Second-Wave Jewish Feminism, 1971-1991: Foundational Theology and Sacral Discourse 9781463200848, 2011027908, 1463200846

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Second-Wave Jewish Feminism, 1971-1991: Foundational Theology and Sacral Discourse

Second-Wave Jewish Feminism, 1971-1991: Foundational Theology and Sacral Discourse

Foundational Theology and Sacral Discourse

Luke Devine

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 2011

Gorgias Press LLC, 954 River Road, Piscataway, NJ, 08854, USA www.gorgiaspress.com Copyright © 2011 by Gorgias Press LLC All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise without the prior written permission of Gorgias Press LLC. 2011

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ISBN 978-1-4632-0084-8

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Devine, Luke. Second-wave Jewish feminism, 1971-1991 : foundational theology and sacral discourse / by Luke Devine. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Feminism--Religious aspects--Judaism. 2. Feminism--United States--History--20th century. 3. Women in Judaism. 4. Jewish women--United States. 5. Judaism--Doctrines. 6. Spiritual life--Judaism. 7. Jewish women--Religious life. I. Title. BM729.W6D485 2011 296.082--dc23 2011027908 Printed in the United States of America

CONTENTS Contents.....................................................................................................v Preface.......................................................................................................ix Acknowledgments ................................................................................xvii Introduction: The Historical Jewish Woman in the Biblical and Rabbinic Traditions.........................................................................1 1 Second-Wave Jewish Feminism in America, 1971-1991: An Overview.........................................................................................19 2 Is the Right Question Theological? ............................................51 Jewish Theology from Rabbinic Times to the TwentiethCentury...................................................................................52 Cynthia Ozick: The “Right Question” is not Theological......62 Judith Plaskow: “The Right Question is Theological” ............65 Conclusion: Plaskow’s Rejection of Hierarchical Otherness .82 3 Liturgist-Theologies of the Second-Wave .................................87 Naomi Janowitz and Maggie Wenig: Experimenting with God-Language ......................................................................91 Marcia Falk: Addressing God in Neuter Language..................94 Rebecca Alpert: Jewish Theology from a Lesbian Perspective...........................................................................102 Shekhinah: the Feminine Attribute of Presence.....................109 Lynn Gottlieb: Imaging the Divine as God-She ....................118 Rachel Adler: the Necessity of God as Other ........................126 Conclusion: it’s Feminist, but is it Theology?.........................134 4 “There Are Many Thoughts in the Human Heart”: God in Multiplicity....................................................................................137 Carol Christ: Story Theology .....................................................138 Rita Gross: the Necessity of Anthropomorphisms ...............148 Ellen Umansky: Jewish Feminist Theology as Responsive...153 Jewish Feminism and the Goddess ..........................................157 Feminist Reengagement with the Tradition ............................165 v

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Tamar Ross: Cumulative Revelation ........................................170 Rosemary Radford Ruether: Theology as Subjective Experience ...........................................................................177 Feminist Midrash.........................................................................186 Conclusion: Plurality and The Feminist Loss of God...........193 5 The Abandonment of the Jewish Theological Tradition and its Eschatological Premises ................................................199 The Initial Challenge...................................................................203 1. Plurality .....................................................................................208 2. Eschatology..............................................................................215 3. Supernaturalism .......................................................................220 4. Authenticity..............................................................................223 5. Definition .................................................................................229 Conclusion: Jewish Feminist Theology, the First Forty Years .....................................................................................231 Conclusion: Beyond the Second-Wave and the “Future” of Jewish Feminist Theology ..........................................................235 Glossary .................................................................................................247 Bibliography ..........................................................................................257 Index.......................................................................................................283

This book is dedicated to Georgina Taylor

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PREFACE I’ve heard many times that “Jews don’t do theology,” but in my own experience, particularly in my years studying the Jewish feminist movement, I’ve done nothing but theology. That was in the main due to, first, my reading of Amy Levy,1 and second, my years under the guidance of Jewish feminist theologian Melissa Raphael. The Second-Wave of Jewish feminism, with its primary locus in America,2 was fertile ground for the development of Jewish feminist theology.3 The actual project, however, of nurturing any prescriptive or practical exposition on the divine with women at its nucleus has not been achieved. Indeed, to this very day, feminist theologians, some of whom have research backgrounds in theology, while others, self-styled, have little or no training in theology, have devised subjective projections of the divine relevant to their personal or small group, experience. These “theologies” have their root in the modern, and postmodern, pluralizing orientation towards liberal individualism; certainly, traditional Judaism and its “discriminatory” layers have been succinctly mined for any salvageable egalitarian elements, while interpretive liberty, in its most radical form, has jettisoned the tradition altogether. Moreover, as Jewish feminist theology is rooted in the experience of the individual feminist and her immediate social and religious context, the eschatological elements of traditional Judaism that have been present 1 See my From Anglo-First-Wave towards American Second-Wave Jewish Feminism: Negotiating with Jewish Feminist Theology and Its Communities in the Writing of Amy Levy (Piscataway: Gorgias Press, 2010). 2 This is not to say that the Second-Wave was exclusive to America, see, for example, Women Rabbis Tell Their Stories, ed. Sybil Sheridan (London: SCM Press, 1994). Indeed, Melissa Raphael, who has written extensively on Jewish feminist theology, is English; while Tamar Ross is an Orthodox feminist in Israel. Both feature in this book. 3 The term “Second-Wave” was first coined by Marsha Lear.

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since Sinai, such as divine judgment, Messianic redemption, belief in the Messianic Age, afterlife, resurrection, anticipation of the Coming Age, the continuation of the Davidic line, the restoration and deliverance of Israel, holiness (kedushah),4 and Jewish destiny in general, have been all but forgotten.5 Moreover, according to Melissa Raphael Jewish feminists can only justify Judaism to women on the grounds of shared experience and the connection between generations of Jewish women. As a post-Holocaust construal, Raphael argues, Jewish feminism has lost faith in the classical understanding of God and has focused on religious liberation instead of developing any para-doctrinal feminist discursive on the divine. What is more, Raphael continues, the focus on subjective experience and the rejection of normativity has rendered women religointellectually marginalized.6 This book is the first of its kind to analyze Second-Wave Jewish feminist theology in the United States in the period 1971-1991. The monograph essentially examines the principle theologians and their reflections on the divine. With some, we will analyze systematic and elaborated theological discourse, though in the main, these reflections and expositions are foundational, even embryonic. Moreover, this is a study of Second-Wave feminism; the views of the theologians examined are subject to change, and have changed since the 1970s and 1980s. I will try to elaborate where necessary. Inevitably, my discussion will introduce and call on the work of feminist theologians, and theorists, outside of the Second-Wave focus (including non-Jewish theologians). Indeed, the SecondWave perspective is conceptual as much as it is historical. This is necessary for context and retrospective analysis, and allows us to The holiness of the divine implies uniqueness, absolute separation, and difference from all other beings. This concept is entirely different to Christian usage that suggests spiritual elevation (Nicholas de Lange, Penguin Dictionary of Judaism (London: Penguin Books, 2008), 146-47). 5 See Melissa Raphael, “Standing at a Demythologized Sinai? Reading Jewish Feminist Theology Through the Critical Lens of Radical Orthodoxy,” in Interpreting the Postmodern: Responses to “Radical Orthodoxy,” eds. Rosemary Radford Ruether and Marion Grau (New York: T & T Clark, 2006), 197-214. 6 Raphael, “Standing at a Demythologized Sinai,” 197-201, 207, n27. 4

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see, first, the what happened next, and second, to speculate on the “future” of Jewish feminist theology. Importantly, readers should be aware that this monograph is a critical study of Jewish feminist theology, its history and its future, not a biographical overview of the personalities and organizations of the Second-Wave, or an analysis of religious and communal reform in the United States Jewish communities. In this book, I define theology as either spiritual reflection or systematic study of belief in God, the conception of God, how this has evolved, and the extant Jewish understandings of God.7 This study, therefore, is not an analysis of feminist approaches to halakhah, ritual, synagogue, marriage, community, or liturgy per se. These elements are covered only in relation to theology. Additionally, this research approaches SecondWave theology thematically as opposed to chronologically. The eclectic, subjective, and hyper-diverse nature of Jewish feminist theology insists that for comparison and critical examination these spiritual discourses, expositions, and reflections on the divine be approached by type, where this is possible. To complete my analysis of Jewish feminist theology, this book sets up an analytical/critical framework that will, where necessary, ask five integral questions: 1. Is a prescriptive, normative Jewish feminist theology possible as long as liberal Jewish feminists (who account for the majority given the scarcity of Orthodox feminists willing to approach “theology”) reject any suggestion of normativity? Indeed, if their commitment is to plurality, liberal individualism, and meritocratic egalitarianism; in short, the immediate experience and changeable mood of the feminist, how can any prescriptive theology that accounts for multiple identities ever be considered normative or inclusionist? 2. Is a Jewish feminist theology that has jettisoned halakhah, or at least demanded its wholesale reform, that has also rejected the tradition as too androcentric to have any salvageable elements, or at least has deemed it in need of radical feminist transformation, and that has completely abandoned the eschatological components of the tradition, and that rejects Jewish particularism, actually a Jewish theology at all? 3. Is a Jewish feminist exposition on the divine that rejects hierarchy and is skep7

De Lange, Dictionary, 312.

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tical of supernaturalism, ignores eschatology, and the central theological concept of kedushah, and that defines God through a multiplicity of terms, rejecting the divine presence’s essential authority and otherness, actually a theology at all? 4. Is the experience of the individual feminist constitutive of an authentic Judaism, specifically if the religionist has abandoned the tradition, wholly or in part, and imported non-Jewish spiritualities and images; that is, if the individual stands over and above the tradition, whether Judaism or something entirely embryonic, what is this theology’s authoritative base; indeed, do any of the Jewish feminist theologies analyzed in this text have an authoritative foundation? 5. If Jewish theology is the study of, or discourse on, God, religion, and revelation; more specifically in Judaism, the assumption of radical monotheism, the rejection of polytheism, again: eschatology, halakhah, the “chosen” people; does the rejection, critique, and abandonment of these essential criteria leave behind anything recognizably Jewish, or theologically Jewish; additionally, when does a theology go so far away from the crucial, original, and sustaining inner-core that we can no longer consider it Jewish, but something else? These questions are not easily answerable; they ultimately lead to the more vital debate: is a workable, prescriptive Jewish feminist theology possible at all? But, this study also acknowledges that some of these theological reflections are not intended to be prescriptive or systematic, they are foundational. Indeed, embryonic: early efforts that even their authors might now be less enthusiastic about; as we will see, some have even changed denominations since the Second-Wave. To understand and answer these difficult and controversial questions I will first provide an outline of the historical Jewish woman, accounting for her traditional role in the community, and her status in both the Hebrew Bible and rabbinic Judaism. Chapter one overviews the Second-Wave of Jewish feminism in America: its primary concerns, personalities, essential discourse, and religious activism. This is essentially old ground for scholars of Second-Wave feminism, though to more recent generations this history of the movement and its struggle is absolutely necessary for context and, moreover, reveals a commitment to praxis (halakhah, ritual, liturgy, synagogue, textual interpretation) that has been necessary for communal and religious reform, but equally hindering with regard to the pursuit of theology.

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Chapter two, recalling the famous debate between Cynthia Ozick and Judith Plaskow inquires: is the right question, with regard to gender inequality in the tradition, theological, as Plaskow suggests, rather than sociological/repairable through halakhah, as Ozick argues? This debate, particularly given Plaskow’s critique of classical masculinist theology, is important as it sets the thematic tone of Second-Wave theology – the essential rejection of normativity, hierarchy, otherness, the holy, supernaturalism, particularism, transcendence, and chosenness. In chapter three we will explore liturgist theologies. The traditional liturgy, and its masculinist, androcentric, and sexist assumptions, as we will see, has been both a source of alienation and inspiration. Indeed, several feminist scholars have developed their own liturgies beyond the confines of the tradition and the classical formula for blessings. We will look at Naomi Janowitz and Maggie Wenig’s groundbreaking Siddur Nashim and Marcia Falk’s Book of Blessings. The analysis reveals the necessary questions of God-language and the early debate over the application of God-she in the place of “he,” as we see in Siddur Nashim, which is contrasted with the non-personal, nonanthropomorphic, even neuter language, of Falk’s innovative, though sometimes complex, blessings. But more so, we will see the influence of Mordecai Kaplan’s Reconstructionism and its rejection of classical theology, first in Falk’s work, but more explicitly in Rebecca Alpert’s lesbian re-visioning of Judaism. This is important, as the spiritual discursive present in both Falk and Alpert’s discourse is more humanistic than it is theological, particularly given the implicit rejection of distinction. In contrast to God-she, and to nonanthropomorphic theological language, we will see in Lynn Gottlieb’s appropriation of Shekhinah the danger of God’s duality; most problematically, when explicit femaleness replaces assumptive masculinity, even to the extent that the divine is imaged as Goddess. In her commitment to a non-sexist Judaism, liturgisttheologian Gottlieb, who was ordained in the Jewish Renewal movement, imports non-Jewish religious perspectives into her visualization of God-she through Shekhinah. This over-emphasis on “she” leads to necessary questions regarding the diminishing of the divine into mere human categories. Thus, in the many diverse works of Rachel Adler that span her time as both an Orthodox and a Reform religionist we see awareness that theologies are implicit in God-language. Adler argues that in contrast to Reconstructionist

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theologies that reject transcendence, hierarchical distinction is necessary to maintain God’s difference and essential otherness. More importantly, however, Adler’s theoretical discussions of halakhah, prayer, textual interpretation, sexual imagery, and marriage highlight perhaps the central element of Jewish feminist theological discursive – the focus on praxis – ritual, prayer, law etc. But as we will see, these are not the only ways that Second-Wave feminism has debated, imaged, and experimented with the divine. In chapter four, we will see the inevitable plurality of feminist imaging of deity. Indeed, in the story-theology of Carol Christ, who is not Jewish, and Rita Gross, who took up Buddhism, we will explore the development of Goddess feminism, and in the work of Ellen Umansky, the prospects (including problems and solutions) of imaging the Goddess in a radically monotheistic tradition. Moreover, I will examine the relevance of Goddess feminism in contemporary Jewish communities. This, we will see, is in contrast to those Jewish feminist scholars who have remained within the tradition, the most notable theologian being Tamar Ross who argues for a process of cumulative revelation that builds on the Sinaitic foundations of the tradition, though accepts that patriarchy, while currently the subject of feminist critique, was, however unpleasant, necessary in the past but need not be part of the future. Importantly, discussion of Orthodox feminism activates questions of authority and authenticity in the contrast between those theologians who have decided to work within traditional boundaries and the subjective, personal nature of liberalistic approaches to the tradition that call into question, and even reject, the essential elements of classical Judaism, including eschatology, radical monotheism, and the conventional notion of the holy (among other things). Drawing on this dispute, the Catholic theologian, Rosemary Radford Ruether, argues that even the sacred texts were once subjective. Finally, in my discussion of the diverse theological perspectives inherent to Second-Wave feminism, we will see another, perhaps more accessible, method of feminist expression on the divine – midrash, which is an unfettered hermeneutical tool that permits interpretive liberty and encourages imaginative, and original, approaches to the Biblical and rabbinic texts. More recently, midrash has become a tool for theological reflection. In chapter five, I will draw together my analysis of SecondWave theology in light of the interpretive framework of five ques-

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tions to overview the near abandonment of the Jewish theological tradition by outlining the notable barriers preventing the development and nurturing of a prescriptive, or in some way practical, Jewish feminist theology. Indeed: the plurality of the loosely defined movement, the jettisoning of the eschatological elements of the tradition, the rejection of hierarchy, the supernatural, and transcendence, along with questions of authenticity, but more importantly, problems with “definition,” undoubtedly hinders, and calls into question, the necessity of the Jewish feminist theological project. In the conclusion, I thus ask the question: is there a future for Jewish feminist theology? In short, through the process of this book, we will see and analyze theologies that are both groundbreaking, influential, and inspirational, though again, it is important to be clear, many of these expositions on the divine are foundational and often subject to later revision, which I will attempt to elucidate where necessary. For the Jewish feminist theological project to blossom, or regain the impetus, it is necessary to take stock, to look back, and to look forward: this book does this with both praise, and where necessary, respectful criticism, aware that Jewish feminism, and Jewish feminist theology, are still in their infancy, and barely forty years old, compared to the rabbinic/Orthodox tradition, which has the benefit of two-thousand years in existence. Indeed, the cliché: “Rome wasn’t built in a day.” Dr. Luke Devine Worcester, England June 2011

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Few books are completed in isolation, though, locked away in my garret-office with only Shekhinah watching over me it has often seemed that way over the weeks and months that I have written this book. Of course, the process, thankfully, is much more than merely the writing up stage and stems back many years. The monograph would not have been possible without the advice of Melissa Raphael. However, Second-Wave Jewish Feminism, 1971-1991: Foundational Theology and Sacral Discourse is perhaps most indebted to the growing Jewish feminist corpus that encompasses and gives full voice to the diversity of contemporaneous feminist religious and theological aspirations.

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INTRODUCTION: THE HISTORICAL JEWISH WOMAN IN THE BIBLICAL AND RABBINIC TRADITIONS This introduction will provide a brief overview of the status of women in the traditional Jewish community up to the Enlightenment, First-Wave feminism, and then into the twentieth-century. As an introduction, this section is by no means exhaustive, but is intended for context.1 In traditional Judaism, or rabbinic Judaism (which was generally normative until the nineteenth-century), the Jewish woman assumed the role of helpmeet or enabler to her hus-

1 See Judith Baskin, Midrashic Women: Formations of the Feminine in Rabbinic Literature (Hanover: Brandeis University Press, 2002); Jewish Women in Historical Perspective, 2nd ed., ed. Judith Baskin (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1998); Rachel Biale, Women and Jewish Law: The Essential Texts, Their History & Their Relevance for Today (1984; rpt. New York: Schocken Books, 1995); The Encyclopaedia Judaica, ed. Cecil Roth (Jerusalem: Keter, 1972); Louis Ginsberg, The Legends of the Jews, 7 vols. (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1909-1938); Heinrich Graetz, History of the Jews, 6 vols. (1895; rpt. Philadelphia: JPSA, 1956); Salo Baron, A Social and Religious History of the Jews, 18 vols. (New York: Columbia UP, 19521983); Joyce Antler, The Journey Home: Jewish Women and the American Century (New York: Free Press, 1997); Eliezer Berkovits, Jewish Women in Time and Torah (Hoboken: Ktav, 1990). Four Centuries of Jewish Women’s Spirituality: A Sourcebook, eds. Ellen Umansky and Diane Ashton (Boston: Beacon Press, 1992); Naomi Shepherd, A Price Below Rubies: Jewish Women as Rebels and Radicals (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1993); Encyclopedia of American Jewish History, 2 vols, eds. Stephen Norwood and Eunice Pollack (Oxford: Abc-Clio, 2008).

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band.2 True, the woman was praised, romanticized, even idealized, on the condition that she did not bemoan her “essential” role as wife, mother, and educator of small children. In fact, even prior to rabbinic Judaism the Jewish woman was regarded as an archetypal enabler. Esther, for example, becomes queen, and when necessary, reveals her ancestry to Ahasuerus in order that she might save her people; all because Mordecai thought it best.3 Indeed, while he is raised to Prime Minister, Esther spends the rest of her life married to a non-Jew. Moreover, the idea that the Jewish woman has been cultural transmitter of the tradition is perhaps fallacy; merely endorsed because it is flattering. In actuality, it is hard to believe that Jewish culture rests on the lighting of candles, the baking of bread, and urging children to be well behaved Jews;4 these are the meager mitzvot (commandments; mitzvah: plural) assigned to women: nerot: the ritual lighting of candles on Shabbat; challah: ritual separation of a portion of dough; and finally, niddah: ritual immersion at the end of a menstrual period. There are also the obligations to eat matzah (unleavened bread) on Pesach; to hear Megillah on Purim; and to drink the four cups of wine during the seder.5 The literature of traditional Judaism, including Torah,6 Talmud,7 Midrash (a Jewish method of biblical exegesis/commentary), 2 The word “Jew” is named after the territory of Judah, which included Jerusalem as its capital. 3 Aviva Cantor, “The Lilith Question,” in On Being a Jewish Feminist: A Reader, ed. Susannah Heschel (1983; rpt. New York: Schocken Books 1995), 47. See Judith Antonelli, In the Image of God: A Feminist Commentary on the Torah (Northvale: Jason Aronson, 1997); Alice Ogden Bellis, Helpmates, Harlots, and Heroes: Women’s Stories in the Hebrew Bible (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1994). 4 Paula Hyman, “The Jewish Family: Looking for a Usable Past,” in On Being a Jewish Feminist, 21-22. 5 See The Jewish Library, vol. 3, Woman, ed. Leo Jung (London: Soncino, 1970); The Woman’s Torah Commentary: New Insights from Women Rabbis on the 54 Weekly Torah Portions, ed. Elyse Goldstein (Woodstock: Jewish Lights Publishing, 2000). 6 Torah: the five books of Moses, or “teaching,” which includes Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. 7 The Talmud is the central text of rabbinic Judaism and was compiled at the end of the sixth-century CE. The Talmud contains the Mish-

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and aggadah (narrative, homiletic, and non-legal portions of the classical Jewish texts), is sparsely littered with gender inclusivist symbology, metaphor, and examples of female heroism (Esther), authority (Deborah), and intellectual influence (Beruriah);8 women assuming roles beyond the conventionally accepted boundaries; and rabbis trying to alleviate women’s inferior legal status. True, the tradition, and its sacred texts, as well as the New Testament for that matter, are defined by masculine imagery,9 male God-language, sexist discourse, and gender exclusionism. Certainly, the various books of the Bible, and the rabbinic literature, are exclusively written by men, generally, with men in mind, and for a male audience.10 Recent feminist scholarship, however, is beginning to uncover the gender inclusionary elements of rabbinic Judaism, to bring forth the hidden proto-feminist elements of the Bible, and to demonstrate that traditional Judaism is less inhospitable to women than is often assumed. Indeed, Bernadette Brooten has revealed that in the ancient Jewish community women were given the title “elder,” served as priestesses, and that not all first-century synagogues practiced sex-segregation.11 Judith Hauptman, likewise, argues that the nah and the Gemara (the commentary on the Mishnah). See Judith Abrams, The Women of the Talmud (Northvale: Jason Aronson, 1995); Miriam Peskowitz, Spinning Fantasies: Rabbis, Gender, and History (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997). 8 Charlotte Baum, Paula Hyman, Sonya Michel, The Jewish Woman in America (New York: The Dial Press, 1976), 12-13. See J. Cheryl Exum, Fragmented Women: Feminist Subversions of Biblical Narratives (Harrisburg: Trinity Press International, 1993); Tikva Frymer-Kensky, Studies in Bible and Feminist Criticism (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 2006); Reading the Women of the Bible (New York: Schocken Books, 2002). Tivka FrymerKensky, Reading the Women of the Bible (New York: Schocken Books, 2002). 9 “Masculine” does not refer to masculinity in a literal sense, rather it is a set of norms associated with masculine practice (Melissa Raphael, The Female Face of God in Auschwitz: A Jewish Feminist Theology of the Holocaust (London: Routledge, 2003), 168 n14). 10 See Judith Plaskow, Standing Again at Sinai: Judaism from a Feminist Perspective (1990; rpt. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1991). 11 Bernadette Brooten, Women Leaders in the Ancient Synagogue (Chico: Scholar Press, 1982), 32, 38, 41, 72, 99, 138, 147. See Tal Ilan, Mine and Yours Are Hers: Retrieving Women’s History from Rabbinic Literature (Leiden: E.

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rabbis, from within a patriarchal framework, undoubtedly tried to alleviate the inferior position of women. Moreover, they attempted to introduce numerous corrective measures to ameliorate gender inequality and the vulnerability of women to men. For Hauptman, the rabbis, not as feminists, but as “helpers” to women, attempted to close the gap between the enlightened social philosophy of the prophetic tradition and the subordinate position of women in the tradition without critiquing the sacred texts.12 Thus, in the halakhot (halakhah: Jewish law; halakhot: plural) affecting women,13 many significant changes were implemented. Hauptman concludes that as in recent centuries law has developed towards the humane treatment of the underprivileged, so too rabbinic Judaism moved towards becoming a modified, benevolent patriarchy.14 Incidentally, “patriarchy” as a word can be generalizing and suppresses differentiation. Post-ideological, postmodern unease with grand narratives has seen many feminists relinquish their use of the word “patriarchy.” Certainly, “patriarchy” is historically, culturally, economically, and geographically diverse.15 Judith Plaskow argues that critics of rabbinic Judaism, particularly Christian feminists, often ignore onah, the law that defends the sexual rights of women in marriage, and the ketubah (marriage contract) which protects women against hasty divorce.16 In fact, the J. Brill, 1997); Tal Ilan, Integrating Women into Second Temple History (Peabody: Hendrickson Publishers, 2001); Phyllis Bird, Missing Persons and Mistaken Identities: Women and Gender in Ancient Israel (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1997). 12 See Sandra Bartky, Femininity and Domination: Studies in the Phenomenology of Oppression (New York: Routledge, 1990); Seyta Benhabib, Situating the Self: Gender, Community, and Postmodernism in Contemporary Ethics (New York: Routledge, 1992). 13 See Judith Plaskow, “Halakha as a Feminist Issue,” The Melton Journal 22 (Fall 1987): 3-5, 25. 14 Judith Hauptman, Rereading the Rabbis: A Woman’s Voice (Oxford: Westview Press, 1998), 4. See Jacob Neusner, How the Rabbis Liberated Women (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1998). 15 Raphael, The Female Face, 168 n14. 16 Judith Plaskow, “Anti-Judaism in Feminist Christian Interpretation,” in Searching the Scriptures: A Feminist Introduction, ed. Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza (London: SCM Press, 1994), 121.

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rights of women in traditional Judaism, at least prior to the nineteenth-century, were arguably greater than they were for nonJewish women. Halakhically, women have the right to buy, sell, own property, to draw up contracts, and to be consulted regarding marriage (numerous halakhot aim to protect women from domestic violence and rape). Women are conferred particular respect and assumed to have been endowed with superior intelligence, intuition, and understanding (binah) compared to men. Additionally, the rabbis frequently associated women with redemption, concluding that of the ten measures of speech descended to the world, women took nine (Kiddushin 49b), that women possess more intuition (Shabbat 33b), that women are associated with Shekhinah (who we will come to in chapter three), in rabbinic Judaism, the divine presence in the world (Kiddushin 31b), that women have greater faith than men (Sifri 133), and that women have more advanced powers of discernment (Megillah 14b). The association of women with the deliverance of the Jewish people has become a prominent midrashic theme for Jewish feminist scholars. Plaskow: Perhaps the favorite subject for feminist midrash is Miriam. The courage she showed in saving her brother from Pharaoh’s decree that all newborn Hebrew males must be killed, her ecstasy by the shores of the Sea, her eager presence at Sinai, the agony and injustice of her punishment with leprosy have all become subjects for feminist reflection. The feminist Miriam is the woman we glimpse through the gaps in the biblical story, the one who stands on the shores of the Red Sea singing forever.17

17 Plaskow, Standing Again at Sinai, 54. See Ellen Frankel, The Five Books of Miriam: A Woman’s Commentary on the Torah (New York: G. P. Putnam, 1996); Taking the Fruit: Modern Women’s Tales of the Bible, 2nd ed., ed. Jane Zones (1981; rpt. San Diego: Woman's Institute for Continuing Jewish Education, 1989); Muriel Rukeyser, “Miriam: The Red Sea,” in Breaking Open (New York: Random House, 1973), 22.

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Apologists for traditional Judaism have frequently listed biblical women, and perhaps less well known women, throughout Jewish history as examples of the gender inclusionary elements already present in the tradition, although, problematically, there are so few examples, particularly when we consider that Jewish history spans 3,500 years, for them to be considered anymore than mere tokenism. In fact, many scholars would strongly disagree that Jewish heroines such as Esther, Deborah, or Judith of Bethulia, for example, have anything “feminist” to bring to the project.18 “Feminist” or “feminism” is a fluid, subjective term and refers to a particular person or movement who advocates the cause of women’s rights or opportunities from within a particular context. Hence, the label “Jewish feminist” is applied to any man or woman influenced by First, Second, or Third-Wave Jewish feminism who remains loyal to a cultural, religious, political, or ethnic sense of being Jewish. By Jewish feminist theology, however, I refer to any Jewish feminist reflection that discourses on God as the basis of its values and practices through Jewish religious narratives (traditional or otherwise) and ideas.19 According to the traditionalists, women enjoy a position of honor and respect in Judaism. Women’s role may be different to the male’s but no less important.20 The problem with the notion of separate but equal, however, is that the boundaries are determined by the dominant group, who inevitably define the second, separate 18 See, for example, Margarita Stocker, Judith Sexual Warrior: Women and Power in Western Culture (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998). 19 Melissa Raphael, “Standing at a Demythologized Sinai? Reading Jewish Feminist Theology Through the Critical Lens of Radical Orthodoxy,” in Interpreting the Postmodern: Responses to “Radical Orthodoxy,” eds. Rosemary Radford Ruether and Marion Grau (New York: T & T Clark, 2006), 197. See Judith Butler, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (New York: Routledge, 1990); Third Wave Agenda: Being Feminist, Doing Feminism, ed. Leslie Haywood (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1997); Feminism and Process Thought, ed. Sheila Greeve Davaney (Lewiston: Edward Mellon Press, 1981). 20 See Anne Goldfield, “Women as Sources of Torah in the Rabbinic Tradition,” in The Jewish Woman: New Perspectives, ed. Elizabeth Koltun (New York: Schocken Books, 1976), 257-71.

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group by their radical otherness.21 Moreover, for Linda Gordon Kuzmack: That the Rabbis deliberately chose to make an already existent role the only role for Jewish women, because they felt that the physical and spiritual survival of the Jewish people was being threatened to the point of extinction. The Rabbis felt that the threat of obliteration by war and persecution on the one hand, and assimilation by the temptations of Exilic society on the other, demanded conscious focus on the family as the key to survival.22

The idea, however, that in the late twentieth-century, persecution could lead to the extinction of American Jewry is perhaps tenuous; though assimilation and the counter-attractions of secular society are a continual threat to the Jewish community. Certainly, many women continue to live in Orthodox communities throughout America, and although some, as we will see, have voiced concerns at the treatment of women, many others are content with their time-honored (stereotyped) role as wife, mother, and teacher of young children; and have managed to successfully combine their careers with the responsibilities of motherhood and the running of the kosher home.23 In sum, providing women are comfortable with accepting their role as enabler to their husband and as manager of the kosher 21 Paula Hyman, “The Other Half: Women in the Jewish Tradition,” in The Jewish Woman, 107-08. 22 Linda Kuzmack, “Aggadic Approaches to Biblical Women,” in The Jewish Woman, 253. See Tal Ilan, Mine and Yours Are Hers: Retrieving Women’s History from Rabbinic Literature (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1997); Judith Baskin, Midrashic Women: Formations of the Feminine in Rabbinic Literature (Hanover: Brandeis University Press, 2002). The theme of Jewish survival has been integral since the Babylonian exile. 23 See Blu Greenberg, On Women and Judaism: A View from Tradition (1981; rpt. Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society of America, 1996).

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home, they are accorded great respect. Should they seek to usurp their defined female role, however, and perhaps enter the realm of study and prayer; areas central to Jewish civilization, they are demeaned and even ridiculed. This division of roles was thought to be ordained by God and dictated by nature. Throughout Jewish history, it has been the responsibility of the woman to attend to family needs; accordingly, halakhah exempts women from virtually all positive time-bound mitzvot, and communal prayer, which is time specific, and thus interferes with domestic tasks. However, while women are deemed responsible for the moral wellbeing of the family, contradictorily, they are considered less spiritual and are associated with the physical, material world. The fact that women have fewer mitzvot assigned to them is the basis for the traditional blessing recited by Orthodox men: “Blessed are You, Lord our God, King of the universe, who has not created me a woman.” In traditional Judaism, ritual obligations are prized and their fulfillment derives honor in the community. Women, however, are permitted few religious opportunities and are thus assigned an inferior role in the community to that of men. Indeed, women are not obliged to pray, they cannot be counted in a minyan (the prayer group which traditionally requires ten adult males), nor can they lead religious services.24 A number of halakhot ensure men cannot become sexually aroused during prayer by the presence of women. Indeed, the early rabbis concluded that women’s participation in the synagogue distracts men, which led to the segregation of the sexes, the covering up of the woman’s body, and the prohibition on hearing the voices of women in the synagogue (kol isha). Married women were encouraged to cover up, and even shave their hair.25 Moreover, throughout Jewish history the duty of the scholar has been considered the ideal; although only men could become scholars, thus denying women access to the sacred texts and their authoritative interpretation. Categorized along with the minor, the deaf24 Baum et al., The Jewish Woman, 4-5, 12. See The Tribe of Dina: A Jewish Women’s Anthology, eds. Melanie Kaye/Kantrowitz and Irena Klepfisz (1986; rpt. Boston: Beacon Press, 1989); Celebrating the New Moon: A Rosh Chodesh Anthology, ed. Susan Berrin (Northvale: Jason Aronson, 1996). 25 See Linda Arthur, Religion, Dress and the Body (Oxford: Berg, 1999).

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9

mute, and the idiot, women cannot serve as witnesses in Jewish courts; while in marital law, only the male can issue a get (bill) of divorce. Furthermore, women’s biological functions were regarded with both fear and disgust by the rabbis. Halakhah demands that the menstruating woman have no contact whatsoever with men. She cannot have sexual relations, touch her husband, or hand him anything.26 Tzniut, the concept of modesty, limits women’s public agency, while the Talmudic dictum of kavod ha-tzibbur (the honor of the community), and tumah (ritual impurity), have been used to limit the religious obligations of women given that menstruation renders “impurity.” Such impurity, as per Leviticus 11-15, prohibits a person from touching anything related to God’s residence. The niddah (menstruating woman), according to superstition, was a subject of amplified un-cleanliness during the medieval period. In many communities, women, occasionally on their own initiative, refrained from entering the synagogue during menstruation, did not touch or look at the Torah scrolls, or recite the circumlocutions for God’s name.27 Contact with men could only begin again when she had been free of discharge for seven days and had undertaken ritual purification in the mikvah (ritual bath).28 Finally, for the young Jewish male, the assumption of religious responsibility, and adulthood in general, takes place with the bar mitzvah ceremony, followed by a celebratory party. Although Reform and Conservative Judaism’s have introduced the bat mitzvah (daughter of the commandment) for girls, by the mid twentieth-century these ceremonies seemed meaningless given the few rights assigned to women in the synagogue. In fact, the bat mitzvah is the only time the girl will be able to chant the Haftarah before the congregation.29 Baum et al., The Jewish Woman, 6-7, 9-10. See Rachel Adler, “Tum’ah and Toharah: Ends and Beginnings,” Response: A Contemporary Jewish Review (Summer 1973): 117-127. 27 Plaskow, Standing Again at Sinai, 177. 28 Baum et al., The Jewish Woman, 9. See Jacob Neusner, A History of the Mishnaic Law of Women, 5 vols (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1980). 29 Baum et al., The Jewish Woman, 11. See Rebecca Alpert, “Our Lives Are the Text: Exploring Jewish Women’s Rituals,” Bridges 2 (Spring 1991): 66-80; Adelman Penina, Miriam’s Well, Rituals for Jewish Women Around the Year (Fresh Meadows: Biblio Press, 1986). 26

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Jewish women have been involved in virtually all national feminist ventures in the nineteenth and twentieth-centuries. The tradition that had glorified women as wives and mothers for over three-thousand years because they were vital to the family, and therefore, Jewish survival, expected that women would not leave the house other than to perform solitary acts of private charity. In traditional Judaism, according to Linda Gordon Kuzmack, women have been viewed as the hidden “other” as they are not, unlike men, required to attend synagogue as they are not obligated to perform time bound religious tasks such as daily worship in case these duties interfere with their important domestic role. Hence, as women were not obligated, they were not considered necessary for communal prayer. Indeed, women could attend services, but were obliged to sit behind a screen (mechitza curtain) or in a gallery. Furthermore, women could not recite the blessings over the Torah, read from the scroll, or study the sacred texts, nor could they take part in communal decision making. Those rare women who did write prayers or teach halakhah in the Talmudic and medieval periods did so from behind a screen. Initially, given Jewish men’s customary devotion to the sacred texts, women in England and the United States took up paid work, or went into business, to support the family income.30 Their employment did not violate halakhah as most work could be done at home. However, with industrialization in the nineteenth-century Jewish women could no longer perform their work inside the home. According to Kuzmack, this was crucial to the emergence of Jewish women’s movements:31

30 See Ricky Burman, “‘She Looketh Well to the Ways of Her Household’: the Changing Role of Jewish Women in Religious Life, c. 1880-1930,” in Religion in the Lives of English Women, 1760-1930, ed. G. Malmgreen (London: Croom Helm, 1986), 234-60; Frances Guy, Women of Worth: Jewish Women in Britain (Manchester: Manchester Jewish Museum, 1992); L. Marks, Working Wives and Working Mothers: A Comparative Study of Irish and East European Jewish Married Women’s Work and Motherhood in East London 1870-1914 (London: PNL Press, 1990). 31 Linda Gordon Kuzmack, Woman’s Cause: The Jewish Woman’s Movement in England and the United States, 1881-1933 (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1990), 1, 4-5.

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11

Jewish women attempted to strike a balance between their desire for emancipation and reverence for Jewish tradition, their hope for acculturation and fear of anti-Semitism. The combination fomented a tension that Jewish feminists attempted to resolve as they sought to join the woman’s movement.32

By the nineteenth-century, women could elude rabbinic strictures and usurp the expectations of their husbands and families by seeking education and professional employment in external secular society. In poetry, essays, and fiction the inferior status of women was challenged, specifically in Europe, by the Haskalah movement, and later the Reform movement.33 Indeed, at the Breslau Reform Conference of 1845, held in Germany, Rabbi David Einhorn, who would eventually become a leader of the Reform movement in the United States, with Samuel Adler, and A. Adler, debated several radical proposals related to the “Woman Question” and Judaism. These ideas were reprinted in a six point resolution for the 1846 conference. Einhorn suggested that women could be obligated to perform the time-bound mitzvot incumbent on men, that women could form a minyan, that women should be given legal autonomy in divorce, that the age of religious majority should be thirteen for both sexes, and that the sexist morning prayer during which Jewish men thank God for not having been made a woman should be removed from the liturgy.34 These ideas were not necessarily enacted, but they were the nucleus of future reform. The term, “Haskalah,” literally means “cultivation of the intellect,” and was an attempt to translate the German, Aufklarung, or “Enlightenment,” into Hebrew. Moreover, the early writers of seKuzmack, Woman’s Cause, 5. See David Philipson, The Reform Movement in Judaism: A Sourcebook of its European Origins (New York: World Union for Progressive Judaism, 1963); W. Gunter Plaut, The Rise of Reform Judaism (New York: World Union for Progressive Judaism, 1963). 34 Riv-Ellen Prell, “The Dilemma of Women’s Equality in the History of Reform Judaism,” Judaism 30, no. 4 (Fall 1981): 421. 32 33

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cular Yiddish and Hebrew depicted the unhappiness of women in arranged marriages,35 in their limited educations, and in their blatant lack of control over their own lives. In Germany, in particular, the Jüdische Frauenbund, under the influence of Bertha Pappenheim, struggled against discrimination, demanded full voting rights in Jewish communal affairs, and fought against Jewish participation in the white slave trade.36 In the nineteenth-century, national and international feminist movements gave voice to the concerns of Jewish women, including the International Council of Women, the National Union of Women Workers, and the Women’s Protective and Provident League. Before long, similar organizations were founded in the Anglo-Jewish community,37 including the Conference of Jewish Women, the Jewish League for Woman Suffrage, the Jewish Ladies’ Visiting Association, the Society of Jewish Maternity Nurses, and the World Council of Jewish Women. Indeed, Jewish women, like their Christian sisters, realized that there were alternatives to the traditional Jewish stereotype of wife, mother, and educator of small children. Anglo-Jewish women in secular and national feminist organizations, however, were often viewed with suspicion or prejudice, and even anti-Semitism, as the early leaders of the feminist movement in England were almost exclusively Christian.38 This period is generally referred to as First-Wave feminism and spanned from the early to mid-nineteenth-century until the early-twentieth-century.39 First-Wave activism is defined by the militant campaign for women’s suffrage which resulted in women over the age of thirty being given the vote in England. The FirstWave in England may be said to originate with the publication of 35 Yiddish: the historical language of the Ashkenazim made up of primarily German and Hebrew, but also Aramaic, Old French, Old Italian, and Slavic languages. 36 See Marion Kaplan, “Bertha Pappenheim: Founder of GermanJewish Feminism,” in The Jewish Woman, 149-163. Marion Kaplan, The Jewish Feminist Movement in Germany: The Campaigns of the Judischer Frauenbund, 1904-1938 (Westport: Greenwood Press, 1979). 37 Kuzmack, Woman’s Cause, 1. 38 Kuzmack, Woman’s Cause, 3-4. 39 See Olive Banks, Becoming a Feminist: The Social Origins of “First Wave” Feminism (Brighton: Wheatsheaf Books, 1986).

INTRODUCTION

13

Mary Wollstonecraft’s Vindication of the Rights of Woman in 1792,40 while in the United States, it was Mary Fuller’s, Woman in the Nineteenth Century (1845).41 More generally, however, the First-Wave focused on legal issues such as property and marital rights, the ability to vote, and women’s right to a formal education.42 In the United States, feminist activists such as Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucy Stone, and Lucretia Coffin Mott were influenced by the Quaker movement and determined to secure voting rights for women. This was achieved in 1920 with the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment. There had been a Jewish presence in America since the Marranos (crypto-Jews fleeing the Spanish Inquisition) who had settled in the colonies in the mid-seventeenth-century. They would soon be outnumbered by their Ashkenazic coreligionists, however.43 By the early-nineteenth-century, Germans Jews, in the main (though generally Eastern European), influenced by the Haskalah, and its concepts of natural law, equality, and democracy, envisioned emancipation and eradication of the ghetto mentality. One of the earliest activists on behalf of Jewish women was Ernestine Rose who came to the United States in 1836 from Poland. Working with Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, she helped establish the American Equal Rights Association in 1866. This was eventually transformed into the National Woman Suffrage Association. Although Rose rejected religion, she took a firm stand against anti-

40 Mary Wollstonecraft, Vindication of the Rights of Woman, ed. Carol Poston (1792; rpt. New York: W. W. Norton, 1975). 41 See Mary Fuller, Woman in the Nineteenth Century: Sphere, Condition and Duties, eds. Subrata Mukherjee and Sushila Ramaswamy (1845; rpt. New Delhi: Deep and Deep, 1999). 42 See Gaye Tuckman and Nina Fortin, Edging Women Out: Victorian Novelists, Publishers, and Social Change (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989). 43 The word Ashkenazim (plural is a corruption of the German “Allemagne” (or Ashkenas: “Germany”) and refers, generally, to the Yiddish speaking Jews of Germany, Russia, and Eastern Europe. Ashkenazi: singular.

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Semitism.44 When they settled in America, the German community quickly assimilated into the middle-classes, or above. Indeed, by 1825 the German Jewish population outnumbered the dwindling Sephardic community.45 These immigrants reveled in the climate of democracy and equality. Immigrant women, in particular, found the Reform movement and its leaders responsive to their aspirations. Isaac Mayer Wise, for example, the then leader of American Reformism, who created both the Hebrew Union College in 1873, and the Union of American Hebrew Congregations in 1876, was specifically concerned to maintain the female half of his congregation. He advocated religious instruction for girls, the inclusion of women in temple school boards, and the ordination of women (although this would not actually take place until the 1970s). Under Wise’s leadership, the Philadelphia Rabbinical Conference of 1869 replaced the traditional marriage ceremony where the bride remains silent with a reciprocal declaration. Moreover, the get, or divorce, which could only be sanctioned by the husband, was abolished and replaced with renewed emphasis on civil divorce. Certainly, both traditionalists and Reformers alike, despite their disagreements, adopted contemporaneous attitudes towards women prevalent to mid-nineteenth-century middle-class America. In 1854, Temple Emmanuel in New York abolished the women’s gallery, while in Midwest Reform synagogues it had almost disappeared by 1860. Thus, while the home, the domestic setting, was women’s place, the synagogue was becoming more welcoming than it ever had been previously. Women’s attitudes and personalities were expected to be characteristic of piety, charity, and mercy. Philanthropy became a legitimate outlet for middle-class Jewish women as an extension of their domestic activities. Hence, in 1819 Rebecca Gratz established the Female Hebrew Benevolent Society, and with help, the Philadelphia Jewish Foster Home in 1855.46 By the midJoyce Antler, “Feminism, American,” Jewish Women in America: An Historical Encyclopedia, eds. Paula Hyman and Deborah Dash Moore (New York: Routledge, 1998), 408. 45 Sephardim (plural): refers to Jews of Spanish or Portuguese origin. Sefardi: singular. 46 See Rebecca Gratz, Letters of Rebecca Gratz, ed. David Philipson (New York: Arno Press, 1975). 44

INTRODUCTION

15

nineteenth-century, therefore, Jewish women were barely distinguishable from their non-Jewish middleclass contemporaries. Moreover, like their Christian counterparts, the majority of Jewish women had internalized the notion that it was their duty to enforce their spiritual influence in the home. Alternatively, women with only limited options for marriage took up spinsterhood. Gratz, for example, still maintained the traditional woman’s role alongside her devotion to community service and philanthropy. Similarly, Emma Lazarus (of Sephardic origin), as an exceptional poet (“The Colossus” is inscribed on the Statue of Liberty), was well-educated and published her first book, Poems and Translations, when she was only nineteen.47 Lazarus was inspired to action by the plight of the Jewish communities in Eastern Europe, and attempted to rouse affluent Jews to respond to their needs. Another Jewish spinster, Henrietta Szold devoted her life to Jewish communal activism in both Palestine and the United States. She founded Hadassah in 1912, the women’s Zionist organization. These Jewish women’s movements, however, were part of the wider American women’s movement that was seeking to expand middle-class women’s opportunities. This was not necessarily a challenge to the idea of women’s natural aptitude towards domesticity, but an internalization of that idea manifested in the fulfillment of this role in larger society. The National Council of Jewish Women was the brainchild of the American Congress of Jewish Women that was organized in 1893. By 1975, the Council could boast nearly 100,000 women members.48 The National Council of Jewish Women did not officially support woman suffrage prior to the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920. In fact, some Jewish women actively campaigned against suffrage. Individual Jewish women, however, did support women’s suffrage. The NCJW merged with other groups to form the Women’s Joint Congressional Committee following the emancipation. This non-partisan group pressed for legislative reforms. The 47 See Emma Lazarus, The Poems of Emma Lazarus (Boston: Houghton, Miffin and Company, 1895); Emma Lazarus, Songs of a Semite: the Dance to Death, and Other Poems (New York: Office of “The American Hebrew,” 1882). 48 Baum et al. The Jewish Woman, 18, 26-28, 32-33, 37-39, 42, 46-47.

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NCJW, nonetheless, rejected the Equal Rights Amendment of 1923 right up until the 1960s. The middle-class leadership assumed that the vote already guaranteed women’s equality and instead opted for protective legislation to ease the situation of their working-class contemporaries. Since its inception, the NCJW had been in support of gender divisions (separate spheres) and the centrality of women’s domestic role (although individual members did not necessarily follow this line). But in 1963, Betty Friedan’s (nee Goldstein) The Feminine Mystique destroyed the myth that women were content with the domestic role; rather, for Friedan, they were prisoners.49 According to Joyce Antler, the book, along with the 1964 Civil Rights Act, helped initiate Second-Wave feminism in America. For many years, Jewish women had been involved in campaigns for civil rights, and, for Antler, a “proto-feminist” consciousness had been in the making throughout the civil rights activism of the 1950s and 1960s. Leaders, such as Friedan, who were in their forties, inspired the movement, but it was younger women, mostly students, who joined the civil rights movements and protested against, among other things, the Vietnam War.50 More generally, aside from the rise of the feminist movement in the various Jewish communities, the post-war years witnessed a revival of interest and membership among all the Jewish denominations in America. Indeed, in 1956 the Conservative movement claimed that its congregation had doubled, while membership had tripled. Likewise, the Reform movement, which had 50,000 member families in the 1930s, claimed to now possess over 250,000. Similarly, the numbers that Orthodoxy had lost were replaced by the severalhundred-thousand European-Jews who arrived after the war. In the early-1950s, Jews migrated in large numbers to the suburbs. By living among other Americans they assimilated the “respectable” values and attitudes of their non-Jewish, middle-class, Protestant and Catholic neighbors for whom Church attendance was a given. Moreover, the cause of bringing into existence a Jewish state, along

49 50

See Betty Friedan, The Feminine Mystique (New York: Norton, 1963). Antler, “Feminism, American,” 409, 411-13.

INTRODUCTION

17

with recognition of the Holocaust, aroused the sympathies of American Jews.51 Modern secularism and movements of religious and feminist reform, however, brought little change to the Jewish laws (halakhah) relevant to women, but did begin to offer the possibility of escaping their control. The gender inequalities intrinsic to traditional Judaism and the Jewish communities in the United States were central issues for the Jewish feminist movement of the early 1970s. Indeed, the Jewish Feminist Organization (which we will come to in the following chapter) declared in 1974: We are committed to the development of our full human potential and to the survival and enhancement of Jewish life. We seek nothing else than the full, direct and equal participation of women at all levels of Jewish life – communal, religious, educational and political. We shall be a force for such creative change in the community.52

The Second-Wave of feminism in the United States, for some, began with the publication of Simone de Beauvoir’s classic, The Second Sex, in 1949. The book argues that humanity is assumed to be male and that man defines woman relative to himself. Accordingly, women are defined only in reference to man; they are “other,” while he is “subject” or “absolute.”53 The movement blossomed in the sixties and continued until the mid 1980s with the so called feminist “sex wars”: the debates in the feminist community concerning sexuality, pornography, and sexual representation. By contrast to the First-Wave, the scope for activism was more diverse 51 Bernard Martin, “American Jewry Since 1945: An Historical Overview,” in Movements and Issues in American Judaism: An Analysis and Sourcebook of Developments Since 1945, ed. Bernard Martin (Westport: Greenwood Press, 1978), 7-8, 10-12. See Nathan Glazer, American Judaism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1972). 52 “Statement of Purpose,” Jewish Feminist Organization, April 28, 1974. 53 See Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, ed. and trans. Howard Parshley (1949; rpt. New York: Knopf, 1972), 17.

