The discussion about women tying the knots on tzitzit reminded me that I wanted to post an excerpt of an article that is on the website, Chabad.org. It concerns women wearing tallesim and I found it by accident recently. While there are many article on line about this topic, the fact that this one is from Chabad surprised me.
“So what is a woman who wishes to wear a tallit to do?
Rabbi Moshe Feinstein, eminent 20th century halachic authority, writes1 that a woman who desires to wear a tallit may do so, provided that she wears a distinctively feminine tallit, to avoid the problem mentioned above. He cautions, however, that this applies only to women whose desire to wear a tallit stems from a yearning to fulfill this mitzvah, though recognizing that they are not required to do so, and not to individuals who don a tallit as a “protest,” a means of challenging what they perceive to be a gender bias in Jewish law. Such an individual is not fulfilling a mitzvah, and to the contrary.”
I also wish to mention that as a Conservative woman who attends an egalitarian shul (BTW not all Conservative shuls are egalitarian – each board decides for itself) I have taken on the mitzvah of wearing a tallit. I don’t know what it is, but when I put on my tallit, I find that I am far more focused on the service and on my prayers. I don’t know if I feel more spiritual -I cannot describe the feeling, but I know that I daven with more kavenah. There is something about being wrapped in the tallit that brings a feeling of being closer to Hashem.