tended to focus more on the mechitzah—the barrier between men and women—than on what it produces—the homosocial space that connects each sex in a rich and even eroticized social group.” Her argument is that even though the mechitza attempts to assert sexual control and reduce heterosexual contact, it actually has the opposite effect by drawing attention to the normative separation.

Another concern regarding mechitza is that many women view this barrier as a form of patriarchal control. Many of the testimonials I collected for this project discussed this worry. Rachel Greenspan, a Conservative female, wrote, “I find mechitzas offensive, disturbing, archaic, patriarchic and heteronormative." Emily Hoolihan, a Reform female, said, “"...My interpretation, as a cantorial student at HUC-JIR, is that the mechitza was created to make Jewish men more comfortable with female identifying bodies in the shul. Similar to the idea of dressing modestly, I believe that the root of the idea comes from female bodies being "distracting" to the male gaze..." These are debates that are not wholly unique to Jewish communities. Women are struggling worldwide with systematic oppression that is often the result of patriarchal forces. Something that Jewish women are grappling with is the idea that mechitza might be a form of this systematic oppression. The mechitza, depending on the design and architecture of the space, has the ability to cut women off from the bimah and remove them from the center-focus of their own practices. There is a clear tension arising between tradition and contemporary ideas about gender equality.