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and included issues such as unofficial inequalities, the family, the workplace, legal inequality, and reproductive rights. Indeed, the Women’s Liberation Movement that was active in America, Britain, and Europe demanded equal pay for men and women, abortion and contraception where necessary, equal opportunities in employment, equivalent access to educational institutions, legal and financial independence, liberation from male intimidation, an end to prejudice against lesbians, and woman’s right to decide her own sexuality and preferences. It was into this context that the concerns for gender inclusionism within the Jewish community continued to be voiced as local, regional, and national organizations, collectives, and groups of Jewish women were formed in the United States during the early 1970s that would become the locus of SecondWave Jewish feminism.54

54 See Susannah Heschel, introduction (I) to On Being A Jewish Feminist, xxxi-xxxiii.

1 SECOND-WAVE JEWISH FEMINISM IN AMERICA, 1971-1991: AN OVERVIEW This opening chapter will summarize Second-Wave Jewish feminism in America in the period 1971-1991; the key issues and central battlegrounds. Much of the content is well documented, though is essential to understanding the context in which the Jewish feminist theological project was born. Many Jewish women of liberal and well-educated backgrounds participated in what has been labeled the Second-Wave of Jewish feminism, although the locus of the movement in America was undoubtedly academia. The crossdenominational focus of the movement encompassed a wide variety of aims and concerns, though particularly, the Conservative movement might be regarded as the primary focus. Feminists, in general, were seeking women’s equal access to all aspects of Jewish public and religious life, including communal leadership, while specifically, Conservative feminists were seeking an end to gender inequality in family halakhot,1 along with an end to the mechitza curtain (since the onset of the Second-Wave there has been confusion in Orthodox circles as to whether the mechitza represents a law or a custom. There is also ongoing debate between liberal and Orthodox synagogues as to what height the mechitza should be, and if there should be a divider at all), and to women’s exclusion from the minyan.2 Similarly, Reform feminists complained that women were not being called up to read the Torah. Likewise, Orthodox feminists questioned the exclusion of women from the study and auConservative Judaism is loyal to halakhah, but accepts that the law and the tradition can evolve to address modern issues. 2 For a Second-Wave analysis see Mortimer Ostow, “Women and Change in Jewish Law,” Conservative Judaism 29, no. 1 (Fall 1974): 5-12. 1

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thoritative interpretation of the sacred texts, and the inability of women to initiate divorce. Moreover, as we will see, Reconstructionist Judaism was integral to Second-Wave Jewish feminism. Indeed, the movement has been both welcoming, and highly influential, for Jewish feminists. Its humanistic rejection of classical Jewish theology, halakhah, hierarchy, and Jewish particularism is prevalent throughout Second-Wave Jewish feminist theology (most notably in the work of Marcia Falk, Rebecca Alpert, and Judith Plaskow). The movement developed in the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s and finally established a Reconstructionist Rabbinical College in 1968. The founder, Mordecai Kaplan, developed his own theology and philosophy of Judaism. He frequently argued in favour of women’s complete equality in Judaism and rejected traditional Jewish concepts of chosenness and hierarchical otherness. Moreover, Kaplan critiqued the androcentrism of the rabbinic literature, halakhah, and the liberal efforts of Jewish men to ameliorate women’s inferior status. Instead, Kaplan concluded that only women could initiate gender inclusionism.3 For Kaplan, God was not a person, but a Power. Theology, generally, is not essential to Reconstructionist Jews, and is in any case pluralistic rather than reliant on a single tradition. Instead, the Jewish people are a civilization in evolution rather than a religious community per se. The central element of Kaplan’s naturalistic theology assumes that although God is not human, language about the divine is a method of focusing our aspirations towards improving humanity. There is little room for halakhah which is deemed “folkways,” rather than commandments. Reconstructionism believes, generally, that there is no such thing as divine intervention. Certainly, the Torah is not inspired by God but is the result of the historical and social development of the Jewish people. Moreover, the idea of chosenness is rejected as it implies superiority. Indeed, while Reconstructionism is the smallest of the

See Rebecca Alpert, “A Feminist Takes Stock of Reconstructionism,” Reconstructionist 54 (1989): 17-22; Mordecai Kaplan, Judaism as a Civilization: Toward a Reconstruction of American Jewish Life (New York: Schocken, 1967). 3

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American Jewish denominations it is often regarded as “the civic religion” of American Jewry.4 In sum, the Second-Wave of Jewish feminism was not a breakaway movement, but a struggle to achieve full and equal membership across all Jewish denominations in America.5 The agenda is often considered to have been set with Trude Weiss-Rosmarin’s article: “The Unfreedom of Jewish Women” written in 1970, and Rachel Adler’s classic “The Jew Who Wasn’t There,” published in Davka in 1971 and Response in 1973.6 Weiss-Rosmarin was the founder and editor of Jewish Spectator, and as a German-Jew living in America she was also the co-founder, along with her husband, of the School of the Jewish Woman in Manhattan under the auspices of the Women’s Zionist Organization of America, Hadassah. Alternatively, Alder began as an Orthodox Jew and later became affiliated with Reform Judaism. According to Paula Hyman, Adler’s groundbreaking article was particularly influential for young women attracted to Jewish counterculture in the period. The focus of Adler’s essay is a series of derogatory Talmudic references about women. Adler uses the codices to examine the exemption of women from time-bound positive mitzvot. She states:

4 Nicholas de Lange, Penguin Dictionary of Judaism (London: Penguin Books, 2008), 262. 5 Susannah Heschel, introduction to On Being a Jewish Feminist: A Reader, ed. Susannah Heschel (1983; rpt. New York: Schocken Books 1995), xxxiii. 6 Paula Hyman, “Jewish Feminism in the United States,” Jewish Women: A Comprehensive Historical Encyclopedia, March 1, 2009, Jewish Women’s Archive, http://jwa.org (full details are not included here as websites are subject to frequent change/update; please use their search engine to locate the article); Judith Plaskow, in Tamar Ross and Judith Plaskow, “The View from Here: Gender Theory and Gendered Realities: An Exchange Between Tamar Ross and Judith Plaskow,” Nashim 13 (2007): 247 n1. See Trude Weiss-Rosmarin, “The Unfreedom of Jewish Women,” Jewish Spectator (October 1970): 2-6; Rachel Adler, “The Jew Who Wasn’t There,” Davka (Summer 1971): 7-11; Rachel Adler, “The Jew Who Wasn’t There: Halacha and the Jewish Woman,” Response: A Contemporary Jewish Review (1971; rpt. Summer 1973): 77-82.

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SECOND-WAVE JEWISH FEMINISM Ultimately our problem stems from the fact that we are viewed in Jewish law and practice as peripheral Jews. The category in which we are generally placed includes women, children, and Canaanite slaves. Members of this category are exempt from all positive commandments which occur within time limits. These commandments would include hearing the shofar on Rosh HaShanah, eating in the Sukkah, praying with the lulav, praying the three daily services, wearing tallit and t’fillin, and saying Sh’ma. In other words, members of this category have been “excused” from most of the positive symbols which, for the male Jew, hallow time, hallow his physical being, and inform both his myth and his philosophy.7

The crux of the problem, for Adler, is that women are categorized along with non-Jews (Canaanites), and their being is rendered peripheral in light of men’s importance. Adler argues that women’s mitzvot are about negation;8 this inequality, coupled with women’s exclusion from the minyan, and their inability to study, according to Adler, educates and socializes women towards a “peripheral commitment” to Judaism and the community.9 As the Jewish feminist movement took shape, the fact that women could not read from the Torah because of the “honor” of the congregation (isha lo tikra batorah mipnei k’vod hatzibur) became a fiercely contested issue. Being denied aliyah, for many women, was incompatible with feminist values and symbolic of their exclusion from the sacred areas of Jewish life: Torah, Talmud, and synagogue. Indeed, Susannah Heschel: “Was it really a dishonor to men if a woman said the prayers and read from the Torah scroll in the synagogue? Surely not; how could men’s honor be violated if a

Adler, “The Jew,” 77-78. All references and quotes from the Talmud are taken from The Babylonian Talmud, 18 vols, ed. I. Epstein (London: Soncino Press, 1978). 8 For example: do not eat kosher food, violate Shabbat, eat chametz on Pesach, fail to fast on assigned days, steal, murder, commit adultery, etc (Adler, “The Jew,” 78). 9 Adler, “The Jew,” 78. 7

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woman, too, recited the blessings”10 The declaration that women should not read the Torah out of respect for the congregation, for example, is a ruling that prohibits women being called up for an aliyah in the synagogue. This is based on an imaginative, non-legal assumption that somehow men’s honor would be violated by a woman reading aloud from the Torah. While for some Orthodox religionists this decision is final, Jewish feminists sought to expose the assumptions regarding femininity and masculinity and to ask: “What kind of masculinity is being constructed by the rabbinic system in its decree that respect for men is violated by women reading from the Torah in the synagogue? Is that construction morally acceptable, or does it violate human integrity in elevating men’s status at the expense of women”?11 In short, Jewish women applied their feminist insights to their lives as American Jews, and in the words of Paula Hyman, “they experienced the feminist ‘click’ – the epiphany that things could be different – in a Jewish context.”12 In the early 1970s, numerous feminist groups sprung up at grassroots level. Ezrat Nashim, or “help for women,” the name being a reference to the courtyard of the ancient Temple through which women were not permitted to pass (later the term came to refer to the area in the synagogue designated for women), was a study group associated with the New York Havurah. Its highly educated members included such Jewish feminist activists as Judith Plaskow, Paula Hyman, Arlene Agus, Elizabeth Koltun, Martha Ackelsberg, and Judith Hauptman. In 1972, they issued a “Call for Change” to the rabbis of the Rabbinical Assembly of the Conservative movement, and their wives, demanding gender equalization in all areas of religion, including in marriage and divorce laws, the minyan, and halakhah.13 Moreover, Ezrat Nashim demanded “equal access” for Susannah Heschel, preface to On Being a Jewish Feminist, xi. Heschel, preface, xv. 12 Hyman, “Jewish Feminism.” See Tamar Frankiel, The Voice of Sarah: Feminine Spirituality and Traditional Judaism (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1990). 13 For a list of feminist literature produced on halakhah during, and before, the 1970s see Aviva Cantor, Bibliography on the Jewish Woman: A Comparative and Annotated Listing of Works Published 1900-1979 (New York: 10 11

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women, and men, to public roles of status and honor in the community.14 Paula Hyman states in retrospect: As Ezrat Nashim, we have publicly called for changes in Jewish attitudes and law regarding women – primarily full participation of women in religious observance as laymen as well as rabbis and cantors, the obligation of women to perform all mitvot, the recognition of women as witnesses before Jewish law, and the right of women to initiate divorce. These demands are based upon our fundamental conviction that women are intellectually and spiritually equal to men and equally deserving of positions of authority within the synagogue and community. And it is our conviction as well that the biological differences between men and women can longer justify the outmoded and rigid sex-role division which the Jewish tradition prescribes.15

Since women are not halakhically required to take part in the communal prayers three times daily, they cannot form the minyan, nor can they lead a service. Merely performing a mitzvot does not raise someone to the status of those obliged to do so. The exclusion of women from Jewish ritual goes further, however, as women are not halakhically considered independent legal entities. Similar to the child, the deaf-mute, and the idiot, women cannot serve as witnesses in a Jewish court.16

Biblio Press, 1979); Ora Hamelsdorf and Sandra Adelsberg, Women and Jewish Law: Bibliography (New York: Biblio Press, 1980). 14 Hyman, “Jewish Feminism.” 15 Paula Hyman, “The Other Half: Women in the Jewish Tradition,” in The Jewish Woman: New Perspectives, ed. Elizabeth Koltun (New York: Schocken Books, 1976), 105. 16 Hyman, “The Other Half,” 106; Charlotte Baum, Paula Hyman, Sonya Michel, The Jewish Woman in America (New York: The Dial Press, 1976), 6. See Sylvia Barack Fishman, A Breath of Life: Feminism in the American Jewish Community (Waltham: Brandeis University Press, 1995); Karla Goldman, Beyond the Synagogue Gallery: Finding a Place for Women in American Judaism (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2001).

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With the support of the New York press, two national Jewish women’s conferences, sponsored by the North American Jewish Students’ Network, were held leading to the establishment of the short-lived Jewish Feminist Organization.17 The JFO, which was dissolved in 1976, according to Ellen Umansky, was a catalyst for the “full-blown” emergence of Jewish feminism in America.18 The First National Conference on Jewish Women in 1973 was followed by the National Conference on Jewish Women and Men in 1974. Each conference attracted over three-hundred participants (a number which is relatively small in comparison to the American Jewish population, which is approximately six million), although the impact of the movement was varied. Sally Priesand became the first female Reform rabbi in America in 1972, Sandy Eisenberg Sasso became a Reconstructionist rabbi in 1974, and in 1975 the Reform movement graduated its first cantor.19 Educational courses on Jewish women were being offered at every level, groups of Jewish women were organizing local and regional bases, sponsoring workshops and conferences, and lobbying for change. Indeed, the Committee on Law and Standards of the Conservative movement’s Rabbinical Assembly decided that women could be counted in the minyan after protest by Ezrat Nashim, Reconstructionist and Reform congregations were ordaining women, and even in the Orthodox community, halakhic interpreters were beginning to address themselves to specific issues of concern for women. However, according to Martha Ackelsberg, many of the halakhic (legal), ritualistic, and communal restrictions remained, limiting the opportunities available to women:20 Within Judaism, social, political, and religious roles have been distributed according to sex, with the most prestigious roles Hyman, “Jewish Feminism.” Ellen Umansky, foreword to Lynn Gottlieb, She Who Dwells Within: A Feminist Vision of a New Judaism (New York: HarperSanFrancisco, 1995), xi. 19 Hyman, “Jewish Feminism.” See Sally Priesand, Judaism and the New Woman (New York: Nehram House, 1975). 20 Martha Ackelsberg, introduction to The Jewish Woman, xiii-xiv. 17 18

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SECOND-WAVE JEWISH FEMINISM and duties falling to men. … Such a differentiation may have had its origins in biological differences between men and women – women gave birth to children and, in the years before birth control became readily available, were often confined to the home and its immediate environs for much of their lives. … their biology, and responsibilities for the family, were used to justify their virtual exclusion from communal responsibilities beyond the family. … Judaism, moreover, has formalized that exclusion with an overlay of legal, ritual, and communal restrictions, while reflecting such a social response to biology, now, ever more clearly serve to limit unnecessarily the range of activities open to women (and to men).21

Furthermore, Ackelsberg notes that in traditional Jewish culture, women are associated with physicality, or gashmiut, while men are identified with ruhniut, spirituality.22 Rachel Adler articulates this concern in “The Jew Who Wasn’t There”: It was, perhaps, most damaging that the woman’s meager mitvot are, for the most part, closely connected to some physical goal or object. A woman’s whole life revolved around physical objects and physical experiences – cooking, cleaning, childrearing, meeting the physical needs of children. Without any independent spiritual life to counterbalance the materialism of her existence, the mind of the average woman was devoted to physical considerations; marriages, deaths, dinners, clothes and money. It was, thus, natural that Jewish men should have come to identify women with gashmiut (physicality) and men with ruchniut (spirituality).23

Ackelsberg suggests that the emancipation of women from the confining roles of wife and mother would thus free them to take up Ackelsberg, introduction, xv. Ackelsberg, introduction, xx; Adler, “The Jew,” 80. 23 Adler, “The Jew,” 80. 21 22

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both personal growth and more fulfilling roles in a revitalized community.24 Paula Hyman: The Jewish woman, we are told, is responsible for the moral development of the family, being endowed with exceptional capacity for moral persuasion. At the same time, however, the female in Judaism is regarded as inherently close to the physical, material world, while the Jewish male is immersed in the spiritual. Thus, conveniently, the male-female role division is perceived in the Jewish tradition as a most natural one, based as it is on the fundamental polarity of the male and female characters. The Jewish woman, therefore, is not spiritually deprived by her virtual exclusion from synagogue and study, for her spiritual capacity is inferior to the man’s. Better for her to supply his children’s needs, while he supplies her spiritual wants. A Most efficient division of labor!25

For Hyman the problem is that women’s designation as spiritually inferior is presumed “natural” as opposed to “cultural” in the tradition, and therefore, in the eyes of the traditionalists, unchangeable Jewish feminists employed a variety of strategies to bring the issue of gender exclusionism to the fore. Speakers presented their arguments from the pulpit in synagogues across America, participated in lively debates in community centers. However, the written word, indeed academia, was an integral aspect of the movement. In 1973, the North American Jewish Students’ Network, along with Ezrat Nashim, published a special issue of Response magazine devoted entirely to Jewish feminism.26 This eventually became The Jewish Woman, New Perspectives (1976), edited by Elizabeth Koltun. The anthology approaches many feminist concerns, including women’s spirituality, new rituals and life cycle events for women, halakhah, usable models from the Jewish past, and the status of women in the sacred texts. Also in 1976, the Jewish feminist magaAckelsberg, introduction, xvi. Hyman, “The Other Half,” 109. 26 Hyman, “Jewish Feminism.” 24 25

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zine, Lilith was established by Susan Weidman and Aviva Cantor. As co-founder of Jewish Liberation in New York (Zionist), Cantor has written several alternative Passover ceremonies.27 Indeed, through the development of new ceremonies and life-cycle events for women, Passover Seders, and ritual celebrations of Rosh Hodesh, Jewish feminists, by word of mouth and through their publications, gathered support. Indeed, in some Jewish communities egalitarianism became the norm for children. In the Conservative movement, then the largest denomination in American Judaism, which considers halakhah binding but is responsive to changing social conditions, the ordination of women had to be justified on halakhic terms. A national commission to investigate the opinions of Conservative Jews was established in 1977. In meetings throughout America the commission heard the testimony of men and women offering their support. Thus, in 1979 the commission recommended the ordination of women. The issue, however, was put on hold due to divisions in the Conservative movement and in the Jewish Theological Seminary. After considering faculty position papers supporting women’s ordination, the seminary finally voted in 1983 to accept women. In 1985, Amy Eilberg became the first female Conservative rabbi. Subsequently, women were permitted in the cantorate in 1987. Consequently, by 2004 there were sevenhundred female rabbis in the United States. Hebrew Union College had ordained four-hundred and seventeen since 1972, while the Jewish Theological Seminary had ordained one-hundred and thirtyeight, and Reconstructionism one-hundred and eighteen. Women cantors now constitute forty percent of the Reform cantorate, with twenty percent being women in the Conservative movement. As women became more involved in the leadership of the synagogue, and more involved in ritual, they became increasingly concerned that women’s experience should be reflected in Jewish religious life. Indeed, they hoped that women might be able to reshape the cantorate and the rabbinate, rather than simply follow the traditional male models. Moreover, they sought to incorporate women’s voices into the Jewish liturgy, calling for a revision of the prayer book, 27 See Blu Greenberg, “Women’s Liberation and Jewish Law,” Lilith 1, no. 1 (Fall 1976): 16-19, 42-43.

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the siddur, the Passover Haggadah,28 and the creation of feminist midrash,29 and for authoritative interpretation of the sacred texts.30 The fact that women could be ordained as rabbis, however, did not lead to the eradication of discrimination. Many women are frustrated that little effort has been made to radically redefine and rewrite the liturgy (no denomination has yet changed the traditional Hebrew liturgy). Following the successes of the mid 1970s, Jewish feminism went into a quieter period of retrenchment and reflection while a strong counter response began to take form. Opponents of Jewish feminism accused the movement of seeking to destroy Jewish principles and practices, undermining the masculinity of men, and threatening the stability of the Jewish family, and even Jewish survival. Others opposed the movement on halakhic grounds, or complained that feminism was responsible for the high divorce rate and the diminishing of traditional Jewish values in the home. Likewise, secular Jewish leaders castigated feminism as a form of narcissism for placing individual needs above the importance of the community.31 Moreover, certain Jewish feminists, such as Lynn 28 See Naomi Janowitz and Maggie Wenig, Siddur Nashim: A Sabbath Prayer Book for Women (privately circulated for the women’s minyan at Brown University, 1976); Marcia Falk, “Notes on Composing New Blessings: Toward a Feminist-Jewish Reconstruction of Prayer,” Journal of Jewish Feminist Studies 3 (Spring 1987): 39-53; Marcia Falk, The Book of Blessings: New Jewish Prayers for Daily Life, the Sabbath, and the New Moon Festival (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1996); A New Haggadah: A Jewish Lesbian Seder, by Judith Stein (Cambridge: Bobbeh Meisehs Press, 1984); Kol Haneshama, ed. David Teutsch (Wyncote: Reconstructionist Press, 1994, 1996). 29 See Judith Plaskow, in The Coming of Lilith: Essays on Feminism, Judaism, And Sexual Ethics, 1972-2003, eds. Judith Plaskow and Donna Berman (Boston: Beacon Press, 2005), 31-32; Judith Plaskow, “The Coming of Lilith” in Religion and Sexism, ed. Rosemary Ruether (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1974), 341-43; Lynn Gottlieb, “The Secret Jew: An Oral Tradition of Women,” Conservative Judaism 30, no. 3 (Spring 1976): 59-62. See also Taking the Fruit: Modern Women’s Tales of the Bible, 2nd ed., ed. Jane Zones (1981; rpt. San Diego: Woman's Institute for Continuing Jewish Education, 1989); Anita Diamant, The Red Tent (London: Macmillan, 2001). 30 Hyman, “Jewish Feminism.” 31 Heschel, introduction, xxxv-xxxvii.

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Gottlieb, have been threatened with physical violence and excommunication, which would of course be meaningless in the late twentieth-century Jewish community, but no less offensive.32 Gail Shulman states of the feminist threat to Judaism: There is indeed a threat to Judaism here; but it is not so much a threat to future generations as it is a challenge to the basic patriarchal structure of Judaism, which condemns us when we refuse to accept the role of wife and mother and mocks us … The result of such strong arm tactics will not be to bring Jewish feminists back into line but rather to force many of us – single women, women with families and careers, lesbians, single mothers, and married women who childless – to ask the painful question, “Why bother with Judaism at all”?33

Although lesbianism (mesolelot) is not mentioned in the Tanakh, Leviticus 18 and 20 describe homosexuality as “an abhorrence.” The Talmud, however, twice discusses lesbianism and argues that it is in no way comparable to male homosexuality. Rather, lesbianism is analyzed as condemnable, but not with punitive or legal ramifications. In short, normative sexuality in traditional Judaism is heterosexual, initiated by the man, and confined to marriage (we will return to the issue of lesbianism in chapter three). Evidently, the criticism was not going to bring these women back into the fold. Shulman concludes that even by the mid 1980s Jewish feminism was not merely as simple as modifying halakhah or gaining inclusion in the minyan.34 Rather, the process of transformation is complex, bringing with it the hope of profound change as feminism challenges Judaism to recognize women as full persons rather than

Umansky, foreword, xiv. Gail Shulman, “A Feminist Path to Judaism,” in On Being a Jewish Feminist, 107. 34 See Rachel Adler, “Innovation and Authority: A Feminist Reading of the ‘Women’s Minyan’ Responsum,” in Gender Issues in Jewish Law: Essays and Responsa (New York: Berghahn Books, 2001), 3-32. 32 33

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in male-defined roles.35 The ordination of women and the development of innovative feminist ritual, however, cannot change the past, or the tradition itself. Examining “exclusion,” Judith Plaskow argues: This sense of exclusion arises partly from the fact that everything in our written tradition comes from the hands of men. The halakhah, most obviously, is the product of many generations of men. The same is true of the aggadah. The Bible was written by men. The myths from which the Bible borrowed and which it used and transformed were written by men. The liturgy was written by men. Jewish philosophy is the work of men. Modern Jewish theology is the work of men. It was men who wrote even the special books for women, and it was men who designated women’s three mitzvot and wrote the blessings.36

In some cases, Plaskow acknowledges, the words do not even exist with which to describe “women’s experience.”37 In Jewish Orthodoxy, in particular, feminism has often been viewed as both threatening and oppositional. The fact that feminism challenges and undermines presumptive religious truths has proven difficult for Orthodox communities.38 While in the Orthodox movement there were, and are, a few self-proclaimed feminists (as we will see), according to Ellen Umansky, “Orthodoxy seemed resistant (or oblivious) to feminist demands.”39 According to Blu Greenberg, a foremother of Orthodox feminism, traditional Judaism had written off feminism as a cultural fad, or extremist moveShulman, “A Feminist Path,” 108-09. Judith Plaskow, “The Jewish Feminist: Conflict in Identities,” in The Jewish Woman, 4. See Samuel Cohen, Jewish Theology: A Historical and Systematic Interpretation of Judaism and its Foundations (New York: Van Gorcum, 1971). 37 Plaskow, “The Jewish Feminist,” 7. 38 Tova Hartman, Feminism Encounters Traditional Judaism: Resistance and Accommodation (New England: UPNE, 2007), 2. 39 Umansky, foreword, xii. 35 36

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ment, while alternatively, feminists, in extreme cases, vilified the rabbis (past and present) as women-haters or male chauvinists. For Greenberg, however, the more traditionally orientated the particular Orthodox community, the more it tends to resist feminism, for a number of reasons: first, Jewish women, generally, have been treated well by Jewish men, who have been imbued with strong values sanctioning and even demanding the good treatment of women. Thus, Jewish women have been relatively content to live within the boundaries of their traditional religious and social roles. They agreed, more or less, that freedom from communal religious responsibilities enabled them to fulfill their duties to the family and in the home. Second, the halakhic model is an all-encompassing institutionalization of social status currently resistant to change (while in the past, halakhah had responded to changes in society at large). Indeed, what was a sociological truth about women for earlier generations became codified in the halakhot as religio-ethical concepts binding upon later generations of the Jewish people. Third, there is widespread fear that feminist ideas pose a threat to Jewish survival; perhaps similar to the threat that modernity itself has posed. Indeed, Jewish leaders fear opening up a “Pandora’s box” in exposing Jewish attitudes to women. For Greenberg, women face inequality in four specific areas: in the synagogue with regards to participation in prayer; in halakhic education, in the religious courts; and in areas of communal leadership. She argues that although the family was the area in which women functioned as the “second sex” throughout Jewish history, and enabler was the only available role, neither is evidence of woman’s choice of the wife/mother role today. Indeed, Greenberg notes, many women consider their freedom to serve solely as wives and mothers illustrative of their own liberation.40 Greenberg: Thus we should not denigrate the traditional roles, nor those who choose them. Just as women resented the restrictive mold which confined them in the past, so we must not coerce all 40 Blu Greenberg, “Judaism and Feminism,” in The Jewish Woman, 179-181, 187.

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women into a new restrictive mold – that which excludes enablers. We must check the negative tone which abounds in references to child rearing. More than this, to counteract the current negative stereotype of wife/mother, we must educate others to the excitement, fun, and sweetness of being married and raising children. True, we must bring the husband into a central role in the family, not just as provider, but as childraiser, as involved husband, for the liberation of men and children as well as women. Support of career women, single women, and women involved in political change need not imply denigration of the family.41

Even in cases where there is clear halakhic mandate, however, opportunities for Jewish women often come under attack. Orthodox women who meet to pray, for example, have been harshly criticized by traditional rabbis, despite the fact that these groups of women do not call themselves a minyan as they accept the halakhic ruling that the minyan should be ten or more men. Thus, although the women’s prayer group does not violate any laws, they are labeled disruptive and open to charges of sexual impropriety and violations of women’s supposedly inherent modesty. Furthermore, those rabbis skeptical of women’s “liberation”, and others, have condemned Jewish feminism as a secularizing movement, even given the fact that many Jewish feminists are seeking greater, rather than lesser, involvement in communal and religious life. However, the question inevitably arises that if women volunteer to assume the obligations of men, such as by praying three times daily, putting on tefillin, and by wearing a prayer shawl and head covering, does this presume that the life of a religious Jew is the life of a Jewish man. According to Susannah Heschel, if the goal for Jewish feminists is to achieve what men already have, the danger is that we are giving added weight to the assumption of male superiority. Thus, there is a difficult choice between demanding higher status for traditionally female roles and lobbying for women’s access to male responsibilities. Indeed, some Jewish feminists believe that the new spirit of 41

Greenberg, “Judaism and Feminism,” 187.

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egalitarianism simply means that women have become participants in a male religion. If women merely copy the roles that have until recently been limited to men, they will in fact undergird the patriarchal structures of traditional Judaism. More so, women would perhaps abandon their own history as women, which has generally been a history of marginality, but also of uniqueness. For Heschel, it is the combination of marginality and centrality that gives women a particular understanding of Judaism that no man can ever have.42 Aviva Cantor suggests that while the model role for the Jewish man in exile has been that of scholar, the duty of the woman in patriarchal society is that of enabler. Indeed, the Bible frequently portrays women in the role of enabler. Esther, for example, is, for Cantor, the archetypal altruistic-assertive enabler, as we have seen. Esther’s altruistic assertiveness is contrasted with Vashti, who refuses to obey the king, thus losing her crown.43 Queen Vashti is the non-Jewish wife of Ahasuerus in the book of Esther. She refuses to attend the king’s banquet and is thus banished, subsequently being replaced by Esther. Cantor argues: Even before the Exile, Jewish society was patriarchal. The role of women under patriarchy is that of enabler. The woman is programmed to submit to and please men, doing whatever it is that men of a particular time or place demand in order to enable them to do their thing and to ensure their “manhood” and power. Part of being an enabler involves withdrawing from the areas of activity that men have marked off as their domain and which, thus, in the absence of women, come to define “manhood.” Enabling also means altruism: doing what is in the man’s interest, the family’s interests or society’s interest, not one’s own.44

Heschel, preface, xiv, xvi, xxiv; see Plaskow, Standing Again at Sinai. Aviva Cantor, “The Lilith Question,” in On Being a Jewish Feminist, 44-45, 47-48. 44 Cantor, “The Lilith Question,” 44-45. 42 43

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Paula Hyman, however, suggests that the idea that the Jewish family preserved the Jews and Judaism throughout the diaspora is a myth. Rather, according to Hyman, persecution combined with the governmental tolerance of an autonomous Jewish community that itself had authority over its members was integral to Jewish existence. In fact, every Jew fulfilled the expected norms and needs of the community or was faced with the prospect of leaving Jewry completely. Furthermore, Hyman questions the suggestion that the Jewish woman always played the central role in ensuring Judaism was transmitted to her children. Indeed, because of the claim’s flattering nature, women are inclined to accept the false notion of their role as culture bearers. It implies power and recognition of motherhood and its importance. Undoubtedly, the Jewish woman, historically, wielded enormous influence over the home, although the transmission of Jewish culture can hardly be reduced to baking hallah or lighting candles on Shabbat. Certainly, Jewish celebrations within the home are presided over by the man, not the woman. Moreover, cultural transmission within the community was the preserve of men.45 Hyman states: The notion that the Jewish woman has been the culture bearer may thus appear attractive at first sight to those of us who would like expand the role of women in the Jewish community, but if it is to serve as part of our usable past it must be infused with new (and greater) content. Moreover, the Jewish father’s role as culture bearer is equally deserving of revitalization to meet present needs. What we must avoid is the use of the “Jewish mother as teacher” argument as a means to suggest that the only good Jewish mother is one who stays home and spends her time teaching her children in some indefinable way how to be Jews. The argument won’t work – no woman will quit her job as a result of it – but it may produce a group of

45 Paula Hyman, “The Jewish Family: Looking for a Usable Past,” in On Being a Jewish Feminist, 20-22.

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Certainly, historically, the Jewish home was considered a fortress, and its homemaker, equally, integral to Jewish exilic survival, although it is also a fact that Jewish women, aside from fulfilling the stereotype of wife, mother, and teacher of small children, were often sole breadwinners for their families. Indeed, Ashkenazic women in Eastern and Central Europe were often breadwinners as the husband, if he was talented enough, would devote himself to study. Even halakhic prohibitions on women being alone with men other than their husbands were relaxed to permit female peddlers to sell their products.47 When the Ashkenazim immigrants settled in London, England, in the 1880s, the women took up employment, for example, buttonholing, and independently as grocers, market traders, credit drapers, cap-makers, and dressmakers. Some even turned their parlors into retail outlets or opened their own factories.48 In the United States also, Jewish women of Eastern European backgrounds, both married and single, took partial responsibility for their families. They were already used to having to supplement the family income in the shtetl, but in America there were far more and varied jobs. In fact, it was even considered a mitzvah, and an honor, for women to support their husbands financially.49 Jewish feminists in general, however, were concerned to demonstrate an alternative to the myths that had surrounded the Jewish Hyman, “The Jewish Family,” 22. Hyman, “The Jewish Family,” 23. 48 Geoffrey Alderman, Modern British Jewry, new ed. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998), 63). See Ricky Burman, “‘She Looketh Well to the Ways of Her Household’: the Changing Role of Jewish Women in Religious Life, c. 1880-1930,” in Religion in the Lives of English Women, 17601930, ed. G. Malmgreen (London: Croom Helm, 1986), 234-60; Frances Guy, Women of Worth: Jewish Women in Britain (Manchester: Manchester Jewish Museum, 1992); L. Marks, Working Wives and Working Mothers: A Comparative Study of Irish and East European Jewish Married Women’s Work and Motherhood in East London 1870-1914 (London: PNL Press, 1990). 49 Baum et al., The Jewish Woman, 67, 121. 46 47

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home for centuries, particularly with regard to marriage. According to Mimi Scarf, Jews in the diaspora have tended to play down social problems in order to keep a low profile. Hence, there are no Jewish alcoholics, Jewish fathers do not desert their children, and Jewish men do not beat their wives. For Scarf, many Jews have come to believe these myths and have convinced themselves that wife beating could never take place in Jewish homes:50 Traditionally, Jewish women have been taught, sometimes in very subtle ways, to believe in the stereotypical Jewish husband – that he is smart, successful, of sound mental health, generous with his family, and very little given to violence. They were also taught to believe that a Jewish family is sacrosanct, and that the Jewish home is a bulwark against the “outside” world. Because they have been socialized according to these traditional beliefs, Jewish women who are beaten by their husbands are almost always convinced that it is their fault. Jewish men do not beat their wives. It does not happen in Jewish families.51

According to Scarf, this idealized image of the Jewish home and family prevents women from seeking help, while at the same time also prevents those who are in a position to give help from giving it. Thus, rabbis, and other Jews, seeking to promote the Jewish home and family prevent themselves from acknowledging that the problems that afflict all cultural, religious, and ethnic groups also occur in the Jewish community.52 The highlighting of wife-beating, however, was only one of many domestic inequalities analyzed by Jewish feminists; the agunah,53 or “chained” woman, is perhaps the most prominent. The agunah is a woman whose marriage has ended or been suspended, but who legally remains married, and is unable 50 Mimi Scarf, “Marriages Made in Heaven? Battered Jewish Wives,” in On Being a Jewish Feminist, 51. 51 Scarf, “Marriages,” 51. 52 Scarf, “Marriages,” 51. 53 The agunah is mentioned only once in the Bible, see Ruth 1:13. See Chaim Grade, The Agunah (Boston: Twayne, 1974).

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to re-marry, because her husband either disappears, he dies but there is no valid testimony of his death, the husband refuses to divorce his wife, the husband is legally incompetent and unable to grant a divorce; or because the woman has become yevamah (a woman whose husband has died without leaving children who is subject to levirate marriage: the marriage of a widow to the deceased husband’s brother) and the levir refuses to enact levirate marriage or halitzah (act through which the levir – brother of married man who dies childless – renounces his obligation to wed the yevamah, thus releasing her to marry elsewhere); or because the husband’s whereabouts are unknown or he has become an apostate. The agunah is frequently mentioned in the Mishnah and the Talmud probably for two reasons: obviously, the plight of the woman, but also because the immensity of the problem compelled the rabbis to seek the advice and ruling of their contemporaries rather than risk making a ruling independently.54 The Conservative movement attempted to deal with the problem of agunot (plural) by modifying the ketubah (marriage contract) during the 1950s. The added clause permitted the Beth Din to determine the terms by which the marriage could be dissolved, although the outcome would have to be within the realms of halakhah. Unsurprisingly, Orthodox Jews responded angrily and the validity of the Conservative ketubah was called into question. Alternatively, in 1968 an ante-nuptial agreement was proposed by the Conservative Rabbinical Assembly which makes the marriage conditional; for example, the husband must be present, support his wife, etc. It is hardly surprising, however, that many women have turned to the civil courts. Indeed, several women have petitioned courts in the United States to force their husbands to provide a get. Other more drastic suggestions such as eliminating kiddushin altogether and replacing it with a system of cohabitation similar to common law marriage have been proposed.55 According to Rachel Biale: 54 See Jacob Neusner, A History of the Mishnaic Law of Women, 5 vols (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1980); Judith Romney Wegner, Chattel or Person? The Status of Women in the Mishnah (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988). 55 Rachel Biale, Women & Jewish Law: An Exploration of Women’s Issues in Halakhic Sources (New York: Schocken Books, 1984), 102-03, 110-11.

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The different halakhic solutions proposed for the problem of the agunah have two features in common: first, they are all preemptive measures, and second, they have all been rejected, if not ignored, by most halakhic authorities. The first fact indicates that the problem of the agunah could at best be prevented by measures taken at the time of marriage. Once a woman has become an agunah there are certain circumstances where there is absolutely no valid halakhic way of releasing her and permitting her to remarry. The only possible remedy for such circumstances would be a revolutionary change in the Halakhah, giving women, or Jewish courts the power to divorce a man without his consent. Barring such radical change in the Halakhah, women who are agunot face two options: a long, torturous struggle to find some way to release them (usually a technical point allowing invalidation of the original betrothal), or by opting out of the observant Jewish community, thereby sacrificing the Halakhah in favor of personal fulfillment in marriage.56

The problem with ideas such as designing a new ketubah is that they have absolutely no validity in relation to halakhah. Additionally, there is no single, standard contract that would be applicable or acceptable to all couples, or even liberal rabbis.57 According to Daniel Leifer: The creation and use of a new nontraditional ketubah creates serious problems which must be faced by those who create and use such documents. We must recognize that this kind of ketubah is a private document, expressing the values of the marriage partners. It has no halakhic standing in the Jewish community. … Behind the traditional ketubah still stands the Orthodox halakhic community which provides the recognition

56 57

52.

Biale, Women & Jewish Law, 111-12. Daniel Leifer, “On Writing New Ketubot,” in The Jewish Woman,

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SECOND-WAVE JEWISH FEMINISM and the sanction, however limited, which makes the traditional ketubah a recognized legal document.58

Even into the mid 1980s (and presently) the scandal remains unresolved. In Jewish Orthodoxy, a divorce can only be granted by the man to the woman, enabling men to abuse their privileged position. Indeed, women are sometimes blackmailed in order to obtain a get, and have often been abandoned by Orthodox rabbis.59 Susannah Heschel argues: The deeper problem underlying the failure to resolve the situation of the agunah is that halakhah, like all legal systems, does not exist as an objective, bias-free, blind figure of justice, but is embedded in a web of attitudes that control its power. Ultimately, halakhic decisions are guided by constructions of masculinity and femininity projected by the rabbinic imagination. Under Jewish law as it presently stands, men retain control over divorce as they do over halakhah itself. As much as the debate over agunot concerns changes in Jewish divorce law, it also concerns a radical shift in control and authority from men to men and women.60

Heschel concludes that conformity to halakhah in some Orthodox circles suggests that the law has replaced God as immutable and omniscient.61 In the 1970s and 1980s, feminist scholarship, along with the feminist approach to the Jewish texts based on Simone de Beauvoir’s analysis of woman as other in Western patriarchy,62 began to highlight the marginalization and absence of women’s voices in the

Leifer, “On Writing New Ketubot,” 53. Heschel, preface, xiv-xv. 60 Heschel, preface, xv. 61 Heschel, preface, xv. 62 See Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, ed. and trans. Howard Parshley (1949; rpt. New York: Knopf, 1972). 58 59

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sacred Jewish texts.63 Jewish feminists have applied the feminist hermeneutic of suspicion to the sacred texts as outlined by the Catholic feminist Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza.64 Using this method of exegesis, Fiorenza demonstrates how, for example, a biblical prohibition reveals that the action in question must have been practiced for it to have been banned. Indeed, the New Testament prohibition in 1 Corinthians 14:33-36 that women be silent in church is evidence that they did, actually, speak up.65 Some of the most striking examples of the tradition’s inherent androcentrism have been highlighted by Judith Plaskow: There is perhaps no verse in the Torah more disturbing to the feminist than Moses’ warning to his people in Exodus 19:15, “Be ready for the third day; do not go near a woman.” For here, at the very moment that the Jewish people stand at Mount Sinai ready to enter into the covenant – not now the covenant with individual patriarchs but presumably with the people as a whole – Moses addresses the community only as men. The specific issue is ritual impurity: an emission of semen renders both a man and his female partner temporarily unfit to approach the sacred (Leviticus 15:16-18). But Moses does not say, “Men and women do not go near each other.” At the central moment of Jewish history, women are invisible. It was not their experience that interested the chronicler or that informed and shaped the text.66

According to Susannah Heschel, by bringing forth the hidden aspects of Jewish history, feminist scholarship moves away from the dominant rabbinic literature which has for centuries been considHeschel, preface, xii. See Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza, In Memory of Her: A Feminist Theological Reconstruction of Christian Origins (New York: Crossroad, 1984). 65 Heschel, preface, xiii. 66 Judith Plaskow, “Jewish Memory from a Feminist Perspective,” in Weaving the Visions: New Patterns in Feminist Spirituality, eds. Judith Plaskow and Carol Christ (New York: HarperSanFrancisco, 1989), 39. 63 64

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ered normative. Thus, feminist discourse permits broader definitions of Judaism, as well as of women’s religious roles. The separation of the sexes in the synagogue, for example, is a rabbinic idea that governs the majority of Orthodox synagogues, although the archeological evidence provides a different picture.67 Indeed, Bernadette Brooten demonstrates that in the ancient pre-rabbinic Jewish world, women founded Jewish communities, bore the title “elder,” possibly served as priestesses (or “mothers of the synagogue”), that not all first-century synagogues practiced sexsegregation, and that many women were attracted to Judaism and chose to convert, leading to the formation of female majorities in some communities.68 Moreover, feminist scholarship has uncovered forgotten areas of Jewish history. Indeed, although women have been excluded from composing the sacred texts and the major textual traditions of the mystical literature, on occasion they developed their own prayers and spiritual practices.69 Also, while the non-Orthodox denominations did not, generally, approve the ordination of women as rabbis until recently, a seventeenth-century Jewish woman in Kurdistan was in fact known to be a rabbi.70 Likewise, a Hasidic woman, Hannah Rachel Verbermacher (18051888), the Maiden of Ludmir, served as spiritual leader of her community prior to marriage;71 while Regina Jones was privately Heschel, preface, xiii. Bernadette Brooten, Women Leaders in the Ancient Synagogue (Chico: Scholar Press, 1982), 32, 38, 41, 72, 99, 138, 147. See Barbara Geller Nathanson, “Toward a Multicultural Ecumenical History of Women in the First Century/ies C. E.,” in Searching the Scriptures: A Feminist Introduction, ed. Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza (London: SCM Press, 1994), 272-89; Ross Kraemer, Her Share of the Blessings: Women’s Religions Among Pagans, Jews, and Christians in the Greco-Roman World (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992). 69 See Chava Weissler, “The Traditional Piety of Ashkenazic Women,” in Jewish Spirituality, vol. 2, ed. Arthur Green (New York: Crossroads, 1987), 245-75. 70 See The Folk Literature of the Kurdistani Jews: An Anthology, ed. and trans. Yona Sabar (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1982) 71 See Jewish History: Essays in Honor of Chimen Abramsky, eds. A Rapoport-Alpert and S. J. Zipperstein (London: P. Halban, 1988). 67 68

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ordained as a Reform rabbi in 1935, only to be murdered in Auschwitz in 1944.72 Jewish feminists have also confronted the problem of Christian feminist anti-Judaism. The negative descriptions of traditional Judaism in the writing of Christian feminists draw from age-old stereotypes and seek to magnify Judaism’s sexism, according to Susannah Heschel, into anti-Semitic distortion. In fact, the sexism that exists in Judaism is perhaps no different to the sexism that exists in virtually all cultures and religions. Moreover, sexism cannot be weighed or measured to see which culture is the most oppressive to women. For Heschel, the distortion begins with some feminists’ idea that somehow the sexism in Judaism is the worst of all and even responsible for inaugurating Western patriarchy. Of course, such a claim cannot be proven historically and functions merely as an anti-Jewish charge. Feminist anti-Judaism began when women sought an explanation to the patriarchal structures that underpin Western societies as an evolving characteristic of human cultures that are not based on biological differences. Some of these feminists endorsed the myth that pre-historical societies had been matriarchies as well as Goddess worshipping. Accordingly, they concluded that ancient Israel had destroyed these gender inclusive communities by introducing an uncompromising monotheistic father-God.73 Similarly, while Jews have been blamed for the death of the Goddess, some Christian feminist theologians have also blamed the Jews for the death of Jesus. Certainly, there is little or no evidence for prehistoric matriarchies or that they were destroyed by the Israelites. Claims that the Jews are responsible for the death of the Goddess, Heschel argues, are the product of hundreds of years of accusations of Jewish deicide and have little to do with scholarly investigation. Another popular claim of Christian feminists, HesHeschel, preface, xiii. See Katharina von Kellenbach, “‘God Does Not Oppress Any Human Being’: The Life and Thought of Rabbi Regina Jones,” Yearbook of the Leo Baeck Institute, vol. 39 (1994), 213-26. 73 The name of the people, Israel, was the name given to Abraham’s grandson, Jacob, when he wrestled with another man at Jabbok. The fight is perhaps symbolic of the struggle between the Jewish people and the nations of the world. 72

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chel notes, is that Jesus was a feminist who liberated women from Judaism’s inherent patriarchy to establish an egalitarian Church (in reality, Jesus was a Jew and the feminist aspects of his ministry were a product of the feminist elements already present in firstcentury Judaism).74 His emancipation/liberation of women, however, was foiled by the patriarchal attitudes of his earliest followers, who were Jews tinged with the sexism of their former religion. Thus, these Christian feminists explained Christianity’s sexism by projecting it on to the Jews. The statements of Jesus, and his actions in the Gospels, are contrasted with a negative picture of firstcentury Palestinian Judaism and its treatment of women. In these cases the anti-Jewish stereotypes have little or no basis historically. These Christian feminists draw their assumptions from later Talmudic sources composed centuries after the Gospels by rabbis in Babylonia in order to make a contrast with the Gospel account.75 True, the Talmudic source material presents a predominantly patriarchal picture, although the Talmud does not reflect the situation during Jesus’ lifetime anymore than the sexism and misogyny of the Church Fathers can be attributed to him. The evidence actually suggests that Jesus was no different from his Jewish contemporaries.76 Heschel: Indeed, the very act of trying to draw a contrast between Jesus and Judaism is absurd, given the multiple Judaisms that flourished during his lifetime, and the fact that he himself was a See my From Anglo-First-Wave towards American Second-Wave Jewish Feminism: Negotiating with Jewish Feminist Theology and its Communities in the Writing of Amy Levy (Piscataway: Gorgias Press, 2010); See Judith Plaskow, “Christian Feminism and Anti-Judaism,” Cross-Currents 33 (Fall 1978): 306-09; Judith Plaskow, “Feminist Anti-Judaism and the Christian God,” Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion 7, no. 2 (1991): 99-108; Brooten, Women Leaders; Tal Ilan, “The Attraction of Aristocratic Women to Pharisaism during the Second Temple Period,” Harvard Theological Review 88 (1995): 133; Tal Ilan, Mine and Yours Are Hers: Retrieving Women’s History from Rabbinic Literature (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1997). 75 It is a fact that rabbinic Judaism did not come about until after the destruction of the Second Temple, decades after the death of Jesus. 76 Heschel, preface, xviii-xx. 74

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Jew, and all that he preached was an expression of Judaism. The egalitarian impulses reflected in the Gospels are as much a source for Jewish women’s history as they are a theological mandate for Christian women.77

The term first-century Judaism is diverse and includes the Pharisees, Essenes, Sadducees, Zealots, and the Jesus movement. In fact, the Talmud notes at least twenty-four sects active in Palestine prior to the destruction of the Second Temple. Heschel concludes that the most problematic examples of anti-Judaism in Christian feminist discourse are in those that portray traditional Judaism as a militaristic, violent, misogynist religion, which is contrasted with the supposedly pacifistic, feminist teachings of Jesus. In the most shocking example of feminist anti-Judaism, an analogy is made between Nazism and traditional Judaism through which Jews who obey the mitzvot are compared to Nazis faithfully obeying their Fuhrer.78 Innovative feminist scholarship has sought to examine the Talmudic codes and commentaries on Jewish women, making the sources accessible to contemporary feminists by demonstrating the origins of gender exclusionism in the tradition and the community. Rachel Biale, for example, in her groundbreaking study of Women & Jewish Law, is able to open up the halakhic sources to women unfamiliar with the Hebrew texts. Biale correctly notes that in the Bible there is no explicit legal formulation of the principles for the exclusion or exemption of women. In the rabbinic literature, however, the legal obligations between women and men are to an extent systemized. Indeed, Kiddushin 33b is clear that all time-bound positive commandments are incumbent only on men, while women are exempt.79 Biale argues:

Heschel, preface, xx. Heschel, preface, xx. See Christa Mulack, Jesus: der Gesalbte der Frauen (Stuttgart: Kreuz Verlag, 1987). 79 Biale, Women & Jewish Law, 11-12. 77 78

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SECOND-WAVE JEWISH FEMINISM The issue of assuming obligations points to a possibly radical change in the religious status of women. If women were to choose in great numbers to assume the obligations of daily prayer, Torah reading, wearing tefillin, or the study of Torah, they would create a very different profile of Jewish worship and learning. Then, they might press for a bolder ruling on the final barrier to full participation and equality of women in Jewish religious life: that their performance of mitzvot be deemed equal to men’s. If the community of women as a whole assumes the obligation for a mitzvah from which women are exempt, the obligation could then be expressed as a modern day takanah which, like the takanot of previous generations, has the force of law and becomes an integral part of the Halakhah.80

The problem for Second-Wave activists, however, has been that at the beginning of the 1970s, no one could predict whether equal participation for women would mean spiritual achievement, or if rituals infused with masculine values would be acceptable to women.81 True, schools to train women in the rabbinic literature or to study the biblical commentaries have been established, and allwomen prayer groups have formed for the reading of the Megillah on Purim, Shabbat services, and for other festivals. Additionally, new feminist rituals and prayers abound for baby naming ceremonies, childbirth, and marking the onset of menopause; these elaborate on women’s participation in bat mitzvah ceremonies, weddings, Passover Seders, and Rosh Hodesh observances. Moreover, the Conservative prayerbook had removed the references to the congregation assuming that it is composed exclusively of men. In the Reconstructionist prayerbook, the references to the patriarchs have been augmented with inclusion of the matriarchs, Rebecca, Leah, and Rachel. However, while in the early years of the 1970s feminists were united behind the goal of attaining equal gender access, increasingly fissures began to divide the movement, with feminists disagreeing over the fundamental differences between 80 81

Biale, Women & Jewish Law, 43. Ackelsberg, introduction, xvii.

