My grandparents renovated their house soon after I was born, replacing the floral couches and wooden walls with minimalist furniture, on-theme throw pillows, and white drywall. But if you walk into the house, go around the stairs, and look left, you’ll see a room that is a relic from long before the renovation. The antiquity of the dust-covered beige couch matches the grandfather clock and the cabinet filled with ceramic figures. I’ll visit that room sometimes. Wandering amongst the glass table, cream colored rug, and out-of-tune piano, I feel an odd sense of calm. I found myself there when visiting my grandparents a couple of months before my bat mitzvah. 

“Come with me,” my bubbe had said. I followed her from the kitchen with shiny new granite countertops into the room left untouched by time. She opened the glass cabinet of Judaica, reaching behind the kiddush cup and wax-covered menorah to pull out a yad. “Your uncle used this to read from the Torah for his bar mitzvah,” she said. What she left unsaid rang in my ears: His sisters weren’t allowed to. She held up the yad. Thirty years of tarnish had turned its silver shine rainbow. “It needs to be polished…” She looked at me. “But I think you should use it for your bat mitzvah.” 

And suddenly I was whisked away to the year 1990, when my uncle was getting ready to read from the Torah for his bar mitzvah. He was the middle child; he had one older sister (my mother) and two younger sisters. My uncle, as the sole boy of the four of them, was the first and only one of his siblings to read from the Torah. In their household, women didn’t do that. I can picture him, thirteen years old, standing in front of the bimah—holding the very same yad that I was—as he willed his voice not to shake while reciting his portion of the Torah. 

Many years before my uncle's bar mitzvah, there was the first ever bat mitzvah. This new Jewish adult was none other than Mordecai Kaplan’s daughter, Judith Kaplan. Although it looked a lot different from my bat mitzvah, it paved the way for me to be able to have one and to become a leader in my synagogue. And although many girls have had b’not mitzvah since Judith Kaplan, I was still the first person in my family to have one. I don’t take that for granted.

Whether or not women can read from the Torah is very divisive within the Jewish community. But, when my bubbe gave me the family yad, I felt as though it didn’t have to be. Even though I think positively about my feminist Jewish identity in a way that my grandparents don’t, they still supported me. They could see how much gender egalitarianism means to me. So, though they don’t practice Judaism the same way that I do, they still are willing to help make Judaism meaningful to me.  

When my bubbe gave me this yad, I felt like I finally didn’t have to hide some parts about my Jewish identity. Considering how important feminism and Judaism (and their intersections) are to me, it felt incredible to share that part of me with the people that I care about. I had worried that I would never be able to do that. 

I held the yad in my hand. Its hefty, hexagonal design imprinted my skin as I squeezed it. I looked at my bubbe. “Thank you.”