Finally, Alyza said, “Lawyers can only do so much,” and passionately pleaded that dayanim and batei din do more for women in this precarious position. “There is definitely a sense that women have, when they go before a beit din, that the system is stacked against them.” She said it is up to the dayanim to change that. “There has to be a way that women feel [it’s] not only lawyers in secular society trying to empower them, or trying to give them the tools. When we go before the D.C. Council, they look at us and say, ‘Why are you asking the state legislatures to solve your religious complications, shouldn’t your community be able to do that?’ ”
Reflecting on the ability of rabbanim to find solutions for a myriad of halachic problems, Alyza said, “Throughout history where there’s been a genuine serious determined will, there’s been a way, and if there are batei din out there who have started to come up with some sort of the halachic solutions, they need to publicize it and not be so afraid when they actually come out and help a woman, and free an agunah, that they have to keep it a secret. They have to publicize it because the fact that there are batei din out there who will turn around and come up with halachic solutions for the women that will deter recalcitrant spouses of the future.”
Alyza Lewin believes that is how women will feel the system is no longer stacked against them, “It is crucial that we create those opportunities for women so women don’t feel the system, the Jewish system, Jewish law, has abandoned them,” she said.