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women and men, and whether these differences are biological or cultural, and variable with ethnicity, class, age, education, and religious denomination.82 The general aim of the Second-Wave, according to Susannah Heschel, was to overcome the “institutional sexism” of the 1950s bourgeois mentality that assumes women’s domestic role, her availability to chauffeur the children back and forth, and her propensity to volunteer in the community. Indeed, for Heschel “feminism” is about women’s refusal to yield to male dominance; the real issue being power rather than equality. The point if feminism, she argues, is to create institutional and mental frameworks in which women can act as their own authorities, determining for themselves the nature of their Jewishness. Thanks to the efforts of the SecondWave, contemporary women, supposedly, have freedom of choice among Judaism’s many religions. Certainly, Third-Wave (if we can call it that) Jewish feminists are their own authorities.83 These women, the daughters of the Second-Wave, have grown up with a full range of opportunities in communal and religious life with equal chances for study, employment, and meaningful religious life. Never again, according to Heschel, will women not be able to study Talmud, or say Kaddish, or be called up to read the Torah.84 Again, Heschel: They choose whether to study Talmud in an Orthodox yeshiva or create new feminist rituals; whether to marry a man or a woman; whether to bear children or not; whether to volunteer on a kibbutz or work for Habitat for Humanity. The Jewish alternatives have existed since these women were born, and the decision is theirs how to shape the Judaism they wish to express. The victory of feminism is that women are the authori-

Heschel, preface, xvi, xxii. Susannah Heschel, “Foreword: It’s Not About Equality – it’s About Who’s in Charge,” in Yentl’s Revenge: The Next Wave of Jewish Feminism, ed. Danya Ruttenberg (New York: Seal Press, 2001), xvi-xvii. 84 Heschel, preface, xxiii. 82 83

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SECOND-WAVE JEWISH FEMINISM ties – not male rabbis, male-authored halakha (laws) or maleimaged divinities.85

Studies of women’s social behavior and management styles, however, reveal that women rabbis may in the long run turn out to be different from their male colleagues. Inevitably, Heschel notes, the more women that are ordained, the more likely the transformation. Attention to the differences between men and women questions the nature of Judaism as a male construct. Indeed, if women had been involved in shaping traditional Judaism, how might it have been a different phenomenon, assuming that men and women have different approaches to religion? Certainly, many Jewish feminists have argued that halakhah represents a distinctly male approach to morality, whereas a Judaism constructed by women would be more interested in fostering spirituality and community than in codes of law.86 Thus, for Susannah Heschel, the close of the Second-Wave is perhaps a beginning: “Now that most of the bitter struggles over egalitarianism have been won, we can turn instead to more positive reclaiming of the profound spiritual insights of Judaism that inspire us.”87 Similarly, Blu Greenberg suggests that the Second-Wave was a break with the past:

Heschel, “Foreword,” xvii. Heschel, preface, xvi-xvii. See Carol Gilligan, In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women’s Development (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1982); Judith Plaskow, “Halakha as a Feminist Issue,” The Melton Journal 22 (Fall 1987): 3-5, 25. 87 Heschel, preface, xiv, xxiii, xxiv. See Daughters of the King: Women and the Synagogue, eds. Susan Grossman and Rivka Haut (Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society of America, 1992); Naomi Janowitz and Maggie Wenig, Siddur Nashim: A Sabbath Prayer Book for Women (privately circulated for the women’s minyan at Brown University, 1976); Four Centuries of Jewish Women’s Spirituality: A Sourcebook, ed. Ellen Umansky and Diane Ashton (Boston: Beacon Press, 1992); Lee Bycel, “To Reclaim Our Voice: An Analysis of Representative Contemporary Feminist Passover Haggadot,” Central Conference of American Rabbis Journal 40 (Spring 1993): 55-71. 85 86

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What has changed? Simply this: to previous generations of the Jewish people, the role of wife and mother was the optimal, singular, essential role through which a woman fulfilled herself. Barrenness was synonymous with failure. The biblical commandment “to be fruitful and multiply” was defined by the rabbis as a minimum of two children. In other words, a person should not depart this world leaving behind fewer souls than when he or she entered it. Childlessness after ten years of marriage was considered legitimate grounds for divorce. Rabbinic literature and biblical exegesis reinforced what came naturally, the expectation that a woman was to have children, many children, in order to create a good Jewish home and family. Feminism, however, transmits other messages, primary among them that there is now an enormous range of options open to women, that motherhood is not the only role or even the preferred one. Feminism tells us more: that we can live for ourselves and be fulfilled without meeting the acid test of selfsacrifice. … Self-sacrifice, which one realistically must make for dependent children, is definitely on the wane. Self-interest (“me, for myself, now”) is becoming the dominant mode.88

Problematically, however, the feminist transformation of Judaism is perhaps a double edged sword, as Judith Plaskow argues: Since the project of transforming Judaism through a feminist vision is new and far-reaching, it is important to confront at the outset some of the fears and questions it raises. For many people – from secular feminists to observant Jews – the notion of a feminist Judaism is an oxymoron. Feminists often see Judaism as irredeemably patriarchal, attachment to it as an incomprehensible and retrogressive. Jews often perceive feminism as an alien philosophy, at odds with Jewish selfunderstanding in important ways. On either view, Jewish femi88 Blu Greenberg, On Women and Judaism: A View from Tradition (1981; rpt. Philadelphia: the Jewish Publication Society of America, 1996), 15859.

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SECOND-WAVE JEWISH FEMINISM nists dwell in a state of self-contradiction that can be escaped only by choosing between aspects of our identity.89

But specifically, if we are thinking of theology, Jewish feminism, as a movement, was, and is, geared towards women achieving positions of leadership in the community, and to becoming full participants in Jewish study, ritual, and halakhah; these are not matters of belief about God per se.90 Indeed, theology is not a central aspect of Jewish religious expression, and even now there is not a great deal of feminist theology in Judaism. Indicative of Jewish religiosity as a whole, Jewish feminism is praxis-orientated and therefore focuses on law, history, practice, and communal institutions. Hence, as we will see, feminist theological discursive is often liturgical or centered on ritual, or perhaps displayed in historical research or fiction, textual interpretation and midrash,91 or focused on the “community” of women, and more often than not is grounded in the personal, subjective experience of the religionist. For some Jewish feminists theological transformation is not necessary to ameliorate the inequality of Jewish women; rather, the problem is social, and resolvable through halakhah; we thus ask in the following chapter: is the right question theological?

Judith Plaskow, Standing Again at Sinai: Judaism from a Feminist Perspective (1990; rpt. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1991), iv. 90 Judith Plaskow, “Calling All Theologians,” in New Jewish Feminism: Probing the Past, Forging the Future, ed. Elyse Goldstein (Woodstock: Jewish Lights Publishing, 2009), 8. 91 Judith Plaskow, “Feminist Theology,” Jewish Women: A Comprehensive Historical Encyclopedia. March 1, 2009. Jewish Women’s Archive, http://jwa.org. See Irving Jacobs, The Midrashic Process: Tradition and Interpretation in Rabbinic Judaism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995). 89

2 IS THE RIGHT QUESTION THEOLOGICAL? In this chapter, we will analyze the groundbreaking debate between Cynthia Ozick (1979) and Judith Plaskow (1983) as to whether women’s inferior status in the tradition is an issue for halakhah, and therefore requiring legal transformation, or a product of its masculine defined theological/sacral language, certainly, the very basis of traditional Judaism. The debate is important because it symbolized the fears regarding paganism (a label applied to Jewish feminist exposition on the divine from the outset) in contrast to the new theological approach applied by Plaskow through which it is God himself, not singularly the androcentrism of the Torah, halakhah, or the tradition, that is the purveyor of exclusively male experience. Indeed, Plaskow’s approach was not merely a discourse on praxis, but in its purest form, a fundamental re-visioning of God, Torah, and Israel. Moreover, we will consider Plaskow’s theological discursive in light of the five analytical questions set out in the preface, in short: 1. Is a prescriptive, normative Jewish feminist theology possible? 2. Is it Jewish theology if the central elements have been abandoned? 3. Is this actually theology at all? 4. Is subjective experience authentic? 5. When does theology become something else? Or, when is the point that it ceases to be identifiably Jewish? Before continuing to my analysis of Ozick and Plaskow’s debate, however, I will first undertake a brief overview of Jewish theology from the rabbinic period to the mid-twentieth-century, this is necessary for context. Inevitably this review has neither the time nor space, nor necessity, to be exhaustive.

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JEWISH THEOLOGY FROM RABBINIC TIMES TO THE TWENTIETH-CENTURY In the rabbinic tradition that was normative Judaism for nearly two-thousand years, despite the centrality of radical monotheism, there has never been a continuous or systematic theological consensus. According to Judith Plaskow, “Theology, after all, has had only a limited role in Jewish religious life.”1 Judaism has not attached the importance to theology that perhaps Christianity has.2 And reflection on God, the mission of Israel, and the nature of human existence has, generally, been confined to rabbinic debate and Midrash, for example, rather than outlined in a specific work. The locus of energy in Jewish intellectual life has been the law (halakhah) rather than the elaboration of theological discourse. Indeed, according to Plaskow, the law takes precedence over inner spirituality. The primacy of halakhah to Jewish self-understanding, however, reveals the affect of theology in Jewish practice. Certainly, there is a mutually reinforcing relationship between Jewish religious practice, institutions, and theology.3 The Tanakh itself concentrates on what God does, and what God expects of humanity, and not on who or what God is.4 Genesis, for example, discusses creation, but not the Creator. Hence, Abraham, the first Jew, did not find God; instead, God found him and subsequently issued a series 1 Judith Plaskow, Standing Again at Sinai: Judaism from a Feminist Perspective (1990; rpt. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1991), 21. See Judith Plaskow, “Authority, Resistance, and Transformation: Jewish Feminist Reflections on Good Sex,” in Good Sex: Feminist Perspectives from the World’s Religions, ed. Patricia Beattie Jung, Mary Hunt, and Radhika Balakrishnan (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2001), 127-39. 2 See Christianity and Rabbinic Judaism: A Parallel History of Their Origins and Early Development, ed. Hershel Shanks (London: SPCK, 1993). 3 Plaskow, Standing Again at Sinai, 22. 4 The Tanakh (Hebrew Bible) includes Torah (the Written Law, the five books of Moses), Prophets (Nevi’im) and Writings (Ketuvim). Prophets is split between former and latter (major and minor), and Writings includes the Five Scrolls: Hamesh Megillot. See Tanakh: A New Translation of The Holy Scriptures According to the Traditional Hebrew Text (Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society, 1985).

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of commands informing Abraham how he and his descendents must live. According to Phyllis Trible: “It is superfluous to document patriarchy in Scripture. Yahweh is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as well as Jesus and Paul. The legal codes of Israel treat women primarily as chattel.”5 It is hardly surprising that traditional Judaism was described by the nineteenth-century Reformers as a religion of “deed rather than creed.”6 Even rabbinic Judaism, through its study of the Torah and halakhah, did not attempt to set out its theology in a methodical fashion. God is assumed; his existence need not be proved, debated, or examined. This is not to say, however, that the rabbis did adhere to several theological beliefs, including the unity of God, the uniqueness of God, and the complete rejection of polytheism. The traditional God is unknowable, transcendent, yet active in the world, manifest through the grammatically feminine Shekhinah. God too suffers Israel’s galut (exile). Divine justice, however, is both majestic and ruthless, although it is a falsehood to make a stark contrast between the New Testament deity of universal “love” and the Hebrew God of “wrath.”7 Certainly, theological interpretation has been fluid across the Jewish denominations throughout Jewish history. In Exodus, the tribal group of Israel directs its worship towards “the God of your fathers” (3:13-15), who reveals his name as Yahweh, bringing about the monotheistic nation of Israel (3:1-22). After the destruction of Judah, a universal, international theology of a world-embracing God took shape with the ability to intervene on behalf of a faithful community.8 5 Phyllis Trible, “Depatriarchalizing in Biblical Interpretation,” in The Jewish Woman: New Perspectives, ed. Elizabeth Koltun (New York: Schocken Books, 1976), 217. 6 Jonathan Romain, Reform Judaism and Modernity: A Reader (London: SCM, 2004), 144. 7 See Judith Plaskow, “Christian Feminism and Anti-Judaism,” CrossCurrents 33 (Fall 1978): 306-09; Judith Plaskow, “Feminist Anti-Judaism and the Christian God,” Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion 7, no. 2 (1991): 99-108. 8 R. Clements, “The Community of God in the Hebrew Bible,” in The Blackwell Companion to the Hebrew Bible, ed. Leo Perdue (Malden: Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 2005), 279-81, 283, 285, 289.

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Post-Renaissance, a prevailing Christian view emerged that Judaism was responsible for a primitive conception of God. Indeed, Judith Plaskow argues that the notion of a vengeful, jealous, tribal deity, diametrically opposed to the universal New Testament God, is an established stereotype that precedes feminism, along with the idea that the Jews are at fault for the death of the Goddess. Moreover, for Plaskow, the contrast between “Old” (a Christian term) and “New” Testament implies law/gospel, people of the flesh/people of the promise, God of wrath/God of love, and carnal Jew/spiritual Christian. The dualistic concept of two natures of God projects a tension between Judaism and Christianity, despite the fact that rabbinic Judaism considers and problematizes the God of the Old Testament, accounting for the dual natures of mercy and justice. Furthermore, the God of wrath is also present in the New Testament, generally, as a background threat:9 “He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned” (Mark 16:16). Alternatively, the God of rabbinic Judaism is loving, forgiving, and all-good. He demands that men and women lead righteous lives, yet allows evil to exist in the world. The Torah is a symbol of the Covenant between God and his chosen people, Israel: his witnesses (according to the rabbinic tradition) responsible for the redemption of all mankind. Rabbinic theology, founded on the unity of God, and the three pillars of creation, redemption, and revelation, at least until the mid nineteenthcentury, was synonymous with Orthodox Judaism.10 Perhaps the earliest development in the history of Jewish theology was in the writing of the philosopher and Talmudist Moses Maimonides during the twelfth-century. He was the first to set down a fundamental, dogmatic Jewish theology,11 and arguably, he Plaskow, “Feminist Anti-Judaism,” 101-03, 106. See Michael Berger, Rabbinic Authority (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998); Christianity and Rabbinic Judaism: A Parallel History of Their Origins and Early Development, ed. Hershel Shanks (London: SPCK, 1993); Jacob Neusner, Rabbinic Judaism: Structure and System (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1999). 11 Melissa Raphael, “Standing at a Demythologized Sinai? Reading Jewish Feminist Theology Through the Critical Lens of Radical Orthodoxy,” in Interpreting the Postmodern: Responses to “Radical Orthodoxy,” eds. 9

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gave Jewish rationalism its classical formulation. Maimonides’ Aristotelianism and Neoplatonist perspective strengthened his belief in the power of human rationality, which he aligned with prophecy and revelation to devalue Talmudic study as the exercise of faith without reason. Despite his importation of non-Jewish philosophical ideas into Judaism, however, Maimonides’ Thirteen Principles continues to be popular among Orthodox Jews,12 despite being an innovation and not ever being universally accepted. For Maimonides, God is essentially inaccessible and incomprehensible to human reason, though his existence can be proven by the arguments of Aristotle.13 Even by the twentieth-century, however, the traditional communities that maintained the spirit of rabbinic Judaism, including the prioritization of halakhah, continued to express reservations about Jews doing theology at all. Thus, despite Maimonides best effort, Judaism did not become a creedal faith. According to David Blumenthal, in the classical Jewish texts God talks, walks, laughs, and feels anger and joy. Moreover, he exercises moral judgment. God, for Blumenthal, has personality in the traditional texts. By personality, “God is what God is.” The divine is also holy, a source of awe and the numinous. Holiness, or “wholly otherness” is a quality we can sense in moments, texts, and places. Indeed, through holiness God is remote yet at the same time near. Holiness, Blumenthal argues, best conveys our experience of the sacred. Accordingly, God has two essential attributes: personality and holiness; they are relation and relatedness. Thus, the “theology of image” is the essence of the tradition, from it knowledge of humanity and God flows, along with piety and redemption. In this theology there is dialogue, mutuality, demand, and claim. Humanity in its individual and collective forms is created in God’s image. For Blumenthal, to do traditional theology faithfully is to understand and ponder the image of God. The atRosemary Radford Ruether and Marion Grau (New York: T & T Clark, 2006), 204. 12 Nicholas de Lange, Judaism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987), 107, 113. 13 Karen Armstrong, A History of God (London: Vintage Books, 1999), 232.

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tributes of personality and holiness embody the theology of image and reflect the otherness of the divine.14 Indeed, “holiness” is an essential aspect of God in the Jewish tradition. Blumenthal: HOLINESS IS A QUALITY. One senses it in objects, in moments, in texts, and in certain people. It is not a feeling like joy and anger. It is not a commitment like love or loyalty. It is not a state of mind like happiness or gloom. It is not a thought or concept. It is an awareness of the sacred, a consciousness of the spiritual. It is an experience of the mysterium tremendum et fascinans, a contact with the numinous. It is a perception of otherness, an intimation of the beyond.15

Blumenthal argues that there are two forms of holiness: hierarchical – the mystical quality of objects, days and persons; and nonhierarchical – personal acts of will in which one declares an object consecrated to the divine. Holiness is a product of kavanah, that is, intent to holiness. It is the experience of numinous otherness in the mundane.16 By the medieval period, however, some Jewish thinkers were seeking something more immanent/relational. It was in the twelfth and thirteenth-centuries that Kabbalah (“inherited tradition”) began as a minority religion in the Islamic empire (which at that time stretched as far as Spain). Initially, these mystics passed their esoteric tradition from master to disciple, however, it was intended that the God of Kabbalah would appeal to all Jews. Indeed, the Kabbalists were no longer interested in rationalism or philosophy; instead, the Godhead, in a radical departure from the personal God of the Bible and Talmud, became “it.” The unknowable, hidden God made himself known through ten “numerations” or sefirot. These sefirot are active in everything that

David Blumenthal, Facing the Abusing God: A Theology of Protest ((London: John Knox Press, 1993), 6-8. 15 Blumenthal, Facing the Abusing God, 23. 16 Blumenthal, Facing the Abusing God, 25-26. 14

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exists and also represent the stages the mystic must ascend to reach God.17 According to Lynn Gottlieb: Kabbalists conceive of God in Neoplatonic terms, as a dynamic complex of ten energies or spheres that emanate from a hidden and unknowable Source. The whole system is known as the Tree of Life. The divine spheres represent the hidden and inner life of God, which becomes manifest in the material world of existence through the medium of the Shekhinah. However, the Shekhinah occupies the bottom rung of the hierarchical chain of divine emanations.18

Kabbalah has three distinct theosophical elements: knowledge of God, love of God, and communion with God. The God of Kabbalah is divinely immanent and personally knowable through the sefirot. Thus, Kabbalah appealed to those Jews who wished to achieve a deeper understanding of theological questions and experience. Although Kabbalah has been too esoteric, and perhaps too inaccessible, to be integrated into the mainstream of Jewish life, the mystical tradition is still evident in the liturgy. We will return to Kabbalah, particularly in its later Lurianic form, in the next chapter. In the seventeenth-century, Spinoza, who was a Dutch philosopher of Portuguese-Jewish origin, developed a new understanding of God neither classically Jewish nor even describable as a genuinely Jewish search for an understanding of God. For Spinoza, God is an infinite and impersonal substance, and everything is in God, deriving from his existence and subject to his laws. Spinoza’s theological reflections were not presented to Jews per se, rather to all Europeans. It was only later that Spinoza’s philosophy became important to Jewish thinking.19 During the Haskalah, the Jewish equivalent of the Enlightenment, the maskilim, or enlightened Jews, had little problem accepting the new German philosophy of raArmstrong, A History of God, 287-89. Lynn Gottlieb, She Who Dwells Within: A Feminist Vision of a New Judaism (New York: HarperSanFrancisco, 1995), 21. 19 De Lange, Judaism, 118-19. 17 18

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tional religion. In the eighteenth-century, Moses Mendelssohn’s philosophical God was little different to the Biblical version: personal, though not a metaphysical abstraction, and with human qualities such as wisdom, justice, goodness, and loving-kindness. Mendelssohn figured that life without God was meaningless. Indeed, his theology rests on God’s goodness, but mainly on plain common sense – accessible to all.20 Mendelssohn agreed with Spinoza in allocating rational truth and religion to separates spheres, although by contrast to Spinoza, Mendelssohn was an observant Jew who accepted the revelation at Sinai.21 In the nineteenth-century, German Reform theologians, convinced that the rabbinic tradition had undermined the development of Jewish theologies by its legalistic adherence to halakhah, departed from the tradition, instead preferring to allow subjective will in theological matters. Indeed, individuals were to construct their own theologies.22 True, these theologies were, in many respects, typically Jewish: God was still king: a father and all powerful Creator. The Reformist theologies, however, by contrast to the tradition, stress the immediacy of the divine presence. Moreover, Reformism permits interpretive liberty, or the “pick and choose” approach to the tradition, which remains highly subjective and ethically selective.23 The early Reform communities, generally, failed to develop any systematic theologies. In England, for example, the failure to develop an innovative theology is recognized as one of the movement’s major shortcomings, and probably explains why the Liberal Judaism of Armstrong, A History of God, 367-68. De Lange, Judaism, 119. 22 Romain, Reform Judaism, 145. 23 See David Philipson, The Reform Movement in Judaism: A Sourcebook of its European Origins (New York: World Union for Progressive Judaism, 1963); W. Gunter Plaut, The Rise of Reform Judaism (New York: World Union for Progressive Judaism, 1963); Michael Hilton, The Christian Effect on Jewish Life (London: SCM Press Ltd, 1994); Riv-Ellen Prell, “The Dilemma of Women’s Equality in the History of Reform Judaism,” Judaism 30, no. 4 (Fall 1981): 418-26; Stephen Sharot, “Reform and Liberal Judaism in London: 1840-1940,” Jewish Social Studies 41, no. 3/4 (Summer/Fall 1979): 211-28; David Feldman, Englishmen and Jews: Social Relations and Political Culture, 1840-1914 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994). 20 21

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the fin-de-siècle was eventually so successful.24 Mendelssohn’s Jewish successors were continuing to grapple with the relationship between the religion of rationality and reason and revelation. In fact, Jewish theologians were continuing the same quest pursued by medieval philosophers, although within the context of Kantian/postKantian philosophy. What is more, while the mediaeval philosophers attempted to harmonize reason with revelation, assigning each equal authority, the post-Enlightenment philosophers and theologians began to question the divine authority of revelation.25 Franz Rosenzweig was a disciple of Hermann Cohen’s writing on the nature of God and his relationship to man. Cohen, whose early work figures the divine as impersonal, later concluded that God is a personal being, existing apart from man though in a relationship of “love” with him. For Cohen, however, God is an idea rather than a reality; there is tension between the God of religion and the philosophical conception of the divine.26 Rosenzweig abandoned Judaism as a young man, became an agnostic, and then returned to Jewish Orthodoxy. As one of the first existentialists (a philosophy emphasizing freedom of choice and responsibility; an existentialist creates their own values and determines their own destiny), Rosenzweig developed a unique, and universal, conception of Judaism.27 He argued that religion was essentially an encounter with the divine, and concluded that each individual is isolated until God redeems them from anonymity and fear. Accordingly, God does not reduce individuality, but encourages full selfconsciousness. For Rosenzweig, it is impossible to meet God in any anthropomorphic way (by attributing human characteristics to the divine), as God is so bound up with our own existence that it would be impossible to talk to him. Instead, the gulf between the divine and the human is bridged by the mitzvot of the Torah. Martin Buber, a close friend of Rosenzweig, developed a similar theology, visualizing Judaism as a spiritual process and as a striving for See my Lily Montagu’s Shekhinah (Piscataway: Gorgias Press, 2011). De Lange, Judaism, 120. 26 De Lange, Judaism, 120-21. 27 See Franz Rosenzweig, The Star of Redemption (New York: Holt, Reinhart and Winston, 1971). 24 25

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elemental unity. Similar to Rosenzweig, Buber talked of religion as an encounter with the divine, though symbolized and enacted in our meetings with other human beings. Thus, life is an endless dialogue with God.28 Indeed, Buber’s version of God is characterized as the “Eternal You,” and is known through personal encounter rather than doctrinal formulation. Buber’s ideas, however, have been more influential on Christian than Jewish thinkers, although they have appealed to Jews disillusioned with religious institutions and traditional teachings about God.29 The intra-Judaic struggle between halakhah and ethics, typified by the post-Kantian and existentialist approaches has dominated modern Jewish thought. The Reformers analyzed Orthodoxy as a retrogressive, legalistic, and exclusivist religion, and instead prioritized motivational spirituality in contrast to the supernaturalist doctrines of traditional Judaism. The Jewish theologies we have seen, so far, have generally been apologetic in nature. Indeed, from the medieval period to the early modern era, dogma was to an extent a historical contingency. These theologies were a response to the Christian theological polemic against Judaism, and the determination to convert the Jews.30 The Holocaust inevitably set the classical Jewish understanding of God the momentous challenge of justifying how a perfectly free, all-good, completely just God, active in history, caring, and with a special interest in his people, could will or tolerate deliberate evil on such a grand scale involving the torture and murder of innumerable Jews, including rabbis, pious people, and even newborn babies. These questions cannot be answered with mere philosophy about free will or pietistic homilies regarding the purifying efforts of atonement. True, the Jews throughout history suffered persecution and disaster; from the destruction of the First Temple, through to the Second, the expulsion from Spain, and the Cossack massacres. The Holocaust, however, due to its enormity, could not be considered the latest in a chain of similar disasters; rather, this genocide is unique. Hence, the most radical theological responses Armstrong, A History of God, 435, 453. De Lange, Judaism, 122. See Martin Buber, Hasidism and Modern Man (New York: Horizon Press, 1958). 30 Raphael, “Standing at a Demythologized Sinai,” 204-05. 28 29

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denied belief in the personal, loving God altogether. Richard Rubenstein, for example, iterated the “death of God” theology in his book, After Auschwitz.31 He argues that although the God of history had died in Auschwitz, the Jewish people need not cut themselves off from their past or their religion. Rubenstein rejected the liberal, nice, moral idea of God, though remained attracted to the mystical tradition: the self-estranged God of nothingness.32 Rubenstein’s approach had some similarities to Mordecai Kaplan’s naturalistic theology pioneered during the 1930s.33 Emil Fackenheim, alternatively, refused to permit any theological interpretation of the Holocaust, as, supposedly, there is no theory that can make sense of it, although he did believe that the catastrophe was a moment of revelation for the Jewish people; a message of survival.34 By contrast, Eliezer Berkovits argues that in Auschwitz, as per the age-old Jewish tradition, God had inexplicably hidden his face. Indeed, Berkovits assumed that since God patiently tolerates evil, there has to be some who suffer at the hands of wicked men. Thus, Auschwitz points to God’s forbearance and mercy rather than to his “death.” Moreover, for Berkovits, the Holocaust is not a unique catastrophe but an example of the universal theological quandary, the problem of suffering. Therefore, the existence of the Jewish people, despite their record of suffering, is a reminder of God’s presence in history.35 Comparably, Ignaz Maybaum, a disciple of Franz Rosenzweig, analyzed the Holocaust as an epoch making event through which human progress might be achieved. For Maybaum,

31 De Lange, Judaism, 122-23. See Richard Rubenstein, After Auschwitz: Radical Theology and Contemporary Judaism (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merill, 1966). 32 Armstrong, A History of God, 447. 33 See Rebecca Alpert, “A Feminist Takes Stock of Reconstructionism,” Reconstructionist 54 (1989): 17-22. 34 See Emil Fackenheim, God’s Presence in History: Jewish Affirmations and Philosophical Reflections (New York: Harper & Row, 1972); Emil Fackenheim, The Jewish Return Into History: Reflections in the Age of Auschwitz and a New Jerusalem (New York: Schocken Books, 1978). 35 See Eliezer Berkovits, Faith After the Holocaust (New York: Ktav, 1973); Eliezer Berkovits, With God in Hell: Judaism in the Ghettos and Deathcamps (New York: Sanhedrin, 1979).

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the Holocaust was not unique, but like the destruction of the two Temples, eradicates the past making way for human progress.36 As we have seen, since the Holocaust, Jewish theologies, generally, have demonstrated a noticeable and understandable loss of confidence in the divine and have attributed the genocide to God’s propensity to hide his face, or as a perplexing unsolvable mystery at the heart of the divine presence. Faith and reason have perhaps been surrendered, given that after Auschwitz traditional faith can no longer be deemed rational/logical. Indeed, the classical God of rabbinic Judaism, as an omnipresent, all-powerful, just, righteous God of law with a special interest in his people, contrasts the postHolocaust God, who is unpredictable, subject to protest and criticism, even complicit in evil, and perhaps no longer a guarantor of moral progress. For Irving Greenberg, the Holocaust temporarily suspended the Jewish obligation to the Covenant.37 Indeed, despite efforts to regain a sense of the divine presence and a positive response, the overall mood in the aftermath of the Holocaust was understandably bleak.

CYNTHIA OZICK: THE “RIGHT QUESTION” IS NOT THEOLOGICAL In this post-Holocaust context, what George Steiner has labeled the “recession of God,”38 the characteristic theological strands of Jewish feminism began to take shape; and we return to the central question of this chapter, is the right question theological? Cynthia Ozick De Lange, Judaism, 123-24. See Ignaz Maybaum, The Face of God After Auschwitz (Amsterdam: Polak and Van Gennep, 1965). 37 Raphael, “Standing at a Demythologized Sinai,” 206-07. See Contemporary Jewish Religious Responses to the Holocaust, ed. Steven Jacobs (Lanham: University Press of America, 1993); Melissa Raphael, The Female Face of God in Auschwitz: A Jewish Feminist Theology of the Holocaust (London: Routledge, 2003). 38 Raphael, “Standing at a Demythologized Sinai,” 207. See Neil Gilman, Sacred Fragments: Recovering Theology for the Modern Jew (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1990). 36

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(b. 1928), who is a novelist, poet, and essayist, and not a theologian,39 in response to Suzanne Langer’s idea that answers are concealed in questions, and therefore, we must seek the right question as opposed to the right answer, concluded of the relation of women to the Jewish tradition: How can one learn whether one has asked the “right” or the “wrong” question? From a consideration of the answer. By way of illustration: we have lately heard a complaint that Jewish mainstream tradition, being devoid of female anthropomorphic imagery, not to mention female deity-figures, is an obstacle to the self-esteem of women. Jewish women, we are told, lack idealized larger-than-life “models.” The “female nurturing principle” is absent from Jewish cosmic notions. Formulated as a question, the complaint emerges as follows: how shall we infiltrate into Jewish thought an adumbration of divinity which is also female?40

Indeed, Ozick does not believe the right question is theological; moreover, she castigates those who would seek to swap the “he” with “she” in the traditional liturgy as crude purveyors of ancient idolatry.41 As we will see, for Ozick women’s inferior status in the tradition is a sociological problem and repairable through halakhah. According to Cynthia Ozick, the aforementioned question sullies monotheism, as in the absence of an “uncompromising” monotheism there is no Jewish way; Judaism becomes somebody else’s. She reminds: “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is One.”42 For Ozick, even Shekhinah – the feminine aspect of the divine 39 See Cynthia Ozick, A Cynthia Ozick Reader, ed. Elaine Mozer Kauvar (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1996); Harold Bloom, Cynthia Ozick (New York: Chelsea House, 1986). 40 Cynthia Ozick, “Notes toward Finding the Right Question,” in On Being A Jewish Feminist: A Reader, ed. by Susannah Heschel (1983; rpt. New York: Schocken Books, 1995), 120. Ozick is a renowned essayist, shortstory writer, and novelist who writes mainly on American Jewish themes. 41 Ozick, “Notes toward Finding,” 120-21. 42 Ozick, “Notes toward Finding,” 121.

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presence – is a subtle assault on monotheism. She argues that any question regarding the nature of divinity is not the right type of Jewish question for two specific reasons: firstly, “the nature of divinity” is a theological concern and traditionally Jews have no theology. Regarding the nature of God, she notes, Jews are agnostic and need not speculate. Indeed, the reply to Moses’ question about the nature of divinity was “I am that I am.” Secondly, the status of women in any Jewish context is not theological; rather it is a “sociological fact.”43 Ozick makes her point with the following conclusions “for the Attention of the Traditional Rabbinate”: 1. The Question of the status of the Jewish woman is not “theological.” To alter the status of the Jewish woman is not to change one iota of the status of Jewish belief. 2. Therefore the question of the status of Jewish women is “merely” a sociological issue. 3. As a sociological issue, the status of women is the consequence of human decisions amenable to repair by human institutions. 4. In order to satisfy the most traditional members of the community, and also to place the responsibility for injury where it most belongs, the repair must emerge out of halakhah, the judicial machinery for change. 5. The difficulty has been not that principles of halakhah are being applied, but precisely that they are not being applied. 6. As a result of halakhic inaction, Jewish life is in a condition of internal, self-inflicted injury, and justice is not being done. 7. It is the most traditional elements of the community who should set the example for the rest in doing justice. Why? Because it is they who make the claim of being most in the mainstream of authentic Jewish expression: of being most representative of historic Jewish commitment; and finally it is they who dedicate themselves to being models for Jews who are less

43

Ozick, “Notes toward Finding,” 121-23.

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stringent in striving to live conscientiously within the frame of Torah.44

Ozick is clear that the status of Jewish women is a product of societal, rather than sacral, sources.45 Ozick argues that the remedy is, therefore, sociological, and not a matter for theology. She is embarrassed by the “triviality” of “the problem.” Ozick: “Sometimes I feel ashamed. The problem – the status of Jewish women – shames me with its seeming triviality, its capacity to distract, its insistent sociological preoccupation, its self-centeredness, its callous swerve away from all those hammer blows dealt to the Jewish people as a whole.”46 However, Ozick too acknowledges the fact that she might be wrong. She laments: “And suppose the opponents of this position, who believer that the status of women is in fact a sacral position, are right”?47 In sum, Ozick concludes that the “dehumanized” condition of Jewish women in the Hebrew Bible calls the Torah itself into question. Thus, in order to re-strengthen Torah it is necessary to overcome this injustice, but for Ozick, this is not vital for the sake of women; rather, it is necessary for “the sake of Torah.”48

JUDITH PLASKOW: “THE RIGHT QUESTION IS THEOLOGICAL” In response to Cynthia Ozick’s article, Judith Plaskow (b. 1947), the author of the first self-identified Jewish feminist theology, the now classic, Standing Again at Sinai (1990),49 and perhaps the most well known Jewish feminist theologian, seemingly answers the Ozick, “Notes toward Finding,” 142. Ozick, “Notes toward Finding,” 143. 46 Ozick, “Notes toward Finding,” 142. 47 Ozick, “Notes toward Finding,” 143. 48 Ozick, “Notes toward Finding,” 151. 49 See Judith Plaskow, Standing Again at Sinai: Judaism from a Feminist Perspective (1990; rpt. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1991). Plaskow is Professor of Religious Studies at Manhattan College, New York. 44 45

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question with the title of her essay: “The Right Question is Theological.” As we will see throughout this book, Plaskow’s groundbreaking approach to the tradition is infused by the assumption of the otherness of women in the halakhic system, the exclusion of women from the principle events of Jewish history, Torah, and understanding, the rejection of the Chosen People concept, and finally, her critique of the androcentric, masculine defined theology normative to the sacred texts of the tradition. Plaskow, who identifies herself as a Reconstructionist, does not consider Ozick unique in her assumption; rather, she is perhaps indicative of a feminist movement concerned with the status of women in communal and religious life, and with institutional and halakhic change. Indeed, “It [feminism] has focused on getting women a piece of the Jewish pie; it has not wanted to bake a new one”!50 For Plaskow, however, change will never be implemented as long as Jewish feminists focus on the fruits rather than the bases of discrimination. Certainly, prior to Plaskow, the general focus was on specific halakhot and not the fundamental presuppositions of halakhah. Plaskow notes that in Judaism there is distinction between the spirituality (ruhniut) of the male and the physicality or gashmiut of the female.51 Thus, the requirement to regulate women is articulated not as a general issue but as a need to keep their unruly sexuality under control in case it should threaten the spirituality of men. Plaskow argues that of the writers to have analyzed halakhah, including Cynthia Ozick and Rachel Adler (who we will come to in chapter three), there is an underlying assumption that the otherness of women will probably disappear if the community is able to rectify certain halakhic injustices.52 For Plaskow, however, the issue transcends halakhah: Indeed, the situation of the Jewish woman might well be compared to the situation of the Jew in non-Jewish culture. The Gentile projection of the Jew as Other – the stranger, the deJudith Plaskow, “The Right Question is Theological,” 223. See Rachel Adler, “The Jew Who Wasn’t There,” Davka (Summer 1971): 7-11; Rachel Adler, Engendering Judaism: An Inclusive Theology and Ethics (Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society, 1998). 52 Plaskow, “The Right Question,” 224-26. 50 51

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mon, the human non-quite-human – is repeated in – or should one say partly modeled on? – the Jewish understanding of the Jewish woman. She too is the stranger whose life is lived parallel to man’s, the demoness who stirs him, the partner whose humanity is different from his own. And just as legal changes have ameliorated the situation of the Jews without ever lifting the suspicion of our humanity, so legal change will not restore the full humanity of the Jewish woman.53

Plaskow suggests that religious symbols are powerful communicators, since through them a given community expresses its sense and experience to the world. Accordingly, religious symbols express the moral character of a people and are models of a community’s sense of reality, human behavior, and the social order.54 The Sabbath, for example, is a model of God’s creation of the world, and thus a model for the Jewish community, who, like God, rest on the seventh day. Indeed, if God rested on the seventh day, how can Jews fail to do so? Likewise, Plaskow argues, male God-language informs us about the nature of God and justifies a human community which bestows all authority on to men.55 Again Plaskow: If God is male, and we are in God’s image, how can maleness not be the norm of Jewish humanity? If maleness is normative, how can women not be Other? And if women are Other, how can we speak of God in language drawn from male norm? One Consequence of the nature of male God-imagery as a model for community is that the prayer book becomes testimony against the participation of women in Jewish religious life. Women’s greater access to Jewish learning, our increased leadership in synagogue ritual only brings to the surface deep

Plaskow, “The Right Question,” 226. See Reader in Comparative Religion: An Anthropological Approach, eds. William Lessa and Evon Vogt (New York: Harper and Row, 1965). 55 Plaskow, “The Right Question,” 227-28. 53 54

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SECOND-WAVE JEWISH FEMINISM contradictions between equality for women and the tradition’s fundamental symbols and images for God.56

It is not that halakhah simply presupposes the otherness of women; rather, the problem is that this otherness is reflected in Jewish God-language. For Plaskow, therefore, “The equality of women in the Jewish community requires the radical transformation of our religious language in the form of recognition of the feminine aspects of God.”57 Plaskow acknowledges that to mention female language in relation to God invites criticisms of paganism. Indeed, Jewish feminism has been accused of reintroducing polytheism into the tradition. Plaskow argues, however, that it is contradictory to claim that the Jewish God transcends sexuality and that anthropomorphisms are not to be taken literally, while at the same time to suggest that the broadening of anthropomorphic language will destroy traditional Judaism.58 Anthropomorphic language is present in the earliest books of the Bible. Indeed, God walks in the Garden of Eden (Genesis 3:8), closes the door of the Ark (Genesis 7:16), smells Noah’s sacrifice (Genesis 8:21), descends to view the tower of Babel (Genesis 11:5). Moreover, God is said to have arms (Numbers 11:23), hands (Psalms 111:7), a mouth (Deuteronomy 8:3), a voice (Deuteronomy 30:20), eyes (Deuteronomy 11:12), ears (Psalms 5:1), and a face (Psalms 114:7). It is hard to take these images literally, particularly given God’s sovereignty and transcendence in the Hebrew Bible, and the fact that God is unbound by human limitations and failings. What is more, the diverse imagery and symbology used to describe God is too vast and fluid to be literal. Certainly, while God is king (Exodus 15:18), father, and saviour, the divine is also drunken soldier (Psalms 78:65), singer (Zephaniah 3:17), and vine grower. In fact, anything can become a vehicle for experiencing or

Plaskow, “The Right Question,” 228. Plaskow, “The Right Question,” 229. 58 Plaskow, “The Right Question,” 229. 56 57

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understanding God.59 In the biblical tradition, the divine is described as motherly (Isaiah 42:14; Psalms 131:2; Job 38:8, 29), a woman in labour (Isaiah 42:14), as a weaver (Job 10:10-12), and as a house cleaner (Isaiah 14:23). Thus, while Judith Plaskow is correct to say that broadening the anthropomorphic language will not eradicate the tradition, particularly given the extensive use of anthropomorphic metaphor in the Bible, it is evident that problems do arise when God is explicitly defined as either literal male or female, particularly in feminist imaging of the divine as God-she and even Goddess, as we will see. Rita Gross argues that “If we do not mean that God is male when we use masculine pronouns and imagery, then why should there be any objections to suing female imagery and pronouns as well”?60 Gross, who we will come to in chapter four, argues in favor of taking steps toward feminine imagery of deity in Jewish theology. A possible solution to the inappropriateness of the exclusively male imagery and language in traditional Jewish expressions of God is to opt for a style that speaks of God in neuter-language: neither female nor male. Gross admits: Frequently those who realize the inappropriateness of the exclusively masculine language and imagery of traditional Jewish religious expressions want to opt for a style of language that speaks of the Ultimate as “neither male nor female.” At a certain level of philosophic analysis that is , of course, a viable and perhaps even a more adequate concept than the theistic and therefore inherently anthropomorphic imagery of a personal God in covenanted relationships. I will concede to them the use of feminine pronouns and imagery of deity, but obviously, Leland Ryken et al., Dictionary of Biblical Imagery: An Encyclopedic Exploration of the Images, Symbols, Motifs, Metaphors, Figures of Speech and Literary Patterns of the Bible (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1998), 332-35. 60 Rita Gross, “Female God-Language in a Jewish Context,” in Womanspirit Rising: A Feminist Reader in Religion, eds., Carol Christ and Judith Plaskow (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1979), 170-71. See Rita Gross, “Steps toward Feminine Imagery of Deity in Jewish Theology,” in On Being A Jewish Feminist, 234-47. 59

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SECOND-WAVE JEWISH FEMINISM only in return for an equal ban on all masculine pronouns and images of deity – since their case is that God should be imaged as neither male nor female.61

The exclusive monotheistic worship of Yahweh was a long drawn out struggle against those determined to maintain Goddessworship alongside reverence for God. Thus, the victory of Yahwehism led to the suppression of the female side of divinity, almost as if any slight reference to the feminine might overwhelm the precarious superiority of God.62 Nevertheless, Gross assumes that each traditional assertion referring to God can be made equally applicable to God-she as well as God-he. Thus, the familiar hakadosh barukh hu can equally be ha-kedoshah berukhah hee.63 For Judith Plaskow, women have not contributed to the formation of the Jewish tradition; therefore, the tradition does not reflect the realities or particular needs of women’s lives. The maleness of God enforces the silence of women as shapers of the holy, while this very silence is a cause of women’s otherness and the assumption and normalcy of God’s maleness. Similarly, halakhah, is part of a system that women have played no part in creating, nor have they been part of its development or refining process. Indeed, women’s absence is reflected in the content of halakhah and perhaps in its form. Hence, it is not known whether a halakhah that includes women’s voices will be a means of expression and repair.64 Finally, for Plaskow: Feminism demands a new understanding of Torah, God, and Israel: an understanding of Torah that begins with acknowledgment of the profound injustice of Torah itself. The assumption of the lesser humanity of women has poisoned the content and structure of the law, undergirding women’s legal disabilities and our subordination in the broader tradition. … Gross, “Steps toward Feminine,” 240-41. Plaskow, “The Right Question,” 229. 63 Gross, “Steps toward Feminine,” 241. 64 Plaskow, “The Right Question,” 230-31. 61 62

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Feminism demands a new understanding of God that reflects and supports the redefinition of Jewish humanity. The longsuppressed femaleness of God, acknowledged in the mystical tradition, but even here shaped and articulated by men, must be recovered and reexplored and reintegrated into the Godhead.65

As we have seen, Cynthia Ozick argues that the treatment of women derives not from the Torah itself, but from the misinterpretation of the rabbis throughout Jewish history. Accordingly, the Torah provides the basis for radical change. Moreover, Ozick concludes that women’s inequality in traditional Judaism is a social rather than a sacral question.66 Alternatively, Plaskow is adamant that alterations to halakhah will be fruitless because the problem is rooted to the Jewish conceptualization of God, which transcends scriptural and liturgical considerations. Thus, importing in female Godlanguage and imagery of God to the tradition would impel women’s inclusion as shapers of the community, while also strengthening Judaism’s insistence that God is beyond anthropomorphic characterizations and should not be solely identified with maleness.67 Problematically, however, according to Jill Hammer theologians who choose to use feminine God-language, yet try to stay away from terms associated with the Goddess, will have difficulty in separating the two.68 Hammer: “The Shekhinah is a revision of earlier Goddess images – a revision created by Jews who, having left the Goddess behind, now find they could not do without her. The Zohar knows thus, and says: ‘The truth is that the Hei (the letter of God’s name that represents the feminine Divine) is called 65 66

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Plaskow, “The Right Question,” 231-32. Susannah Heschel, introduction (II) in On Being A Jewish Feminist,

67 Susannah Heschel, introduction (III) in On Being A Jewish Feminist, 218-19. 68 Jill Hammer, “To Her We Shall Return: Jews Turning to the Goddess, the Goddess Turning to Jews,” in New Jewish Feminism: Probing the Past, Forging the Future, ed. Elyse Goldstein (Woodstock: Jewish Lights Publishing, 2009), 31.

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Asherah.’”69 Indeed, Plaskow’s assertion that female imagery and language will create a deity free from anthropomorphisms is perhaps an oxymoron as the two go hand in hand – making God female cannot help but apply humanistic language. Judith Plaskow argues that traditional Jewish language about the divinity is partial and selective, and that the God who allegedly transcends sexuality, who is supposedly one and whole, is described, generally, in a language that is narrow and incomplete. The images that are used to describe God, and the qualities we attribute to God, use male pronouns and experience to convey authority and power that is obviously male in scope. For Plaskow, the God of Jewish consciousness is a lord and king who leads the Jewish people into battle; a God who is father like. This male imagery, Plaskow notes, seems comforting as it is familiar, despite the fact that it is part of a system that consigns women to the periphery. To image God as male is to value the masculine quality and those who possess it, and to bless men, though not women, with a characteristic attribute of God. Moreover, metaphors used for God are often drawn from the patriarchal family. These are images of dominance that are made permissible by affection. As husband and father of Israel, God demands complete obedience and monogamous love, and is quick to punish waywardness, much like the wayward daughter can be stoned at the door of her father (Deuteronomy 22:21). When these images of the family are combined with political imagery such as of warrior and king, Plaskow contends, they reinforce a specific model of dominance. God is the power; the sovereign warrior with righteousness on his side. Hence, political and family models of submission are made possible by the dominance of God. Plaskow suggests that the submission of women is part of a larger pattern that makes it seem right and fitting. Indeed, there is coherence between the role of women in Jewish life, law, teaching, and symbols. Women’s experiences do not shape Jewish teaching because women do not define the normative community, and women will always remain other as long as they are seen through the filter of male interpretation without ever being given the opportunity to speak for themselves. God’s maleness ensures the silence of wom69

Hammer, “To Her We Shall Return,” 31.

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en as shapers of the holy, and that silence, in turn, enforces women’s otherness and communal assumption towards the maleness of God. Hence, if God is male, how can maleness not be considered normative of Jewishness, and consequently, how can women be anything but other? For Plaskow, women’s exclusion from public religious life, and women’s powerlessness in marriage and divorce, are neither accidental nor individual inequalities. They are part of a system in which men have defined the rules. Thus, merely adapting these rules, or even removing them, will not restore women’s voices or power of naming. Furthermore, while feminists argue that the traditional liturgy is inadequate, there only concern, Plaskow notes, is with who has access to the liturgy, while, in fact, women’s leadership in synagogue ritual contradicts their formal equality with the symbols of the service. These contradictions can only be addressed through the transformation of religious and theological language. Likewise, reform of halakhah is irrelevant given that women had no part in creating the legal system. Plaskow argues that a feminist critique of Jewish God-language begins with the unyielding maleness of Jewish pictures of God. Indeed, the maleness of God is a consistent theme throughout every aspect of Judaism.70 Plaskow: God’s maleness is so deeply and firmly established as part of the Jewish conception of God that it is almost difficult to document: It is simply part of the lenses through which God is seen. Maleness is not a distinctive attribute, separable from God’s anger or mercy or justice. Rather, it is expressed through the total picture of God in Jewish texts and liturgy. God in the Jewish tradition is spoken of in male pronouns, and more importantly, in terms of male characteristics and images. In the Bible, God is a man of war (Ex. 15:3), a shepherd (Ps. 23:1), king (for example, 1 Sam. 12:12; Ps. 10:16), and father (for example, Jer. 3:19; 31:9). The rabbis called him “father of mercy,” “father in heaven,” “king of all kings,” and simply “he.”71

70 71

kow’s.

