Want Out of the Fast of the Firstborn?: crash a wedding and chow down This year, the fast of the firstborn, Taanit Bechorot, falls on Thursday, April 17th. Should you be fasting? Here’s the lowdown:

1. What It's All About: Remember the tenth plague, death of the firstborn sons? Recollect how the Jews marked their houses with the blood of a pascal lamb, so God would know not to kill Jewish firstborn sons? Taanit Bechorot is a sunrise to sunset fast specifically for firstborn children (we’ll get to the daughter/son issue in a minute) to commemorate how they were saved from being slaughtered in the plague.
2. When to Abstain: Usually, the fast falls on the day before Passover starts, but because Passover starts on a Saturday night this year, and we’re only allowed to fast on Shabbat for Yom Kippur, Taanit Bechorot is pushed to Thursday.
3. Loopholes: The Rabbis knew that the day before Passover wasn’t a great time to be asking people to not eat (everyone deserves a pre-Passover donut fix, right?) so there are a number of suggested ways to get out of fasting. For instance, you generally can’t fast if you attend certain ceremonies that require festive meals, such as a bris, a wedding, a bar or bat mitzvah, or a siyum. Firstborns are encouraged to go to such ceremonies so they won't have to fast.
   
4. Equal Opportunity Fasting: Are firstborn women obligated to fast on Taanit Bechorot? As you might expect, there’s some controversy around this question. Some authorities say that only firstborn men should fast. If a child is too young to fast, his father fasts for him, and if the father is a first born and has to be fasting already, the mother fasts for the child. But there are many communities where women are considered to be obligated as well. This is based mostly on a Midrash that says that Bitya, Pharoah’s eldest daughter, was saved because of the merit of Moses. This implies that other Egyptian women weren’t saved, so the miracle applies to women as well.
5. Insatiable Appetite for Fasting Knowledge?: For more background on Taanit Bechorot, check out MyJewishLearning, or Daily Halacha. For more on the debate about whether women are obligated, check out a JOFA article called “Women and the Fast of the Firstborn.”

Living in Nashville, it’s hard to have sympathy for people in huge Jewish communities trying to find the shul or minyan that’s just right for them. Here in Music City we don’t have that many options. There’s Orthodox, Chabad, Conservative, and two Reform Temples. Only the Orthodox and Conservative synagogues are within walking distance of my house, and I like the Orthodox better, ergo, I daven at the Orthodox shul. Not exactly a complex equation.

But I’ve moved around a lot in my life, and I know how important shul shopping can be, especially when you’re settling in for the long haul in a new place. We’ve mentioned http://www.shulshopper.com/ ShulShopper before on Faithhacker, and I urge you to take a look and see what’s available in your neighborhood. But shulshopper still doesn’t list everything, and sometimes it’s hard to sift through all the labels and affiliations. Plus, lots of what’s on shulshopper are synagogues with rabbis and cantors and sisterhood luncheons, which I know can be hard to get excited about. Luckily, the Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance has an awesome listing of some minyans that will make you start getting excited about Kabbalat Shabbat on Monday. But keep in mind that they only list “partnership minyanim,” which they define as:

a prayer group that is both committed to maintaining halakhic standards and practices and also committed to including women in ritual leadership roles to the fullest extent possible within the boundaries of Jewish Law. This means that the minyan is made up of 10 men, men and women are separated by a mechitzah, and the traditional liturgy is used. However, women may fully participate in kriyat ha'Torah, including layning and receiving aliyot, and may lead parts of the prayer service such as psukei d'zimrah and kabbalat Shabbat, which do not contain d'varim she b'kedusha.

If you’re looking for something fully egalitarian, but minus stained glass and old ladies wearing doilies on their heads, I have some suggestions:
Shiny Happy Minyainaires: You could be one, too!
If you’re in Chicago, there are actually a number of choices, though I think the minyan I grew up with is by far the best. You can see its website at Egalitarianminyan.org. There’s another egal minyan in Skokie, called the Egalitarian Minyan of Congregation Bnai Emunah. They’re also pretty great.

In New York there’s Kehilat Hadar, which is known for being young, cool, and having amazing singing.

In Boston there’s the Tremont Street Shul, which has an egal minyan subset with a great reputation.

In LA there’s the Library Minyan, which is really friendly and laid back.

In London, try Assif. Not yet up to the standards of Hadar, but great ruach, and an awesome custom of having Kiddush in the middle of davening, so your stomach isn’t grumbling through mussaf.

In Jerusalem there’s Kehilat Kedem, which is at once relaxed and professional-feeling.

These are just the places that come to me off the top of my head, but they’re worth checking out. And a big plus is that they all have women participating in leading services. The places on the JOFA list have some rules about when and how women can lead, but every single place I’ve talked about today actively involves women. Sweet!