“Undoubtedly, the most hotly debated set of issues concerns the status of Orthodox women”

Undoubtedly, the most hotly debated set of issues concerns the status of Orthodox women. Sexual equality is now taken for granted in most Modern Orthodox homes, and holding males and females to different standards is increasingly unthinkable. Under the circumstances, why should it not occur to some girls that they too might don t’filin (phylacteries), traditionally the accoutrements of male worship? How much Torah and Talmud ought girls and women be encouraged to study? May women serve as synagogue presidents? May they conduct their own prayer services, lead parts of mixed services, or wear t’filin during public worship? And, drawing the greatest heat: what are rabbis prepared to do to release “chained” women (agunot), whose husbands have refused to grant them a proper writ of divorce?

Jack Wertheimer, “Can Modern Orthodoxy Survive?”, Mosaic (August 2014) [http://mosaicmagazine.com/essay/2014/08/can-modern-orthodoxy-survive/]