Plaskow, Standing Again at Sinai, 6-9, 123. Plaskow, Standing Again at Sinai, 123. The abbreviations are Plas-

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Even those actions that appear gender-neutral, for Plaskow, are read and interpreted through male filter language so that the God who performs these actions is still imagined in masculine terms. For example, there is nothing intrinsically male about the action of liberation or the most mysterious of all God’s names: Ehyeh-AsherEhyeh (“I am who I am,” or “I will be who I will be,” in Exodus 3:14).72 However, when the Exodus narrative is read in the perspective of the Song at the Sea celebrating the Lord of war in victory over his enemies (15),73 and when it is assumed that power is indicative of maleness, God seems to have been male throughout. Accordingly: “The hand that leads Israel out of Egypt is a male hand, whether or not it is called so explicitly.”74 Judith Plaskow suggests that while female imagery is vital it does not address the nature of God as dominating other. Indeed, feminine pronouns and imagery alter and even soften the traditional image of God. However, they do not fundamentally change the concept of a great potentate fighting for her/his people and ruling over the earth. Plaskow criticizes Rita Gross for assuming that any attribute applied to God-he can be modified into “Godshe.”75 If the image of God as dominating other is part of an entire system of dualisms that includes the subordination of women to men, then the introduction of God-she, for Plaskow, is a contradiction that threatens to disrupt the system. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Plaskow deems Shekhinah, who we will analyze in the following chapter, inadequate as the feminine aspect of God in the mystical tradition. She argues that Shekhinah, the product of masculine defined tradition, is an image that comes with limitations. Thus, In the King James Bible this is written as “I am that I am” in response to Moses’ question: “When I come unto the children of Israel, and shall say unto them, The God of your fathers hath sent me unto you: and they shall say to me, What is his name? what shall I say unto them”? (3:13) 73 “Then sang Moses and the children of Israel this song unto the Lord, and spoke, saying, I will sing unto the Lord, for he hath triumphed gloriously: the horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea. ... The Lord is a man of war: the Lord is his name” (Exodus 15:1, 3). 74 Plaskow, Standing Again at Sinai, 123-24. 75 See Gross, “Female God-Language.” 72

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Shekhinah, as the subordinate bride and consort within God, similar to the way that Israel is the bride of God, is feminine in the sense that the male understands the secondary aspect within himself, not as seen or experienced by women themselves.76 As we will see, Plaskow’s assumptions concerning Shekhinah, particularly in the rabbinic tradition, are open to criticism. Indeed, the rabbis, like the Kabbalists, apply feminine imagery to Shekhinah (rabbinic), though visualize her as God’s presence in the world, not necessarily as God’s bride. According to Plaskow, Jewish feminists experience empowerment through participation in the community, and through their empowerment they know God as a power to be named through rhythm and movement as well as words.77 Plaskow notes that feminist spirituality is related to the avowal of holiness of all that is. Hence, God is no longer king or master of the world, but the power that moves and sustains it, and is present in the entirety of reality, the processes of transformation and development, decay and growth, that make up cosmic existence. This aspect of feminist spirituality assumes human beings are not the acme at the end of creation but the participants of a complex web of life which is all sacral.78 Judith Plaskow notes the empowering nature of the Goddess, who is not simply a reworking of the male image of deity, but the divine female in her own right.79 According to Plaskow, the Bible is clear that there were many Israelites who continued to worship Plaskow, Standing Again at Sinai, 138-39. See Mary Daly, Beyond God the Father (Boston: Beacon Press, 1973). 78 Plaskow, Standing Again at Sinai, 144-45. 79 Melissa Raphael rightly points out that Goddess feminism in Judaism, which we will examine in chapter four, demonstrates how late or postmodern religious identity may be inclusive and plural, shifting according to the context of the religionist and their mood, ideology, and perspective (“Goddess Religion, Postmodern Jewish Feminism, and the Complexity of Alternative Religious Identities,” Nova Religio 1 (1998): 198). See Starhawk, The Spiral Dance: A ReBirth of the Ancient Religion of the Great Goddess (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1979); Raphael Patai, The Hebrew Goddess (1967; rpt. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1990); Melissa Raphael, Introducing Thealogy: Discourse on the Goddess (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic 1998). 76 77

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Gods and Goddesses along with Yahweh. The prophetic writings, for example, can be read as the portrayal of a prolonged struggle between the minority who advocated monotheistic exclusive worship of Yahweh and the majority who worshipped Yahweh and others. For Plaskow, the presence of Asherah in the Temple for much of its existence is evidence that the Israelites were hardly indifferent to Goddesses.80 In fact, she argues, it seems that throughout the history of the ancient Israelites Yahweh was believed to have a consort. Plaskow contends that the association of female God-language with the worship of the Goddess either presupposes that the traditional God of Judaism is so irrevocably male that any altering of the anthropomorphic language is surely referring to a different deity, or it makes absolutely no sense at all. The majority of Jewish feminists, for Plaskow, who experiment with female God-language are merely trying to enrich the range of metaphors available for talking about God, rather than worshipping or imaging a specific Goddess. The use of female images, rather than sullying monotheism, is a test of whether Jews can continue to maintain a monotheistic framework. Plaskow: “Is our God sufficiently God that we are able to incorporate the feminine and women’s experience into our understanding of divinity”?81 For Melissa Raphael, Judith Plaskow’s Standing Again at Sinai reads more as an “ethically prescriptive sociology of community than a theology.”82 Far from being a theology per se, the book, according to Raphael, is actually a re-visioning of community. Similar to other religious feminists, Plaskow seeks to justify religion to women on ethical, relational grounds rather than exploring the eschatological elements integral to Judaism.83 Indeed, reading of Asherah is a Canaanite mother Goddess. She is a Goddess of the sea and associated in the Hebrew Bible with Baal (see Judges 3:7). The name was also applied to images of her, which were wooden (Deuteronomy 16:21) and to be eradicated (12:3): “Ye shall hew down the graven images of their gods, and destroy the names of them.” See Saul Olyan, Asherah and the Cult of Yahweh in Israel (Atlanta: Scholars press, 1988). In 2 Kings 23:1-14, Asherah is removed from the Temple. 81 Plaskow, Standing Again at Sinai, 145, 148, 150, 152. 82 Raphael, “Standing at a Demythologized Sinai,” 209. 83 Raphael, “Standing at a Demythologized Sinai,” 209. 80

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Plaskow’s self-identified “theology” does seem to call into question the nature and relevance of this discourse, and whether it can be regarded as theological at all. Plaskow suggests: The practice of Jewish feminists who invoke the names of goddesses as part of their worship can be understood in the context of this inclusive monotheism. Aside from the fact that these names may have been called on by our foremothers and thus can connect us in community to them, using the names of goddesses in liturgy is one way of capturing and conveying multiple images of female power – images that have resonance and weight in the midst of a culture that provides almost no positive models of female strength or authority. … Only when reciting the names of goddesses is meant to name ultimate reality as plural do feminists surrender the vision of a unity that embraces diversity – a vision I would want to affirm as central to Jewish feminist understanding of God and community.84

Plaskow advocates plurality of God imagery through an inclusive monotheism, which will include some traditional symbols, though embraces mainly those images that have previously been excluded from the process of naming the sacred: Just as the feminist rethinking of Torah involves broadening Jewish memory, and the reconceptualization of Israel involves acknowledging and respecting the diversity of Jewish community, so the feminist reimaging of God entails reclaiming and shaping sufficient metaphors for God that the diversity of Jewish community is reflected in its naming of divinity and the commitment to communal diversity is grounded in an inclusive monotheism. If identifying God with a particular set of metaphors both limits God and supports a community in which some people have more values than others, using a broad and changing variety of metaphors brings home on the nonrational 84

Plaskow, Standing Again at Sinai, 153.

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SECOND-WAVE JEWISH FEMINISM level on which images function that God has many guises, no one of which is final. When we feel free to try on and play with a range of images for god, then our speaking and praying becomes explicitly a “naming toward God,” and all Jews are challenged to reach into the depths of our experience to speak out the names we find there.85

For Plaskow, the affirmation of a multi-imaged God is essential to Jewish feminist spirituality. The emphasis on community, moreover, means that God is present in the coming together of human beings who see their communal role as part of a larger purpose in which the community is grounded. The emphasis on community, more so, diversity within that community, is central to Plaskow’s theology. In fact, “community” is the vehicle of religious experience; “community” is where the divine presence rests.86 The focus on community is perhaps unsurprising. Judaism is a communal religion. Whether as part of the smaller family unit, or as a member of the congregation at large, Jews are part of a familial group. Many rituals assume a family structure, such as the Shabbat and the Passover meal, and Jews are expected to pray together, with most prayers written in the plural. Furthermore, in traditional Judaism, Israel is an assembly, or community, before God, limiting personal and immediate experience of the divine presence in favor of radical separation between the individual and the divine.87 But, moreover, Plaskow’s socio-theology echoes Reconstructionist principles of civilization with an emphasis on humanity as opposed to the divine as an entity over and above the world – which for Plaskow would be unthinkable. The cause, Judith Plaskow argues, might be to focus on the lives of women, the fate of the world, or the pursuit of human justice in the community. It is through our actions, and our struggle with others to act responsibly, that we come to understand God in Plaskow, Standing Again at Sinai, 154-55. Plaskow, Standing Again at Sinai, 155-56. 87 See T. Drorah Setel, “Roundtable Discussion: Feminist Reflections on Separation and Unity in Jewish Theology,” Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion 2 (1986): 113-18. 85 86

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a profound way. Indeed, the early Israelites, Plaskow notes, found in “community” their nascent national identity and a covenant with the God who gave it. For Plaskow: “Jewish feminism, in seeking to draw together into a vision of empowered egalitarian community the Jewish and feminist affirmations of community, needs an understanding of God that emerges out of and is faithful to the place where its God is found.”88 As God is experienced through community, changes to the structure of the community and to rituals and observances can contribute to new understandings of God. Moreover, women’s religious leadership in the Jewish community will testify to the presence of God within women. The participation of women in prayer and study groups will also contribute to a sense of God’s immanence in the community. Those communities that are able to open themselves up to the richness of Jewish multiplicity will gain access to the spiritual resources indicative of that diversity. According to Plaskow, God need not be explicitly named in order for God to be found, although feminists cannot avoid the task of creating images that express the presence of God in an egalitarian and varied community. It might even be that the shaping of truly satisfying images of God await the creation of new communities, as communal structures and communal metaphors are interrelated. Plaskow argues that God-naming can take place through anthropomorphic language, as gender-neutral language threatens to leave intact images that subvert non-anthropomorphic language. For Plaskow, “Feminism cannot avoid the use of anthropomorphic imagery.”89 Indeed, Rachel Adler, as we will see, also argues that it might not be possible for Judaism to link with its past without affirming a personal God,90 although perhaps inevitably, whether God-he or God-she, someone is going to be excluded. Judith Plaskow notes that by contrast to the idea that God loves us despite our worthlessness, the notion of love for what is 88 Plaskow, Standing Again at Sinai, 157-58. See Gordon Kaufman, An Essay on Theological Method (Missoula: Scholars Press, 1975); Gordon Kaufman, The Theological Imagination: Constructing the Concept of God (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1981). 89 Plaskow, Standing Again at Sinai, 158-61. 90 Adler, Engendering Judaism, 90.

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most valuable in us, is far more applicable to human empowerment and accountability. For Plaskow, metaphors and images of God as companion or friend capture the closeness of God’s relationship to Israel and the sense of shared struggle towards a common goal. These metaphors suggest that Israel and God are mutually accountable as they join in the process of repairing the world. Indeed, the general project of world-creation is a venture that God and human beings share.91 Plaskow: These images of God – lover, friend, companion, cocreator – are more appropriate metaphors for the God of the covenant than traditional images of lord and king. Defining God’s power with us instead of over us, a partner in dialogue who ever and again summons us to responsible action. Rather than reminding human beings of our frailty and nothingness, they call us to accountability as partners in a solemn compact that makes demands on us to which we can respond.92

The problem, however, with describing God as “friend,” or “companion,” and as merely another member of the community, does seem in itself to eliminate the necessity of the divine presence by reducing, and even eradicating, God’s transcendence; demoting the divine to simple anthropomorphisms devoid of eschatological, supernaturalist, and transcendent meaning. True, describing God in terms of “fountain”, “wellspring,” and “source” is understandable.93 These images are already present in the Tanakh and are resonant of God as Creator, but making the divine “partner” and effectively equal seems to placate the need for God at all. According to Melissa Raphael, very little has been written since the theological efforts of Rita Gross, Judith Plaskow, and others, to contest and develop these foundational expositions which form the Jewish feminist theological corpus. Plaskow’s “theology” visualizes Judaism Plaskow, Standing Again at Sinai, 162-63. Plaskow, Standing Again at Sinai, 164. Where Plaskow uses the word “compact,” she possibly means “contract.” 93 Plaskow, Standing Again at Sinai, 165. 91 92

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as a community in which “difference is nurtured and respected.”94 For Raphael, however, Plaskow’s re-visioning of community is exactly that: a sociological analysis of community; a rethinking of her ideas and experience in the B’not Esh. Indeed, Standing Again at Sinai deals with historiography, literary studies, women’s leadership, cultural studies, and sociology, though for Raphael: “not theology.”95 B’not Esh (Daughters of Fire) is a relatively small women’s spirituality group that was set up in the early 1980s and is committed to feminism.96 The collective has spurred other Jewish feminist groups and projects and organizes lectures, articles, and classes. Raphael: Jewish feminist theology’s Reform terms and assumptions have been established by Judith Plaskow but have not since been critically interrogated. Jewish feminist theologies historicist ethicizing reform legacy has left Jewish feminist theology little discursive room for an intellectual inquiry into the possibility of God’s historically and cosmically decisive selfrevelation. … No different than other religious Jewish feminists, Plaskow has continued to justify Judaism to women on ethical, relational grounds, not to explore the intractable questions of what it means to be under judgment, to be subject to God’s commandment (perhaps because she did not believe either was really the case).97

Plaskow, Standing Again at Sinai, 119. Raphael, “Standing at a Demythologized Sinai,” 209. 96 There were two outgrowths of B’not Esh: Achiyot Or (Sisters of Light), and the short-lived Bat Kol, or Daughter of the Divine Voice (Judith Plaskow, “Jewish Feminism,” in Encyclopedia of Women and Religion in North America, vol. 3, eds. Rosemary Skinner Keller, Rosemary Radford Ruether, and Marie Cantlon (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2006), 1221). 97 Raphael, “Standing at a Demythologized Sinai,” 201, 209. Classical Reformism emphasises ethical monotheism, universalism, liberality, and social justice. 94 95

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In fact, Raphael merely points out the obvious; that Plaskow’s selfdeclared theology hardly constitutes theology at all, particularly given its eschewing of eschatological and sacral themes common to Jewish theology, though little else has been written to bring forward and develop her innovative ideas. Judith Plaskow herself acknowledges that referring to God as “friend” or “lover” might lead to God somehow being less God, more or less, in a reduction of “Godness.” Plaskow suggests that the otherness of God, however, expressed in the notion of God as dominating sovereign manipulating the world from above, is destructive. Instead, the rejection of these metaphors, according to Plaskow, does not limit or abandon the “moreness” of God, but merely challenges religionists to image God in nonhierarchical terms. By imaging God as nature, darkness, and other devalued metaphors, Plaskow argues, it is possible to revalue the forms of otherness, claiming their multiform particularity as sacral.98 Problematically, however, if God is not over and above, transcendent, and other, it becomes difficult to visualize deity at all.

CONCLUSION: PLASKOW’S REJECTION OF HIERARCHICAL OTHERNESS As we have seen, the fact that Judith Plaskow completely rejects images of hierarchical domination suggests marginalization of the divine; for the aspects she associates with God, if nonhierarchical, are qualities and symbols that we find in other human beings, thus eliminating the need for God. Inescapably, God is God: a divine being, the Creator of the human race, with supernatural power. Moreover, God is an object of worship. If God ceases to have these hierarchical values, then surely God is no longer God, but something else. Plaskow concludes: We are left, then, with a picture of God as a God of many faces – as many as the 600,000 souls that stood at Sinai and the 98

Plaskow, Standing Again at Sinai, 167.

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complexities and conflicts of Jewish and human existence. At the centre of this picture stands the Jewish/feminist experience of a God encountered in the midst of community – a God revealed as the community and those within it discover their destiny and understand that destiny as part of a larger universe of action and response. This God is male/female lover, friend, companion, cocreator, the one who, seeing what is best in us, lures us to be the most we can become. This God is ground and source of all life, creating, holding, sustaining the great web of existence and, as part of it, the human companions who labor to make the world a home for the divine presence. This God is the God of Israel, the God the nascent community experienced and acknowledged behind the wonderful events at the Red Sea.99

Notably, it is perhaps difficult to analogize Plaskow’s Standing Again at Sinai as a re-visioning of Judaism, or feminist alternative, comparable to Moses’ receiving of the commandments and the covenant of Sinai. More so, if we consider that in the biblical narrative the community is awaiting the presence of God at the mountain; instead, Plaskow’s imaging of the divine creates a deity not over and above the community, but part of it. Indeed, Plaskow’s idea of a diverse community is an oxymoron, for community is defined as a group of people who possess a common bond; however, when does the notion of diversity cease, what are its limits? When does diversity become division? When does diversity fail to possess anything remotely recognizable as Jewish? True, diversity in itself can be a wonderful thing; though unchecked, it can eventually usurp and replace the inner-core. My conclusion might seem to replicate traditionalist criticisms of feminism as secularizing in nature. It is true, however, diversity, unrestrained, is not always a good thing, as the Jewish people have discovered. Melissa Raphael:

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SECOND-WAVE JEWISH FEMINISM Jewish theology would do well to keep modernity at arm’s length. As is well known, modernity has both emancipated Jewry and destroyed it. Modernity’s rational demystification of the Jew has encouraged Jews themselves in the disenchantment of Judaism. It has conferred rights and made citizens of Jews, but it has also urged, by way of a return on its social investment, the assimilation of Jews to the point of their cultural disappearance. Indeed, loss of faith in God was a casualty of Jewish enlightenment, the Holocaust, and modern technological bureaucracy finally provided the means to annihilate the European Jewish presence altogether.100

Judith Plaskow’s “God of myriad names,”101 implicitly influenced by Reconstructionist themes and Simone de Beauvoir’s, The Second Sex, since its inception, although unchallenged by innovative Jewish feminist theology, or lack of it, has not been appropriated or developed. Indeed, the exchange between Cynthia Ozick and Judith Plaskow promised much, yet delivered very little. Following the dispute, Ellen Umansky produced an article outlining the Jewish feminist theological agenda, although it revealed more problems than it did possibilities.102 As we will see in chapter four, Umansky’s “Creating a Jewish Feminist Theology,” is more concerned with problems, such as “irreconcilable conflict” between the tradition and personal experience, that Jewish history cannot be separated from “Jewish vision,” and that personal experience might not be compatible with traditional visions of the divine.103 According to Raphael, it is true, however, that these articles are “foundational” and perhaps no longer represent the views of the authors. Problematically, little has been written since.104 Finally, we are reminded of the chapter title, and its controversy: “is the right question theological”? Or by way of re-definition, is there a theological premise to the androcentrism of traditional Judaism, and its alleged Raphael, “Standing at a Demythologized Sinai,” 206. Plaskow, Standing Again at Sinai, 169. 102 Raphael, “Standing at a Demythologized Sinai,” 208. 103 Umansky, “Creating a Jewish Feminist Theology,” 187, 189, 193. 104 Raphael, “Standing at a Demythologized Sinai,” 208-09. 100 101

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subordination of women, and if so, is there a theological remedy? The answer is of course yes – the evidence is compelling as Plaskow confirms, although the development of a prescriptive theology, as we will see, is perhaps unsustainable if feminists continue to reject normativity. To conclude, therefore, we return to the five questions set out in the preface to this book, and the problems that arise: if we consider the first, in short: is a prescriptive theology possible, the answer seems to be, improbable, given the diversity necessary to accommodate Judith Plaskow’s theology of community. True, even the rabbis were aware that religionists will experience God in different ways, but, again, is a community centered on diversity necessarily a community; what is the binding force if theology is personally subjective? Then we come to questions two, three, and four: if the central elements of the tradition have been jettisoned, is this a Jewish theology at all, is subjective experience authentic, and when does theology cease to be Jewish and become something else altogether? These questions are not straightforwardly resolvable, but evidently, without the central elements of the tradition that have been integral to Jewish survival and understanding for three millennia, and without an assumption of supernaturalist otherness, surely any exposition to preclude these items would cease to be not only theology but to be recognizably Jewish. Moreover, when subjectivity, and personal experience, are deemed more important than the tradition itself, it is difficult to visualize anything normative or remotely prescriptive or practical; rather, plurality usurps the possibility. But we must also consider the alternative that perhaps, as we will see in the work of Rosemary Radford Ruether in chapter four, that all theology and tradition has a subjective core. Indeed, if and when feminist exposition on the divine is incorporated into the tradition its subjective nature over time will possibly be marginalized, even overlooked, as is the case with the majority of classical texts. We will return to Judith Plaskow and some of the issues outlined in this section in chapters four and five, though in the following chapter the focus is liturgist-theologies. These expositions, or proto-theologies might be a better term, however, are not prescriptive, doctrinal, or practical; rather they are reflective, experimental, and embryonic; they are an expression of feminist God-language and re-visioning of traditional masculine deity.

3 LITURGIST-THEOLOGIES OF THE SECOND-WAVE In this chapter we will explore the liturgist theologies of the Second-Wave; that is, feminist prayers that incorporate sacral elements. These innovative liturgies are particularly important as they raise a significant theological issue already touched upon, that of God-language. Firstly, we will look at Naomi Janowitz and Maggie Wenig’s path-breaking experimentation with female God-language in their Sabbath prayerbook, Siddur Nashim. I then analyze Marcia Falk’s Book of Blessings and her application of neuter language in an effort to avoid anthropomorphisms, followed by Rebecca Alpert’s lesbian re-visioning of not only the liturgy, but the Torah itself. We will see here, similar to Judith Plaskow, the influence of the Reconstructionist tradition and its humanistic influence in the work of Falk and Alpert. Moreover, I will look at Lynn Gottlieb’s guided meditations to Shekhinah, and finally, Rachel Adler’s assumption that theologies are implicit in God-language, and therefore prayers that misrepresent experience are detrimental to understanding of the divine. Inevitably, the discussion will move beyond these liturgies to develop more significant questions regarding the underpinning theological currents in reference to the five analytical questions set out in the preface. Any discussion of liturgist-theology must acknowledge the division that exists between “women’s prayer,” which is private and individual in time and content, and “men’s prayer,” which is codified in formula and scheduled for certain times. Prayer in public requires the minyan, which usually takes place in the synagogue, although women are exempted, even completely excluded. Women have, at times, participated in set prayers, though it is not a requirement. Indeed, women are exempt from the time-bound positive mitzvah of prayer. The reading of Megillah on Purim, however, is a public reading; women are not only qualified to read the 87

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book of Esther, they are obliged to take part in its reading. A minyan, therefore, is a necessity, although women can discharge their obligation by asking someone to read for them. Certainly, the halakhists would not have permitted a female only minyan except on the rare occasion that no men are available. Most authorities, nevertheless, disqualify women form the minyan for the reading of Megillah, as they do for the daily prayer and Kaddish.1 According to Tova Hartman, there has been no greater battleground for the coexistence of modern Orthodoxy and feminism than the issue of synagogue ritual, in particular the traditional liturgy. In fact, the liturgies of all faiths have been a target of feminist critics as the blatant purveyors of patriarchy. Contrary to popular belief, however, the feminist tension between the words of the liturgy and the subjective, personal experience of reality filtered through a contemporary pluralistic lens, is not an exclusively feminist issue at all, or even a modern or postmodern one. Indeed, even the Talmudic rabbis grappled with the liturgy. Thus, while many prayers and blessings possess formulations that invoke the historical relationship between God and the Jewish people, the rabbis were acutely aware that the liturgy needed to reflect a coherent and recognizable sense of self. Moreover, Moses Maimonides recognized that the language of prayer should reflect the personal experience and self image of the person using it. Maimonides seems to represent the prophetic response to subjectivity. With regard to the convert, for example, it is possible to change the words of a particular prayer to suit the subjective reality of the religionist. Worshippers are not required to do so, although there is nothing to stop them.2 Abraham Joshua Heschel (the father of Susannah Heschel): Those of us who are anxious to omit no word out of reverence for the treasures of the liturgy are paying a high price for their 1 Rachel Biale, Women & Jewish Law: An Exploration of Women’s Issues in Halakhic Sources (New York: Schocken Books, 1984), 20-24. See Ismar Elbogen, Jewish Liturgy: A Comprehensive History, translated by Raymond Schendlin (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1993). 2 Tova Hartman, Feminism Encounters Traditional Judaism: Resistance and Accommodation (New England: UPNE, 2007), 62, 64-67.

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loyalty. Judaism is faced with a dilemma, with a conflict between two requirements: the loyalty to the order, and the requirement of kavanah.3

Problematically, Jewish communities loyal to halakhah cannot change the traditional liturgy (Berakhot 40b): “Kol ha-meshaneh mimatbe’ah she-tav’u chachamim biv rachot lo yatza khovato,” or “one who changes the liturgy formulated by the sages, does not fulfill his obligation.” The use of the traditional liturgy, however, allows religionists to participate in a relationship with the Jewish community that dissects space and time, and that is immediate, intimate, and transcendental. Traditional prayer connects worshippers to the covenantal community and the Jewish historical process. Indeed, the fixed liturgy is a portal to profound experience that allows religionists to participate in something greater than immediate subjective reality and context which is communal rather than essentially personal. Problematically, by obsessing over the nature and imagery of God in prayer, we perhaps lose sight of God’s ultimate transcendence, ineffability, and unknowability.4 Adrienne Rich, who was raised as a Christian, though is of Jewish ancestry, argues that female images of God endow women with a sense of importance, meaning, and existence at the centre of the sacral. Women thus exist, not to cajole men, but to assert themselves. In short, feminine images of the divine validate women’s spirituality.5 For Cynthia Ozick, however, anthropomorphisms are a reversion to paganism: One of the most frequent answers is to tinker with the language of liturgy. For instance, for the phrasing of “Blessed art Thou, O Lord our God, King of the Universe,” we are advised 3 Abraham Joshua Heschel, Man’s Quest for God: Studies in Prayer and Symbolism (New York: Scribner, 1954), 35. 4 Hartman, Feminism Encounters Traditional Judaism, 69-70. 5 Adrienne Rich, Of Women Born: Motherhood as Experience and Institution (New York: Norton, 1976), 93-94. See Feminism and Process Thought, ed. Sheila Greeve Davaney (Lewiston: The Edward Mellon Press, 1981).

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SECOND-WAVE JEWISH FEMINISM to substitute the term “Queen of the Universe.” The answer stuns us with its crudity. It is preposterous. What? Millennia after the cleansing purity of Abraham’s vision of the One Creator, a return to Astarte, Hera, Juno, Venus, and all their proliferating sisterhood? Sex goddesses, fertility goddesses, mother goddesses? The sacrifices brought to these were often enough human. This is the new vision intended to “restore dignity” to Jewish women? A resurrection of every ancient idolatry the Jewish idea came into the world to drive out, so as to begin again with a purifying clarity?6

For Hartman, the deepest truth about God is that we are not God, and the use of any anthropomorphisms can only limit the divine. Certainly, the more humanity we ascribe to God, the more we envisage a God in own our image rather than striving for the opposite. Human images of God reduce God’s ultimate otherness from humanity and language. On the other hand, depersonalizing God divests the religious experience of its relational perspective. Furthermore, notions of masculinity and femininity often conform to essentializing stereotypes: traditional images of masculinity such as father, judge, and king need not necessarily adhere to (often unconscious) popular assumptions about what masculinity is or should be. The “maternal” is a theme associated with women and mothers, although it belongs to men as well. By projecting onto malegendered language connotations of aggressiveness, and domineeringness, and seeking to balance these words with “softer,” perhaps more “maternal” imagery, we are merely perpetuating an age-old essentialist dichotomy. For Hartman, the “change-the-words” approach to liturgical sexism is, as we will see, fraught with weaknesses.7

6 Cynthia Ozick, “Notes toward Finding the Right Question,” in On Being A Jewish Feminist: A Reader, ed. Susannah Heschel (1983; rpt. New York: Schocken Books, 1995), 121. See Tikva Frymer-Kensky, In the Wake of the Goddesses: Women, Culture and the Biblical Transformation of Pagan Myth (New York: Free Press, 1992). 7 Hartman, Feminism Encounters Traditional Judaism, 70-72, 76, 78.

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NAOMI JANOWITZ AND MAGGIE WENIG: EXPERIMENTING WITH GOD-LANGUAGE Naomi Janowitz and Maggie Wenig, then undergraduates at Brown University, produced a new feminist version of the Sabbath prayerbook (1976), and while some of the prayers simply introduce feminine pronouns, others experiment with God-language, even reimaging God in feminine form.8 The following is taken from their “Rabbi’s Prayer”: Blessed is She who spoke and the world became. … Blessed is She who in the beginning, gave birth. Blessed is She who says and performs. Blessed is She who declares and fulfills. Blessed is She whose womb covers the earth. Blessed is She whose womb protects all creatures. Blessed is She who nourished those who are in awe of Her. Blessed is She who lives forever, and exists eternally. Blessed is She who redeems and saves. Blessed is Her Name.9

According to Janowitz and Wenig, their liturgy is a product of the experience of contemporary Jewish women and their relationship with God. The liturgy assumes the full inclusion of women in the Torah service and the minyan. The prayers and blessings use women’s own words though are not an attempt to outline a systematic theology.10 Siddur Nashim was radical for its time as it replaced masculine images with feminine ones, adding women’s voices from 8 Judith Plaskow, Standing Again at Sinai: Judaism from a Feminist Perspective (1990; rpt. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1991), 137. 9 Naomi Janowitz and Maggie Wenig, “Sabbath Prayers for Women,” in Womanspirit Rising: A Feminist Reader in Religion, eds. Carol Christ and Judith Plaskow (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1979), 176. See Naomi Janowitz and Maggie Wenig, Siddur Nashim: A Sabbath Prayer Book for Women (privately circulated for the women’s minyan at Brown University, 1976). 10 Janowitz and Wenig, “Sabbath Prayers,” 174-75.

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t’chines,11 Midrash, and other material representative of women’s experience. According to Janowitz and Wenig, they express their world view through translation and commentary on traditional texts. However, their “commentary” is to be prayed as well as having been studied and read. They admit: “Out liturgy is, like those that precede ours, a product of the experiences of its authors – in this case there experience of contemporary Jewish women.”12 For Janowitz and Wenig, the prayers are not a critique of the traditional liturgy from a feminist perspective; rather, they are “our choice to remain within the tradition and to sanctify our everyday lives as women.”13 The prayers symbolize the authors’ struggle to understand their relationship with the divine and the result of trying to assimilate the liturgy to their own experiences. Janowitz and Wenig: With these prayers, we offer encouragement to women, as they look around and inside themselves for God, to write prayers, to pray together and to renew the meaning of all that has been passed down to us. We have found that, when women are reminded that they too are created in the image of God, they can bring forth what they carry inside – the beauty, wisdom, and strength gained as the bearers of 4,000 years of tradition.14

Indeed, the prayers are not intended to be prescriptive or normative; rather, they are an attempt to make women the “messenger(s) of the congregation,” and to assume their inclusion, by the simple, legitimate, and effective means of changing the God-language to emphasize “she” instead of “he”: So sing now, sing Her praise, Praise Her in the sight of Her power, Praise Her for Her mighty acts, Praise Her for Her overwhelming greatness, Techinot: Jewish women’s prayers of the Ashkenazi tradition. Janowitz and Wenig, “Sabbath Prayers,” 174. 13 Janowitz and Wenig, “Sabbath Prayers,” 174. 14 Janowitz and Wenig, “Sabbath prayers,” 175. 11 12

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Praise Her with the blast of the horn, Praise Her with the timbrels and dance, Praise Her with strings and the pipe, Praise Her with the clear-toned cymbals, Praise Her with the loud-sounding cymbals, Let all that has breath praise the Lord.15

The value of Janowitz and Wenig’s prayerbook is that it combines traditional elements with innovative feminine pronouns. The problem is, however, that the God of Siddur Nashim, according to Judith Plaskow, is the traditional deity in women’s clothes. Plaskow is also right to point out that feminine imagery does little to remedy the “problem” of God as domineering other. In sum, Plaskow rightly argues that female imagery and pronouns inserted into traditional forms can only begin the process of discussion, but this is hardly a transformation.16 We must remember however that Janowitz and Wenig’s liturgy was not intended to initiate wholesale transformation of the classical liturgy, and it is certainly not a dogmatic theological exercise; instead, its vitality lies in its daringness and its possibilities. Instead of “God-she,” the Reconstructionist movement began naming God according to function: Wise One, Beautiful One, Beloved One, although the Conservative liturgy, Siddur Sim Shalom (1985), while finally recognizing women as worshippers, did not challenge God’s masculinity. Independently, however, women began to write their own alternatives to Janowitz and Wenig’s groundbreaking, and undoubtedly influential, Siddur Nashim, perhaps the most notable is Marcia Falk’s Reconstructionist influenced Book of Blessings.17

Janowitz and Wenig, “Sabbath Prayers,” 175, 177. Plaskow, Standing Again at Sinai, 137-38. 17 Lawrence Hoffman, review of The Book of Blessings: New Jewish Prayers for Daily Life, the Sabbath, and the New Moon, by Marcia Falk, Prooftexts 19 (1999): 87. 15 16

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MARCIA FALK: ADDRESSING GOD IN NEUTER LANGUAGE Marcia Falk (b. 1946), Hebraist, theorist, and poet, was raised in a Conservative Jewish household. Her Book of Blessings (1996) is solidly Second-Wave and was the culmination of many years of research and experimentation. Its immanentist theology coincides with the imagery of God analogous with Reconstructionism, despite the fact that much of her reconstructed format, and Hebrew, contradicts Reconstructionist emphasis on sancta and peoplehood.18 Falk’s non-denominational efforts attempt to address God through neuter language, avoiding anthropomorphisms that implicate the divine in gendered imagery.19 She rejects all distinctions including the concept of chosenness and hierarchical otherness. In fact, Falk, as a liberal feminist, and humanist, rejects classical Jewish theology. Indeed, Falk discourses on the prospect of universal spirituality,20 and concludes that human relationships with the divine are “about a loss of otherness, a merging, a breakdown of boundaries and a (momentary) release into the Wholeness.”21 Falk’s perspective assumes natural, or non-personal, interpretations of the divine presence as either, for example, rock, tree, or lion:22 I create and use new images – images such as eyn ha-hayyim, “well-spring or source of life,” nishmat kol khai, “breath of all living things,” and nitzolzot ha-nefesh, “sparks of the inner, unDavid Teutsch et al., “The Poet As Liturgist: Marcia Falk’s The Book of Blessings: Three Reactions and a Response,” The Reconstructionist 62, no. 1 (Spring-Fall 1997): 73. Sancta: plural of sanctum, a private sacred place. 19 Susannah Heschel, preface to On Being A Jewish Feminist, xxii. See Marcia Falk, The Book of Blessings: New Jewish Prayers for Daily Life, the Sabbath, and the New Moon (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1996). 20 See Neil Gilman, Sacred Fragments: Recovering Theology for the Modern Jew (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1990). 21 Quoted by Rachel Adler, Engendering Judaism: An Inclusive Theology and Ethics (Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society, 1998), 90. 22 See Tikva Frymer-Kensky, “On Feminine God-Talk,” Reconstructionist, 69 (Spring 1994): 49. 18

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seen self” – to serve as fresh metaphors for Divinity. With these images and still others, composed of all the basic elements of creation – earth, water, wind and fire – I hope to construct a theology of immanence that will both affirm the sanctity of the world and shatter the idolatrous reign of the lord/God/king.23

Falk concludes that as monotheism implies that we are created in the image of the deity, the images with which we point towards the divine must reflect us all. All images, however, are necessarily partial. Accordingly, “white” is no less partial than “black,” in the same way that words like “man” and “woman” can exclude. For Falk, authentic monotheism is not a singular image but an embracing unity of multiple images, as many as is subjectively necessary to reflect the diversity of our individual lives. Thus, although Falk believes charges of paganism to be “ridiculous,” feminizing the male deity is inadequate as feminine images applied to an already patriarchal tradition inevitably remain patriarchal though in “transvestite masquerade.”24 Falk: As many feminists have discovered, it is not merely a matter of changing male images to seemingly equivalent female ones: the relatively simple (though still courageous) act of “feminizing” the male God has proved, to many of us, to be inadequate and often absurd. For a feminized patriarchal image is still patriarchal, though now in transvestite masquerade.25

23 Quoted by Adler, Engendering Judaism, 90. See Marcia Falk, “Toward a Feminist-Jewish Reconstruction of Monotheism,” Tikkun 4 (July/August 1989): 39-53. 24 Marcia Falk, “Notes on Composing New Blessings: Toward a Feminist-Jewish Reconstruction of Prayer,” in Weaving the Visions: New Patterns in Feminist Spirituality, eds. Judith Plaskow and Carol Christ (New York: HarperSanFrancisco, 1989), 128-29. 25 Falk, “Notes on Composing,” 129.

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Moreover, Shekhinah, for Falk, is used merely to placate “uppity” Jewish women and is therefore insufficient. Falk suggests that Shekhinah was not originally a female image, and did not become so until Kabbalistic times. However, while Falk is right to point out that Shekhinah has never been on an equal footing with Kadosh Barukh Hu,26 her assumption that Shekhinah was never a female image in the rabbinic tradition is simply not true. In fact, as we will see later in the chapter, Shekhinah was for some Talmudic rabbis an independent feminine entity. Marcia Falk argues that accusations of verbal idolatry can be avoided if it is acknowledged that all theological naming is really “naming-toward.” Indeed, divinity is the act of creating metaphors, and if these metaphors are treated as literal truth then they become lies. No single set of images or names, for Falk, should monopolize religious authority.27 Falk: And so, I have been composing b’rakhot, new blessings in Hebrew and in English, as vehicles for new theological images, steps toward creating feminist-Jewish theology and practice. Why blessings? Because, in Jewish life, blessings are powerful tools for expressing spirituality and for forging community – tools that I have come to rely on in my daily life.28

Theological language that is overused, Falk contends, or that has become completely predictable – language that is so automatic and canonical we forget its original implications – is dead metaphor, a lie. More so, English and Hebrew masculine pronouns that refer to the divine, Falk argues, fail to remind us that the divinity is not actually male. Falk rejects both exclusively male God-language and anthropomorphisms, as the image of divinity as a person, either male or female, tends to forget that humans are not the sole, nor even primary, life-bearing creatures on this earth. Hence, Falk draws metaphors from all aspects of creation, similar to the biblical Falk, “Notes on Composing,” 129. Falk, “Notes on Composing,” 131-32. 28 Falk, “Notes on Composing,” 130. 26 27

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poets who created the “rock of Israel,” tzur Yisrael, and the “tree of life,” etz hayyim. Falk alters the beginning of the traditional blessing, barukh atah, “blessed are you” (with “blessing” and “you” in masculine singular), to the gender-inclusive n’varekh, “let us bless,” in first person plural. By also emphasizing “we” who are blessing the responsibility is given back to the community of living speakers.29 Again Falk: The very first time I uttered a blessing that began with n’varekh, I realized that I had long been uncomfortable with the passive “blessed are you” of the traditional blessing, not just because it is gender-restrictive but because it is disempowering. With n’varekh, we reclaim our voices, and take back the power of meaning. When we say n’varekh et eyn ha-hayyim, we are reminded even as we speak that eyn ha-hayyim is our metaphor, our naming toward the ultimately unnamable. And because our names and images can now take many forms, we begin to hear all the words of our sentences – verbs and adjectives as well as nouns – occurring in both genders, and in plural as well as singular constructions (for the many can represent the One in metaphor). And so in the new blessing we hear the grammatical shift from ha-motzi (masculine singular), “who/that brings forth”; and to many of us this small change in sound, the introduction of this tiny “ah,” is refreshing, even liberating.30

Falk attempts in her blessings to invoke a flow that connects the divine with the realms of nature and humanity, while still claiming to maintain ties to the historical Hebrew tradition, biblical, Midrashic, liturgical, and poetic sources.31 She suggests that God is an immanent presence who rises from the earth, rather than a deity who rules over and above his subjects.32 Falk:

Falk, “Notes on Composing,” 132, 134. Falk, “Notes on Composing,” 134. 31 Falk, “Notes on Composing,” 135. 32 Plaskow, Standing Again at Sinai, 142. 29 30

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SECOND-WAVE JEWISH FEMINISM Let us acknowledge the source of life for the earth and for nourishment. May we conserve the earth that it may sustain us and let is seek sustenance for all who inhabit the world.33

In sum, The Book of Blessings develops liturgical-theology that is neither supernaturalist nor anthropomorphic, which includes a comprehensive order of prayer for Shabbat, weekdays, and for festivals such as Rosh Hodesh.34 The creative process deals with different areas of theology and experiments with linguistic changes: As I continued in the creative process of composing new blessings, I found that the journey to create authentic prayers, useful and appropriate to their occasions, took many turns, few of which I was able to anticipate. With each new blessing I approached, I confronted and often wrestled with a different aspect of theology, and this grappling led to linguistic variations.35

Falk’s collection of poetry is intended to “restore rightful places in the tradition, honor the Shekhinah that dwells in our lives.”36 Falk assumes that those religionists who have become alienated, particularly women, can also own the tradition rather than having to jettison it as irredeemable. Her berakhot are, for Lawrence Hoffman, part of a two-thousand year old liturgical tradition, though able to abandon traditional hierarchical theological assumptions of “other.” Indeed, Falk’s universalism contrasts the particularism of the Marcia Falk, “Notes on Composing New Blessings: toward a Feminist-Jewish Reconstruction of Prayer,” Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion 3 (Spring 1987): 52-53. 34 Hoffman, review, 88. 35 Falk, “Notes on Composing,” in Weaving the Visions, 135. 36 Falk, The Book of Blessings, 227. See Marcia Falk, “What About God? New Blessings for Old Wine,” Moment 10 (1985): 32-36. 33

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tradition (through which only Jews are subject to the covenant) and is akin to the liturgy of early Reform Judaism. Formally, berakhot are marked by formulaic opening and closing, and are characterized by a fixed initial set of words and a variable conclusion that summarizes the blessing’s theme. Falk, however, recasts the fixed opening using feminist principles.37 Marcia Falk’s blessings, perhaps unsurprisingly, while being almost universally accepted as innovative, beautiful, and daring, are subject to ongoing criticism. As we have seen, Falk rejects the universal formula; her method for producing berakhot counters traditional theologies of transcendence by collapsing God into community and nature. Falk, thus, usurps the traditional Barukh atah Adonai Eloheynu melekh ha-olam – “Blessed are you, Adonai/Lord our God, King of the universe.” By primarily focusing on the community, Falk avoids having to address God as either masculine or feminine. Her critics deem it unacceptable that she neglects to directly acknowledge God and to recognize his kingship. Falk’s berakhot are, however, not the only blessings to neglect the rules established by the post-Mishnaic Amoraim, the wedding blessing and tefillah prayers deviate from the regulations.38 In fact, Jews aware of the meaning of Barukh atah Adonai, who want to mean what they say, might be uncomfortable with the notion of God as an immanent presence in the self. Moreover, the creation of new blessings, according to halakhah, is banned (although new blessings did not cease with the compilation of the Talmud). Thus, problematically, it is difficult to think of Falk’s berakhot as traditional, more so given Falk’s rejection of Barukh atah Adonai, the formula central to blessings.39 Certainly, for Falk tradition is not “fixed”:40 And when, as inevitably will happen, critics question the authenticity of this work, denying feminist Jews the right to call our creativity and our creations Jewish, we – the members of the feminist-Jewish communities that help comprise klal yisrael, Hoffman, review, 89-90. Adler, Engendering Judaism, 91. 39 Hoffman, review, 90-91. 40 Even the early rabbis did not intend the tradition to be static. 37 38

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SECOND-WAVE JEWISH FEMINISM the community of Israel – need to remind them that Jewish prayer, like all of Jewish practice and belief, all of Jewish life, has never been finally “fixed.” Rather it has evolved, adapted, and changed throughout Jewish history. … We need to remind our critics, and ourselves, that tradition is not just what we inherit from the past; it is also what we create and pass on to the future.41

Furthermore, Falk’s Amida, for example, has been criticized for being too complex. According to David Teutsch, there is no pluralism of theological views in Falk’s berakhot, while much of the traditional phrasing is absent, despite the fact that these blessings are supposed to be both innovative and traditional. Problematically, using Falk’s poetic liturgy requires certain sophistication, including understanding of poetry, awareness of the traditional liturgy, and Hebrew skills.42 What is more, Ira Eisenstein, the son-in-law of Mordecai Kaplan, and cofounder of the Reconstructionist movement in Judaism, notes that praying has lost many of its former attractions. Religionists come to synagogue for a sense of belonging, but rarely come to experience “true” worship.43 Eisenstein: The reasons for this reluctance to engage in heartfelt praying are evident to anyone who has observed the effects of modernity upon the sensitive Jew. The pious assumptions of two or three generations are no longer honored – the belief that there is a (inevitably male) God who sits on a throne and hears the praise and petitions of all His creatures, and Who is not above intervening in the flow of nature to enrich life or avoid catastrophe. While there has been a recrudescence of supernaturalism in recent days, the prevailing mood is one of skepticism.44

Falk, “Notes on Composing,” in Weaving the Visions, 136. David Teutsch, in Teutsch et al., “The Poet as Liturgist,” 74-76. 43 Ira Eisenstein, in Teutsch et al., “The Poet as Liturgist,” 80-82. 44 Eisenstein, in Teutsch et al., “The Poet as Liturgist,” 81. 41 42

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For Eisenstein, while at first glance Falk’s blessings seem an adequate attempt to address the gender inequalities of the traditional liturgy, basic problems remain, such as: “How does one speak of God if one does not speak to God, and how does one avoid the male imagery of God given the nature of the Hebrew language”?45 The Book of Blessings omits the primary sanctum of traditional Judaism, the name of the divine, YHWH (Yahweh); there is no mention of “Adonai” or “Hashem.” These omissions suggest total separation from the tradition and raise the inevitable question: in what ways, if any, do these berakhot connect to classical understandings of deity?46 Evidently, this is not a problem for Marcia Falk whose work is firmly entrenched in the Reconstructionist perspective, but if we recall the questions set out in the preface, particularly the second, is it Jewish theology when the primary elements of the tradition are abandoned, in this case, transcendence, the classical formula for blessings, hierarchical otherness, and Jewish particularism (chosenness), then Falk’s blessings are certainly not traditional in the classical Jewish sense. This is perhaps a problem for religionists who intend to maintain their connection to the tradition over blessings that are necessarily personal projections. Moreover, the subjective nature of the blessings, and Falk’s assumption that no single image should monopolize theological authority, does seem to preclude anything wholly prescriptive. However, the value of Falk’s liturgical-theology is its will to be daring and its determination that the tradition is changeable. The fact that her blessings are popular in Reconstructionist and Reform congregations testifies to their value. Falk has no interest in creating anything normative; rather, she is concerned with pluralistic immanentism and universal spirituality. In fact, as we have seen, Falk’s approach is more humanistic than it is classically Jewish. Indeed, as Judith Plaskow notes, Falk’s prayers “represent the most complete expression of another tendency evident in many feminist images of God: a focus on God’s immanent presence Eisenstein, in Teutsch et al., “The Poet as Liturgist,” 81. Eisenstein, in Teutsch et al., “The Poet as Liturgist,” 82. Tetragrammaton (Greek): Hebrew name of God written using four letters, YHWH. 45 46

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within the world rather than on God’s distance and transcendence.”47 And the question therefore arises, can a God that is collapsible into community and the individual, that is no longer transcendent, and is thus dependent on subjective experience rather than being over and above the religionist, be regarded as a deity at all? Rebecca Alpert is similarly influenced by the Reconstructionist tradition.

REBECCA ALPERT: JEWISH THEOLOGY FROM A LESBIAN PERSPECTIVE Rebecca Alpert (b. 1950) is Chair for the Department of Religion and the Associate Professor in the Departments of Religion and Women’s Studies at Temple University, Philadelphia. Despite her Reform background, Alpert undertook her rabbinical training at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College and was one of the first generation of women rabbis in the United States.48 Alpert: Coming out as a lesbian was the point of departure for my new rabbinical role. I would never have found the courage to remake my rabbinate without finding the courage to come out as a lesbian. I have incorporated my lesbian identity into my rabbinate, but I have also gone beyond it to a new location as a rabbi on the margins. Many lesbians have had the opportunity

Judith Plaskow, “Feminist Theology,” Jewish Women: A Comprehensive Historical Encyclopedia. March 1, 2009. Jewish Women’s Archive, http://jwa.org. 48 See Rebecca Alpert, “A Feminist Takes Stock of Reconstructionism,” Reconstructionist 54 (1989): 17-22; Rebecca Alpert, Like Bread on the Seder Plate: Jewish Lesbians and the Transformation of Tradition (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997); Rebecca Alpert, “Our Lives Are the Text: Exploring Jewish Women’s Rituals,” Bridges 2 (Spring 1991): 66-80; Lesbian Rabbis: The First Generation, eds. Rebecca Alpert, Sue Elwell, and Shirley Idelson (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2001). 47

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in recent years to choose a different path, to become central to the larger Jewish enterprise.49

Alpert was taught and highly influenced by Elaine Pagels, and the founder of the Reconstructionist movement, Mordecai Kaplan. The majority of her publications are post-Second-Wave, although her formative influences are in the period and solidly Reconstructionist. Alpert’s Like Bread on the Seder Plate (1997) examines the ways in which Jewish lesbians can assimilate and re-mould the tradition to their own perspectives and experiences. This work is important given the status, or lack of status, afforded to lesbians in the tradition.50 Indeed, lesbianism, or mesolelot, is almost unheard of in traditional Jewish society, even though it undoubtedly existed, and continues to exist. Moreover, lesbianism is not directly mentioned in the Bible at all. On the other hand, homosexuality is discussed in Leviticus 18 and 20 and labeled abhorrent. In the Talmud, however, there are two references to lesbianism, although in no way is it considered equal to the sin of homosexuality. In his commentary, Rashi outlines the term mesolelot (Yevamot 76a): “Like intercourse of male and female, they rub their femininity [the genitals] against one another.” In another Talmudic passage (Sanhedrin 69b), mesolelot is described in relation to a mother fondling the genitals of her son, through which we are to understand that the term mesolelot relates to acts that are sexual in nature though do not involve penetration. In Yevamot 76a, Raba disputes the argument attributed to Rav Huna that women involved in sexual acts are disqualified from Rebecca Alpert, “On Being a Rabbi at the Margins,” in Lesbian Rabbis, 180. See Christie Balka, “Thoughts on Lesbian Parenting and the Challenge to Jewish Communities,” Bridges 3 (1993): 57-65; Elizabeth Sarah, “Judaism and Lesbianism: A Tale of Life on the Margins of the Text,” Jewish Quarterly 40 (1993): 20-23. 50 See Rebecca Alpert and Jacob Straub, “Exploring Judaism and Finding Reconstructionism,” The Reconstructionist 70, no. 1 (Fall 2005): 1521; Rebecca Alpert, Whose Torah? A Concise Guide to Progressive Judaism (New York: New Press, 2008); Cheshire Calhoun, “Separating Lesbian Theory from Feminist Theory,” Ethics 104 (April 1994): 558-581. 49

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priesthood. As they are automatically disqualified anyway, we are to assume that the act of mesolelot renders women ineligible to marry into the priesthood. Actually, sexual relations between women are described merely as licentiousness (pritzut), and are considered much less of an offence that prostitution (zenut). Indeed, mesolelot carries no legal punishments. Certainly, sexual activity between two women, while deemed improper from a legal perspective, does not count as a “sexual act.” In another Talmudic passage, Samuel’s father forbids his daughters to sleep in the same bed. His motivation, however, is not to prevent mesolelot; rather, he prefers them to sleep alone. Moses Maimonides similarly argues that the sexual act is not in itself punishable; instead, it is the rebelliousness of the act that is problematic as lesbianism is “the doings of Egypt” (Leviticus 18:3). Indeed, Maimonides was concerned with the danger lesbianism might pose. As a remedy, he suggested prevention; it is the man’s duty to ensure his wife has no social interaction with potential lesbians. Alternatively, a court could present the charge of rebelliousness when dealing with lesbianism. In short, mesolelot, unlike male homosexuality, is excluded from the Talmud’s list of sexual prohibitions. According to Rachel Biale, the scarcity of material on lesbianism in the sacred texts can be attributed to several factors: firstly, that lesbianism did not exist as a social or legal issue, possibly because women accepted their role as wife and sexual partner in marriage; secondly, perhaps legal problems arose concerning the ketubah (marriage contract). Moreover, it is possible that the records were suppressed given their potentially embarrassing nature. Alternatively, acts of lesbianism might have remained a secret, unknown to the men who made the decisions regarding halakhah.51 Rebecca Alpert argues that lesbians will only fully participate in Jewish religious life when Jews, Judaism, and the sacred texts, are transformed from a lesbian perspective. This can only be achieved by new interpretations of the traditional texts; the introduction of 51 Rachel Biale, Women & Jewish Law: An Exploration of Women’s Issues in Halakhic Sources (New York: Schocken Books 1984), 192-96. See Twice Blessed: On Being Lesbian or Gay and Jewish, eds. Christie Balka and Andy Rose (Boston: Beacon Press, 1989); Holly Devor, Gender Blending: Confronting the Limits of Duality (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1989).

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contemporary texts that reflect lesbian experience, and the creation of new sacred texts that are both lesbian and Jewish. Alpert argues that the book of Ruth, for example, which supposedly reflects positively on lesbian love, should be included in Torah alongside Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.52 Indeed, Alpert’s analysis of Ruth and Naomi as lesbians challenges the reader to usurp the patriarchal, heterosexual lens,53 though inevitably, trying to force a lesbian perspective into a biblical text does activate questions of eisegesis. Moreover, for Alpert accessibility is vital (on this point she is critical of Marcia Falk’s Book of Blessings): For most Jews today, prayer is an experience of the heart, not of the heart and mind. Those who pray seem not to be troubled that they do not believe what they are saying, and that the images in the prayerbook do not reflect their concept of God, that their opposition to hierarchy is not represented or that their need to find new ways to explore women’s contributions goes unheeded. In a religiously conservative age, it is not surprising that nostalgia and conformity are the values that dictate our religious lives. While Falk wants to reach out to those who are alienated from Jewish life, I do not think they will find The Book of Blessings to be their point of entry. What is compelling about this work is its sophistication; its nuanced and passionate use of Hebrew language; its close renderings of the traditional passages and images changed only to conform to Falk’s theology

52 Donna Berman, “Major Trends in Jewish Feminist Theology: The Work of Rachel Adler, Judith Plaskow and Rebecca Alpert,” in New Jewish Feminism: Probing the Past, Forging the Future, ed. Elyse Goldstein (Woodstock: Jewish Lights Publishing, 2009), 17-18. See Nice Jewish Girls: A Lesbian Anthology, ed. Evelyn Torten Beck (1982; rpt. New York: The Crossing Press, 1984); Ellen Frankel, The Five Books of Miriam: A Woman’s Commentary on the Torah (New York: G. P. Putnam, 1996). 53 Pui-Ian Kwok, Postcolonial Imagination and Feminist Theology (London: Westminster John Knox Press, 2005), 110.

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SECOND-WAVE JEWISH FEMINISM and ethics. Its power is not its accessibility, the lack of which is underscored by … its … size.54

Alpert: “If … we assume that Judaism has undergone radical changes over time and that it is in fact the flexibility and dynamism of the tradition that has sustained it, then we may see an opportunity to reinterpret and transform these rules and prohibitions as well as to reject specific ones if necessary and build on a new foundation.”55 Alpert suggests that there are three ways to read Torah through a lesbian lens: the “Interpretive Method” by which midrash and biblical commentaries make texts relevant to contemporary aspirations and expectations, even transforming its original meaning to reflect the new cultural context; second, through the “Historical Approach” by which the text is interpreted as representative of its era and is viewed as a window into a particular time and place; finally, by “Encountering the Text” interpreters may experience the text in its immediacy. Alpert’s approach focuses on Jewish ethics as opposed to halakhah, and relies on text as the medium through which transformation might be achieved. Indeed, for Alpert stories and their transmission is a method for creating a new Judaism that embraces those who have been alienated by the tradition.56 Alpert: I do make them aware that at least in a Reconstructionist setting they mind a community that welcomes them. But my goal has not been to convert them; I don’t do outreach. If I worked for the Jewish community I would experience pressure to bring them in. I want the people I work with to be able to choose how much contact they want to have with Judaism beyond their connection to me. I understand and respect their perspective on the margins, their lack of interest in belonging to a group as an expression of being Jewish. Synagogue life is

Rebecca Alpert, in Teutsch at al., “The Poet as Liturgist,” 80. Alpert, Like Bread on the Seder Plate, 8. 56 Berman, “Major Trends,” 18-19. 54 55

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not for everyone. This freedom is another advantage of my position.57

According to Alpert, “walking with God” is a metaphor for the way in which a person approaches their life. To imagine yourself walking with God, however, requires that God be the most important value in life. God, as such, may be a power or a force, or even imaged as a human being.58 Alpert: As Jewish lesbians, we begin with the assumption that we can only walk with God if we know and accept ourselves for who we are. Walking with God begins with self-acceptance and requires that we tell ourselves the truth about ourselves. This stance describes coming out, declaring oneself to be lesbian, as a necessary prerequisite to walking with God.59

For Alpert, those who walk with God are guided by a belief that all human beings are holy and that they have been created in God’s likeness. Again, Alpert: “As lesbians are visible and accept ourselves as walking with God, so we name lesbians in past generations to honor their memories, not to bring shame on them.”60 Rebecca Alpert turns to lesbian fiction as a way of assimilating lesbians to the tradition. Thus, although she recognizes that fiction is not realistic, it at least portrays lesbians how they want to be seen.61 Alpert: The stories that the writers of lesbian fiction share with us point us in new directions for a lesbian transformation of Judaism. They teach the lesson that our lives are the text. It is not Alpert, “On Being a Rabbi,” 180. Alpert, Like Bread on the Seder Plate, 55. 59 Alpert, Like Bread on the Seder Plate, 55. 60 Alpert, Like Bread on the Seder Plate, 55, 59. 61 Berman, “Major Trends,” 19. See Bonnie Zimmerman, The Safe Sea of Women: Lesbian Fiction 1969-1989 (Boston: Beacon Press, 1993). 57 58

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SECOND-WAVE JEWISH FEMINISM enough to study the past and make new interpretations if it. It is not enough to use the texts of the past to rethink contemporary practices. We must be engaged in creating new texts that can be passed on to the next generation. In this way, we write ourselves into Jewish history.62

In sum, Alpert’s intention to transform the tradition is ambitious. For Alpert, it is irrelevant whether lesbians are welcomed into the community as the problem rests with the sacred texts and the core of Jewish practice and belief.63 As a disciple of Mordecai Kaplan, Alpert, by her own admission, rejects hierarchical otherness, chosenness (though not Jewish distinctiveness), and supernaturalism. Her own theology is, in her own words, “prepositional”: God works through the world rather than being over and above it.64 Indeed, in the Reconstructionist tradition divine language is not necessarily an exposition on God; rather, it is about improving human life. There is no divine intervention, for example, as theology is not deemed essential. If we remind ourselves of the analytical framework of this book; indeed, questions one and two, in the first instance Alpert’s rejection of normativity and the pluralistic nature of the Reconstructionist tradition, along with the requirement that the sacred texts be transformed, certainly precludes any possibility of either prescriptive or quintessentially Jewish discursive on the nature of God. Moreover, if we consider my third question, is this actually theology at all, again the issue of whether a God that is not hierarchical, nor supernaturalist, nor other, can be described in theological terms at all remains. But, this need not diminish the value of Alpert’s contribution to lesbian understanding of the tradition and the potential for renewal; it is more that Alpert is understandably concerned with textual reconstruction and lesbian experience than she is with theology.

Alpert, Like Bread on the Seder Plate, 161. Alpert, Like Bread on the Seder Plate, 6. 64 Alpert, in Teutsch at al., “The Poet as Liturgist,” 77-79. 62 63

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SHEKHINAH: THE FEMININE ATTRIBUTE OF PRESENCE In this section I intend to clarify an assumption prevalent to feminist understanding of Shekhinah. Indeed, both Marcia Falk and Judith Plaskow assume that in the Talmud, Shekhinah is the presence of God without any mention that this presence is female.65 True, the Shekhinah of rabbinic tradition, according to Falk, has never been on a footing with Kadosh Barukh Hu: “the Holy-OneBlessed-Be-He.”66 This is not in dispute. The rabbis, however, did on occasion image Shekhinah in explicitly feminine terms (not simply in feminine grammar). To demonstrate this we will look to the Talmud and the Midrash. Images of Shekhinah tend to become blurred when interpreters become confused between little known rabbinic and biblical imagery and the more popular, and ultimately more well known, Kabbalistic interpretations. Certainly, there are stark polarizing differences that those who have dismissed the rabbinic literature as too androcentric; too inhospitable to women’s aspirations, without themselves analyzing the necessary texts of the rabbinic corpus, might benefit from reading, or re-reading, if it be the case. Moreover, interpreters reading in English often miss the subtle nuances and grammatical differences that become more apparent when reading in Hebrew, as we will see. In rabbinic Judaism, God is remote, transcendent, and even unknowable. The Shekhinah, however, as a manifestation of God who has descended to dwell in the world is synonymous with presentness. Much like “God,” the word “Shekhinah” dissects and usurps the layers of non-personal and anthropomorphic language. Shekhinah is known by a myriad of personal guises, words, metaphors, and descriptions, though essentially is the presentness of God in the world who uniquely rests among the Jewish community.67 In traditional Judaism, Shekhinah fulfils a basic human need to both experience and express the divine presence in metaphors and symbols that are characteristically Plaskow, Standing Again at Sinai, 138; Falk, “Notes on Composing,” in Weaving the Visions, 129. 66 Falk, “Notes on Composing,” 130. 67 Plaskow, Standing Again at Sinai, 165-66. 65

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feminine. The word, Shekhinah, meaning “to dwell” or “to abide,” first appears in the second-century rabbinic legal codes of the Mishnah, and then in the sixth-century Talmud, which consists of the Mishnah and its commentary, the Gemara. In the rabbinic codices “Shekhinah” is often used interchangeably with Elohim and Yahweh as names for God. Shekhinah, however, is the only one of the principal names for God that is of the feminine gender in Hebrew grammar. The Israelites, following their receiving of the Torah, are instructed to build a tent: “So I can dwell among you.” When the shrine is finished, God appears to the people as a cloud of heavenly light indicating his presence (Shabbat 30a).68 Raphael Patai: Shekhina (sh’kinah) is a Hebrew abstract noun derived from the Biblical verb shakhan … and means literally “the act of dwelling.” These abstract nouns constructed from the verbal rootletters with the added -ah suffix, have the feminine gender. In actual usage, the term means the aspect of the deity which can be apprehended by the senses.69

In Hebrew, the gender of the subject is considerably more important than in Indo-European languages. Certainly, in English, the sentence: “The Shekhina rose up,” says nothing of gender,70 and given the androcentrism of the rabbinic tradition we might assume the masculinity of the divine presence in the world. In Semitic languages, however, the verb as well as the adjective has separate male and female forms. Thus, in Hebrew, in “The Shekhina rose up … and said” both verbs reveal to the reader the femininity of Shekhinah by adopting the feminine forms in the sentence. Indeed, acAll references and quotes from the Talmud are taken from The Babylonian Talmud, 18 vols, ed. I. Epstein (London: Soncino Press, 1978). 69 Raphael Patai, The Hebrew Goddess (1967; rpt. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1990), 99. See Jacob Neusner, How the Rabbis Liberated Women (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1998); Michael Berger, Rabbinic Authority (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998). 70 Patai, The Hebrew Goddess, 107. 68

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cording to Patai: “Her sex was kept in the forefront of consciousness by every statement made about her.”71 Shekhinah, therefore, contrary to assumption, is on occasion described as a female presence in the Talmudic literature. Indeed, in the Talmudic sources, Rabbi Aha states: “When the Shekhina left the sanctuary, she returned to caress and kiss its walls and columns.”72 In (pre-rabbinic) biblical times there was nothing unusual about a pluralistic concept of the Godhead. Most of the nations in which the Jews dwelt recognized divine pluralities.73 The presence of God, symbolized as a cloud of glory, became known as the Shekhinah. In the rabbinic tradition, the meaning and imagery of Shekhinah has evolved over time in ways that are relevant to the themes of redemption and exile and the historic experience of the Jewish people.74 According to the Talmudic rabbis, Shekhinah is not present in idleness, light heartedness, redundant conversation, or laughter, but always manifest in joy, creativity, and prophecy (Pesachim 117a): To David, a psalm’ indicates that the Shechinah rested upon him and then he uttered [that] song; a “psalm of David” intimates that he [first] uttered [that particular] psalm and then the Shechinah rested upon him. This teaches you that the Shechinah rests [upon man] neither in indolence nor in gloom nor in frivolity nor in levity, nor in vain pursuits, but only in rejoicing connected with a religious act.

As the attribute of presence, Shekhinah does not imply God is identical to the world; rather, Shekhinah symbolizes traditional Judaism’s faith in God’s immanence. The Talmudic rabbis frequently used “Shekhinah” as a synonym for God. The word is derived from shakan (“dwell”) or mishkan (“dwelling place”) or Sh-Kh-N Patai, The Hebrew Goddess, 107. Patai, The Hebrew Goddess, 108. 73 Patai, The Hebrew Goddess, 110. 74 Lynn Gottlieb, She Who Dwells Within: A Feminist Vision of a Renewed Judaism (New York: HarperSanFrancisco, 1995), 20-21. 71 72

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(“abide,” or again “dwell”) in reference to the tent constructed in the wilderness to house the altar, stone tablets, seven-branched menorah, and the twelve loaves of bread.75 Indeed, Shekhinah means to pitch one’s tent, and while the exact word, “Shekhinah,” does not appear in the Tanakh, references to dwelling associated with the attribute of presence appears many times, often as the “cloud of glory.” Exodus 40:34-38, for example, demonstrates the presence of Shekhinah in the Tabernacle and throughout the Israelites time in the wilderness:76 Then a cloud covered the tent of the congregation, and the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle. And Moses was not able to enter into the tent of the congregation because the cloud abode thereon, and the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle. And when the cloud was taken up from over the tabernacle, the children of Israel went onward in all their journeys. But if the cloud were not taken up, then they journeyed not till the day that it was taken up. For the cloud of the LORD was upon the tabernacle by day, and fire was on it by night, in the sight of all the house of Israel, throughout all their journeys.

After the destruction of the Second Temple at the hands of the Roman army, Shekhinah accompanied the Jewish people into the diaspora.77 Certainly, Shekhinah is indicative of the accessibility of God. Psalm 37:3: “Trust in the LORD, and do good; so shalt thou dwell [shakan] in the land”; Jeremiah 33:16: “In those days shall Judah be saved, and Jerusalem shall dwell [shakan] safely: and this is the name wherewith she shall be called”; Numbers 9:15-17, 19-20: Gottlieb, She Who Dwells Within, 20-21. See Martin North, Exodus (Philadelphia: the Westminster Press, 1962); Tal Ilan, Mine and Yours Are Hers: Retrieving Women’s History from Rabbinic Literature (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1997). 77 The First Temple was demolished in 586 BCE by the Babylonians, while the Second Temple was destroyed by the Romans in 70 CE. Rabbinic Judaism only came about after the destruction of the Second Temple. 75 76

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And on the day that the tabernacle was reared up the cloud covered the tabernacle, namely, the tent of the testimony: and at even there was upon the tabernacle as it were the appearance of fire, until the morning. So it was always: the cloud covered it by day, and the appearance of fire by night. And the cloud was taken up from the tabernacle, then after that the children of Israel journeyed: and in the place where the cloud abode, there the children of Israel pitched their tents. … And when the cloud tarried long upon the tabernacle many days, then the children of Israel kept the charge of the LORD, and journeyed not. And so it was, when the cloud abode from even unto the morning.

In fact, any biblical concordance will reveal that the word “dwell,” along with references to the presence of God in the world as “cloud,” appears throughout the Tanakh. Shekhinah, as we have seen, is a Talmudic word for the glory of God. It was even suggested by the Talmudic rabbis that the Shekhinah who dwells with the Jewish people on earth still lived on the Mount after the Second Temple’s destruction. Alternatively, some rabbis speculated that the Temple’s obliteration had released the Shekhinah, allowing her to inhabit the rest of the world. Analogous to the Holy Spirit or divine “glory,” the Shekhinah as God’s presence remained with the Jewish people even in Egypt and Babylonia (Megillah 29a): It has been taught: R. Simon b. Yohai said: Come and see how beloved are Israel in the sight of God, in that to every place to which they were exiled the Shechinah went with them. They were exiled to Egypt and the Shechinah was with them, as it says, Did I reveal myself unto the house of thy father when they were in Egypt. They were exiled to Babylon, and the Shechinah was with them, as it says, for your sake I was sent to Babylon. And when they will be redeemed in the future, the Shechinah will be with them, as it says, Then the Lord thy God will return thy captivity.

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The Shekhinah is even with Israel while they are unclean (Yoma 56b), and despite evil driving her away, she watches over the sick (Shabbat 12b).78 Alternatively, Yoma 85a: “The shedding of blood pollutes the land so that the Shechinah departs from Israel.” In Mishnaic Hebrew, which is often called rabbinic Hebrew, shechinot refers to birds nesting (Baba Kammah 92b). The rabbis often use the term, “wings” in relation to the Shekhinah in order to describe places where the pious may take refuge. Shabbat 31a: “He went before Hillel and said to him, ‘O gentle Hillel; blessings rest on thy head for bringing me under the wings of the Shechinah’! Sometime later the three met in one place; said they, Shammai’s impatience sought to drive us from the world, but Hillel's gentleness brought us under the wings of the Shechinah.” The image and very idea of Shekhinah was intended to give exilic Jews hope and the ability to experience God’s presence wherever they were geographically (given the loss of the Temple). Indeed, Shekhinah went from synagogue to synagogue throughout the diaspora, standing at the door to hear the Shema.79 Shekhinah is present when Jews study Torah, and will return only with the strict observance of the mitzvot. Moreover, Shekhinah is a way of distinguishing the divine presence we experience and know from the completely transcendent, aloof God of traditional Judaism.80 Indeed, classically Shekhinah refers to a special dwelling or indwelling where the connection to God is more noticeable. More so, in the late midrashic literature (thirdcentury onwards), Shekhinah develops into a feminine entity capable of arguing with God. According to the eleventh-century rabbi, Moshe Hadarshan, in the name of Rabbi Akiba (second-century Tanna),81 the Holy One, blessed be He, “removed Himself and His Melissa Raphael, The Female Face of God in Auschwitz: A Jewish Feminist Theology of the Holocaust (London: Routledge, 2003), 82. 79 Jewish proclamation of faith in Deuteronomy 6:4: “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD”. 80 Karen Armstrong, A History of God (London: Vintage Books, 1999), 92-94, 319, 472. See T. Drorah Setel, “Roundtable Discussion: Feminist Reflections on Separation and Unity in Jewish Theology,” Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion 2 (1986): 113-18. 81 Tanna (singular), or Tannaim (plural): rabbis contributing to the oral tradition codified in the Mishnah. 78

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Shekhina.” Raphael Patai: “In its ultimate development as it appears in the late Midrash literature, the Shekhina concept stood for an independent, feminine divine entity prompted by her compassionate nature to argue with God in defense of man.”82 Rabbi Aha: “The Holy Spirit comes to the defense … saying first to Israel: ‘Be not a witness against thy neighbor without a cause,’ and thereafter saying to God: ‘Say not: I will do to him as he hath done to me.’” When a Talmudic speaker refers to the Holy Spirit, they are using a term synonymous with Shekhinah. Rabbi Aha makes an explicit distinction between God and the Holy Spirit, or Shekhinah. She (the Holy Spirit is also grammatically feminine) asks God to refrain from punishing Israel, demonstrating, according to Patai, that the Shekhinah has an independent will, mind, and unique personality of her own, applied in trying to oppose God.83 Inevitably, many rabbis opposed the notion of divine plurality. For some analysts, the texts that establish Shekhinah as a separate entity indicate her femininity in no other way than through the female grammar of her name.84 Shekhinah, however, by implication is assumed to be feminine in the Talmudic literature. Rabbi Aha: “When the Shekhina left the Sanctuary, she returned to caress and kiss the walls and columns.” In the Midrash, that the Shekhinah can be observed by human eyes is commonplace. The Abrahamic covenant enables the children of Israel to gaze upon her, and had it not been for their circumcision, they would have fallen down flat at her appearance. Indeed, the two rebellious contemporaries of Moses, Nadab and Abihu, “feasted their eyes on the Shekhina, but had no enjoyment from her; Moses, on the other hand, did not feast his eyes on her, but enjoyed her.”85 In sum, the feminine Shekhinah as an independent entity was a concept first developed in the Talmud and 82 Patai, The Hebrew Goddess, 96, 105-06. See Irving Jacobs, The Midrashic Process: Tradition and Interpretation in Rabbinic Judaism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995); Brayer Menachem, The Jewish Woman in Rabbinic Literature: A Psychohistorical Perspective (New Jersey: Ktav Publishing House, 1986). 83 Patai, The Hebrew Goddess, 104-05. 84 Raphael The Female Face, p. 82. 85 Patai, The Hebrew Goddess, 103.

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Midrash of rabbinic Judaism, nearly five-hundred years earlier than the Kabbalah. In traditional Judaism, as we have seen, only the Shekhinah, the indwelling presence of God, is the single developed female image of the deity, and represents, according to Melissa Raphael: “Women’s divine image, obscured as it has been by the sin of patriarchy, is engaged in a restorative struggle – the very process of tikkun.”86 Alternatively, Kabbalah employs Shekhinah as the feminine element present within God and adjacent to the masculine, “Holy One, Blessed be He.” Rita Gross: The most profound, intriguing, and inviting of all Jewish theologies – the Kabbalah – teaches us that galut – exile – is the fundamental reality and pain of present existence. It teaches us that one of the causes of galut is the alienation of the masculine from the feminine in God, the alienation of God and the Shekhinah. Now the masculine and feminine have been torn asunder and the feminine dismembered and banished, both from the discourse about divinity and from the human community, such a tikkun is obligatory, is a mitzvah. When the masculine and feminine aspect of God have been reunited and the female half of humanity has been returned from exile, we will begin to have our tikkun. The world will be repaired.87

Jewish feminism, in some ways, by asking the question, “who is God,” has come to regard Shekhinah, though not exclusively, as the God of their experience.88 In rabbinic Judaism, God’s transcendence ensures the divine will and purpose are unconditioned by human interference, while God’s immanence ensures humanity can become God’s partner (shuttaf) in bringing God’s purposes to fulfillment in the immanent realm. Shekhinah as a separate female Raphael, The Female Face of God, 149. Rita Gross, “Steps toward Feminine Imagery of Deity in Jewish Theology,” in On Being A Jewish Feminist, 234. 88 See Jill Hammer, “To Her We Shall Return: Jews Turning to the Goddess, the Goddess Turning to Jews,” in New Jewish Feminism, 12-34. 86 87

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hypostasis, however, was developed in full by the Kabbalists during the twelfth and thirteenth-centuries. In the Zohar, or Book of Splendor,89 which appeared toward the end of the thirteenth-century and is generally attributed to Rabbi Moses de Leon, the Shekhinah is God’s interface with the universe; a female element within God, or the sefirah (emanation) through which the divine presence interacts with the world.90 Indeed, Shekhinah, for the early Kabbalists, was the tenth sefirah, also known as Malkuth (“Kingdom”). Later Kabbalists imaged Shekhinah as the bride of God or Shabbat Hamalka (the Shabbat itself is visualized as a bride, or queen, or a lady with lighted candles), symbolized in the songs and writing of the sixteenth-century rabbi, Isaac Luria. As the final sphere of divine emanation, Shekhinah is the closest point of the divine presence in the world. The ten sefirot are as follows: 1. Kether Elyon: “Supreme Crown”; 2. Hokhmah: “Wisdom”; 3. Binah: “Intelligence”; 4. Hesed: “Love” or “Mercy”; 5. Din: “Power,” manifested in judgment; 6. Rahamin: “Compassion”; 7. Netsah: “Lasting Endurance”; 8. Hod: “Majesty”; 9. Yesod: “Foundation”; 10. Malkuth: “Kingdom” or “Shekhinah.” Luria regrouped the sefirot into five “Countenances” (parzufim), the last of which being Malkuth or the Shekhinah Nuqrah de Zeir’s “Woman.” Indeed: 1. Kether (The Crown), the highest sefirah: the Forbearing One; 2. Hokhmah (Wisdom): Abba: Father; 3. Binah (Intelligence): Ima: Mother; 4. Din (Judgment); Hesed (Mercy); Rahamin (Compassion); Netsah (Patience); Hod (Majesty); Yesod (Foundation) – called Zeir Anpin (lesser countenance): the Impatient One. His consort is 5. Shekhinah. In the process of repair (tikkun), Luria uses the idea of conception, birth, and the development of human personality as an allusion to a similar evolution in God. The five “Countenances,” described by Luria using sexual symbolism, represent the mating of the male and female aspects of God, and the restoration of order.91 Judith Plaskow:

89 See The Wisdom of the Zohar: an Anthology of Texts, 3 vols, eds. Isaiah Tishby and Fischel Lachower, trans. David Goldstein (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989). 90 Raphael, The Female Face, 152-153. 91 Armstrong, A History of God, 288-89, 317.

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SECOND-WAVE JEWISH FEMINISM Two of the virtues of the image of Shekhinah from a feminist perspective are that it is an image of divine immanence and an image of God in non-hierarchical relation. It thus deliberately offsets the picture of God as dominating Other and at the same time fits in well with the general emphasis on mutual relation in feminist spirituality. The Shekhinah, as opposed to the totally unknowable Kadosh Barukh Hu (holy one, blessed be he), is precisely that aspect of God with which we can be in relation, and it is experienced in joint study, community gatherings, and other moments of common and intimate human connection.92

Although Shekhinah is a widely popular concept, it has never been incorporated into the traditional liturgy as an acceptable counterweight to the masculinity of God. Shekhinah, however, has been employed by Jewish feminists in a variety of liturgical contexts,93 though with mixed response. Tikva Frymer-Kensky, for example, objects: “Shekhinah has become almost the female deity, rather than a female facet of God. This presents the real danger that a message of God’s duality will be delivered subliminally, in much the way that the maleness of God is currently conveyed.”94 Alternatively, Lynn Gottlieb is unperturbed by issues of duality; instead, she is determined to say “God-she” through Shekhinah.

LYNN GOTTLIEB: IMAGING THE DIVINE AS GOD-SHE Similar to Marcia Falk, Lynn Gottlieb (b. 1949), who is a rabbi in the Jewish Renewal movement,95 has sought to find new liturgical ways of talking to, and about, God.96 Gottlieb has written prayers, Plaskow, Standing Again at Sinai, 139-140. Plaskow, Standing Again at Sinai, 139. 94 Tikva Frymer-Kensky, “On Feminine God-Talk,” Reconstructionist 69 (Spring 1994): 50. Frymer-Kensky died in 2006. 95 Renewal Jews have imported practices and ideas from Kabbalah, Hasidism, Sufism, and Buddhism. 96 Plaskow, Standing Again at Sinai, 141. 92 93

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rituals, guided meditations, and performance pieces that experiment with God/Goddess-language, importing Jewish mystical, Canaanite, and Native American liturgies, though she has devoted considerable attention to Shekhinah.97 Gottlieb, who was the first woman to be ordained in the Jewish Renewal movement, is committed to non-violent political activism and to Jewish-Palestinian reconciliation. Of traditional Jewish theology, Gottlieb argues that simply altering a noun or pronoun is not going to change the basic images of maleness associated with God in the classical liturgy. By creating prayers for a nonsexist Judaism, she is determined to be free to say God-she.98 Gottlieb: Did She whisper to me then? She said, “My body is the mountain, My birth waters are the parting seas. Speak these words, and you will not be consumed.” What if I permitted other words, other images, of God? What if I imagined YHVH as a woman giving birth? The rabbinic sages record a folk legend that describes the God witnessed by the Israelites at the shores of the Red Sea as a man of war, and the God of Sinai as a learned sage. What if I replaced the Man of War with a Woman Giving Birth?99

According to Gottlieb, her public performances of the story of Miriam and the highlighting of birth images were already emphasizing the divine activity of freeing a people, so the transformation of YHVH into “She Who Gives Birth to Her People” was an easy one.100 In the prayer, “A Meditation on the Feminine Nature of Shekinah,” Gottlieb states: Shekinah is She Who Dwells Within, The force that binds and patterns creation. … 97 See Lynn Gottlieb, She Who Dwells Within: A Feminist Vision of a New Judaism (New York: HarperSanFrancisco, 1995). 98 Gottlieb, She Who Dwells Within, 26. 99 Gottlieb, She Who Dwells Within, 16. 100 Gottlieb, She Who Dwells Within, 16-17.

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SECOND-WAVE JEWISH FEMINISM She is Mistress of the Seas, Tree of life, Silvery Moon, Fiery Sun. All these are Her names. Shekinah is Changing Woman, Nature herself, Her own Law and Mystery. … Shekinah is home and hearth, root and rug, the altar on which we light our candles. We live here, in Her body. … Womb and Grave, End and Beginning. All these are her names.101

Gottlieb acknowledges that psalms are an integral component of traditional worship. Her prayer-poems praise the Spirit of Life and are vehicles for adoration and honor. Gottlieb justifies her prayers, which import Canaanite and Near Eastern perspectives on the divine, by reminding her readers that many of the psalms in the Torah were adopted from Canaanite literature and converted into hymns for God.102 For Lynn Gottlieb, three-thousand years have passed since the receiving of Torah as words, whether oral tradition or written law. These traditions have transmitted the past as well as personal experience. For women, however, that “word” is yet to be formed: Some of us remain at the beginning, the word still to be formed, waiting patiently tom be revealed, to rise out of the white spaces between the letters in the Torah and be received. I am speaking of the tradition of our mothers, our sister-wives, the secret women of the past. How would they have spoken of their own religious experiences of they had been given a space to record their stories? How would they have transmitted the

101 Gottlieb, She Who Dwells Within, 26-28. The prayer is adapted from a psalm to Ishtar (28). 102 Gottlieb, She Who Dwells Within, 28.

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written word? Would their ceremonies, rituals, and customs have been the same?103

As a liturgical theologian, Gottlieb replaces the traditional, masculine Bor’khu et Adonai (Blessed are you God) with Blessed are you Shekhinah, Brukha Yah Shekhinah.104 Gottlieb: “The poetic image of YHVH giving birth satisfied a hunger I had not been consciously aware of. Still, could a Jewish God become a woman giving birth? Was it really possible to pray to a feminine YHVH? Could ‘She’ authentically be part of a religion that seemed to allow only the masculine metaphor”?105 In the Shekhinah of the Jewish mystical tradition, Gottlieb had discovered for herself the feminine face of God. Gottlieb argues that the various images associated with Shekhinah can become a source for women’s relationship with the divine and a link to women’s past. Indeed, when women refer to God-she, Gottlieb argues, they will finally picture themselves in God’s image. The prayers of She Who Dwells Within are intended to be a “gateway” to the Ineffable; a “linguistic passage to that realm. Speaking the Word as Shekhinah allows us to traverse that way.” 106 According to Lynn Gottlieb, in order that stereotypes of women are eradicated, the characteristics and associations of these assumptions need to be re-imagined. An important step towards this aim is to move beyond the language that inhibits women’s ability to image God in themselves. Imaging divine Mystery through Shekhinah, for Gottlieb, is one way of doing this. Gottlieb is aware, however, that changing a pronoun does not necessarily transform the images of the masculinity of God in the classical liturgy. Rather, she wants to be able to utilize the notion of God-she with feminine symbolism and language:107

103 Gottlieb, “The Secret Jew: An Oral Tradition of Women,” in On Being A Jewish Feminist, 273. 104 Plaskow, Standing Again at Sinai, 139. 105 Gottlieb, She Who Dwells Within, 19. 106 Gottlieb, She Who Dwells Within, 19-20, 22-23. 107 Gottlieb, She Who Dwells Within, 26.

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SECOND-WAVE JEWISH FEMINISM She is a woman of the people; with Her is their counsel. The fate of all living She holds in Her hands; She protects the day and guards the night. She opens the heavens to life, the earth to seed and flower. She is all women – Virgin, Mother, Crone, Creator and Peacemaker, Servant and Consecrator of Wisdom.108

For Judith Plaskow, what characterizes Gottlieb’s theological language is its fluidity and multiplicity that enables the reader to visualize an expanded appreciation of ways to describe the divine.109 The importation and influence of Canaanite, Near Eastern, Christian, Native American, and Goddess perspectives, however, will make uncomfortable reading for Orthodox feminists and inevitably invites accusations of paganism. Indeed, if we recall Cynthia Ozick, for example, even the idea of Shekhinah is deemed “an assault on monotheism.”110 But more so, while there are traditional elements to Gottlieb’s liturgical ideas, the prayers are thematic of SecondWave theology in general, particularly with their subjective, pluralistic, and universal nature, and unwillingness to elaborate on the eschatological, supernaturalist, and hierarchical foundations of the tradition. While these prayers are undoubtedly both innovative and motivational, Tova Hartman is right to point out that human naming in any form can only diminish our sense of the divine; she argues: The deepest truth about God is that we are not God, and any human naming diminishes God. Thus, to paraphrase Ozick, the more humanity we ascribe to the divine, the more we try to create God in our image rather tirelessly striving for the oppoGottlieb, She Who Dwells Within, 29. Plaskow, Standing Again at Sinai, 141. 110 Ozick, “Notes toward Finding,” 121. 108 109

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site – the more we try to approximate the divine in humanity or language – the further we regress into the morass of pantheism from which it was the Torah’s greatest purpose to extricate us.111

Indeed, the abandonment of the esoteric, mysterious, and otherness of the divine indicative to classical Jewish theology does beg the necessary questions of Gottlieb’s theological prayers: are these necessarily Jewish or have they become something else, perhaps an amalgam of several traditions more universal, personally subjective, and humanistic than classical. This is not at all to diminish from their quality as inspirational expositions on the divine – Shekhinah; these prayers require courage and imagination, and in the past traditional Judaism has assimilated the religious norms and practices of other cultures, including Christianity. Arthur Waskow is also affiliated to the Jewish Renewal movement. Similar to Lynn Gottlieb, he has examined Shekhinah as a female aspect of God that can be developed for a feminist audience. Waskow looks to the Talmud and several passages that seem to interlink Shekhinah, the moon, and the relationship between men and women in traditional Judaism.112 The following extract is taken from Hullin 60a: [When God created the sun and moon, the two great lights], the moon said to the Holy One, “Sovereign of the Universe! Can two rulers wear one crown”? He answered, “Go then and make yourself smaller”! … R. Simeon ben Lakish declared, “Why is it that the he-goat offered on the New Moon [for a sin-offering] is distinctive in that there is written concerning it, ‘unto the Lord’”? Because the Holy One said, “Let this he-goat be an atonement for Me [for My sin] in making the moon smaller.” Hartman, Feminism Encounters Traditional Judaism, 71. Arthur Waskow, “Feminist Judaism: Restoration of the Moon,” 261, 268. See Phyllis Berman and Arthur Waskow, “The Seder of ReBirth,” Tikkun 9 (March/April 1994): 72-75. 111 112

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According to Waskow, this text demonstrates an ancient tradition that at the Creation the moon and the sun were equal. However, God reduced the moon’s brightness forcing Shekhinah into exile. Thus, Shekhinah will again become equal to the sun when Messianic redemption occurs and she returns to her full glory.113 This text is from Sanhedrin 42a: R. Akha said to R. Ashi: In the West, they pronounce the following: “Blessed be the One Who renews the moons.” Whereupon he retorted: “Such a blessing even our women folk pronounce.” [Let there be added] … “The moon He ordered that she should renew herself as a crown of beauty for those whom He sustains from the womb, and who will someday, like her, be renewed and magnify their Maker in the name of the glory of His Kingdom.”

Indeed, perhaps the moon symbolizes women and the sun, men; as per Isaiah 30:26: “The light of the moon shall be as the light of the sun.” As we can see, Sanhedrin 42a promises that the moon will return to its original brightness in heaven when those who are like her on earth are restored to their proper place. This includes those who God has sustained “from the womb,” but whose splendor has been dimmed. For Waskow, these passages can be read to include women, who similar to Israel and the moon, have been demoted to the shadowy side of history. The tradition reminds that it was the women who refused to donate their jewelry for the construction of the Golden Calf at Sinai (the idol set up by Aaron and the other Israelites that they worshipped during Moses’ absence; on his return he destroyed it). They were thus granted an exemption from work on Rosh Hodesh (“Head of the Month”), the celebratory renewing of the moon at the beginning of the Jewish lunar month. In addition, the patriarchs Isaac and Jacob married into a family of strong women – the family of Rikvah, Rachel, and Leah – the fam113

Waskow, “Feminist Judaism,” 261-62.

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ily of Lavan, a name for the pale-white moon (as kiddush levana, the ceremony honoring the moon). When the moon is restored, Waskow argues, women will not merely take a numerically equal place in the tradition; the practices and forms will be transformed as women’s spiritual experience is unearthed. Furthermore, the moon’s return, alike the restoration of the weeping Shekhinah, is a metaphor for all tikkun (repair).114 As we have seen, Shekhinah has inspired a multiplicity of theological images and seems particularly relevant to those feminist theologians intent on saying “God-she.” Maggie Wenig and Naomi Janowitz did not intend to alter the tradition; they merely replace “God-he” with “God-she.” This is perhaps nothing more than placing a feminine guise over an androcentric theological tradition. Lynn Gottlieb goes further in her determination to say God-she by visualizing the deity as Shekhinah and in quintessentially feminine terms. But, the importation of several non-Jewish perspectives, and the focus on humanizing the deity, does imply the watering down of the tradition and the diminishing of the divine. Similarly, Rebecca Alpert’s Reconstructionist perspective that is influenced by Mordecai Kaplan’s philosophy invests the Jewish people with theological impetus – God is not over and above, but works through the world. For Alpert, God can be anything: “the image of a human being, … a power, force, feeling, idea, or anything that helps one perceive holiness.”115 Moreover, Alpert argues that all human beings are holy and have been created in God’s image, while the mysterious process is derived from society or nature.116 This essential rejection of hierarchy and supernaturalist tendency is mirrored in Marcia Falk’s blessings, although the imaging of deity is nonanthropomorphic. By contrast, Rachel Adler values the necessity of anthropomorphisms and considers theological otherness a vital barrier between the human self and the divine.

Waskow, “Feminist Judaism,” 261-64, 266. Alpert, Like Bread on the Seder Plate, 55. 116 Alpert, Like Bread on the Seder Plate, 55. 114 115

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RACHEL ADLER: THE NECESSITY OF GOD AS OTHER Rachel Adler (b. 1943) is the Associate Professor of Jewish Religious thought and Feminist Studies at the Los Angeles campus of Hebrew Union College. Originally an Orthodox Jew when she wrote the groundbreaking “The Jew Who Wasn’t There” (1971),117 she later turned to Reformism. Adler has written extensively for the Jewish feminist cause, and as we will see, has constructed her own approach to halakhah and the traditional liturgy, and in the process developed innovative theological insight. In her analysis of the Talmudic sources (including Yoma 69b), Adler notes that the words we say about God are grounded in personal integrity. Indeed, a prayer that belies or misrepresents our understanding or experience by violating our honesty insults God. Adler rightly notes that the process of women’s inclusion in prayer began with early Reform Judaism and the tenets of Enlightenment universalism, which made women “honorary men” in the congregation. In liberal Judaisms, however, women became even more invisible than they had been in the Orthodox community, which at least distinguished and glorified them uniquely as women. The motivation for women’s inclusion in the congregation was based on the desire for more Westernized forms of worship. Real inclusion, for Adler, however, can only come about when women cease to be invisible. Additionally, when congregations pray only the prayers written exclusively by men, and when women pray to a God imaged in masculine metaphors and forms, and through prayers that express only the aspirations of the male worshippers, women are rendered both silent and invisible. Conversely, however, to pray without being fully present (such as is the case with women alienated by the traditional liturgy) is problematic for rabbinic Judaism, in which spiritual intentionality (kavanah) is required (see Berakhot 13a, and 5, for example). A prerequisite of the transformation of the liturgy is recognition that the prayerbooks use masculine language. Traditionalists would say that masculine language is generic, abstract, and conven117 See Rachel Adler, “The Jew Who Wasn’t There,” Davka (Summer 1971): 7-11.

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tional, particularly as “mankind” includes women. Instead, it is the addition of feminine language that sexualizes God, traditionalists have argued, that is blasphemous. Masculine imagery, they say, is not to be taken literally, as if it metaphor devoid of meaning. The God depicted as pastoral lover, husband, judge, father, and king, nonetheless, possesses both sexuality and gender. Adler argues that in order for the liturgy to become inclusive, firstly, women must be acknowledged, along with men, as members of the praying community; secondly, women have to become involved in the transformation and creation of prayers, and in the compilation of liturgies that can be recited together. Thirdly, for worship to become truly inclusive there has to be acknowledgement of the extent to which the current services reflect andocentric language and masculine sensibilities and theologies.118 For Rachel Adler, theologies are implicit in the God-language that we choose to accept or reject. Theologies can be recast, claimed, and re-contextualized by interpretive communities. Moreover, theologies are suspect when they are “too complete, too clear, too coherent.” Perhaps el mistater, the God who hides and a similarly complex humanity are best expressed in the gaps of a riddling theology. A specific conflict underlying the issue of God-language in feminist theology, and perhaps in all contemporary theologies, is whether personality can be ascribed to God. For Reconstructionists, God is an impersonal dynamic rather than a personality. Indeed, feminists and Reconstructionists share common ground in that feminists fear the reifying power of certain God imagery because what is reified is the masculinity of God. For Reconstructionists, the attribution of personality to God is a reification.119 Thus, feminist and Reconstructionist theologies are critical of the language of transcendence. Reconstructionist suspicions of supernaturalism parallel feminist charges that theologies of transcendence reject the human domain of the physical, the immanent, and the sensuous, by relegating it to women. For Adler, unitive spirituality resolves some of the liturgical and theological issues for women, as this type of spirituality has no hierarchical connotations and gender 118 119

Adler, Engendering Judaism, 61-66. Reify: to regard something abstract as a material thing.

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differentiation is irrelevant. Furthermore, it is not necessary to prove that anthropomorphisms are inadequate. Alternatively, Reconstructionists raise the question of whether God should be visualized as other at all, since the imagery of otherness is prone to reification. For Adler, however, in contrast to feminist theologians/theorists such as Judith Plaskow, Marcia Falk, and Rebecca Alpert, the imagery of the otherness of God is compellingly real and even “precious”:120 In the traditional texts where it originates, it is largely masculine. Why continue to use imagery so easily abused? For me, the chief reason is that otherness of God is compellingly real and infinitely precious. Eradicating otherness, breaking down all boundaries between self and other, self and God, God and world simultaneously eradicates relatedness. How is it possible to have a covenant without an Other? If God is not distinct from self and community, why use a theological language of partnership at all?121

According to Melissa Raphael, “In addition to Jewish feminist scholarship’s enquiry into how women’s religio-social communities have enabled their spiritual and political self-expression there needs to be an articulation of the transformative immanence of the transcendent that is the mysterium tremendum of divine presence, the holy. Yet both Jewish and Christian feminists have been sharply critical of any binary dualisms that produce a hierarchy of values and experience, including such a foundational Jewish concept as kedushah (holiness).”122 As we can see, Adler’s defense of God’s otherness is in contrast both to Judith Plaskow’s “theology” of God collapsed Adler, Engendering Judaism, 88-91. Adler, Engendering Judaism, 91-92. 122 Melissa Raphael, “Standing at a Demythologized Sinai? Reading Jewish Feminist Theology Through the Critical Lens of Radical Orthodoxy,” in Interpreting the Postmodern: Responses to “Radical Orthodoxy,” eds. Rosemary Radford Ruether and Marion Grau (New York: T & T Clark, 2006), 199. 120 121

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into community and Marcia Falk’s unitive spirituality which usurps hierarchical relations by addressing the community instead of the divine, and ignores the need for anthropomorphisms.123 In fact, Adler demonstrates, quite clearly, the necessity of God as other if Jewish feminists are to do theology at all. Indeed, self-styled “theologies” that reject the otherness of God do perhaps invite the question, why do theology at all? Certainly, “theology” is the study of God and revelation, not the sociological examination of unitive experience and occasional spirituality. Again Raphael: Religious feminism is especially distrustful of the hierarchy of the holy in relation to the profane, claiming that it has sanctioned contempt for the natural, a correlate injustice against women and the God whose image they bear, and an exclusivist religious topography that is spiritually and practically inimical to female social environments. The Jewish concept of holiness is not notably ascetic but distrusts the natural appetites and insists that they are contained within the sanctity of heterosexual marriage and the family home. Qualified to the point of rejection by most Jewish feminists as obsolete, separatist, gynophobic, it then becomes difficult for feminist discourse to signal the real presence of God in and beyond the assembly of Jewish women and to temper the desacralizing effects of Jewish feminism’s alliances with a liberal individualism that prevents the irruption of numinous otherness into history, which has been, from the beginning, the very mission of Israel.124

Adler contends that God’s otherness, and God’s difference from us, is what makes relationship and exchange possible. God’s is the

123 See Arnold Jacob Wolf, “The New Jewish Feminism,” Judaism 47, no. 3 (Summer 1998): 355. 124 Raphael, “Standing at a Demythologized Sinai,” 199.

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principal otherness, Adler argues, in a world where self raises its face to other.125 The idea of relationship, according to Rachel Adler, grounds metaphors of interdependency with God: friends, lovers, cocreators. Mutual commitments bridge the boundaries of difference. For Adler, in a theology of relationship where there are flexible boundaries, both separation and unity from God is possible:126 Imagine God as continually pregnant with, delivering, rearing, and separating from the world, like a tree at once bearing blossoms, unripe fruit, ripe fruit, and the stems and scars from fruit that has fallen from the tree. The world is inside God, outside God, part of God as in halakhah the unborn infant is “part of its mother’s body,” and separate from God, as the emancipated child is separate from a parent who still watches its story unfold, sometimes with pride, sometimes with pain.127

Adler suggests that because of our power to choose, things can also happen to God. To continue to confirm that we are in relationship with God is not to affirm God-as-power, rather it is to assert that we have moral weight; moreover, that we matter to God. The Expunging of anthropomorphisms, for Adler, is undesirable. We know God through stories that involve both us and God; therefore, God must be clothed in anthropomorphic metaphor, because the most powerful language for God’s relationship with us is human language. Adler recognizes that anthropomorphisms, or investing God with a body, is a dangerous business, though in the liturgy, she argues, it is a requirement.128 The intra-Judaic struggle to re-negotiate the correlation between halakhah and contemporaneous ethics has dominated mod125 Adler, Engendering Judaism, 92; see Emmanuel Levinas, Ethics and Infinity: Conversations with Phillippe Nemo, trans. Richard Cohen (Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 1985). 126 Adler, Engendering Judaism, 93. See Setel, “Roundtable Discussion.” 127 Adler, Engendering Judaism, 93. 128 Adler, Engendering Judaism, 95-96.

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ern Jewish religious thought.129 Rachel Adler, given that she was once an Orthodox Jew, has partially retracted a number of the claims she made during the 1970s. She continues to revere aspects of the tradition and is committed to the preservation of the halakhic system. For Adler, theology’s role is to enable the sacred texts of the tradition, and the life of the religious community, to continuously reveal themselves to one another in order that the sacred meanings of both the texts, and experience, might be renewed. Indeed, Adler defines her own theological discourse as “text-bound theology,” through which God becomes present in our midst. For Adler, a particular sacred text can be made accountable for theological questions and be redeemed by learning Torah from it.130 Adler: I am concerned not only with critiquing androcentric structures, categories, and motifs and constructing feminist theory and interpretation, but also with mending and healing Judaism by encountering, renewing and reclaiming the holiness in texts. The theological questions I ask of a text are designed to interrogate its moral universe, to hold the text accountable, and to redeem the text by learning Torah from it. I ask: What is God telling us through the story? What are we telling God through the story? Having wrestled the story for a blessing, what meanings have we wrested from it? How does the story shape our collective memory as a people? What demands does it make upon us that we must integrate into the way we live our lives? How will we transmit the story?131

129 Raphael, “Standing at a Demythologized Sinai,” 204. See Rachel Feldhay Brenner, Writing as Resistance: Four Women Confronting the Holocaust: Edith Stein, Simone Weil, Anne Frank, Etty Hillesum (Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1997). 130 Adler, Engendering Judaism, xxv, 90. See Wolf, “The New Jewish Feminism.” 131 Adler, Engendering Judaism, xxv. See The Jewish Condition: Essays on Contemporary Judaism Honoring Alexander Schindler, ed. Aron Hirt-Manheimer (New York: UAHC Press, 1995).

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According to Arnold Jacob Wolf, Adler confuses narrative with law. Indeed, stories produce the law, while they are not themselves normative.132 In short, for Adler, the sacred texts and halakhah are integral to a feminist Judaism. The rejection of these texts, Adler suggests, is a denunciation of the covenant. She concludes that “patriarchy” is not a core Jewish value and that Judaism is complex enough to cope with diversity.133 Adler is also adamant of God’s otherness, and of the necessity of anthropomorphisms. What is more, she is highly critical of earlier Jewish feminist expositions on the divine: As feminist theory matures, bringing with it a more rigorous analysis of the category of gender, some of feminist Judaism’s early attempts at feminine prayer language appear simplistic. It is no longer credible that a feminist Judaism can be achieved merely by including more moon and water imagery in our liturgies, by sitting in a circle, or by depicting God with essentialist imagery. If we reject reducing human possibilities to the terms of gender constructs, essentialist God-language becomes doubly problematic. Depicting God-she exclusively as hushed, modest, helpful, and receptive: restricting femininity to images if parenting and domestic concern – the nursing mother, the nesting bird, the midwife, the busy hausfrau – limits both God and women. If reductive or stereotyped imagery is inadequate to express human complexities, then how can it reflect a God who is, ultimately, beyond human attempts at description? The issue here is not to censor out any experiences or activities of women as inappropriate to God-she, but to widen their diversity.134

Adler rightly notes that generally the hermeneutics of the classical Jewish texts have been overlooked as a component of Jewish femi-

Wolf, “The New Jewish Feminism,” 354. Berman, “Major Trends,” 15. 134 Adler, Engendering Judaism, 99. 132 133

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nist theology.135 She summarizes “theology”: “As I understand it, theology’s task is to allow the texts of the tradition and the lived experiences of religious communities to keep revealing themselves to one another so the sacred meanings both of text and of experience can be renewed. In the course of the process, God becomes present in our midst.”136 Rachel Adler envisages a halakhah that is non-authoritarian, non-hierarchical, non-apologetic, and non-exclusionary. For Adler, the creation of an engendered Judaism that takes into account the impact of gender on the community in the past and the present requires the conceptualizing of a new halakhah. According to Adler no traditional text is gender-neutral. For men and women to recreate Judaism as equals, they must jointly reclaim holiness through the reconstruction of the narrative and legal texts. Adler draws on the influence of Professor Robert Cover (Yale University), a legal scholar who argues that law is a bridge between two parts of the legal universe, the “paidaic,” or world-creating, and the “imperial,” or world-maintaining. In the dynamic paidaic mode meaning is created through shared ideas and stories, while in the imperial mode order is achieved through the imposition of standard practices that allow the socially constructed order of experience that is constructed in the paidaic mode to coexist in harmony. Indeed, the two modes will balance each other between reality and “alternity.”137 For Cover, law must represent the highest ideal of the community and inform improvements to society. Similarly, Adler argues that we live in an impoverished imperial world disconnected from the richness of the paidaic. She seeks reconnection: A bridge needs to be built, and Jewish women and men will have to build it together. The task requires us to look afresh at our sacred texts, at other revelatory stories about Jewish lives, and at the moral imperatives in our own lives that impel us to Adler, Engendering Judaism, xxv. Adler, Engendering Judaism, xxv. 137 Donna Berman, “Major Trends in Jewish Feminist Theology: The Work of Rachel Adler, Judith Plaskow and Rebecca Alpert,” in New Jewish Feminism, 13-14. 135 136

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Accordingly, feminists can create a new type of halakhah by bridging the gap between the two worlds – the paidaic and the imperial, and in the process, regenerate the legal meanings in which the stories, dreams, and revelations of men and women are integrated. Indeed, the sacred texts must be re-read, Adler argues, and we must draw from our sense of what is morally right. Hence, men and women will concretize their role as covenantal partners with each other and with the divine. Judaism, Adler suggests, is multivalent, contradictory, and ambiguous enough to assimilate a diverse range of perspectives and opinions.139

CONCLUSION: IT’S FEMINIST, BUT IS IT THEOLOGY? Liturgy is one aspect of the Jewish feminist theological project and is not intended to be prescriptive or even normative. As we have seen, the abandonment of the central elements of the tradition, including its esoteric, eschatological elements, supernaturalism, hierarchy, otherness, Jewish particularity, traditional liturgical formulas, and even the sacred texts, leads to the inevitable question of whether these theologies are actually Jewish at all, and also to accusations of paganism. This is not to say that there is any “fixed” way that constitutes Jewishness; of course, the term is fluid. But, the fact that these elements have been jettisoned is hardly surprising given, as we have seen, the influence of the Reconstructionist tradition, in the first case, and importation of alternative spiritualities in the second. In the work of Rachel Adler, however, we see a theological approach that is committed to the classical texts and their 138 139

Adler, Engendering Judaism, 37-38. Berman, “Major Trends,” 14-15.

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renewed interpretation, which if we remember my third question, is subjective experience authentic, this approach certainly entails a solidly traditional foundation. If we recall the preface and two further questions of the five, is it Jewish theology if the central elements have been jettisoned, and is this theology at all, we can be sure that Adler’s textbound theology certainly endorses hierarchy, transcendence, and otherness as vital. However, is Engendering Judaism constitutive of “theology”? According to Orthodox-Israeli feminist, Tamar Ross, however, Adler’s ideas threaten the notion that the Torah is divine. Moreover, Ross accuses Adler of not appealing to aspects of transcendence.140 In sum, for Adler theology is implicit in Godlanguage. For Adler, theologies are suspect when too complete and are necessarily complex. She is committed to a theology of relationship through which anthropomorphic language is vital. Moreover, the sacred texts are integral to the development of new meanings and interpretations. Engendering Judaism endorses the value of the Jewish tradition and examines the impact of gender on the sacred texts and the experience of Jewish men and women. Adler explores the consequences of full participation in law, prayer, sexuality, and marriage. She outlines the ethics of heterosexual relationships, and accepts that the categories of God, Torah, and Israel are insufficient criteria to accommodate feminist aspirations. Adler herself points out that: “Feminist … theologies are critical of the traditional language of transcendence.”141 But her own theological aspirations are praxis orientated reducing God to the texts and personal experience, marginalizing the very otherness Adler is committed to. Additionally, when diversity becomes a component of theology, the subjective immediate context of the religionist usurps the tradition itself. Adler avoids the difficult questions of creating a Jewish feminist theology by endorsing “a riddling theology riddled with fis-

140 Haviva Ner-David, “Feminism and Halakhah: The Jew Who (Still) Isn’t There,” in New Jewish Feminism, 317, 319. 141 Adler, Engendering Judaism, 89; Wolf, “The New Jewish Feminism,” 355. Adler neglects to include Franz Rosenzweig and Eugene Borowitz, the leading Reform theologians, in her theological discussion (Wolf, “The New Jewish Feminism,” 354).

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sures,” and “a God who hides.”142 True, el mistater is a quintessentially Jewish theme, though conveniently ensures serious exposition on the nature of the divine need not be undertaken. Moreover, Adler herself pre-empts inevitable criticism; she notes: “My theological discussion here will be mostly gaps.”143 Problematically, few feminist theologians have sought to critically examine Adler’s “textbound theology.” Indeed, the fact that she has repudiated so much of her earlier work perhaps suggests that some day she may feel the same way about Engendering Judaism.144 We have so far seen several types of theological response to Jewish women’s inequality, including the use of God-she, genderneutralism, anthropomorphic/non-anthropomorphic, praxisorientated, and text-bound discursive. These are merely some of the ways Jewish feminists have imaged the divine; there is no singular right way. Indeed, the Jewish feminist theological project activates a multiplicity of subjective projections and expositions on a multiimaged divinity from a variety of traditional, non-traditional, and subjective, personal perspectives. As we will see in the following chapter, this diversity is most evident in the contrast between Goddess feminism and its many identities and those Orthodox feminists (in the United States and Israel) who have chosen to reengage with the tradition.

Adler, Engendering Judaism, 88. Adler, Engendering Judaism, 88. 144 Wolf, “The New Jewish Feminism,” 353. 142 143

4 “THERE ARE MANY THOUGHTS IN THE HUMAN HEART”:1 GOD IN MULTIPLICITY In this chapter I will draw together and contrast the more diverse aspects of Jewish feminism: the Goddess movement, and at the other end of the spectrum, the work of Orthodox feminists. This is important because it helps focus on another debate, the issue of authority and authenticity. We will first consider several theorists of Goddess feminism, including Carol Christ, who is not Jewish but has written extensively on feminist theology and has been influential for both Christian and Jewish feminists; and Goddess-feminist Rita Gross, who eventually abandoned Judaism in favor of Buddhism. We will also look at Ellen Umansky’s suggestions for the Goddess, particularly in light of traditional Judaism’s radical monotheism. Moreover, my discussion of the Goddess movement will, as stated, be contrasted with those feminist theologians in Jewish Orthodoxy who are committed to engagement with the tradition, in particular Tamar Ross (though also Blu Greenberg and Tova Hartman). The comparison inevitably leads to debate on the authenticity of feminist discourse (with regard to non-traditional theological discursive) in contrast to those who validate their theological experiences and perspectives within traditional boundaries and classical interpretations. As we will see, Rosemary Radford Ruether, who is a Catholic theologian, argues that even traditional theology is subjective. This is important given the personal nature of feminist theology and its reliance on the religionist’s immediate context. Indeed, this is no more exemplified than with feminist 1

Proverbs 19:21.

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midrash where individual perspective, personal experience, and mood are paramount. Indeed, feminist midrash encourages personal spiritual reflection on the divine unfettered by the heavy and sometimes inaccessible language of theology that can often be alienating, particularly for those women operating outside of the Jewish denominations.

CAROL CHRIST: STORY THEOLOGY Carol Christ (b. 1945), although she is not a Jewish thinker, is a Goddess feminist and theologian who has written extensively on the Goddess using a variety of perspectives, including Jewish mystical. She has been a resident of the Greek Island of Lesbos, home to the Sapphic tradition, for a number of years. According to Lynn Gottlieb, “She [Christ] rejected God for the Goddess.”2 Indeed, Christ is perhaps most renowned for her essay: “Why Women Need the Goddess.”3 Indeed, Christ: The symbol of Goddess has much to offer women who are struggling to be rid of the “powerful, pervasive, and longlasting moods and motivations” of devaluation of female power, denigration of the female body, distrust of female will, and denial of the women’s bonds and heritage that have been engendered by patriarchal religion. As women struggle to create a new culture in which women’s power, bodies, will, and bonds are celebrated, it seems natural that the Goddess would re-

2 Lynn Gottlieb, She Who Dwells Within: A Feminist Vision of a Renewed Judaism (New York: HarperSanFrancisco, 1995), 14. See Carol Christ, She Who Changes: Re-Imaging the Divine in the World (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003); Carol Christ, Rebirth of the Goddess: Finding Meaning in Feminist Spirituality (New York: Routledge, 2004). 3 Carol Christ, “Why Women Need the Goddess: Phenomenological, Psychological, and Political Reflections,” in Womanspirit Rising: A Reader in Religion, eds. Carol Christ and Judith Plaskow (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1979), 273-87.

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emerge as symbol of the newfound beauty, strength, and power of women.4

In “Women’s Liberation and the Liberation of God,” Christ compares the gendering of the divine presence to the status of women in traditional Judaism by employing themes from Elie Wiesel’s The Town Beyond the Wall.5 As a child, Wiesel’s life was shaped by the Talmud and he hoped to one day be initiated into the Kabbalah. However, he was later deported to Auschwitz and then on to Buchenwald. On his first night in the death camp he concluded that the flames of the crematorium causing the black smoke coiling into the sky, where his mother and sister were to be thrown, had consumed his faith for all time. Wiesel was forced to witness the hanging of a child at the hands of the SS; the child, who took half an hour to die, Wiesel conflated with God, who seemingly also dangled from the gallows.6 In the story which concludes The Town Beyond the Wall, Wiesel argues that the liberation of God and the emancipation of humans depends on the resurrection of an ancient dialogue which is charged with remorse, hatred, and yearning. Indeed, Wiesel’s story gives voice to feelings of betrayal and resentment that many Jews may have felt towards God after the Holocaust. His story also gives form to the feelings of many women as they have become aware of their exclusion from the stories of man’s relationship with God. Wiesel’s story tells of a time in the

Christ, “Why Women Need the Goddess,” 286. Carol Christ, “Women’s Liberation and the Liberation of God: An Essay in Story Theology,” in The Jewish Woman: New Perspectives, ed. Elizabeth Koltun (New York: Schocken Books, 1976), 11-17; see Elie Wiesel, The Town Beyond the Wall, trans. Stephen Becker (New York: Avon Books, 1969). 6 Karen Armstrong, A History of God: From Abraham to the Present: the 4000-Year Quest for God (London: Vintage, 1999), 440. See Mary Daly, “After the Demise of God the Father: A Call for the Castration of Sexist Religion,” Women and Religion: 1972: Proceedings of the Working Group on Women and Religion (Missoula: American Academy of Religion, 1973), 7-23. 4 5

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past when God and man swapped places. Christ adapts this theme to tell a story in which God changes places with “woman.”7 In Carol Christ’s story, both women’s emancipation and God’s liberation depend on their understanding of what it means to take each other’s place. Their liberation, like in Elie Wiesel’s story, is interrelated and depends on their renewing of an ancient exchange.8 Christ: One day woman spoke to God in this way: “Let us change places. You be woman, and I will be God. For only one second.” God smiled and asked her, “Are you afraid”? “No, and you”? “Yes I am,” God said. But woman thought to herself bitterly, No matter. I want you to know how it feels to be me. I want you to know how much I have suffered because you let yourself be named in man’s image as the God of the fathers, as the man of war, as king of the universe. I don’t believe you’ll know how I feel until you become woman. No, I am not afraid. So woman becomes God and God becomes woman. But as woman takes the place of God she finds herself led to an insight she has not expected. … As woman takes the place of God, she hears what she can only describe as a still, small voice saying, “God is a woman like yourself. She shares your suffering. She, too, has had her power of naming stolen from her. First she was called an idol of the Canaanites, and then she ceased to exist as God.” As woman becomes God, the God 7 Christ, “Women’s Liberation,” 11. See Carol Christ, Laughter of Aphrodite: Reflections on a Journey to the Goddess (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1987). 8 Christ, “Women’s Liberation,” 12. See Lynn Gottlieb, She Who Dwells Within: A Feminist Vision of a New Judaism (New York: HarperSanFrancisco, 1995); Gershom Scholem, Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism (New York: Schocken Books, 1969); Gershom Scholem, On the Kabbala and Its Symbolism, trans. Ralph Manheim (New York: Schocken Books, 1970).

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who had existed for her only as an alien ceases to be a stranger to her. In this moment, woman realizes the meaning of the concluding words of the story, which say: The liberation of the one is bound to the liberation of the other, so they renew the ancient dialogue, whose echoes come to us in the night, charged with hatred, with remorse, and most of all, with infinite, yearning.9

In the story, woman wants God to experience being a woman in the world he created through the covenant with man. Woman wants God to understand the suffering of women in a world where mothers, daughters, and sisters do not exist, even for God. Woman hopes that after experiencing her plight, God will change the world he created. By changing places with God, however, woman recognizes an essential kinship with God that has been hidden by the patriarchal stories of the God of the fathers. Woman understands that patriarchal history has led to alienation within God. The stories of the Goddess were forgotten; regarded as mere paganism and she ceased to exist. In the patriarchal world, the human image of God, along with her/his true nature as both male and female, though neither exclusively male nor female, is alienated from her/himself. Woman, however, is able to liberate herself from a patriarchal history in which God is chained. This somehow makes her more powerful than God, as is suggested in their changing places. The new power of women is vital to the liberation of God. Such liberation would have been impossible in theologies that assume God to be an all-powerful, sole-creator, unaffected by human action. The concept of divine bondage, according to Christ, is rooted in the Jewish mystical tradition in the symbol of the Messiah in chains. Indeed, Kabbalistic and Hasidic texts assume God can only be freed from bondage by human intervention. Divine estrangement and the necessary requirement for liberation are common themes in mystical theology. They are, for Christ, expressed 9 Christ, “Women’s Liberation,” 12. See In All Her Names, eds. Joseph Campbell and Charles Muses (San Francisco: Harper San Francisco, 1991).

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through God’s alienation from his female counterpart, Shekhinah, who wanders the earth in exile. Christ argues that women can reinterpret these symbols to oppose the view that God is totally identified with patriarchy.10 Christ: “[an] important implication of the Goddess symbol for women is the affirmation of the female body and the life cycle expressed in it. Because of women’s unique position as menstruants, birthgivers, and those who have traditionally cared for the young and the dying, women’s connection to the body, nature, and this world has been obvious. Women were denigrated because they seemed more carnal, fleshy, and earthy than the culture-creating males.”11 In Carol Christ’s story, God is held accountable for the patriarchy through which he was imprisoned, allowing himself to be enchained. God, like women, however, can achieve liberation. For Christ, the idea that God can be held accountable for patriarchal history is essential if the biblical divine-human relationship is to be maintained. For the notion of a God involved in history to be substantiated, however, he must take some of the blame for that history and the patriarchal image of himself he allowed to be perpetuated. Hence, renewal of dialogue with the God of the patriarchal tradition will bring him out of his alienation from women. In the story, the renewed dialogue is charged with hatred and remorse, stemming out of women’s exclusion from the stories of God’s covenant with man. Hearing the biblical stories, Christ argues, women must refuse to be silent; they must, instead, charge God for his failure to include them.12 Christ lists the biblical stories that will infuse women’s activism thus: And the people of Israel groaned under their bondage … And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. (Exodus 2:23)

Christ, “Women’s Liberation,” 12-13. Christ, “Why Women Need the Goddess,” 279. 12 Christ, “Women’s Liberation,” 14. 10 11

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This is my God and I will praise him, My father’s son, and I will exalt him, The LORD is a man of war … (Exodus 15:2-3) And I will abolish the bow, the sword, and war from the land. (Hosea 2:18)13

For Christ, only through the expression of remorse and hatred can women bring their own alienation to consciousness, which will, in turn, reveal the extent of men’s and God’s alienation from women, and God’s alienation from her/his true selfhood. Woman will demand of God the following: “What happened to the mothers, the daughters, and the sisters? How can we give allegiance to a tradition of fathers and sons? Where is the woman of God who could aid our quest? Where are the goddesses? You, God with the aid of your patriarchs and prophets, destroyed the powerful earth-mother goddesses of the ancient Near East as you continue to destroy us. By your very existence as male, you legitimize the patriarchal order in which I cannot fully exist. How could you, god? You promise to abolish the bow, the sword, and war from the land, but you yourself are called a man of war. How can you ever fulfill the promises you have made to us”?14

13 Christ, “Women’s Liberation,” 14. See Tikva Frymer-Kensky, “The Bible, Goddesses, and Sex,” Midstream 34 (October 1988): 20-23. 14 Christ, “Women’s Liberation,” 15. See Jo Ann Hackett, “Can a Sexist Model Liberate Us? Ancient Near Eastern ‘Fertility’ Goddesses,” Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion 5 (Spring 1989): 65-76; Tikva FrymerKensky, In the Wake of the Goddesses: Women, Culture and the Biblical Transformation of Pagan Myth (New York: Free Press, 1992); Rita Gross, “Hindu Female Deities as a Resource in the Contemporary Rediscovery of the Goddess,” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 46, no. 3 (September 1978): 269-91; Rita Gross, “Steps toward Feminine Imagery of Deity in Jewish Theology,” Judaism 30, no. 2 (Spring 1981): 183-93.

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Christ’s story also suggests that the revival of a dialogue with God will be accompanied by yearning. Christ notes that many women reject the notion that they require the God of the patriarchal tradition for their own liberation. The patriarchal God, they assume, is part of the problem, not the solution. For Christ, however, the God of patriarchal history has to be part of the answer. Many women feel hatred and remorse rather than indifference, though conversely, the God to whom these feelings are directed is also the source of their own yearning for liberation. Indeed, the women whose identities were formed within religious traditions may find it impossible to cut themselves off from the God of the tradition without separating themselves from the root of their longing for liberation. Christ: “Even those women who do not think themselves related to a religious tradition may find that their betrayal by all the liberation movements of patriarchal culture calls for metaphysical and ultimately religious expression.”15 According to Carol Christ, religious symbols have psychological and political effects, because they create deep-seated attitudes that encourage people to accept hierarchical political systems that correspond with their own understanding of imagery.16 Christ: Because religion has such a compelling hold on the deep psyches of so many people, feminist cannot afford to leave it in the hands of the fathers. Even people who no longer “believe in god” or participate in the institutional structure of patriarchal religion still may not be free of the power of the symbolism of God the Father. A symbol’s effect does not depend on rational assent, for a symbol also functions on levels of the psyche other than the rational.17

Christ, “Women’s Liberation,” 15-16. Christ, “Why Women Need the Goddess,” 274. See Carol Christ, Ellen Umansky, and Anne Carr, “Roundtable Discussion: What Are the Sources of My Theology?” Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion 1, no. 1 (Spring 1985): 119-31. 17 Christ, “Why Women Need the Goddess,” 274. 15 16

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For Christ, religious systems that focus on the worship of a male deity create moods and motivations that keep women in a state of dependence on men and male authority, while at the same time legitimizing the social and political authority of men in societal institutions. Indeed, religious systems centered on male images suggest that female power can never be considered authoritative or beneficent.18 Again Christ: The affirmation of female power contained in the Goddess symbol has both psychological and political consequences. Psychologically, it means the defeat of the view engendered by patriarchy that women’s power is inferior and dangerous. This new “mood” of affirmation of female power also leads to new “motivations”; it supports and undergirds women’s trust in their own power and the power of other women in family and society.19

For Christ, the Goddess can never be “power over”: “In a world where individuals other than the Goddess/God really exist, the power of Goddess/God can never be ‘power over,’ but always and everywhere ‘power with.’ Power over is domination.”20 Christ argues that the image of the Goddess, for women, is an affirmation of the female body and the life cycle expressed within it. Because of women’s distinct position as birth givers, menstruants,21 and as those who have traditionally cared for the young and the sick, Christ suggests, they are intimately connected with the human body and nature. For Christ, as women struggle to construct a new culture in which women’s power and will is celebrated, it is natural that the Goddess should reemerge as a symbol of newfound 18 Christ, “Why Women Need the Goddess,” 275. See Emmanuel Levinas, “Judaism and the Feminine Element,” trans. Edith Wyschogrod, Judaism 18 (1969): 30-38. 19 Christ, “Why Women Need the Goddess,” 278. See Merlin Stone, When God was a Woman (New York: Dial Press, 1976). 20 Christ, She Who Changes, 93. 21 See Women and Water: Menstruation in Jewish Life and Law, ed. Rahel Wasserfall (Waltham: Brandeis University Press, 1999).

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strength, beauty, and power for women.22 Christ: “(1) The Goddess is divine female, a personification who can be invoked in prayer and ritual; (2) the Goddess is symbol of the life, death, and rebirth energy in nature and culture, in personal and communal life and (3) the Goddess is symbol of the affirmation of the legitimacy and beauty of female power.”23 Carol Christ is not a Jewish theologian. This is not to say, however, that her application of Goddess-theology is not relevant to Jewish feminist theological discourse. Christ herself acknowledges the problems implicit to a multi-imaged Goddess: To theologians, these differing views of the “meaning” of the symbol of Goddess might seem to threaten a replay of the Trinitarian controversies. Is there, perhaps, a way of doing theology, which would not lead immediately into dogmatic controversy, which would not require theologians to say definitely that one understanding is true and the other are false? Could people’s relation to a common symbol be made primary and varying interpretations be acknowledged? The diversity of explications of the meaning of the Goddess symbol suggests that symbols have a richer significance than any explications of their meaning can express.24

Applied to the Jewish context, the Goddess will evidently be an uncomfortable symbol for those conscious of accusations of paganism and anti-monotheism. Judith Plaskow: “Not simply explicit mention of the Goddess, but suspicion she may be lurking somewhere behind any attempt to alter traditional God-language raises charges of ‘paganism’ that are considered themselves sufficient to

22 Christ, “Why Women Need the Goddess,” 279, 286. See Carol Christ, Diving Deep and Surfacing: Women Writers on Spiritual Quest (Boston: Beacon Press, 1980). 23 Christ, “Why Women Need the Goddess,” 278. 24 Christ, “Why Women Need the Goddess,” 279.

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condemn all feminist work.”25 Goddess feminist Jenny Kien has more recently argued that the restoration of the “Divine Woman” in Judaism is not polytheistic if the Oneness of the traditional God is maintained. But she is aware that any deity that is multi-imaged risks the accusation of polytheism. Still, Kien endorses a universalistic emphasis on the Goddess in Judaism that is anthropomorphic (human-like) – imaged in female terms – and necessarily pluralistic to accommodate the full range of theological imagination, including male symbology.26 Kien: “The havoc wreaked particularly by the monotheistic religions makes it clear that, instead of an exclusive imagery of the one God and the one Truth, we need an inclusive imagery that does not empower the one by excluding the other.”27 The problem with the Goddess, Tova Hartman notes, is that the emphasis on linguistic-humanistic imagery of the divine, over the otherness and transcendence of God, demonstrates an intense focus on representation. Hartman, on the other hand, argues that depersonalizing God, by contrast, diminishes the relational aspect of the divine.28 This void might be filled with renewed interest in the rabbinic Shekhinah, I would suggest. Plaskow argues that if God is figured as male, and humans are supposedly in God’s image, “how can maleness not be the norm of Jewish humanity”29? True, the male norm, and the androcentrism of the tradition is problematic; however, this statement works both ways as surely the Goddess, or God-she, is equally alienating, even denigrating, to male spirituality and expectations of the divine. More so, anthropomorphisms, as we have seen, can minimize the esoteric, the hierarchical, the numinous, and other nature of God, reducing the divine to humanistic characteristics and feelings while eradicating the superJudith Plaskow, Standing Again at Sinai: Judaism from a Feminist Perspective (1990; rpt. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1991), 147. 26 Jenny Kien, Reinstating the Divine Woman in Judaism (Florida: Universal-Publishers, 2000), 199-200, 202, 205, 207. 27 Kien, Reinstating the Divine Woman, 198-99. 28 Tova Hartman, Feminism Encounters Traditional Judaism: Resistance and Accommodation (New England: UPNE, 2007), 72. 29 Judith Plaskow, “The Right Question is Theological,” in On Being A Jewish Feminist: A Reader, ed. Susannah Heschel (1983; rpt. New York: Schocken Books, 1995), 228. 25

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naturalistic essence of deity. This is why Plaskow argues that feminists must continue to use anthropomorphic imagery.30 Jewish feminism, in the main, rejects the notion of hierarchy, the idea of God as dominating other, and even the notion of distinction. Again, if we remind ourselves of the questions I set out earlier, particularly the third and fourth: is this theology at all, and is subjective experience authentic, we have to ask, if God is reduced to the level of community, or personified as human, not over and above, but rather within, is this really constitutive of a divine presence or (referring to question five) has this theological concept become something else altogether? We will continue this discussion with an analysis of Rita Gross’ work; she too argues that God-she can replace God-he.

RITA GROSS: THE NECESSITY OF ANTHROPOMORPHISMS After a decade of practicing Judaism, Rita Gross (b. 1943) was compelled to take up Buddhism, although she has written extensively on many aspects of religion and theology.31 Gross’s central argument is that the omnipresent “he” of traditional theology should be replaced with female pronouns and imagery. For Gross, exclusively masculine imagery of God tells us nothing about the deity, but is merely illustrative of an androcentric tradition.32 Neuter language, however, is insufficient to describe God as it hinders an individual’s ability to speak to the deity. For Gross, therefore, Jews both male and female must begin to address God as “she”

Plaskow, Standing Again at Sinai, 161. See Rita Gross, Feminism and Religion: An Introduction (Boston: Beacon Press, 1996); Rita Gross, A Garland of Feminist Reflections (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009); Rita Gross, Soaring and Settling: Buddhist Perspectives on Contemporary Social and Religious Issues (New York: Continuum, 1998). 32 See Rita Gross, “Androcentrism and Androgyny in the Methodology of the History of Religions,” in Beyond Androcentrism: New Essays on Women and Religion, ed. Rita Gross (Missoula: Scholars Press, 1977), 7-21. 30 31

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given that theoretically anything said in connection to God-he can be applied to God-she.33 Gross: Theological analysis of the nature of God-language, combined with some understanding of the social origins and ramifications of specific images of deity, are my major arguments for abandoning forthwith traditional modes of religious expression that utilize masculine imagery of deity while refusing to use feminine imagery of deity. The social destructiveness of the exclusively masculine style of religious expression … is of more concern to me than are its theological inadequacies. It would seem that the Jewish sense of justice would demand that such inhumane practices be transformed.34

For Gross, “It seems much more feasible and traditional to take some steps toward feminine imagery of deity in Jewish theology.”35 Problematically, as we have seen more than once in this book, similar to “he,” referring to God as “she” is equally limiting as it reduces the illimitable deity to mere human categories.36 In her essay, “Steps toward Feminine Imagery of Deity in Jewish Theology,” Goddess-feminist Rita Gross argues that statements about God should not be taken literally because they do not exhaust all possibilities. Rather, they reflect the most adequate expressions permitted by current idioms. These linguistic conventions contain no inherent finality, and convey no ultimate truth or unalterable revelation. According to Gross, traditionalists, atheists, and philosophical critics of anthropomorphisms consistently use masculine pronouns to describe God, while at the same time, there is an automatic prejudice against the use of female pronouns and images. The traditionalists often claim that the automatic use of male 33 Rita Gross, “Female God Language in a Jewish Context,” in Womanspirit Rising, 173. 34 Rita Gross, “Steps toward Feminine Imagery of Deity in Jewish Theology,” in On Being A Jewish Feminist, 240. 35 Gross, “Steps toward Feminine,” 240. 36 Armstrong, A History of God, 464.

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pronouns does not mean anything, as God transcends sexuality. For Gross, however, the metaphor of a gender-free person is impossible given that individuals will always be either male or female. Indeed, a genderless person defies imagination as people cannot envisage a specific person without also thinking of some gendered characteristics. Language about God, therefore, can only tell us about the people who have created such language, not about the actual deity itself. Gross concludes that “Goddess completes the image of God and brings wholeness. One begins to sense that God, as well as women, has been imprisoned in patriarchal imagery.”37 Gross: It is time to move beyond God the Father. However I propose to move beyond God the Father, not the “Verb of Verbs,” to the nonpersonal God concept, which Mary Daly opts for, but to an imagery of bisexual androgynous deity of God as male. I wish to argue for this option because I am convinced that Judaism is theistic through and through and that theism – the view that the absolute can be imaged as person entering into relationships of love and responsibility with humans, requires anthropomorphism. But I am equally convinced that images of God as a female person are both a mirror and a legitimation of the oppression and eclipsing of women.38

The nature of Rita Gross’ project to replace God-he with she is even by her own estimation – problematic: “Because both the coequal balance of maleness and femaleness in metaphors about God and a full-blown feminine imagery of God go beyond Jewish re-

37 Gross, “Steps toward Feminine,” 235-37, 246. See Carol Christ, “The Liberation of Women and the Liberation of God,” in The Jewish Woman, 11-17; Rita Gross, Feminism and Religion: An Introduction (Boston: Beacon Press, 1996). 38 Gross, “Female God Language,” 168. See Mary Daly, Beyond God the Father (Boston: Beacon Press, 1973).

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sources, these developments, though desirable, are difficult.”39 Gross: My remarks on the imagery of the Goddess, which I think takes us far beyond the simple insertion of female pronouns into familiar contexts, seem to have stressed two points over and over. One is that we need Goddess because She breaks stereotypes of the feminine and thus frees women from the limitations of that stereotype. Women can be strong and beautiful, feminine and wise teachers, mothers and participants in culture. But it seems that She brings much more. Dimensions of deity that have been lost or severely attenuated during the long centuries when we spoke of God as if S/He were only a male are restored.40

By the time she had written these comments, Gross had earlier in 1973 become a practitioner of Buddhism in the Shambhala tradition. Gross acknowledges that God is not in actuality male or female, and that gendered pictures of the divine are nothing more than images. Gross’ problem is with the universality of masculine pronouns and imagery. At the very least, Gross argues that to say “God-she” is validation for women and the signal point of their entry into the covenant of Israel.41 Judith Plaskow is perhaps correct to criticize Rita Gross’ assumption that God-she can be applied to every aspect of God in the tradition.42 Certainly, changing God-he to God-she can in no way alter the androcentric core of the Jewish tradition. As we have seen, gender-neutral images of God are difficult to image, while the use of anthropomorphisms such as “he” or “she” will always exclude either men or women. Moreover, Gross’ assumption that “the metaphor of a gender-free person is impossible,” and that “no set of religious images has ever talked of a personal Ultimate withGross, “Steps toward Feminine,” 242. Gross, “Steps toward Feminine,” 246. 41 Gross, “Female God Language,” 168, 170, 172. 42 Plaskow, Standing Again at Sinai, 137-38. 39 40

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out the use of masculine and/or feminine imagery as a tool,” is open to criticism. Similarly, Gross’ idea that the siddur, halakhah, the aggadah, and the entire Jewish religious enterprise are dependent on the metaphor of a “divine Person” is a matter of interpretation.43 Indeed, God, despite the assumptive masculinity of the sacred texts, transcends sexuality and is neither male nor female. Certainly, traditional Jewish theology believes in one God, who is creator of the heaven and earth, who is merciful and just. This God is known in a variety of ways, but is ultimately the same God throughout. This theology is defined as “ethical monotheism”: the idea that God is all-powerful and bound by the same ethics and rules of justice that apply to humanity. This God is creator, redeemer, and revealer of the Torah.44 Gross is perhaps wrong to say that a gender-free metaphor is not applicable to the divine. God is other, mysterious and numinous; though certainly not human – or “Person.” However, Gross’ criticism that “his” in reference to God is figured acceptable, while “her” is deemed inappropriate is a valid one. As we have seen, the use of God-she has led to frequent accusations of paganism. But perhaps the more underlying issue, as we have seen, is that, according to Judith Plaskow: If the image of God-He as dominating Other is part of a whole system of dualisms that includes the subordination of female to male, then introducing God-She into this system poses a fundamental contradiction that threatens to disrupt the system and throw it into question. Female pronouns and imagery inserted into otherwise traditional forms can only initiate a process of examination and discussion that needs to end in a more radical transformation of religious language.45

For Plaskow, there are advantages to having a female element in God, but when the tradition is a male one, female images are prone

Gross, “Steps toward Feminine,” 236-37. Jacob Neusner, Judaism: The Basics (Abingdon: Routledge, 2006), 92. 45 Plaskow, Standing Again at Sinai, 138. 43 44

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to limitations.46 The accommodation of feminine theological imagery, or even the Goddess, to Judaism, therefore, is merely scratching the surface if the fundamental theological elements of the androcentric tradition and its masculinist theology remain. Ellen Umansky evaluates the problems involved when imaging the Goddess in a radically monotheistic tradition.

ELLEN UMANSKY: JEWISH FEMINIST THEOLOGY AS RESPONSIVE Ellen Umansky is the Carl and Dorothy Bennett Professor of Judaic Studies at Fairfield University. She has written prolifically on women and Judaism. According to Umansky,47 American feminist theology, at least by the late 1980s, is a product, generally, of the experiences of women who have identified themselves as either Christian, Christian-raised, post-Christian, or post-Jewish. Moreover, there are considerably more non-Jews “doing” theology, she argues, than Jewish women, possibly because their chances for study are more limited, or because these women do not consider theology a Jewish enterprise. Indeed, perhaps Jewish women have been reluctant to undertake a Jewish feminist theology, not because of their ignorance of the tradition or due to insensitivity towards personal experience, but because of the irreconcilable nature of the two. Umansky outlines several possible approaches to Jewish feminist theology while aware that any feminist theology that recognizes itself as Jewish acknowledges a commitment to Jewish tradition.48 Umansky:

Plaskow, Standing Again at Sinai, 139. See, for example, Ellen Umansky, Lily Montagu and the Advancement of Liberal Judaism: from Vision to Vocation, Studies in Women and Religion, vol. 12 (New York: Edwin Mellen Press, 1983); Lily Montagu, Lily Montagu: Sermons, Addresses, Letters, and Papers, ed. Ellen Umansky (New York: Edwin Mellen Press, 1985). 48 Ellen Umansky, “Creating a Jewish Feminist Theology: Possibilities and Problems,” in Weaving the Visions: New Patterns in Feminist Spirituality, 46 47

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Any feminist theology that identifies itself as Jewish acknowledges an a priori commitment to Jewish tradition. … What distinguishes a Jewish feminist theologian from a feminist theologian who sees herself as post-Jewish or Jewish raised, is that the latter can open herself to all forms of religious experience and self-expression, but the former, by choosing to identify herself and her visions as Jewish, attempts to place her experiences of the Divine within a specifically Jewish framework.49

This is a valid point. To identify theological discursive as “Jewish” there has to be some engagement with the tradition and its sacral framework otherwise it becomes something unrecognizable. The major problem, for Umansky, is that any Jewish feminist theology will reflect the tension between the tradition and women’s personal experience. Thus, while it may be possible to reform Christianity, for example’s sake, by rereading its Gospels as a work of liberation, Judaism, by contrast, is based on three-thousand years of history and the experiences of the Jewish people. It is therefore difficult to reduce Judaism to any one specific message. Furthermore, Umansky argues that as Judaism is more than a religion, it is difficult to reduce it to any spiritual core. Umansky acknowledges that of the potential theological models available to Jewish feminism, the majority are linked to images of God through the lens of personal experience. The question is, however, when does a personal experience or image become Jewish? And what if a particular image cannot be reconciled with the tradition and its own visions of the divine. Is it possible, Umansky asks, to claim images as Jewish because the author happens to be a Jew? Certainly, Jewish feminist theology begins with awareness that we have received only male visions of deity. Accordingly, Umansky suggests, before the feminist theologian can begin to shape religious sources into theology she must discover exactly what women’s spiritual experience has eds. Judith Plaskow and Carol Christ (New York: HarperSanFrancisco, 1989), 187. 49 Umansky, “Creating a Jewish Feminist Theology,” 187-88.

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been. Thus, if Jewish feminist theology is going to be a responsive theology, commitment to the tradition need not be a prerequisite, as long as the theologian adheres to the fundamental categories of God, Torah, and Israel. These “responses” will be formed by the theologian as Jew and woman, leading to the possible transformation not only of Jewish theology but of the sources women use to generate their visions.50 Problematically, however, such is the fluidity of Jewish feminist theological interpretation that the essential categories of God, Torah, and Israel are often marginalized or even rejected wholesale. Ellen Umansky examines the prospects of imaging the Goddess through the monotheistic tradition. For Umansky, the incorporation of Goddess imagery into Jewish understandings of theology is a process that will lead to several problems.51 Umansky: Plaskow and [Rita] Gross are justified in arguing that a deity who is no more “He” than “She” can be imaged, and should be imaged, as both Father and Mother, King and Queen, Lord and Mistress of Heaven. Indeed, one might contend that talking of “God-She” and even “Goddess” in conjunction with “GodHe” and “God” is more Jewish than adhering to a limited set of images that seem to suggest – despite protestations – that the Divine is really male. Yet before one can authenticate this claim, one needs to take into account the connection between Jewish history and Jewish vision. Although theologically, one may be justified in imaging the Divine as Goddess, the fact remains that Judaism clearly prohibits such worship. Even if it possible to overcome this prohibition, to simply ignore it reflects an ignorance of the Hebrew language and the notion of Klal Yisroel.52

Umansky argues that theologians might attempt to create an original Hebrew word that would translate into “Goddess.” It would Umansky, “Creating a Jewish Feminist Theology,” 189, 193-95. Umansky, “Crating a Jewish Feminist Theology,” 190. 52 Umansky, “Creating a Jewish Feminist Theology,” 190-91. 50 51

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thus have no associations with idolatry. Alternatively, an existing Hebrew word that can refer to the divine, though not necessarily the Hebrew deity, could be appropriated for the Goddess. Umansky suggests the word: Elohut, which is a feminine noun meaning deity. Another solution, for Umansky, might be to retain Elah, which means Goddess, yet deny the association of Elah with Elilah, a female idol. Umansky, however, maintains reservations about the use of Elah given her understanding of Klal Yisroel. The Jewish people are members of a historical community claiming continuity with not only the past but also the future. Umansky rightly questions whether a return to early Israelite religion that ignores two-thousand years of subsequent history, can claim to be authentically Jewish. Umansky: “Jewish feminist theologians must decide, then, whether reclaiming the right to name one’s own experience is worth risking a separation (either by choice or necessity) from the Jewish community.”53 According to Ellen Umansky, the difficulty of creating a feminist theology might be in the fact that it is not always possible to harmonize personal experience with the tradition. This might lead to a dilemma: Judaism, on the one hand, holds out its own theological symbols that all Jews must accept them; but these symbols might not be personally meaningful. A possible direction that theologians might wish to take, Umansky contends, is similar to remythologizing. This involves using dreams and fantasies that emerge out of experience of the tradition. Through this type of “responsive” theology, however, Umansky recognizes that the religionist will only be giving expression to what seems personally significant in the biblical text. Finally, Umansky: “the feminist theologian who tries to respond to Jewish sources as a Jew and as a woman may find it difficult if not impossible to expound upon experiences that have not yet been given expression.”54 Despite the problems inherent to appropriation of God-she, and even the Goddess, both Jewish men and women have been attracted to the divine feminine;

53 54

98.

Umansky, “Creating a Jewish Feminist Theology,” 191-92. Umansky, “Creating a Jewish Feminist Theology,” 193, 195, 197-

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this is even given, as we will see, the polytheistic nature of accepting one God simultaneous to visualizing the Goddess.

JEWISH FEMINISM AND THE GODDESS Jewish feminists have found in the Goddess an alternative to the traditional masculine defined image of God.55 This section is not intended to be exhaustive given that the key Second-Wave theological appropriations of the Goddess, Shekhinah, and God-she have been covered.56 The Goddess is God-she but in a more powerful, more polarizing way. She is not a reworking of the male God, but a deity in her own right. Similar to God-he, she is known by a variety of names and metaphors, which themselves are subject to immediate context and the plurality of personal interpretation, including: Ishtar, Asherah, Isis, Afrekete, Oyo, Ezuli, and as we have seen, Shekhinah. Moreover, the Goddess is lover, warrior, creator, lawgiver, giver of fertility, maiden, mother, and crone. For some Goddess feminists, the plurality of names and imagery is reflective of the diversity inherent to reality, while for others, these are the many names and metaphors applicable to a single being. Images of the Goddess, however, are not to be over interpreted or reified. Indeed, Goddess feminists generally view symbols as changeable rather than as literal absolutes. Critics of Jewish feminism, however, have been suspicious of the Goddess and attempts to alter the traditional God-language, and have raised the accusation of “paganism.” For some traditionalists, Jewish feminism is bound up See Leah Novick, On the Wings of Shekhinah: Rediscovering Judaism’s Divine Feminine (Wheaton: Quest Books, 2008). Novick writes from a Renewal perspective. The Jewish Renewal tradition employs Hasidic and mystical perspectives, along with meditation and music, and has imported non-Jewish spiritualities to its framework. Critics have labelled the movement a “new age” Judaism. 56 See Naomi Goldenberg, Changing of the Gods (Boston: Beacon Press, 1979); Tikva Frymer-Kensky, In the Wake of the Goddess (New York: Macmillan, 1992); Merlin Stone, When God was a Woman (New York: Dial Press, 1976). 55

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with Goddess spirituality. Accusations of paganism stretch back to biblical times recalling the prolonged struggle between different models of religious understanding and expression. The Israelites, from the beginning, understood their own uniqueness by defining themselves over and against the beliefs of the peoples that surrounded them. Israel was a holy nation made separate from the practices of the Canaanites. The Canaanites worshipped false idols of wood and stone, while the Israelites, to maintain their purity, had to reject other Gods and follow strict sexual regulations to maintain differentiation from their neighbors. The struggle, however, was not solely between Canaan and Israel; rather, an internal struggle raged in Israel itself between those who worshipped other Gods and Goddesses, and those who worshipped Yahweh, either exclusively, or alongside these other deities. The prophets came to characterize Canaanite religion as the worship of sticks and stones, which, according to Judith Plaskow, has become an accepted stereotype about ancient worship in Jewish self-understanding. For Plaskow, the prophets attacked a polytheistic religious system that had sustained people for millennia, and that many Israelites found meaningful. In the Tanakh, paganism takes on the same role as the Pharisees in the New Testament. Each is set up as a despised other against which the superior new religion takes precedence. In fact, Plaskow argues, the Jewish treatment of paganism parallels the Christian treatment of Judaism.57 Judith Plaskow suggests that accusations of paganism leveled at Jewish feminism need not be taken seriously. Anxieties about polytheism, female imagery, sensuousness, and Goddesses seem to get lumped together as “paganism.” Plaskow criticizes Cynthia Ozick for analogizing the idea of female metaphors for God with the worship of Goddesses.58 Moreover, Plaskow denies that ancient Goddess worship frequently involved human sacrifice. The equa57 Plaskow, Standing Again at Sinai, 146-48; see In All Her Names, eds. Joseph Campbell and Charles Muses (San Francisco: Harper San Francisco, 1991); Shahrukh Husain, The Goddess: Power, Sexuality, and the Feminine Divine (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2003). 58 See Cynthia Ozick, “Notes toward Finding the Right Question,” in On Being A Jewish Feminist, 120-151.

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tion of female God-language with the Goddess, for Plaskow, presupposes that the traditional God is so intrinsically male that any broadening of the anthropomorphic language surely refers to a completely different deity. The fact is that the majority of Jewish feminists experimenting with God-language are in no way imaging or discoursing on the Goddess, per se. For Plaskow, monotheism is symbolic of a unity that contains many sub-groups within a community. The image of God, therefore, is part of a divine totality that embraces the diversity of a community that is infinite in its possibilities. Images of God, Plaskow assumes, reflect the multiplicity of a pluralistic community of Israel and a cosmic community of God. Monotheism, however, when it is associated with the worship of one single image of God becomes monolatry – the worship of a single God with awareness that other deities exist. God’s oneness, rather than being all-embracing, excludes central aspects of reality.59 Plaskow: The Jewish tradition has been well aware of the dangers of such exclusion, at least in relation to certain areas of existence. Thus it has held God responsible for evil, for example, rather than allowing evil to be seen as an independent power. When Isaiah says, “I form light and create darkness, I make weal and create woe, I the Lord do all these things” (45:7), he is speaking out of the inclusive understanding of monotheism as embracing the totality of existence. This same insight concerning God’s inclusiveness has not been applied to issues of gender, however. But it is no less true of gender than of the problem of evil that a God who cannot include all experience is a God over against an Other. Such a god is an idol male in “man’s” image, not the creator, source of maleness and femaleness, revitalize of all gods and goddesses who nonetheless includes them as part of God’s self.60

Plaskow, Standing Again at Sinai, 149-51. Plaskow, Standing Again at Sinai, 151-52. See Samuel Dresner, “Goddess Feminism,” Conservative Judaism 46 (1993): 3-23. 59 60

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The theological exposition of Jewish feminists who invoke the Goddess, according to Plaskow, can be seen as part of an inclusive monotheism. The practice of using the names of Goddesses in the liturgy is a way of conveying female power and provides resonance in a culture that has almost no images of female authority. For Plaskow, the Goddesses are all too often associated with fertility and sex, while, in fact, they presided over a number of cultural functions. This common misrepresentation signals the deeper problem that women are frequently connected with images of body and earth, which are symbols and qualities that are associated with paganism. If male and female are dichotomized, along with culture/nature, spirit/flesh and restraint/sensuality, and if women are seen to represent the inferior “pagan” side of the polarization, female God-language is bound to arouse discomfort. This uneasiness threatens, Plaskow believes, to re-consecrate aspects of existence once considered holy that were diminished and desacralized by traditional Judaism as part of its struggle to eradicate paganism. In short, according to Plaskow, the re-examination of Jewish attitudes towards sexuality, catalyzed by the employment and exploration of female imagery, will not paganize Judaism. Instead, it will restore values lost in the process of traditional Judaism’s defining itself over and against other religions.61 More recently, the growing number of Jews interested in the Goddess is in part due to the success of the Jewish spirituality movement,62 Western exposure to indigenous, Eastern, and shamanic cultures; the focus on Mother Earth by ecological theologians,63 and perhaps the nature of spirituality itself, which does not necessarily conform to Orthodox theological assumptions. According to Jill Hammer, Jews who gravitate towards the Goddess act out of trust in experience shared with humanity. Indeed, Isis in ancient Rome, the cult of the Virgin Mary, Oshun or Yemanja in modern African diaspora. These Jews find the concepts associated Plaskow, Standing Again at Sinai, 152-54. See Anita Diamant, The Red Tent (London: Macmillan, 2001). 63 See Ellen Bernstein, “Creation Theology,” in New Jewish Feminism: Probing the Past, Forging the Future, ed. Elyse Goldstein (Woodstock: Jewish Lights Publishing, 2009), 42-53. 61 62

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with the Goddess appealing, such as immanence, the sacredness of the body and nature, and the celebration of women, even though many of these religionists wish to balance their imaging of the Goddess with the traditional Jewish deity. These Jewish followers of the Goddess are perhaps “transmonotheists” – Jews who accept the oneness of God without having a problem with notions of polytheism. Thus, God is “many” and “one” at the same time.64 For Hammer, Goddess theology also “punctures” the selfcongratulating tendencies of radically monotheistic religion: Just as Christianity demonized Judaism in order to succeed Judaism spiritually, it is likely that Judaism demonized the paganism being practiced at the time of the writing of the Bible in order to succeed it spiritually. The Bible, in spite of its extraordinary religious insight, is not a reliable witness regarding pagans any more than the New Testament is a reliable witness regarding Jews. When investigating Jewish concepts around idolatry, we can harvest what is good about the relative imagelessness of Jewish tradition while reclaiming the value of spiritual humility.65

The Goddess movement is made up of women and men committed to the celebration of female divinity and includes individuals on the periphery of Judaism, pagans, and those who see in the Goddess women’s liberation. Many of the traditional elements of Judaism have been jettisoned by Jewish Goddess feminists; specifically the radical monotheistic worship of one God as king, Lord, and father, the observance of halakhah, and biblical Zionism. Some Goddess feminists, however, retain their Jewishness both culturally and religiously, despite identifying themselves as pagan. Distinct from other Goddess feminists, some Jewish religionists invoke the Canaanite and Jewish Goddesses as aspects of the Goddess, rather than God. Alternatively, there are Goddess feminists who were 64 Jill Hammer, “Jews Turning to the Goddess, the Goddess Turning to Jews,” in New Jewish Feminism, 28-29. 65 Hammer, “To Her We Shall Return,” 33.

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born into Jewish families who are hostile to traditional Judaism and consider themselves pagan. Additionally, there are “postmodern” Jewish feminists who celebrate the Goddess in alternative Jewish communities. For these feminists, the Goddess is a suppressed aspect of God, and Judaism continues to be, for them, a spiritual and emotional resource. The Goddesses associated with Judaism are part of a non-systematic, eclectic version of Judaism. Indeed, Goddess feminists adapt what they deem salvageable from the tradition and meld these remnants into feminist spiritualities that fill the gaps in the areas that Judaism is considered inefficient.66 Melissa Raphael: In practice this can mean that postmodern Jewish feminists customize what remains comfortable, meaningful, and useful from the tradition of the foremothers and fathers. It is in this way, and for these women, that thealogy – which elaborates on women’s experience of the divinity of women as Goddess and on the political and ecological ramifications of that experience – can become something of a Jewish conversation with Judaism.67

According to Raphael, postmodern Jewish feminists’ invoking of the Goddess is not constitutive of an emergent religion. For the mainstream community, however, Goddess worship is associated with paganism. To be a paganized Jew, Raphael suggests, is perhaps a contradiction in terms, as Judaism has always been porous. For most Orthodox Jews, nonetheless, the blurring of Goddess-talk with God-language is unacceptable. Moreover, for some tradition66 Melissa Raphael, “Goddess Religion, Postmodern Jewish Feminism, and the Complexity of Alternative Religious Identities,” Nova Religio 1, no. 2 (April 1998): 198-99. See Starhawk, The Spiral Dance: A ReBirth of the Ancient Religion of the Great Goddess (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1979). 67 Raphael, “Goddess Religion,” 200. See Melissa Raphael, Introducing Thealogy: Discourse on the Goddess (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic 1998); Melissa Raphael, Thealogy and Embodiment: The Post-Patriarchal Reconstruction of Female Sexuality (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1996).

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alist Jews belief in the Goddess is perhaps less acceptable than not believing in God at all.68 Contemporary Goddess feminists are part of the Holocaust generation, or at least daughters or granddaughters of that generation. These women are witnesses to the partial collapse of traditional patriarchal theologies of God as Rebono shel olam, or “Master of the World.” The post-Holocaust God, according to Melissa Raphael, has shown himself to be incapable of doing the jobs that God might be expected to undertake. For a number of Jewish women, therefore, thealogy might be, in part, a response to the disappointment and anger towards a God who remained silent in the face of human suffering, and who failed to hold up his side of the covenant. The Goddess, for Raphael, is a model of divinity whose pagan nature is to such an extent that she is identical with the natural process and thus no historical intervention is required, nor are any eschatological elements necessary to vindicate the morally good. In paganism, there is no need for concepts of salvation as there is nothing inherently wrong with humanity beyond its loyalty to its own naturalness. For Goddess religionists, the deity shifts the ongoing process of the liberation of women and the earth from patriarchy into a post-patriarchal dimension that is also posthistorical.69 Again Raphael: In this, the Goddess can be experienced as the suppressed antitype of the Jewish sacred. Her self-revelation in the late twentieth century marks not only the return of Yahweh’s spurned, vengeful wife, but also the resurgence of the blemished, seething, scaly, clawed, seeping female – the great heaving, churning Goddess Tehom (the Deep, the Void, or the “personified 68 Raphael, “Goddess Religion,” 200-01, 203. See Melissa Raphael, “Truth in Flux: Goddess Feminism as a Late Modern Religion,” Religion 26 (1996): 199-213; Melissa Raphael, “Goddess Feminism, Postmodern Jewish Feminism and the Complexity of Alternative Religious Identities,” Nova Religio 1 (1998): 198-214. 69 Raphael, “Goddess Religion,” 203-04. See The Absent Mother: Restoring the Goddess to Judaism and Christianity, ed. Alex Pirani (London: Madala, 1991).

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Raphael argues that the move from the domestic to cosmic sacrality obviously polarizes Jewish women who remain within the tradition with women who choose Goddess worship. There are, however, Raphael notes, common denominators that connect the two, such as in their sense of otherness, shared persecution, and their Jewishness. The integration of Goddess feminists into mainstream Judaism, however, is perhaps many decades away.71 Some Goddess feminists would, and have, nonetheless, rejected the concept of thealogy, more so given the plurality and non-rational elements of Goddess worship; they fear its appropriation by an intellectual feminist elite. Many, including Carol Christ, would agree that no specific thealogy can claim for itself normative status.72 The problem for Goddess feminism in relation to traditional imagery of deity, as we have seen, is not only its rejection of radical monotheism, but also the fact that it in some ways precludes theology/thealogy at all. As Melissa Raphael has shown, paganistic religion has little space for historical interventionism, little need for personal salvation, and therefore requires little, or no, eschatological underpinnings. Goddess feminism also raises several unsettling questions for those wishing to maintain some aspect of the tradition. Rachel Adler asks with trepidation: “Is it authentic to borrow language about Goddesses from other religions? Do we risk paganism by endowing God with a Canaanite Goddess’ title such as

Raphael, “Goddess Religion,” 206. Raphael, “Goddess Religion,” 208, 210. See Goldenberg, Naomi. Changing of the Gods: Feminism and the End of Traditional Religions (Boston: Beacon Press, 1979); Raphael Patai, The Hebrew Goddess (1967; rpt. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1990). 72 Raphael, “Goddess Religion,” 212 n9. 70 71

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“Queen of Heaven”?73 Moreover, describing God as a woman, as we have seen more than once, diminishes God; human language is for Tova Hartman an inescapable regression into pantheism,74 often regarded as the underpinning theology of paganism. Moreover, Ozick: “Without an uncompromising monotheism, there can be no Jewish Way; it becomes, then, somebody else’s way; but not the Jewish one.”75 Thus, if we refer back to the analytical questions set out at the beginning of this book we are reminded, in particular, of two and five: is it actually Jewish theology if the central elements of the tradition have been jettisoned, and the issue: when does such a religion become something else, even un-Jewish? Furthermore, Goddess feminism’s plurality, its rejection of normativity, and even theology/theology, seems to preclude the possibility of developing any Goddess based systematic exposition on the divine with the potential for prescriptivity. At the other end of the spectrum, by contrast to those religionists who have looked beyond the allegedly narrow confines of the tradition, Orthodox feminists, though few in comparison, with traditional feminist theologians in even smaller numbers, have sought to reengage with the sacred texts and to critique the androcentrism of the tradition, and its masculine defined theology, from within their communities.

FEMINIST REENGAGEMENT WITH THE TRADITION Jewish feminism might well consider its reengagement with the tradition, for in the past traditional Judaism has frequently assimilated the practices and philosophies of other cultures and religious traditions, and as we have seen, Orthodoxy is not immune to feminist reform. Michael Hilton, for example, argues that “Judaism of-

Rachel Adler, Engendering Judaism: An Inclusive Theology and Ethics (Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society, 1998), 99-100. 74 Hartman, Feminism Encounters Traditional Judaism, 71. 75 Ozick, “Notes toward Finding the Right Question,” 121. 73

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ten developed and changed in response to Christianity.”76 Commitment to feminism, and to tradition, is possible, as Tova Hartman states: “I join thousands of women and men who are compelled by feminism and traditional religion.”77 Hartman is an Orthodox Israeli feminist who lectures at Bar Ilan University.78 She helped found Shira Hadasha in 2002, a feminist congregation aimed at increasing women’s participation in halakhhah and the liturgy. She has taken inspiration from, among others, the work of Phyllis Trible, who, similar to Hartman’s devotion to the tradition, acknowledges her own commitment to the Bible: To know that one is a feminist and to know that one loves the Bible is, in the thinking of many, at best an oxymoron, perhaps clever as a rhetorical statement but surely not a possibility for existential living. After all, if no man can serve two masters, no woman can serve two authorities, a master called Scripture and a mistress called Feminism.79

Trible has written extensively on the Old Testament. She argues that Yahweh is a deity set apart from the fertility Gods of the Near East. Yahweh is unable to tolerate a cult of sexuality and is instead described as one, complete, whole, and above sexuality. For Israel, Yahweh, as a man, repudiates anthropomorphisms and andromorphisms (having male characteristics). Occasionally, Trible notes, God is not a man that he should repent. Indeed, in Hosea (11:1-11) anthropomorphic language is affirmed and denied. Yahweh is a Michael Hilton, The Christian Effect on Jewish Life (London: SCM Press Ltd, 1994), 2. 77 Hartman, Feminism Encounters Traditional Judaism, 4. See Sylvia Barack Fishman, Changing Minds: Feminism in Contemporary Orthodox Jewish Life (New York: he American Jewish Committee, 2000). 78 See Jewish Feminism in Israel: Some Contemporary Perspectives, ed. Kalpana Misra and Melanie Rich (Hanover: University Press of New England, 2003). 79 Phyllis Trible, “Eve and Miriam: from the Margins to the Centre,” in Feminist Approaches to the Bible, eds. Phyllis Trible et al. (Washington: Biblical Archaeology Society, 1995), 7. 76

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parent who helps the child to walk, tends to wounds, and feeds the children. Notably, these are motherly activities and are not associated with the father. Like a human, Yahweh struggles with the wayward infant and denies identification with the male (11:9): “for I am God, and not man.” Trible rightly acknowledges that feminine imagery for God is more prevalent in the Hebrew Bible than is usually assumed. It occurs in the traditions of the Exodus and Wanderings, particularly in the themes of hunger and thirst. The providing of water and food is woman’s work; Yahweh takes this role. In Nehemiah 9:21 also, God is seamstress, while in Isaiah, Yahweh tells of birth pangs. Trible argues that while the Old Testament frequently describes Yahweh in male terms, there is also a plethora of gynomorphic (having female characteristics) language.80 Trible: Israel repudiated the idea of sexuality in God. Unlike fertility gods, Yahweh is neither male nor female; neither he nor she. Consequently, modern assertions that God is masculine, even when they are qualified, are misleading and detrimental, if not altogether inaccurate. Cultural and grammatical limitations (the use of masculine pronouns for God) need not limit theological understanding. As Creator and Lord, Yahweh embraces and transcends both sexes.81

According to Trible, “the Biblical God is not on the side of patriarchy.”82 In sum, Trible presents a compelling argument that the problem with God-language in the Hebrew Bible is bound up with its grammatical and cultural limitations and not necessarily its theology, which does, in fact, exhibit numerous feminine images. It is true that while the masculine images of the divine are androcentric

Phyllis Trible, “Depatriarchalizing in Biblical Interpretation,” in The Jewish Woman, 218-220. 81 Trible, “Depatriarchalizing in Biblical Interpretation,” 220-21. 82 Trible, “Depatriarchalizing in Biblical Interpretation,” 234. 80

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and gender exclusionary, they are nothing more than metaphorical and symbolic.83 In the early 1980s, Blu Greenberg, who is not a theologian, explored the possibility of feminist transformation within the Orthodox community.84 Greenberg is the cofounder of the Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance which was inaugurated in 1997 with the aim of developing women’s intellectual and spiritual opportunities within halakhah. In her groundbreaking On Women and Judaism (1981) Greenberg outlines a “theology” of woman as Jew: 1.

2.

3.

4.

A woman of faith has the same innate vision and existential longing for a redemptive-covenantal reality as a man of faith. She has the same ability and need to be in the presence of God alone and within the context of the community. Such a woman is sufficiently mature to accept the responsibilities for their relationship and the rights that flow from these responsibilities. If these spiritual gifts do not flow naturally from her soul, she can be educated and uplifted in them in much the same fashion that Jewish men are. Jewish women, as much as men, have the mental and emotional capacities to deal directly with the most sacred Jewish texts and primary sources. Jewish women are capable of interpreting tradition based on the sources. They can be involved in the decision-making process that grows out of the blending of inherited tradition with contemporary needs. Some women, as some men, are capable of functioning in the position s of authority related to the religious and physical survival of the Jewish people. Women as a class should not find themselves in discriminatory positions in personal situations. In such matters as

83 Nicholas de Lange, Penguin Dictionary of Judaism (London: Penguin Books, 2008), 108. 84 See Blu Greenberg, “Will here Be Women Rabbis”? Judaism 33, no. 1 (Winter 1984): 22-33; Blu Greenberg, “Is now the Time for Orthodox Women Rabbis”? Moment (December 1992): 50-53, 74.

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marriage and divorce, a woman should have no less control on personal freedom than a man, nor should she be subject to abuse resulting from the construction of freedom.85

Greenberg’s “theology” of woman actually has very little to say on the divine. She acknowledges that her commitment to the Orthodox community is a source of personal conflict. The turmoil, however, is indicative of health, richness, and personal growth, Greenberg concludes, rather than confusion.86 Indeed, Greenberg intends to enjoy the best of both worlds: the traditional Jewish family and the new chances for personal growth indicative of feminism. Greenberg is simultaneously attracted to feminist concepts of the equality of religious access and to her orientation as a traditional Jew. More recently, Tova Hartman argues that in the richness and diversity of traditional Judaism, there is, inevitably, “jagged edges,” although these issues need not be “an imperative to exit the tradition.” Hartman is determined to reengage those Jewish feminists who have become alienated from the tradition.87 Hartman: “This ‘reengagement’ with tradition is a process that I believe can be humanly honest and spiritually enriching. It invokes a double recognition: on the one hand, that remaining within tradition keeps one in permanent dissatisfaction; on the other, that leaving may present very serious costs of its own.”88 Hartman suggests that while the term “God” is fixed, it does not reify a fixed set of meanings, but is more like a placeholder for evolving relationships and reality. Thus, for Hartman, we might argue for an analogous understanding of other and for more gender-specific names for God. Such imagery need not be viewed as the predigested images of male power but as 85 Blu Greenberg, On Women and Judaism: A View from Tradition (1981; rpt. Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society of America, 1996), 3940. See Blu Greenberg, “What About God”? Moment, 10 (March 1985): 32-36; Blu Greenberg, “Women’s Liberation and Jewish Law,” Lilith 1, no. 1 (Fall 1976): 16-19, 42-43. 86 Greenberg, On Women and Judaism, 168. 87 Hartman, Feminism Encounters Traditional Judaism, 2-3. 88 Hartman, Feminism Encounters Traditional Judaism, 3.

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triggers for reflection on our own changing gender relationships and identities. According to Hartman, masculine terms for God are “alive” rather than fixed, just as gender itself is not a fixed notion. Indeed: “Who “He” is, is ultimately up to us.”89 More recently, Tamar Ross, who is also an Orthodox feminist theologian, has argued that feminism makes ethical claims to which the tradition must take notice.90

TAMAR ROSS: CUMULATIVE REVELATION Like Tova Hartman, Tamar Ross is not a Second-Wave feminist, but no discussion of Jewish feminist theology would be complete without an Orthodox response. Ross is one of very few Orthodox feminist theologians; she is Professor of Philosophy at Bar Ilan University, Israel. Feminist scholars working in the tradition are hardly the norm. In the early 1990s, perhaps unsurprisingly, David Blumenthal decided to structure his theology of the Holocaust around a dialogue with Christian feminist theologians rather than with Jewish feminists.91 Ross has particular expertise in Abraham Isaac Kook, a halakhist and Kabbalist who was the first Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi in British controlled Palestine. In her work, Ross attempts to reconcile Torah with halakhic issues relating to the androcentrism of the tradition and the sacred texts. Her approach, as such, is that of evolving revelation, although she is solidly committed to Torah and the sacred texts as the foundations of Judaism. Ross reviews the challenges feminism poses to the tradition in her Expanding the Palace of Torah (2004). Indeed, she acknowledges the androcentrism of the rabbinic tradition, though suggests that Jewish feminist aspirations are compatible with Orthodox Judaism.92 Accordingly, Ross attempts to address the theological issues raised Hartman, Feminism Encounters Traditional Judaism, 73-74. Hartman, Feminism Encounters Traditional Judaism, 9. 91 See David Blumenthal, Facing the Abusing God: A Theology of Protest (London: John Knox Press, 1993). 92 See Tamar Ross, Expanding the Palace of Torah: Orthodoxy and Feminism (Waltham: Brandeis University Press, 2004). 89 90

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by the feminist examination of halakhah, and theorizes that Orthodoxy requires an inclusivist theology that acknowledges both Torah and halakhah as cultural institutions that represent the voice of the divine, in turn making halakhic reform a product of divine revelation. Ross: The cumulative understanding of revelation allows us to view the phenomenon of feminism itself – even if it appears to stem from sources outside of Judaism – as a gift from God. In this sense, assimilating feminism into Judaism is no different than the imbibing of Aristotelianism by Maimonidean rationalism or the absorption of certain ideas from Gnosticism and the Neoplatonic tradition by the Kabbalah, among other examples. What we are now beginning to know is being bestowed upon us. We are the beneficiaries of what has gone before us, as we grope toward a new light reaching out to us from God. Listening to feminist claims with sympathy and understanding need not be thought of as a deep violation of Jewish tradition. Instead, it should be regarded as a spiritual undertaking of the first order.93

Ross demands that the rabbis include feminism in their understanding of God’s relationship with the world by recognizing that it has previously been excluded.94 In Expanding the Palace of Torah, Tamar Ross argues that feminism forces the traditional community to rethink the relationship between human interpretation and divine revelation to determine whether a religion grounded in the idea of unique revelation at Sinai can accommodate the evolving morals of its followers. In short, Ross develops a theory of cumulative revelation that looks to the work of Abraham Isaac Kook for inspiration. Indeed, Ross suggests that revelation unfolds over time through both history and

93 94

Ross, Expanding the Palace, 10. Hartman, Feminism Encounters Traditional Judaism, 9.

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necessary rabbinic interpretation.95 She rightly argues that Judith Plaskow’s theology devotes little attention to revelation. Moreover, Plaskow’s dialectical theology does not satisfy the traditional notion of Torah in its entirety being the word of God.96 Ross: At this point it is important to note that according to R. Kook and all the more traditional understandings of revelation, expansion of the Torah does not involve devaluing or supplanting the previous norms of the tradition. On a formal level these remain as authoritative as when they first appeared in the canonic texts. Even when the faith community absorbs new understandings, such understandings never displace the original heritage. Subsequent revelations may transform a former “hearing” by building on it, but they cannot skip over it entirely. The sanctified formations of the canonic texts of tradition are immutable foundations, defining the absolute, rockbottom parameters of Jewish belief and practice.97

Ross looks to Kook, who analyzed the relationship between God and the world as a “continuum” as opposed to the conventional theistic model. For Kook, humanity must experience the first model of God as transcendent before they can understand the more “harmonious” view. The process unfolds, Ross notes, as, and when, our own spiritual understanding matures. According to Ross, we are the products of emerging values that have occurred throughout history, and have been shaped by holy texts and our ancestors and their teachings.98 Ross:

95

5.

Judith Plaskow, “Calling All Theologians,” in New Jewish Feminism,

96 Ross, Expanding the Palace, 188-89. See Tamar Ross and Judith Plaskow, “The View from Here: Gender Theory and Gendered Realities: An Exchange Between Tamar Ross and Judith Plaskow,” Nashim 13 (2007): 207-51. 97 Ross, Expanding the Palace, 207. 98 Ross, Expanding the Palace, 208.

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We recognize that we stand to our past not as superior moral beings looking back on morally depraved forebears, but as dwarfs who can see more than the giant simply because they stand on his shoulders. But if the evolution of events and ideas is to be viewed as a cumulative manifestation of God’s divine providence, then the very fact that the Jewish community believers accepted the canonized foundational Torah when they did is an expression of God’s will. So too may the subsequent interpretations of that foundational Judaism, the ideas and social norms that the community of committed Jews accept or reject, be viewed as an expression of that will. It is only natural that I, as a cumulativist, attach religious importance not only to the circumstances precipitating interpretations of the primary revelation at Sinai, but also to the fact that it was the Sinaitic revelation that came first and that was accorded foundational value.99

Ross argues that as a cumulativist she would put a religious face even on the fact that Israel reached its understanding of the divine at a time when patriarchy was consolidated throughout the region.100 For Tamar Ross, cumulative revelation can locate meaning in the knowledge that this model of theology helped bring about the development of male hegemony. According to Ross, the androcentric interests and vocabulary of the tradition, from which future interpretations will evolve, must be imbued with divine logic. Indeed, phrasing the sacred texts in masculine language might be a vital “scaffolding” that serves as protection from other confusions and excesses.101 Ross: What could possibly be the value of being tied down to obsolete formulations of a patriarchal society? For a cumulativist feminist, the answers will change with the times, but a number Ross, Expanding the Palace, 208. Ross, Expanding the Palace, 209. 101 Ross, Expanding the Palace, 209. 99

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SECOND-WAVE JEWISH FEMINISM of factors can be brought to bear. In addition to the anthropological and theological benefits of patriarchy … maintenance of sexual boundaries and gender distinctions works to ensure preservation of the traditional family unit. Despite [protestations of radical feminists to the contrary, no better vehicle has yet been found for the transmission of values from one generation to the next and the promotion of human welfare.102

Ross argues that the idea of divine revelation as an accumulative process, even allowing for future interpretation, does require that the religionist justify the meaning of the text as it was understood in the past: “at least for that time.” For Ross, upholding biblical morality rejects the translation of the universal ideal into legal logical principles that are eternally true irrespective of context. The cumulative approach, on the other hand, will say that patriarchal society is no longer acceptable, but that at one time it may have been so. Ross critiques current feminist thinking for assuming an ethical absolutism that assumes patriarchy to be wrong for all time, when in earlier periods it would not have been considered unjust. Indeed, for Ross feminists assume a universal moral code regardless of context.103 Ross: I believe that the feminist reading of history as a long-standing power struggle between the sexes is (like the class struggle of Marxist ideology) is an exaggerated and overstated mythical construct with flimsy historical basis in historical fact. Instead of alleging a male conspiracy, it is more accurate to say that given certain economic, sociological, and other factors in society, the patriarchal model for centuries served the interests of society in general.104

Ross, Expanding the Palace, 209. Ross, Expanding the Palace, 216. 104 Ross, Expanding the Palace, 216. 102 103

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Ross contends that feminists need not abandon hope for future accommodation of the Torah simply because aspects of the rabbinic and biblical sacred texts are patriarchal in context.105 Theologically, Tamar Ross argues for the doctrine of revelation through history. By analyzing the Sinaitic Torah as the earthly reflection of the metaphysical which must be supplemented by history, Ross avoids placing the weight of infinite interpretive possibilities on the former text alone.106 Ross: I find it more convincing to load the potential for limitless interpretations exclusively upon a primordial, proverbial Torah. The primacy of the Torah of Sinai is still maintained in the understanding that it is precisely that revelation, together with the additional interpretations accruing to it over time, that provide us with the formula for reconstructing the earlier Torah to which all history leads.107

In sum, cumulative revelation, according to Ross, gives historical events and human development religious significance.108 Similarly, Orthodox feminist Judith Antonelli prefers the notion of building on to the tradition rather than dismissing its unpalatable elements: If the Torah were written by men (or even three men and one woman), an apparently sexist Torah passage could simply be dismissed as anachronistic and only the meaningful passage retained. One who believes in divine revelation, however, cannot dismiss some parts of the Torah while embracing others. It is

Ross, Expanding the Palace, 222. Ross, Expanding the Palace, 223. 107 Ross, Expanding the Palace, 223. 108 Ross, Expanding the Palace, 223. 105 106

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This is a compelling argument, particularly in light of the analytical questions that guide this book. However, Ross’ philosophical/theological argument is not intended to be a “feminist” theology; rather, it is a process of adding (accumulating) to the Sinaitic revelation that allows feminist theologians to add to, and build upon, the tradition while accepting that its patriarchal foundation, which for the majority of feminists is unacceptable, was in a different historical time and served a contemporaneous purpose, though need not become part of the Jewish future. Ross’ cumulative theology is aware that the tradition is androcentric, though rightly points out that this need not be the reason for critiquing, or even abandoning, the Sinaitic foundations of traditional Judaism. The cumulative process is a theology of evolution that accepts the past as subject to divine will and reason, and instead looks to a future that will acknowledge feminist concerns. Certainly, Tamar Ross is one of very few Orthodox feminist theologians. Her cumulative theology is an apologetic way of analyzing the tradition, the sacred texts, and the divine will and purpose. Regardless, this is compelling incentive to remain within the context of the Sinaitic foundation of the tradition even if one is not Orthodox, because no amount of re-analysis, reinterpretation, or abandoning of the sacred texts will make their androcentric or patriarchal elements disappear. It is perhaps better to accept them and move on as to read egalitarian elements that are not present into these narratives is mere eisegesis. In relation to the five analytical questions, Ross’s theological discourse is essentially a starting point for feminists seeking to reengage with the tradition. Indeed, ff we recall questions one, two, and three: 1. Is a normative Jewish feminist theology possible? 2. Is it Jewish theology if the central traditional elements have been abandoned? 3. Is this actually theology at all? By staying 109 Judith Antonelli quoted by Ross, Expanding the Palace, 138. See Judith Antonelli, In the Image of God: A Feminist Commentary on the Torah (Northvale: Jason Aronson, 1997).

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within the tradition it is theoretically possible to add, over time, feminist discursive to its original sacred foundations without having to compromise the central, and standard, elements of traditional Judaism. Moreover, while this would not be in itself an independent “Jewish feminist theology,” the prescriptive and normative aspects of the tradition might accumulate new rituals and observances without inciting the accusation that these practices are not authentically Jewish. We might also remember, if we recall my fourth question: is subjective experience authentic, the tradition in itself is a product of “experience,” and its so called objectivity is nothing more than personal experience codified and canonized as divine. In the process of cumulative revelation, therefore, the personal and the individualistic might yet, theoretically, be assimilated to the tradition given time.

ROSEMARY RADFORD RUETHER: THEOLOGY AS SUBJECTIVE EXPERIENCE Eco-feminist Rosemary Radford Ruether, who is not Jewish, is a pioneer of feminist theology and has written extensively on Judaism and Christianity.110 She argues that the notion of “experience” attributed to feminist theology is not unique; rather, theologies labeled as objective – tradition and its scripture – are codified collective human experience. For Ruether, codified tradition reaches back to the roots of experience and is continuously renewed through experience. The concept of “experience” includes the divine presence, experience of oneself, and experience of the wider community and the world. Indeed, symbols, formulas, and laws are authenticated and interpreted through experience. Authoritative systems, however, attempt to reverse this relationship and make received symbols dictate what is to be experienced, and how this experience is to be interpreted. If a symbol, however, does not See Rosemary Radford Ruether, The Church Against Itself (New York: Herder and Herder, 1967); Rosemary Radford Ruether, Goddesses and The Divine Feminine: A Western Religious History (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005). 110

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speak authentically to experience it becomes invalid and must be transformed to renew its meaning. The uniqueness of feminist theology, Ruether argues, is not in its use of the criterion of experience, but rather in its employment of women’s experience. The use of women’s experience in theology thus exposes the deficiency of classical theologies that are based exclusively on male experience rather than on universal human knowledge. For Ruether, feminist theology allows the sociology of theology to become visible, no longer hidden behind authority and the divine deemed universal. Ruether suggests that all religious ideas begin with revelatory experience. Certainly, revelation starts with a single person, although in earlier cultures the breakthrough experience might have been mediated through a group of interpreters. Despite the prominence of the individual teacher, however, the revelatory experience is only socially meaningful when translated to the community. Hence, the revelatory experience must be successfully appropriated by the formative group who consequently teach the historical community. The formative group negotiates what is unique to the revelatory experience through cultural symbols. However, the original vision must be communicated and made relevant to symbols already current. The formative community that has taken on the revelatory experience gathers a historical community around the interpretation of the original vision. Subsequently, the process goes through the stages of oral and written teachings, leading to the emergence of teachers and leaders seeking to channel and control the process, and to eliminate those communities considered deviant to the growing tradition. The group defines an authoritative body of writing that is canonized and the leaders establish a “correct” way to interpret the corpus. Inevitably, the controlling group marginalizes and suppresses those members of the community considered heretical, or those who belong to a secondary authority. The religious tradition maintains its vitality as long as the revelatory pattern is reproduced across generations and continues to be relevant to the individuals of that community. Traditions, however, fall into crisis when the received interpretation contradicts the personal experience of the individuals among the collective. Exegetical criticism of the authoritative theological tradition can lead to new interpretations that accommodate new experience, although more radical breaks occur when the tradition itself is figured as corrupt. More so, further problems occur if the religious heritage is deemed frau-

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dulent, particularly if the nature of religious knowledge is seen to promote estrangement and alienation rather than integration.111 According to Rosemary Radford Ruether, theologically, whatever it is that denies the full humanity of women must be assumed not to reflect the divine or an actual relationship to God, or to be indicative of the nature of things, or to be the message of a community. Alternatively, for Ruether, the divine should reflect the full humanity of women, the true nature of things, and the authentic mission of the community. The meaning of this positive principle, however, is not known as traditional religion has so far only denigrated and marginalized women’s humanity.112 Ruether: Women, as the denigrated half of the human species, must reach for a continually expanding definition of inclusive humanity - inclusive of both genders, inclusive of all social groups and races. Any principle of religion or society that marginalizes one group of persons as less than fully human diminishes us all. In rejecting androcentrism (males as norms of humanity), women must also criticize all other forms of chauvinism: making white Westerners the norm of humanity, making Christians the norm of humanity, making privileged classes the norm of humanity. Women must also criticize humanocentrism, that is, making humans the norm and crown of creation in a way that diminishes the other beings in the community of creation.113

Tova Hartman has speculated on what happens when subjective experience contrasts with social norms grounded in objective religious “truths.” The traditionalist approach invests the texts and the writers of the canon with authority. If there is a contradiction, therefore, between the individual and their subjective experience, 111 Rosemary Radford Ruether, Sexism and God-Talk: Toward a Feminist Theology (Boston: Beacon Press, 1983), 12-17. 112 Ruether, Sexism and God-Talk, 19. 113 Ruether, Sexism and God-Talk, 20. Humanocentrism: an assumption that humans are the central element of the universe.

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and the tradition, the “problem” lies with the estranged religionist. She is to assume her experience is faulty as the “truth” is manifest and women must shape their lives around it. Indeed, the texts are holy, unchangeable, incarnations of the “truth” that define reality. As educators, women have the duty of either perpetuating or rejecting the tradition. For Hartman, the role of women in the tradition is understood through their normative and halakhic status, and through the images and metaphors of the non-legal elements of the tradition such as aggadah. Torah is most important in informing traditional Jewish culture. More than an intellectual pursuit, Torah is an intimate encounter with divine revelation. To be a scholar of the sacred texts was the highest religious aspiration, leading to scholars becoming authority figures in the community. The yeshiva, as an institution, was an intense educational environment and intended to nurture this type. The yeshiva was constitutive of the intellectual elite and central to the tradition, although women are excluded from this area of Jewish life. Indeed, as the culture of ongoing study and interpretation of the sacred texts became central to the community, women were excluded from the yeshiva and study of the Torah, and thus prevented from becoming active partners with men in the life of the community. Women, as the “weaker sex,” were sexually vulnerable, vain, and incapable of mastering the spiritual and intellectual disciplines necessary for Torah scholarship. The negative stereotypes that justified women’s exclusion from the community of scholars were substantiated by a positive female ideal that emphasized the virtues of self-sacrifice and devotion towards the man in order that he might pursue Torah study.114 These issues reflect the notion of control/possession and the ways in which men, and halakhah, controlled Jewish women in the past. In Judith Plaskow’s analysis of control and possession, she argues that the link between sex and spirit is not wholly absent from traditional Judaism. Indeed, for example: in the marriage bed on Shabbat night; in the Song of Songs;115 and in the mystical tradiHartman, Feminism Encounters Traditional Judaism, 20, 32-34. See Adler, Engendering Judaism; Marcia Falk, The Song of Songs: A New Translation and Interpretation (San Francisco: Harper, 1990). 114 115

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tion, sexual expression is integral to the Godhead, and is a path to, and image of, the holy. In practice and theology, however, Judaism undermines and turns away from this acknowledged connection by defining sexuality in terms of patriarchal control and possession.116 The Song of Songs/Solomon, possibly because of its erotic content, was not accepted into the canon without some dispute, although its traditional Solomonic authorship guaranteed its inclusion, particularly as its allegorical interpretation usurps the sensuous. For Plaskow: The central issues surrounding sexuality will necessarily be issues of control: Who has the right to control a particular woman’s sexuality in what situation? How can a man control his own sexual impulses, given the constant bombardment of female temptation? How can the law control women and the relations between men and women so that the danger of illicit sexual relations (relations with a woman whose sexuality is owned by some other man) is minimized? … What would it mean to develop a model of sexuality in a way that springs from and honors the experience of women? How can we develop a positive feminist discourse about sexuality in a Jewish context?117

In the Bible, marriage has two central features: the use of the term la-kahat (“to take”) to designate marriage, and the automatic connection between marriage (“taking”) and sexual relations.118 Family inequality, for Plaskow, is rendered plausible, and prepared by, larger social inequalities. The task of eradicating sexual inequality is an Plaskow, Standing Again at Sinai, 197. Plaskow, Standing Again at Sinai, 198. See Louis Epstein, Sex Laws and Customs in Judaism (New York: Ktav Publishing House, 1967); Maurice Lamm, The Jewish Way in Love and Marriage (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1980); Ora Hamelsdorf and Sandra Adelsberg, Women and Jewish Law: Bibliography (New York: Biblio Press, 1980); Judith Abrams, The Women of the Talmud (Northvale: Jason Aronson, 1995). 118 Rachel Biale, Women & Jewish Law: An Exploration of Women’s Issues in Halakhic Sources (New York: Schocken Books, 1984), 45. 116 117

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aspect of the wider feminist project of ending hierarchical separation as a model for communal life. Plaskow argues that the central task of the feminist reconstruction of Jewish attitudes towards sexuality is the transformation of the legal and institutional framework within which sexual relations supposedly take place. According to Plaskow, “marriage” will no longer be about the sanctification of potential disorder or the transfer of women through the strict establishment of the patriarchal family, but will be the result of a decision made by two adults; indeed, any two adults, to spend their lives together – lives that include sharing of sexuality. The restructuring of the legal framework, is based not only on the feminist rejection of hierarchy, but on the principle that sexuality is not something we can possess or acquire in another. Sexuality, for Plaskow, is not only about the self, but is fundamentally about branching out beyond ourselves. The power that can be generated by “real” community, that gives us access to greater power that grounds and embraces us, Plaskow argues, is partially our own sexual energy that flows through the community and enlarges it. We are all sexual person, men and women, who respond sexually to the persons with whom we live. In the rabbinic tradition, however, legislation attempts to protect against these recognized feelings, even though the rabbis acknowledge the sexual power of the community. In reality, nonetheless, it is true, according to Plaskow, that the power of sexuality threatens boundaries and overturns established rules. Thus, feminists must embrace this power as an ally. Plaskow suggests that when the erotic is understood as a life energy rather than merely as a sexual feeling, the owning of this power in our lives becomes even more threatening to established power structures. Having experienced our capacity for joyful and creative action, we are less inclined to accept hierarchical systems that restrict our ability to bring creativity to the various aspects of our lives.119

Plaskow, Standing Again at Sinai, 198-202. See Miriam Peskowitz, Spinning Fantasies: Rabbis, Gender, and History (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997); The Unfolding Tradition: Jewish Law After Sinai, ed. Elliot Dorff (New York: Aviv Press, 2005). 119

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For Rachel Adler, however, the unresolved tensions between woman as partner and woman as possession are indicative of the traditional liturgy upon which Jewish wedding ceremonies are based. Indeed, the ceremony consists of two main elements: the legal transaction in which the bride is acquired by an avowal of exclusive possession, followed by a celebration that analogizes the new marriage with the covenant between Israel and God. The legal definition, however, is derived from the property laws of the Talmud and categorizes women as a type of chattel over which the husband has rights.120 Again Plaskow: It may be that the ability of women to live within the patriarchal family and the larger patriarchal structures that given Jewish life depends on our suppression of the erotic, on our numbing ourselves to the sources of vision and power that fuel meaningful resistance. It may also be that the ability of Jews to live unobtrusively as a minority in a hostile culture has depended on blocking sources of personal power that might lead to resistance that feels foolish or frightening. Obviously, from a patriarchal perspective, then – or the perspective of any hierarchical system – erotic empowerment is dangerous.121

The feminist appropriation of the power of the erotic, for Plaskow, is a vital corrective to the rabbinic attitudes towards sexual control.122 The rabbis recognized the link between human creativity and sexual impulse. Judith Plaskow notes that to love God meant to love the divine with good and evil impulses. It was assumed that 120 Adler, Engendering Judaism, 169. See Judith Romney Wegner, Chattel or Person? The Status of Women in the Mishnah (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988); Leonard Swidler, Women in Judaism: The Status of Women in Formative Judaism (Metuchen: Scarecrow Press, 1976). 121 Plaskow, Standing Again at Sinai, 203. 122 Plaskow, Standing Again at Sinai, 203. See Jacob Neusner, How the Rabbis Liberated Women (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1998); Mimi Scarf, “Marriages Made in Heaven? Battered Jewish Wives,” in On Being A Jewish Feminist, 51-64.

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the so called evil impulses could be reined in without diminishing one’s love for the divine. If we take our sexuality more seriously, however, regarding it as an expression of our embodiment that cannot be disconnected from our ability to interact with feeling, then to experience shame and fear of our bodies, and those of others, is to learn suspicion of feeling as a basic way of valuing and knowing the world. According to Plaskow, we should therefore not expect to be able to block out our sexual impulses without blocking out the yearning for social relations rooted not in hierarchy, but in mutuality; without blocking out the frustration that warns us something is amiss in the current social order; and without blocking, or at least distorting, the fullness of our love for the divinity.123 The question becomes, for Plaskow: Can we affirm our sexuality as the gift it is, making it sacred not by cordoning off pieces of it, but by increasing our awareness of the ways in which it connects us to all things? Can we stop evicting our sexuality from the synagogue, hiding it behind a mechitzah or praying with our heads, and instead bring it in, offering it to God in the experience of full spiritual/physical connection? Dare we trust our capacity for joy – knowing it is related to our sexuality – to point the direction toward new and different ways of structuring communal life?124

According to Plaskow, a new understanding of sexuality, along with a transformation of the institutional context of sexual relationships, will have a major impact on personal sexual norms. Plaskow reminds, however, that her rejection of the rabbinic energy/control model of sexuality is by no means an endorsement of a sexual ethic of “anything goes.” Plaskow suggests that the unification of spirituality and sexuality is only a mere possibility, kept alive by the exercise of respect, honesty, and responsibility as basic values in a sexual relationship. As an aspect of our life energy, sexuality en123 124

Plaskow, Standing Again at Sinai, 204. Plaskow, Standing Again at Sinai, 205.

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gages us with God, according to Plaskow, and by reaching out to another sexually with the total self we become united with greater energy currents. Moreover, the all-embracing quality of sexual expression that includes feelings, mind, and body, is perhaps the closest humans can come to experiencing the totality of God. Alternatively, Plaskow contends, the bonds of community are also erotic connections through which we can reach the God of community, creating a space in which the divine can rest. Indeed, for Plaskow, feminist images portray female sexuality as powerful and analogous to the image of God.125 As we have seen, Rosemary Radford Ruether argues that if theological symbols and imagery no longer speak to experience they must be renewed. Tova Hartman similarly laments that if there is a contradiction between the Jewish tradition and the individual, the problem, paradoxically, lies with the alienated religionist. Indeed, the sacred texts (if one is committed to remaining within Orthodoxy) supposedly define “reality.” This is related to issues of control and possession and negative stereotypes of women used to justify their exclusion from the community of scholars. Judith Plaskow builds on these themes; she argues that despite the issue of control, the connection between sex and spirit is not absent from the tradition. For Plaskow, the power of female sexuality might be used as life energy to reject hierarchical systems and to experience the totality of God. These issues are important because if subjective experience is out of sync with the tradition, then, inevitably, something has to give. Hartman argues that “those who reaffirm, those who reject, and those who reinterpret Jewish tradition are all challenging contemporary religious communities. But only reinterpreters constitute a community that is bound together not by their solutions to different religious problems but by accepting the validity of the questions.”126 Indeed, for Hartman there is compromise, even room, for traditionalists and “reinterpreters” in the Orthodox community. For Plaskow, however, it is about the necessary rejection of hierarchy, and the experience of the divine in female sexuality through symbolic language such as beautiful, womb, and birth125 126

Plaskow, Standing Again at Sinai, 205, 207, 210. Hartman, Feminism Encounters Traditional Judaism, 44.

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giver.127 The question remains, nevertheless, that if we reduce God to human actions, such as sexual intercourse, to feminine imagery, and to community, surely God, and I have said this earlier more than once, is no longer deity, but something else. In fact, is there any necessity for the divine in Plaskow’s theology of community? We will now explore a different way of doing theology. Midrash is a quintessentially Jewish method of biblical exegesis that has been used by Jews, Christians, and secular writers since the destruction of the Second Temple. Its current revitalization, however, is mainly down to Jewish feminism’s use of this hermeneutical tool.

FEMINIST MIDRASH Midrash is an open-ended method of textual interpretation that can be applied to any scriptural text, although even the rabbis used this hermeneutical tool for non-biblical readings. Midrash (plural: Midrashim) means “inquiry,” “investigation,” or preaching. The root of the word translates to “root out” or “to search.” The classical midrash (capitalized) of the rabbis, including its biblical commentaries that were compiled between the third and eleventh-centuries CE, is split between two major collections: Mekhilta, or “rules of interpretation,” Sifra or “book,” and Sifrei (plural); the other being Midrash Rabbah. Midrash involves elaboration, imagination, and metaphor, but is entirely different to historical and philological perspectives that aim to discover the context in which a given text is produced, or the meaning intended. Midrash can take the form of sermons, lectures, comments, commentaries, letters, and loose notes. The eclectic nature of the Midrash, and its multiple opinions and perspectives, ensure that it cannot be considered a coherent commentary on the Torah. Moreover, the authority of Midrash is perhaps marginal given the precedence of halakhah in the tradition. Midrash, as a method of biblical exegesis, allowed the rabbis to apply their own questions to scripture and decipher biblical passages that were troubling. Indeed, they located answers that dem127

Plaskow, Standing Again at Sinai, 210.

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onstrate the perpetual significance of biblical truth. Judith Plaskow notes that these questions included issues such as who was Adam’s first wife? Why was Abraham chosen to be the father of the Jewish people? Why was Dinah raped? These do not require historical investigation; instead, creative interpretation and literary amplification is required. Indeed, midrash need not have any historical basis.128 The rabbis used Midrash to explain aspects and sections of a biblical text that were confusing. They attempted to fill in missing scenes, and tried to reinterpret a biblical text containing an unnecessary passage or word, or they attempted to explain two passages that were contradictory.129 The largest collection of Midrash, the Midrash Rabbah (The Great Midrash) of aggadah (legends/folklore), was published in the sixteenth-century. Within this collection, the rabbis produced fanciful, speculative, and fantastic Midrashim using puns, prompts, derash (inquire/seek), remez (hints), and mystery (sod), while at the same time linking distant biblical passages. But midrash as method need not be complicated. The rabbis themselves searched for the literal or plain meaning of a biblical text (peshat), or chose to analyze a specific law (din). Midrash is not necessarily meant to be taken seriously, despite the fact that even a few words can develop into a lengthy philosophical debate spanning centuries. The appeal of midrash for Jewish feminists is that the possibilities are endless. A particular text can be analyzed from an original, even personal perspective, and an unusual or totally unexpected conclusion might be drawn. The overriding theme, however, is to ensure that a particular midrash is relevant to the reader, and that it speaks “to us in our idiom.”130 Indeed, the concept of feminist midrash has been taken up in earnest by Jewish feminists.

Plaskow, Standing Again at Sinai, 53, 55. See Jacob Neusner, Midrash in Context: Exegesis in Formative Judaism (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1983). 130 Naomi Graetz, S/He Created Them: Feminist Retellings of Biblical Stories (1993; rpt. Piscataway: Gorgias Press, 2003), 1. 128 129

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Judith Plaskow has re-imagined the Eve and Lilith story;131 Ellen Umansky retells the sacrifice of Isaac from Sarah’s viewpoint;132 Lynn Gottlieb has written about Miriam seeking healing, and of Esther’s experience of being a crypto-Jew;133 while Anita Diamant in her popular novel, The Red Tent, imagines the story of Dinah in a fictionalized account.134 Jewish feminists have created both orally and in writing midrashim that explore and tell stories connecting history and religious experience.135 For Naomi Graetz, midrash flourishes today mainly thanks to feminism.136 But more than this, as Plaskow argues, a specific midrash can denote multiple ways of being Jewish that appeal to varying dimensions of Jewish selves by accommodating what different groups and individuals seek in relation to gender justice.137 Midrash is primarily a tool for Jewish feminists to reconnect with the biblical narrative, to seek out new meanings, fill in the missing gaps in the androcentric text, and re-appropriate a historical figure for a feminist context. According to Tirzah Firestone it is vital that the sacred texts are “humanized.” Midrash, Firestone argues, avoids the rigor of theology: Midrash, not theology, is the way Jewish texts will speak to women in human language that is accessible and timely. Midrash in an invitation for Jewish feminists to reenter the myth131 See Judith Plaskow, in The Coming of Lilith: Essays on Feminism, Judaism, And Sexual Ethics, 1972-2003, eds. Judith Plaskow and Donna Berman (Boston: Beacon Press, 2005), 31-32. 132 See Umansky, “Creating a Jewish Feminist Theology,” 195-97. 133 See Lynn Gottlieb, “The Secret Jew: An Oral Tradition of Women,” Conservative Judaism 30, no. 3 (Spring 1976): 59-62. 134 Anita Diamant, The Red Tent (London: Macmillan, 2001). See also Taking the Fruit: Modern Women’s Tales of the Bible, 2nd ed., ed. Jane Zones (1981; rpt. San Diego: Woman's Institute for Continuing Jewish Education, 1989); Muriel Rukeyser, “Miriam: The Red Sea,” in Breaking Open (New York: Random House, 1973), 22. 135 Plaskow, Standing Again at Sinai, 53-54. 136 Graetz, S/He Created Them, 1. 137 Plaskow, in Ross and Plaskow, “The View from Here,” 214, 216, 228.

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ical soul of our tradition – so long cast through the prism of men’s relationships to God and one another.138

Firestone laments that in the past decade “I have found students to be less engaged in theological speculation, less God focused, and more skeptical.” For her, the focus is now the Torah “that lives in our bellies.”139 Firestone: It could be that Jewish feminist theological discourse is waning now because our meta-questions have changed. In a world where Jewish faith is rapidly declining, the question is not so much about how to talk about God, but about whether an external deity exists at all.140

For Jill Hammer, midrash is liberating and comforting for women as it is a way of “remembering” ourselves in the Torah. What is more, midrash is a way, according to Hammer, of telling the story of relationship with God. Hammer: “I write midrash as a way of speaking to God, of exploring what I believe about the divine.” Hammer cites Isaac Luria as a strong influence on her theology. She argues that the world is broken and requires a renewed partnership between God and humans in order to repair it. 141 Jill Hammer is the director of spiritual education at the Academy for Jewish Religion. Hammer is also a co-facilitator of Kohenet, a women’s leadership program that explores aspects of the Goddess in the rabbinic and biblical texts. For Hammer, defining

138 Tirzah Firestone, “Transforming Our Stories through Midrash,” in New Jewish Feminism, 116. 139 Firestone, “Transforming Our Stories,” 118. See Ellen Frankel, The Five Books of Miriam: A Woman’s Commentary on the Torah (New York: G. P. Putnam, 1996); Judith Gates and Gail Reimer, Reading Ruth: Contemporary Women Reclaim a Sacred Story (New York: Ballantine Books: 1996). 140 Firestone, “Transforming Our Stories,” 118. 141 Jill Hammer, Sisters at Sinai: New Tales of Biblical Women (Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society, 2001), xiv-xv, 248.

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the Goddess is difficult – it is non-dualistic, holistic, and immanent, divine-within-nature, and feminine.142 Hammer: The Jewish project of Goddess reclamation is not so much an introduction to a new concept as an acknowledgment that she has been here all along. It cannot be denied that the circle of life the Goddess represents is a departure from the rewardand-punishment theology of Deuteronomy and from the inexplicably hidden face of the God of history.143

In Hammer’s midrash, “The Mirrors,” Miriam reveals that God is imaged as both male and female: “Each of you is made in the image of God,” Miriam explained. “Your soul and your speech are like God’s, and your body is God’s dwelling place. Each of you embodies the divine Presence in a different way. When you look into your mirror, you see a woman, but you also see the Divine image. If a man were to look into your mirror, he would see a man, but he would also see God.”144

We see here how midrash can incorporate theological discursive; in this case, a gender inclusive multi-imaged deity. Hammer argues that while those who have not experienced the Goddess may see her as threatening, Jews who have met her are able to integrate her into authentically Jewish lives.145 In The Nakedness of the Fathers, poet and scholar Alicia Suskin Ostriker argues that “Not surprisingly, many midrashists today are

Hammer, “To Her We Shall Return,” 22, 24. Hammer, “To Her We Shall Return,” 33. 144 Hammer, Sisters at Sinai, 136. 145 Hammer, “To Her We Shall Return,” 34. 142 143

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women; we should expect many more in the future.”146 In her midrashic approach to the Torah, Ostriker creates “A Prayer to the Shekhinah”: Come be our Mother Come be our bride Come be our dwelling Come be our game Come be our punishment Come be our ocean Come be our victory Come be our laughter Come be our Shekhinah

we are your young ones we are your lover we are your inhabitants we are your players we are your sinners we are your swimmers we are your army we are your story we are your glory147

Alternatively, Naomi Graetz’s “Beginnings” retells the story of Adam and Eve and their expulsion from the Garden: “We have nowhere to go, no plans. Please let us in,” they implored. They pleaded with the guards. Surely if they cried enough someone would take pity on them and let them return. But their entreaties were in vain. The angels remained stiffly unmoving at their stations, swords in front of them. … Eve and Adam finally gave up and started to walk away sadly from the Garden of Eden. Adam bitterly regretted that his need for another human being had led to this. If only she had not been created! Because of her I have been punished and have lost my home.148

Graetz’s midrashim are metaphorical. She employs aspects of the novel including extended conversation, characterization, evocative Alicia Suskin Ostriker, The Nakedness of the Fathers: Biblical Visions and Revisions (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1997), xiii. 147 Ostriker, The Nakedness, 253. 148 Graetz, S/He Created Them, 7. 146

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contextualization, interior monologues, and focuses on issues such as motherhood, gossip, rape, and the aging process. Graetz: “For me the purpose of contemporary Midrash is threefold. It address itself to the biblical text, which cries out darsheni, interpret me! Secondly, it makes the Bible relevant to an audience that does not overly care about its biblical roots. Finally, it serves my need to relate to a text, which I perceive as flowing over with hidden meanings.”149 The essential purpose of midrash is textual interpretation and commentary on the sacred texts. According to Judith Plaskow, midrash, therefore, can bring new perspectives and questions to the traditional texts: Midrash has been a favorite tool for feminist reinterpretation of tradition. Just as the rabbis brought their own questions to the Bible and resolved contradictions or filled in silences in biblical texts, so feminists have approached the Bible with new questions, often, though not always, centering on the lives and experiences of women. Where was Sarah when Abraham took the child of her old age to offer her as sacrifice on top of Mount Moriah? Why did Lot’s wife look back as the family fled from Sodom? How did Miriam feel as she stood at the shores of the Red Sea about to lead the women across, or when she and Aaron both challenged the authority of Moses, but only she was punished with leprosy?150

More so, midrash is a valuable tool for reflection on the divine and an alternative to complex theological language. Tirzah Firestone:

Graetz, S/He Created Them, 5. Judith Plaskow, “Jewish Feminism,” in Encyclopedia of Women and Religion in North America, vol. 3, eds. Rosemary Skinner Keller, Rosemary Radford Ruether, and Marie Cantlon (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2006), 1225. See The Torah: A Women’s Commentary, eds. Tamara Cohn Eskenazi and Andrea Weiss (New York: URI Press, 2008), in particular the section “Voices.” 149 150

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The process of creating midrash might be likened to a laughing brook. While it nourishes, it also stimulates and delights. While it avoids the academic rigor of theology and skirts the intensity required for more in-depth intellectual study, in its own playful way, midrash creates a container for women to use Jewish narrative as a springboard to engage with the world and their changing reality within it.151

Thus, the value of feminist midrash (a proportion of which is still unpublished) is perhaps its accessibility, its will to imagination, and its limitless focus. Indeed, its subjective, pluralistic nature, its focus on the individual experience of women, its interpretive liberty, and its open-ended nature particularly suits the re-appropriation of biblical narratives, heroines, and thematic for feminist contexts. Moreover, the contemporary language in both its form and gender inclusionary, egalitarian nature is singularly more appealing to those alienated/estranged by the sacred texts and the tradition itself, including its rituals and observances.

CONCLUSION: PLURALITY AND THE FEMINIST LOSS OF GOD In this chapter we have explored a number of theological perspectives, their application, relevance, and form in light of the five analytical questions set forth in the preface. Inevitably, however, reflections on the divine expressed in stories and midrash cannot be analyzed as being in any way prescriptive; rather, they are subjective projections, though no less, they are foundational, to be enjoyed, read, interpreted, built upon, and added to. The growth of the Jewish feminist corpus can only help its theological “project.” Indeed, for Susannah Heschel theology can function on two levels: first, by critically examining a specific religious tradition; second, by creating

151

Firestone, “Transforming Our Stories,” 116.

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new interpretations of its meaning.152 Feminist theology can trace the exclusion of women from Judaism’s sacred texts, its liturgy, language, and ritual observances. Moreover, theology can develop new understandings of traditional Judaism that will support feminist values and provide Jewish women with the opportunity to participate in a full range of religious expressions.153 Heschel: Theology brings the problems and questions of our human experience to its reading of specific religious traditions, which themselves constitute the questions and responses of earlier generations. Neither theology nor the most sacred texts can claim to be the unmediated word or will of God; rather, theological interpretation presents the understandings of that word and will by a particular generation, transmitted, often not without distortion, to later generations. Many of the particular questions and demands now being raised by feminists did not arise earlier in Jewish history, at least as far as we know; even today there is often silence or rejection when women’s problems are brought to bear upon Jewish tradition.154

Judaism is centered upon texts and observances, with most Jewish theology expressed through interpretations of rabbinic and biblical texts and commentaries. These interpretations are rarely systematic, although they do purvey important theological messages of revelation, redemption, and human life. Likewise, critical treatises exam152 Heschel, who is the daughter of Abraham Joshua Heschel, is the Eli Black Associate Professor of Jewish Studies at Dartmouth University. She has written extensively on diverse Jewish topics; see Insider/Outsider: American Jews and Multiculturalism, eds. David Biale, Michael Galchinsky and Susannah Heschel (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998); Susannah Heschel, The Aryan Jesus: Christian Theologians and the Bible in Nazi Germany (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008); Susannah Heschel, Abraham Geiger and the Jewish Jesus (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998). 153 Heschel, introduction (III) in On Being a Jewish Feminist, 217. 154 Heschel, introduction (III), 217.

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ine the same theological concerns in more nuanced form. Much of the feminist theological reflections and discourse of the 1970s has been comparable, and includes not only critical analysis of Judaism’s central issues, but also poetry, midrash, and liturgy based on the sacred texts. Heschel identifies Jewish experience with Western culture in general, by which male experience is constitutive of humanity. For women to engage in theology, Heschel argues, there are several questions of method to address: Clearly, Judaism has no single, normative tradition, but contains a diversity of often conflicting and even contradictory tenets. Similarly, Jewish experience leaves room for manifold and diverse expression. Yet all these teachings are homogeneous inasmuch as they have been formulated only by Jewish men. The fact that women have not participated in the writing of Jewish theology is far more than an accident. It reflects and supports the long unquestioned patriarchal basis of Western culture: to identify human experience as male experience. How can we uncover the source of women’s exclusion from Judaism? How can women’s spirituality be expressed in Jewish religious language? How can Jewish tradition be interpreted and even transformed by the feminist perspective?155

For Heschel, diversity is paramount: “our relations should be with the diversity and totality of Jewish tradition, unmediated by one of its modern forms. There are no doors, there are no guards. Through theological exploration Judaism can belong to all who desire it.”156 Similarly, Karyn Kedar agrees that there are many voices through which we describe what is beyond description: God. Kedar argues that our God-language has failed us. Indeed, any problem we have with God is reducible to the metaphors, words, and stories we use to describe the divine; effectively something beyond description. Therefore, if we create a deity who is biased, sexist, 155 156

Heschel, introduction (III), 218. Heschel, introduction (I) to On Being a Jewish Feminist, li.

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limited, perhaps even immoral, instead of rejecting the divine, we need to reject our own concept that makes God seem this way. Even the rabbinic tradition warns religionists not to take literally what we see and hear. There are many voices used to describe what is beyond description. For the rabbis, each voice speaks according to a subjective and limited vantage point and perspective. The rabbis assume that each of us “hears” the reality of God according to our own personal strength,157 as in Exodus Rabbah 29:1: I am the Lord your God. … It is written, has a people ever heard the voice of God? … (Deuteronomy 4:33) … Rabbi Levi explained: Had it said “the voice of God is in His strength,” the world would not be able to survive, but it says instead: the voice of God is in strength (Psalm 29:4) – that is, according to the strength of each individual, the young, the old, and the very small ones. God said to Israel: “Do not believe that there are deities in heaven because you have heard many voices, but know that I alone am the Lord your God, as it says, I am the Lord your God.” (Deuteronomy 5:6)158

Indeed, the various images of God disseminated by Jewish feminists have distorted focus on the traditional deity to the extent that the God of Sinai has been lost behind a thick multi-layer of metaphors and visualizations. According to Elyse Goldstein, Jewish feminism has altered concepts of the divine, and of the Jewish self, and has developed a different language through which women can approach God. The divine, for feminists, became about birth, moon, and mothering imagery, leading to questions of the divine image that incorporate women. Goldstein notes that the writing of foundational theologies, and the feminist corrective to the patriarchal nature of the tradition, developed along with consideration of political and ecological concerns. She laments, however: “We gained a new theological vocabulary, but in doing so we lost God

157 158

Karyn Kedar, “Metaphors of God,” in New Jewish Feminism, 35, 40. Midrash Rabbah 29:1 quoted by Kedar, “Metaphors of God,” 40.

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the Father, and some feel adrift and bereft of those comforting childhood notions.”159 Since the Second-Wave of feminist action, the foundational theologies examined in this book have not been written forward or added to with any major work. Indeed, this study, with its focus on Second-Wave Jewish feminist theology, by default, is a study of Jewish feminist exposition on the divine, in toto. In the following chapter, we will explore the reasons why the feminist theological project has become stagnant, and if a prescriptive feminist theology of Judaism is even a feasible or necessary exercise, particularly when the daughters of the Second-Wave seem little interested in theology.

159

Elyse Goldstein, New Jewish Feminism, xxii-xxiii.

5 THE ABANDONMENT OF THE JEWISH THEOLOGICAL TRADITION AND ITS ESCHATOLOGICAL PREMISES I had hoped that Jewish feminists would give the lie to the notion that theology is not a Jewish mode of expression by eagerly embracing it and producing a wide range of theologies that would open up new conversations within the Jewish community. But it turns out that Jewish feminists haven’t done formal theology either, and if there is going to be a blossoming of Jewish feminist theologies, it belongs to the future.1

The above comment is Judith Plaskow looking back on the Second-Wave. In this chapter, having reviewed the individual theologians of Second-Wave Jewish feminism, we will explore the implications of abandoning the central elements of the tradition and its theology, including the rejection of hierarchy, supernaturalism, otherness, and Jewish particularism. Moreover, the lack of focus on revelation, eschatology, transcendence, Jewish destiny, and holiness whether hierarchical or through act of will (kedushah).2 To this day, of the Jewish feminist theologians, only Plaskow, Rachel Adler, Melissa Raphael,3 and Tamar Ross have published full length the-

1 Judith Plaskow, “Calling All Theologians,” in New Jewish Feminism: Probing the Past, Forging the Future, ed. Elyse Goldstein (Woodstock: Jewish Lights Publishing, 2009), 3. 2 See David Blumenthal, Facing the Abusing God: A Theology of Protest ((London: John Knox Press, 1993), 25. 3 Melissa Raphael is English not American.

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ologies.4 Adler draws on theoretical discussions of halakhah, prayer, textual interpretation, sexual imagery, and marriage.5 Ross explores notions of cumulative revelation (this process is not dissimilar to Rebecca Alpert’s “Historical Approach”) that draw on Abraham Isaac Kook,6 though does not present a feminist theology per se; rather, she develops a process of accumulating beyond the foundations of the Sinaitic revelation that allows feminists to build upon the tradition while accepting that its patriarchal foundation, although unpleasant, was necessary for the time. Finally, Plaskow roots her own theology in community, historiography, prayer, ritual, and midrash. Indeed, for Plaskow the strength of Jewish feminist theology is the fact that it deals with concrete issues in Jewish life.7 The initial focus of this monograph was Second-Wave Jewish feminism in the United States, but its limited theological scope expanded the discussion to include Anglo-Jewish theologian, Raphael, whose Female Face of God in Auschwitz is not intended to be a prescriptive theology (her ongoing commentary and analysis of Jewish feminist theology makes her work vital to this study), and Ross who is an Orthodox (Third-Wave?) Israeli feminist and has developed perhaps the only solidly traditional response to the liberalistic theologies of the Second-Wave. Indeed, the SecondWave’s focus on ritual, liturgy, and gender exclusionism, indeed, See Melissa Raphael, The Female Face of God in Auschwitz: A Jewish Feminist Theology of the Holocaust (London: Routledge, 2003); Judith Plaskow, Standing Again at Sinai: Judaism from a Feminist Perspective (1990; rpt. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1991). 5 See Rachel Adler, Engendering Judaism: An Inclusive Theology and Ethics (Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society, 1998). See Saul Berman, “The Status of Women in Halakhic Judaism,” Tradition 14 (Winter 1973): 5-28; David Feldman, “Women’s Role and Jewish Law,” Conservative Judaism 26 (Summer 1972): 29-39. 6 Kook argues that God is not an-other being as En Sof (in Kabbalah, the deity prior to manifestation in the world) transcends all anthropomorphisms. To image God as a specific being was, for Kook, idolatrous and primitive (Karen Armstrong, A History of God: from Abraham to the Present: the 4000-Year Quest for God (London: Vintage Books, 1999), 439). 7 Plaskow, “Calling All Theologians,” 4-5, 7-8. 4

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the praxis approach, has marginalized the sacral, eschatological elements of traditional Judaism, such as divine judgment, messianic redemption, afterlife, and resurrection; certainly a strength for communal reform, perhaps, though in terms of theology, a downfall. The eschatological tradition is vital to Judaism. Indeed, the tradition acknowledges a sense of dissatisfaction with life either as the life of the whole Jewish people or as the entirety of humanity, and looks forward to a time when these will be perfected. This hope is absolutely fundamental to Judaism,8 as we see in the daily Amida: You are eternally powerful, Lord, you are the Reviver of the Dead, and a great rescuer, loving sustainer of the living and merciful reviver of the dead, supporter of the falling, healer of the sick, liberator of the captives, and trustworthy to those who sleep in the earth. … Sound the great trumpet for our liberation, raise high the banner to summon home our exiles, and gather us together from the four corners of the world. … Restore our judges as in former times and our counselors as in the beginning, remove from us sorrow and sighing, and rule over us yourself alone, lord, with love and compassion, judging us justly. Blessed are you, Lord, Lover of justice and judgment. … And return with compassion to your city Jerusalem, and dwell within it as you have promised; rebuild it forever, quickly in our own lifetime, and set up there again the throne of David soon. … Blessed are you, Lord, Victorious Rescuer.9

8 Nicholas de Lange, Judaism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987), 126. 9 Daily Amida, quoted by de Lange, Judaism, 125. See Michael Berger, Rabbinic Authority (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998).

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Traditional Judaism, however, does not provide any systematic teaching about a Jewish destiny that awaits the individual or the people of Israel, or the human race. The ancient rabbis inherited from the Bible the notion of covenant; an ancient unbreakable bond between God and the Jewish people which ensured prosperity so long as the commandments were obeyed. Even in the midst of captivity God remembers his people. Indeed, the prophetic message of the Day of the Lord invokes divine intervention that can bring an end to oppression, arrogance, and religious indifference. The righteous will be rewarded and a period of justice and peace will be ushered in. In another vision, the kingdom of David is restored, with Jerusalem serving as the center of the world for the nations to come in search of God. Rabbinic Judaism looks to a future Messiah, or “anointed one,” who will bring about national redemption in the “days of the Messiah.” Indeed, in the Kaddish recited by mourners: “Magnified and sanctified be his great name in the world which he crated according to his will. May he establish his kingdom in your life and days, and in the lifetime of all the house of Israel, speedily and soon.” The days of the Messiah are this worldly, although the Coming Age is a fundamental transformation in the order of creation. There is little information on the Coming Age, as compared to the speculation about the Messiah. The rabbis, however, place strong emphasis on the Coming Age in their teachings. Indeed, the features of human life which derive from humanity’s animalistic nature will be removed, along with the inclination to do evil, and men will become angel-like, living eternally. This hope for the culmination of human existence is characteristic of traditional Judaism. Despite the yearning for afterlife, nonetheless, Judaism is generally a worldly religion. Following death, souls of the righteous are dispatched to the Garden of Eden, while the wicked undergo punishment in Gehinom. The coming of the Messiah will be preceded by crisis, including the war of Gog and Magog,10 and the return of Elijah.11 Eventually, the dead will Gog and Magog should be seen as eschatological figures rather than being actually historically identifiable. 11 Elijah was a ninth-century BC prophet associated with the struggle between Baal and God. 10

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be resurrected and judged alongside the living, and the survivors will then live eternally in the Coming Age. Moses Maimonides insisted that the ultimate reward associated with the Coming Age is the spiritual reunion of the soul with the divine. Moreover, the punishment for wrongdoing is eradication of the soul. The only way to achieve eternal life is through the strict observance of the mitzvot. The Lurianic Kabbalah suggests that Jewish Messianism is about man’s duty to perform the mitzvot with the precise mystical intention so as to release the trapped sparks and restore them to the divine origin. With this process complete, redemption will come to mankind, the cosmos, and even God. Similarly, the early Hasidim taught that the individual has his own specific tasks of tikkun to perform; his own sparks which require liberation. If he fails with these tasks in his current lifetime, he will be reincarnated to ensure his work is completed in another body.12 These aforesaid eschatological elements have been central to Jewish understanding since Sinai; any self-identified theology that neglects these aspects of the tradition will surely be missing a vital part of the Jewish jigsaw, a gaping hole that will require filling.

THE INITIAL CHALLENGE The initial challenge was for Jewish feminists to destroy old myths about Jews not doing theology, but the reality was that, according to Judith Plaskow in retrospect, “Jewish feminists haven’t done formal theology either.”13 Plaskow’s self-declared theology is based on the idea of woman as other in traditional Judaism: if God is male and constitutive of humanity then how can women be any-

12 De Lange, Judaism, 126-30, 132-33. See Ada Rapoport-Alpert, “On Women and Hasidism: S. A. Horodecky and the Maid of Ludmir Tradition,” in Jewish History: Essays in Honor of Chimen Abramsky, ed. Ada Rapoport-Alpert, Chimen Abramsky, and Steven Zipperstein (London: P. Halban, 1988). 13 Plaskow, “Calling All Theologians,” 3.

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thing more than other?14 Standing Again at Sinai, as we have seen, neglects to examine the integral eschatological elements of traditional Judaism, such as being under judgment; nor does Plaskow consider issues such as to be subject to God’s mitzvot. Rather, Plaskow justifies Judaism to women on relational, rather than specifically theological grounds. Moreover, twenty years after Standing Again at Sinai, the daughters of the Second-Wave seem little interested in theology.15 The Second-Wave of Jewish feminism, perhaps at the outset, was germane to the creation of a gendered theology, at least in theory. The actual Jewish feminist theological project, however, lacked structure, shape, and direction. Indeed, even today, feminist theologians, often self-styled,16 continue to disagree over proper subject matter, methods, categories, and sources.17 Donna Berman notes that Jewish theology was originally written by men for men. Jewish theology, however, is never referred to as “male” theology. When women undertake theology that accounts for their experiences and needs, however, it is labeled “feminist” theology. The real goal of feminist theology, according to Berman, is to create a path for everyone.18 This is an ambitious claim. Problematically, the work of Second-Wave Jewish feminist theologians, and their daughters, and even granddaughters, has been limited by the range of Jewish feminist religious and theological sources available, particularly given the propensity of Jewish 14 Judith Plaskow, “The Right Question is Theological,” in On Being A Jewish Feminist: A Reader, ed. Susannah Heschel (1983; rpt. New York: Schocken Books, 1995), 226-28. See Paula Hyman, “The Other Half: Women in the Jewish Tradition,” Response 18 (Summer 1973): 67-75. 15 See Melissa Raphael, “Standing at a Demythologized Sinai? Reading Jewish Feminist Theology Through the Critical Lens of Radical Orthodoxy,” in Interpreting the Postmodern: Responses to “Radical Orthodoxy,” eds. Rosemary Radford Ruether and Marion Grau (New York: T & T Clark, 2006), 197-214; Yentl’s Revenge: The Next Wave of Jewish Feminism, ed. Danya Ruttenberg (New York: Seal Press, 2001). 16 By “self-styled” I mean not theologically trained. 17 Adler, Engendering Judaism, xviii. 18 Donna Berman, “Major Trends in Jewish Feminist Theology: The Work of Rachel Adler, Judith Plaskow, and Rebecca Alpert,” in New Jewish Feminism, 12-13.

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feminists to discourse on personal, subjective experience.19 The dichotomy, however, between “women’s experience” and “authentic” Judaism has been an obstacle to Jewish women doing theology.20 Jewish feminists, wholly or in part, alienated from the tradition, have focused, generally, on the historical Jewish woman who can through her personal experience and immediate social circle suggest alternative models of God, and unconditioned interpretations of the biblical and aggadic texts. The postmodernist refusal of normativity, however, has rendered a prescriptive Jewish feminist theology impossible for the majority of Jewish women. Indeed, Melissa Raphael concludes that Jewish feminism has emptied Judaism of theology. Historically, Jewish feminist theology is a postHolocaust construal that assumes, following the horror of Auschwitz, that Judaism can no longer be justified through classical faith in the traditional God of Sinai; neither can Judaism be sustained by the Reform assumption that Judaism underpins the moral and ethical structures of Western civilization.21 Jewish feminist theology can only justify Judaism to women on the basis of its prophetic concern for social justice, of its being a spiritual connector between the foremothers of the current generation of Jewish women and their daughters, and as an imaginal and ritual focus for communal identity.22 Raphael: But to varying degrees all types of Jewish feminism have joined the quest of liberal modernity and liberal Jewish feminism and have focused on women’s religious liberation, their equality of religious opportunity, and their capacity to reorient the tradiRaphael, “Standing at a Demythologized Sinai,” 209-10 n39. The two categories are taken from Adler’s Engendering Judaism, xix. 21 See Reform Judaism: a Historical Perspective, Essays from the Yearbook of the Central Conference of American Rabbis, ed. Joseph Blau (New York: Ktav, 1973); Reform Judaism: Essays on Reform Judaism in Britain, ed. Dow Marmur (London: Reform Synagogues of Great Britain, 1973). 22 Raphael, “Standing at a Demythologized Sinai,” 200-01, 207 n27, 209-10, 214. See Daphne Hampson, Theology and Feminism (Cambridge: Blackwell, 1990); Arthur Green, “Keeping Feminist Creativity Jewish,” Sh’ma, 16, no. 305 (January 10, 1986), 33-35. 19 20

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SECOND-WAVE JEWISH FEMINISM tion toward the practical needs and conditions of their own lives. Even Orthodox feminist scholars deploy the same historical methods of modern liberal theology.23

Raphael argues that there needs to be articulation of the transformative immanence of the divine presence; the transcendent, and the holy that has been marginalized by feminist theologies fearful of instituting any sense of hierarchy.24 Modern and postmodern Jewish history is characterized by the quest for an alternative to halakhic/traditional/rabbinic Judaism. Alternatives have included secular Zionism, assimilationism, Reformism, New Age Judaism’s,25 mystical approaches, Reconstructionism, Renewalism (this list is not exhaustive). The idea of a feminist Judaism, however, is perhaps an oxymoron,26 given that some feminists consider the tradition androcentric, retrogressive, and largely irredeemable.27 Moreover, the creation of groups and spiritual collectives composed of women without theological training has proffered little with regard to the creation of a Jewish feminist theology;28 that is, any para-doctrinal Jewish and feminist discourse on God as the basis of its values and practices. The post-Holocaust, and post or late-modern, decline in the collective authority of the sacred texts of Western civilization

Raphael, “Standing at a Demythologized Sinai,” 199. Raphael, “Standing at a Demythologized Sinai,” 199. See T. Drorah Setel, “Feminist Reflections on Separation and Unity in Jewish Theology,” Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion 2 (Spring 1986): 113-18. 25 Ross, Expanding the Palace, 136-37. 26 See Phyllis Trible, “Eve and Miriam: from the Margins to the Centre,” in Feminist Approaches to the Bible, eds. Phyllis Trible et al. (Washington: Biblical Archaeology Society, 1995), 5-26. 27 See Leonard Swidler, Women in Judaism: The Status of Women in Formative Judaism (Metuchen: Scarecrow, 1976); Moshe Meisleman, Jewish Women and Jewish Law (New York: Ktav, 1978). 28 See Martha Ackelsberg, “Spirituality, Community and Politics: B’not Esh and the Feminist Reconstruction of Judaism,” Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion 2 (Fall 1986): 109-20. 23 24

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may yet render the development of Jewish feminist theology redundant.29 Melissa Raphael: The problem is … that Jewish feminist theology’s origin in modern egalitarianism and the postmodern pluralization of truth, together with its focus upon the immediacies of women’s experience (a deliberate means by which to control the tradition by selecting from it at will and thereby allowing women to operate in a relatively autonomous religious space), has left women religio-intellectually marginalized, and experience of the heteronomous, nonordinary dimension of Jewish revelation has been all but precluded.30

For Raphael, Jewish women’s religio-spiritual discourse will not rival the Torah, or the rabbinic tradition, by simply insisting on its independence, its moral displeasure with the androcentrism, and sexism, of the tradition, its insistence on equality of religious access, or by the creating of gendered rituals, stories, and ceremonies.31 Again Raphael: Jewish feminists tend to neglect or dismiss the androcentric tradition as too inhospitable and too negligent of women’s experience to be what is ominously termed as “useable” tradition. Jewish feminists have instead concentrated their attentions on the historical Jewish woman as a speaking subject of her own experience, who can from the resources of her own experience and that of her religio-social circle produce alternative models of God and free readings of legendary and biblical texts. All this, as well as postmodern Jewish thought’s refusal of normativity, has together rendered Jewish feminist theology – whether as a systematic exposition of faith or more generally as a

Raphael, “Standing at a Demythologized Sinai,” 197. Raphael, “Standing at a Demythologized Sinai,” 198. 31 Raphael, “Standing at a Demythologized Sinai,” 199. 29 30

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SECOND-WAVE JEWISH FEMINISM discourse on the public exteriority of God’s relationship with the world – almost an impossibility.32

Raphael suggests that the classically Reformist (the historicizing and spiritualizing impetus that marginalizes the numinous) assumptions of Jewish feminist theology have left little room for inquiry into God’s historical and cosmic self-revelation, as distinguishable from that known through women’s communities.33 Is it possible, as Elyse Goldstein argues, that “we [are] witnessing [a] ‘post feminist’ Judaism, where the gains of feminism are taken for granted as givens”?34 This is the point where we will return to the five questions I set out as an analytical framework at the beginning of the book, in short: 1. Is a prescriptive, normative theology a tenable idea? 2. Is it actually Jewish theology if the central elements of the tradition have been abandoned? 3. Is this actually Jewish theology at all? 4. Is subjective experience authentic? 5. When do these theologies become something else not recognizably “Jewish”? These questions have now been answered; the feminist theological challenges of the 1970s and the 1980s remain: the fact of the matter is, a prescriptive Jewish feminist theology is currently impossible for five reasons; they are reducible to the following themes: 1. Plurality, 2. Eschatology, 3. Supernaturalism, 4. Authenticity, 5. Definition, the elaboration of which will take up the remainder of the chapter.

1. PLURALITY The first issue, plurality, is perhaps the most obvious stumbling block for the development of a normative Jewish feminist theology. Indeed, the question is, how is it possible to create a prescriptive theology when Jewishness comprises innumerable identities and the majority of Jewish feminists reject normativity, and those

Raphael, “Standing at a Demythologized Sinai,” 201. Raphael, “Standing at a Demythologized Sinai,” 201, 205. 34 Elyse Goldstein, introduction to New Jewish Feminism, xxv. 32 33

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who don’t are generally in the Orthodox camp? Indeed, Ellen Umansky: There is no singular “plight of the Jewish women” … Nor is there any singular set of Jewish women’s concerns. There is no “feminist encounter” with Judaism. Instead, there are many encounters articulated by many feminists in many different ways. This multivocality has increasingly led to a variety of definitions as to what in fact it means to be a Jewish feminist. Taken as a whole, they reveal the fact that Jewish feminists, as feminists and as Jews, do not share a common vision.35

Yentl’s Revenge (2001) is an accessible anthology representative of the daughters of the Second-Wave of Jewish feminism.36 The selection of texts, which are refreshingly informal, reveal that theology, let alone eschatology, is obscure and of little, if any, immediate importance. These Jewish feminists are perhaps able to take for granted the advances and sacrifices of the Second-Wave. Indeed, Yentl’s Revenge, from the outset, seeks to challenge the essentialist assumptions of the 1970s and 1980s. The Second-Wave supposition of a universal female identity, and the overemphasis on uppermiddle-class white women’s experience as universally representative, are rightly called into question; instead replaced with an entirely nuanced approach. Certainly, the daughters, and granddaughters, of the Second-Wave have contemplated the blind spots of their forbearers. Indeed, the essentialist assumption of universal similarity between Jewish women irrespective of sexuality, religious denomination, race, socioeconomic status, and geographic location is duly emphasized. Moreover, Jewish feminism has abandoned the essentializing prerequisite that all women are oppressed vis-à-vis men, and the misguided idea that women are unified and univocal 35 Ellen Umansky, “Feminism in Judaism,” in Feminism and World Religions, eds. Arvind Sharma and Katherine Young (Albany State: University of New York Press, 1999), 180. 36 See Yentl’s Revenge: The Next Wave of Jewish Feminism, ed. Danya Ruttenberg (New York: Seal Press, 2001).

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in their feminist aspirations.37 Rather than focusing on the tradition or Jewish culture per se, the most recent generation of Jewish feminists appropriates criteria such as anti-racism, post-colonial theory, queer theory, transgender identity, women-of-color consciousness, and eco-feminism. Feminists have attempted to broaden the definition of biological/cultural sex and to present an altogether more contextual or self-defining approach. These women, the so called Third-Wave, have declined to outline any single issue, unified cause, manifesto, or cohesive goal as indicative of its contemporary aims. Yentl’s Revenge abounds plurality with little or no reference to theology, or even thealogy. Yentl’s Revenge is clearly intended to be the On Being A Jewish Feminist of the Third-Wave and indicative of contemporaneous Jewish women’s aspirations. Indeed, a number of the essays are distinctly rejectionist. Sarah Coleman, for example, is a Jewish feminist atheist: As a feminist, as an atheist, as half of an interfaith couple, I’d like to think that Judaism and I have something to offer one another. I continue to read and review books about Jewish history and culture. I haven’t yet walked around the block and crossed the threshold of Teferith Israel. Maybe one day I will.38

Ryiah Lilith reveals her attraction to witchcraft and paganism, explaining that their appeal lies in their lack of authority and dogma. Moreover, Lilith enjoys the personal responsibility for spiritual expression and development. In contrast to the revealed mysteries of traditional Judaism, she argues, witchcraft must be experienced in order for it to be understood.39 Lilith: Sheila Jelen, “Reading and Writing Women: Minority Discourse in Feminist Jewish Literary Studies,” Prooftexts, 25, 1/2, (Winter/Spring 2005), 195. 38 Sarah Coleman, “Not Lost: A Jewish Feminist Atheist Meditates on Intermarriage,” in Yentl’s Revenge, 76. 39 Ryiah Lilith, “Challah for the Queen of Heaven,” in Yentl’s Revenge, 107. 37

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I grew up in a secular Zionist home, and though I sometimes went to shul with friends, and in high school attended quite a few confirmation ceremonies, my own Jewish education and observance were casual. In college I unearthed my proverbial roots and fell in love with the absolutes of traditional Judaism, but my love affair was cut short when I discovered feminism. As buzzwords and phrases such as patriarchy, masculine Godlanguage and blood taboo crept into my vocabulary, the lure of Orthodox Judaism diminished. In Conservative services I was distracted by the gendered and often sexist prayers and felt little connection to either Adonai or other congregants, and although the Reform Gates of Prayer was explicitly nonsexist, I noticed that the rabbi, cantor, congregational leadership and most of the board were men. So I left, taking a cue from Carol Christ and declaring myself “post-Jewish.”40

Similarly, Eve Rosenbaum internalizes her label as an apikores (apostate or heretic),41 while Ursula Katan refuses to acknowledge the God of Judaism: I learned prayers to say over rainbows, songs about the Shekhinah, learned about finding my own ruach, a Hebrew word meaning both spirit and breath. Jewish hippie counselors with guitars and poorly tie-dyed T-shirts taught me the history of my people, the songs, dances, flavors and richness of my living culture, my Jewish community. … I was never able to convince myself to believe in the God of Judaism, but I discovered my soul and the spirit of my people.42

Lilith, “Challah for the Queen,” 102. Eve Rosenbaum, “The Word,” in Yentl’s Revenge, 95. 42 Ursula Katan, “To Open My Mouth and Speak What I Know,” in Yentl’s Revenge, 159. 40 41

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These essays are informative, even empowering; they celebrate diversity, though there is a distinct loss of confidence in the tradition, specifically in the marginalization of the (Jewish) sacral: the divine presence. Danya Ruttenberg argues that for young Jewish women who were not raised with a strong cultural or religious identity, many of the characteristic markers we think of as Jewish are out of date or in the process of rapid change. Moreover: “It’s not just about religion,” Ruttenberg claims.43 She acknowledges that “in some ways Judaism has become an entirely different religion, one that in many sectors counts women in ritual, rites of passage, prayer and study.”44 Ruttenberg argues that if Jews are to continue as a “light unto the nations,” the rampant classism of the Jewish community must be addressed, as well as the assumption of financial affluence (not everyone is rich!). Jewish feminism must analyze the relationship between the European Jews and other people of color, including Jewish people of color. Furthermore, the particularistic concept of the “chosen people,” along with anxieties over Jewish survival, must be refigured in a way that avoids becoming closed and xenophobic.45 In short, Yentl’s Revenge demonstrates the diversity of young, and not so young, Jewish feminists, and the independent ability of Jewish women to decide for themselves what type of Jewish woman they choose to be.46 For Ruttenberg, Jewish

Danya Ruttenberg, introduction to Yentl’s Revenge, xxii. Ruttenberg, introduction, xx. 45 Ruttenberg, introduction, xxi. 46 For a look at some of the diverse issues approached by ThirdWave Jewish feminists, see Carole Balin, To Reveal Our Hearts: Jewish Women Writers in Tsarist Russia (Cincinnati: Hebrew Union College Press, 2000); Iris Parush, Reading Jewish Women: Marginality and Modernization in NineteenthCentury Eastern European Jewish Society, trans. Saadya Sternberg (Walton: Brandeis University Press, 2004); Wendy Zierler, And Rachel Stole the Idols: The Emergence of Modern Hebrew Women’s Writing (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2004); Esther Schely Newman, Our Lives Are but Stories: Narratives of Tunisian-Israeli Women (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2002); Susan Sered, Women as Ritual Experts: The Religious Lives of Elderly Jewish Women in Jerusalem (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992). 43 44

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feminism usurps, and even disregards, religious boundaries, and instead emphasizes cultural and ethnic distinctions.47 The recent anthology, New Jewish Feminism (2009), however, edited by Rabbi Elyse Goldstein, does focus on theology, and feminist theologians, albeit uncritically.48 True, the contributors examine secular, cultural, and political issues, although there is discussion of essential religious concerns such as women’s spirituality, access to, and authoritative interpretation of, the sacred texts, women’s rituals, and women’s leadership. This is hardly surprising given that many of the authors are themselves rabbis (a testament to the achievements of Second-Wave activism). Problematically, however, in Part I, “Women and Theology,” the first two essays read as uncritical histories of Jewish feminist theology, succinctly recalling the work of Judith Plaskow and others; the next reads as a history of Jewish Goddess feminism and thealogy, while the fourth re-examines the issue of God-language, with little advancement on the debates of the 1970s and 1980s (the fifth discourse is on “creation theology”). Donna Berman: The exclusion of women from traditional theological discourse within Judaism reflected a denial of women’s full humanity. The question for Jewish feminist thinkers and all those who seek gender justice in Judaism is, can we dislodge the manifestations of this denial and still have something that is recognizably Jewish? Or is sexism so intricately woven into the fabric of Jewish law and theology that it is impossible to separate out, rendering any attempt to eradicate it futile?49

The quandary, at least for a prospective Jewish feminist theology, is that Jewishness is increasingly defined in cultural, rather than in religious terms.50 Moreover, postmodern Jewish historiography’s Ruttenberg, introduction, xx, xxiii. See New Jewish Feminism: Probing the Past, Forging the Future, ed. by Elyse Goldstein (Woodstock: Jewish Lights Publishing, 2009). 49 Berman, “Major Trends,” 13. 50 Raphael, “Standing at a Demythologized Sinai,” 197. 47 48

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repeated declaration that Jewish history has numerous ethnicities and locations is indicative of the pluralizing, anti-redemptive stance of current Jewish feminist discourse.51 Jewish feminism, in its most popular, general form is a product of the modern and postmodern shift towards egalitarianism and the focus on the immediate context of women’s personal experience.52 Indeed, the individual feminist has come to stand in ethical authority over the content of the tradition.53 Susannah Heschel argues that the core problem for Jewish feminism was, and is, women’s subordination to male authority. The movement, therefore, is not about gaining equality with men, as there is little more to be achieved by imitating male Jewishness, nor is it about defining oppression within nontraditional boundaries considered more important than the tradition itself. Instead, Heschel argues, the point of Jewish feminism is to generate institutions and mental frameworks through which Jewish women can act as their own authorities, determining for themselves the particular facet of their Jewishness that best expresses their identity. The product of the Second-Wave, for Heschel, is that contemporaneous feminists possess freedom of choice among the various traditions of Judaism as a given, and can act as their own authorities,54 though that capacity is necessarily limited in most Orthodox circles. Indeed, Jewish feminists have, generally, insisted upon their independence and the necessity of religious equality; they have rightly challenged the androcentrism of traditional Judaism and its sacred texts, and have began the necessary process of reinterpreting and developing gender-relevant rituals and observances.55 These cultural and religious criteria, grounded in praxis, inevitably marginalize the sacral and the numinous and have impeded the development of a Jewish feminist theology in so far as 51 Raphael, “Standing at a Demythologized Sinai,” 200 n8. See Michael Myers, Judaism Within Modernity: Essays on Jewish History and Religion (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2001). 52 Raphael, “Standing at a Demythologized Sinai,” 198. 53 Susannah Heschel, “Current Issues in Jewish Feminist Theology,” Jewish-Christian Relations: A Documentary Survey 19, no. 2 (1986): 31. 54 Susannah Heschel, “Foreword: It’s Not About Equality – It’s About Who’s in Charge”! in Yentl’s Revenge, xv-xvii. 55 Raphael, “Standing at a Demythologized Sinai,” 199.

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such might be an exposition of revelation. Certainly, contemporary Jewish feminism seems little inclined to discourse on the ineffable divine presence: Kadosh Barukh Hu, let alone develop a systematic, constructive, prescriptive or practical theology/thealogy. What is more, the development of a Jewish feminist theology, as we have seen, is highly complex, and involves intricate debates concerning not only the gender, or gender-neutrality, of God, but also the nature and activities of the divine presence and how the individual feminist relates to this deity and the traditions articulating its/his/her nature. And so we return to that word: plurality. The multiple identities of modern and of postmodern Jewishness, along with the seemingly innumerable multiplicity of feminist identities currently popular in Jewish feminist circles, coupled with the ongoing development of new and innovative feminist spiritualities, compounded by the refusal of normativity, doubly exacerbated by the endless drive for individualistic, pluralizing egalitarianism, inevitably makes normative, practical, or prescriptive models of theology impossible. Moreover, any potential Jewish feminist theology must also overcome the challenge of being addressed to external as well as internal audiences: for example, feminist Jews hoping to reconstruct Judaism, non-feminist Jews whose fears and concerns require addressing, and non-Jewish feminists with whom difference and common language must be clarified.56

2. ESCHATOLOGY The second issue is that of eschatology: the branch of theology interested in last things, divine judgment, life after death, resurrection etc. Certainly, any theological exposition that identifies itself as Jewish must acknowledge and at the very least examine the eschatological elements of the tradition. Indeed, the close of the Second-Wave was markedly rejectionist, with feminist writers en masse

56

Adler, Engendering Judaism, xvi-xvii.

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broadly rejecting the tradition and its sacred texts as irredeemably sexist, discriminatory, and androcentric.57 Melissa Raphael: The late or post-modern spiritual “turn to the self,” the shift from religious observance as an obligation into a lifestyle choice, are reflected in liberal feminist affirmations of the individual Jew as an autonomous religious agent, a speaking subject who can only control and define the meanings of Jewish life for herself by relativizing or disprivileging canonical traditions and focusing on women’s experience and texts alone. This focus has been, and remains, necessary, but not to the point where women’s religious experience and intellection, as well as the tradition itself, become circumscribed by its ideological confinement to the immediate social context.58

For Raphael, Jewish feminist theology has marginalized the eschatological aspects of Jewish thought, despite the fact that eschatological hope has sustained the Jewish people for millennia. Raphael argues that Jewish feminist theology needs to explore the holy – the immanence of the transcendent. Religious feminism, however, has been distrustful of the hierarchy of the holy, suggesting that it leads to contempt of the natural, an injustice analogous to women and the God whose image they bear, and to an exclusivist topography that is hostile to women’s social environments. As we have seen, feminists have rejected the Jewish conception of holiness as separatist and implicitly gynophobic. Consequently it becomes impossible for Jewish feminists to signal the divine in the assembly of Jewish women and to lessen the desacralizing effects of the liberal individualism that is indicative of Jewish feminism and prevents the outpouring of numinous otherness – the mission of Israel from the start. Moreover, feminist theology’s Reform legacy, and the shadow of the Holocaust, leaves little room for God’s cosmic self-

57 Arnold Jacob Wolf, “The New Jewish Feminism,” Judaism 47, no. 3 (Summer 1998): 351. 58 Raphael, “Standing at a Demythologized Sinai,” 197.

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revelation, the meaning of being under judgment and to be subject to God’s mitzvot.59 According to Tova Hartman, contemporary disregard for the religious tradition has created a noticeable gap between antireligious and religious Jewish feminists. For Hartman, Jewish feminism is yet to develop a positive spiritual framework that is able to cope with the challenges of religious life. More so, feminism’s antagonism toward traditional Judaism prohibits women’s path to a full understanding of those feminists who have decided to stay within the tradition. Hartman suggests that lives have been indelibly scarred by the void left by the absence of the tradition, which cannot be replaced by any modern source of meaning. The remedy, Hartman argues, begins with an assumption not to exit the tradition.60 Rather, it is necessary to engage in it and recognize its innumerable problems without apologia: We make a mistake, and indulge a prejudice, when we label those who stay as uneducated, spineless, blindly dogmatic, or slaves of false consciousness. We should, as feminists, stop assuming an imperative to exit the tradition. If we choose instead to engage the tradition – recognizing its jagged edges without either glossing them over apologetically or running away because they’re too sharp – we can then begin to expand our sense of what it means to live within a tradition.61

The secularizing impetus of Jewish feminism, according to Hartman, neglects to acknowledge the religious spirit embedded in the traditional communities and their institutions. While feminist analysis offers cogent assessment of traditional Judaism’s many pitfalls, for Hartman, it fails to acknowledge the fulfilling religious spirit 59 Raphael, “Standing at a Demythologized Sinai,” 199, 201. See Women Rabbis Tell Their Stories, ed. Sybil Sheridan (London: SCM Press, 1994). 60 Tova Hartman, Feminism Encounters Traditional Judaism: Resistance and Accommodation (New England: UPNE, 2007), 3. 61 Hartman, Feminism Encounters Traditional Judaism, 3.

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entrenched in traditional communities and institutions. This disregard leads to a type of communication gap between anti-religious and religious feminists; that women remain under “patriarchy” seems baffling. The nonreligious often cannot accept or perhaps do not understand what in the eyes of many religious women is the richly textured life of the tradition.62 It is hardly surprising that critics of Jewish feminism throughout the 1970s and 1980s have labeled Jewish feminist self-identified theological discourse as sociopolitical polemic.63 Indeed, Carol Christ and Judith Plaskow: Since Judaism is a religion of ritual, law, and study, rather than theology, creed, and doctrine, Jewish feminists have devoted their efforts not so much to defining and overcoming the patriarchal structures of Jewish thought as to criticizing specific attitudes toward women and to working for the full incorporation of women into Jewish religious life. Feminist contributions to the reconstruction of tradition most often focus on the creation of new rituals. … Even those Jewish thinkers who are most theoretical frequently express a practical concern.64

Rachel Adler argues that feminist Jews were right to pursue the constitutive activities of Judaism – law, ritual, study – in the drive for gender inclusionism. The danger, however, is that feminists become preoccupied with inclusionism and fail to devote their efforts to transforming the androcentric sacred texts, structures, and categories that marginalize women. Indeed, for Adler praxis is integral to the sacral as theology requires a method that connects belief with practice. An engendered Judaism, she argues, is dependent on the materials of the tradition to create a credible authority. According to Adler, as it is difficult to extricate thought from praxis in a living Judaism the method must be indicative of the fluid boundaHartman, Feminism Encounters Traditional Judaism, 2-3. Adler, Engendering Judaism, xvii. 64 Carol Christ and Judith Plaskow, “Reconstructing Tradition,” in Womanspirit Rising: A Feminist Reader in Religion, eds. Carol Christ and Judith Plaskow (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1979), 134. 62 63

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ries between theology, ethics, liturgy, halakhah, and textual exegesis. The problem, however, is how to construct an engendered theology of Judaism in a tradition compromised by gender inequality. Any engendered theology must interrogate the extant theological languages and illustrate the vocabularies through which God and the Jewish people can continue to reveal themselves to one another; it must interrogate the sacred texts without rejecting them, or apologizing for them, or simply merging with them.65 While Jewish feminists continue to disagree whether God, Torah, and Israel are sufficient categories for a feminist theology, or even advocate abandoning these categories altogether,66 the eschatological aspects that have maintained the tradition for millennia slip further from sight. Certainly, the implications of God’s Creation of the world towards a specific aim; that is God’s purpose in history leading to the final day of divine judgment; the deity’s ability to intervene, the prophetic belief that the nations will serve God, the continuation of the Davidic line, Messianic redemption whether through a human leader (Mashiach) or Messianic age (in the Messianic age, generally, all Jews will come back to Torah; the Jews will return to Israel; the Temple will be restored; Israel will be free among the nations, and war and famine will cease), Olam Haba (“the world to come”), Gan Eden (the heavenly Garden of Eden), Gehinom (purgatory), the restoration and deliverance of Israel, and Jewish destiny in general, seem to have been jettisoned by Jewish feminist theology. Indeed, eschatology is synonymous with traditional Judaism, indicative of hope and yearning, and historically vital to the survival of the Jewish people. Indeed, Melissa Raphael: For without the eschatological accommodation of difference within klal Yisroel – the whole people of Israel – that difference will undermine and fragment the historical continuities and soAdler, Engendering Judaism, xix, xxii-xxiii. See Lori Lefkovitz, “The View from Here: Reflections on the Future of Jewish Feminist Scholarship,” Nashim 10 (October 2005): 218-24; Gender and Judaism: The Transformation of Tradition, ed. Tamar Rudavsky (New York: New York University Press, 1995). 65

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SECOND-WAVE JEWISH FEMINISM lidarities that constitute Jewish women’s identity as one half of the Jewish body – the assembly of Israel – before God.67

Certainly, any prospective Jewish feminist theologies will need in some way to engage with these integral eschatological elements, even if there is an assumption to exit the tradition, if for no other reason than to ensure the maintaining of historical continuity. Moreover, theologies that eschew these defining and foundational elements are surely incomplete, and rightly open to questions of authenticity (which we will come to). Indeed, are they recognizably Jewish at all? Is it simply enough for the individual theologian to be of a Jewish background?

3. SUPERNATURALISM If the prospect of Jewish feminist theology is hindered by the complete abandonment of eschatology, and by the pluralist rejection of normativity, then it is equally impeded by my third criteria, supernaturalism: the renunciation of supernatural divine authority. Again Melissa Raphael: The two poles (if that is what they are) of modern and postmodern Judaism come together in their rejection of supernatural divine authority, which has, in their view, been at least compromised by the patriarchal nature of Judaism. As a result, Jewish feminist theology is barely or not at all founded in the transcendent obligations to the unheimlich dimension of the holy and the supernatural (rather than merely ethical) vocation of election attending such.68

67 68

Raphael, “Standing at a Demythologized Sinai,” 200. Raphael, “Standing at a Demythologized Sinai,” 200.

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The rejection of supernatural authority is bound up with Jewish feminism’s suspicion of hierarchy, and, at times, its staunch critique of God as dominating other. For Judith Plaskow, images of dominance associated with God cannot be resolved through the transformation of God-language alone. The God of the traditional liturgy, for Plaskow, is a majestic king, a merciful, probing father whose sovereign otherness is extensively elaborated. He possesses dominion over creation, controls history, past, present, and future, and has power over the human soul. God is absolute ruler on a cosmic plane; next to him, human beings are nothing. Indeed, God is all powerful compared to human weakness. Plaskow argues that God’s dominance means that the relationship between human beings and the divine is profoundly asymmetrical. His power is absolute, infinite, and supreme making him completely other. God rules the earth from his home in heaven; he does as he pleases and consults no one. This God is also God of the covenant, yet is utterly other, outside – over and against the world in a way that inhibits human responsibility and development. Unlike the wise parent who encourages their children to grow and to be self-reliant, God insists on absolute obedience and his total superiority is final. He enforces compliance through punishments, bribes, and a mixture of benevolence and domination. According to Plaskow, God as dominating other is indicative of the warrior (image) who punishes the wicked with their death and destruction.69 These images are troubling for Plaskow: The tradition draws on symbols of political authority that are not only foreign to citizens in a democracy but also morally repugnant. Metaphors of sovereignty, lordship, kingship, and judicial and military power evoke images of arbitrary and autocratic rule that have been rejected in the human political sphere at the same time they live on in religious language. … God as supreme Other would seem to legitimate dominance of any kind. … As hierarchical ruler, God is a model for the many schemes of dominance that human beings create for them69

Plaskow, Standing Again at Sinai, 128-31.

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SECOND-WAVE JEWISH FEMINISM selves. … As holy warrior he sanctions the destruction of peoples perceived as Other. … This God authorizes the subjection of women, but also, and more specifically, the rape of females taken as spoils of war (Num. 31:17-18, 32-35) and the extermination of Amalek (Deuteronomy 25:19).70

Plaskow is clear that the image of God’s dominance creates a system of binary dualisms that includes, among other things, the hierarchical relationship with Israel: he is male rather than female, Jewish as opposed to pagan, spirit rather than flesh. For Plaskow, these symbols undergird a worldview that is practical and moral, for those who identify with the higher side of the dualisms. God is all powerful, controlling historical and cosmic processes: “he is everything, we are nothing; he is eternal, we are dust”; yet, the idea of divine omnipotence, Plaskow contends, encourages humans to be passive.71 Judith Plaskow’s socio-theology, as we have seen, removes God from the transcendent sphere of life and into the community, marginalizing the otherness and the sovereignty of the divine, reducing a deity previously unbound by human limitations; diminishing the mysterious premise that God’s ways and thoughts surpass human comprehension (Isaiah 55:8-9). It seems obvious, however, that if God is not separate to community, why use theological language of partnership at all?72 In fact, if in the climate of skepticism God is neither supernatural nor other, why employ theology at all? Indeed, given the influence of both Reform Judaism and the Reconstructionist tradition in feminist thinking the abandonment, and rejection, of supernaturalist theology is hardly surprising; more so, the marginalization of theology as discourse on the nature of the divine is just as prevalent. Certainly, early Reformism hinted that God was more an idea than a supernatural being, while in Reconstructionism, Judaism is the result of human development and there is no such thing as divine intervention; the Torah is not inPlaskow, Standing Again at Sinai, 132. Plaskow, Standing Again at Sinai, 132-33. 72 Adler, Engendering Judaism, 92. 70 71

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spired by God, it is a product of the Jewish people, and God did not choose the Jewish people for any special purpose. Moreover, for Mordecai Kaplan supernaturalism has no place in religion.73 But in any case, is Jewish feminist theology authentically “Jewish”? Of course, Jewish identity is diverse and any discourse can be subjectively labeled as “Jewish.” However, in order for any treatise on the divine to be recognizably Jewish there has to be acknowledgment of the historical, religious, and theological tradition that has been normative for nearly two millennia. Indeed, as we have seen, Jewish feminist theology in its most liberal forms invokes concepts of a singular God with multiple personalities and images, and in the extreme, polytheistic and paganistic understandings of the divine. In traditional Judaism duality is unthinkable given God’s oneness. The radical altering of traditional conceptions of the divine inevitably implies a break with the classical understanding of God. Thus, in the aftermath is there anything recognizably Jewish remaining? Or given Judaism’s multiple identities is it simply enough for the individual to label their sacral discursive “Jewish”?

4. AUTHENTICITY The untenable categories of “women’s experience” and “authentic Judaism” have been effectively debunked by post-feminist critiques. Indeed, the essentializing assumptions of white, middle-class experience have rightly been replaced with a more nuanced approach, while there has been acknowledgment of the many versions that make up Judaism, replacing the monolithic term “authentic Judaism,” which assumes one denomination is more authentic than the other.74 The question of authenticity, however, is inevitable given that Jewish feminists have imported and appropriated spiritualities and religious discursive from a variety of personally subjective and non-Jewish sources. Indeed, Adrienne Rich 73 Nicholas de Lange, Penguin Dictionary of Judaism (London: Penguin Books, 2008), 171, 262, 315. 74 Adler, Engendering Judaism, xix.

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looks to semi-mythical Amazonian women for inspiration;75 Rita Gross has explored ancient Hindu Goddess traditions;76 Susannah Heschel has persistently reiterated the value of the Gospels as a source of Jewish women’s history;77 Lynn Gottlieb employs Canaanite and Native American liturgies;78 while Naomi Graetz’s recent midrashim incorporate non-Jewish aspects, such as in “Vashti Unrobed.”79 Moreover, accusations of paganism, as we have seen, have plagued Jewish feminism from the start. Judith Plaskow: Not simply explicit mention of the goddess, but suspicion she may be lurking somewhere behind any attempt to alter traditional God-language raises charges of “paganism” that are considered themselves sufficient to condemn all feminist work. Direct acknowledgement that there are similarities between Jewish feminist and Goddess spirituality certainly threatens, then, to place Jewish feminism beyond the pale – even when Jewish feminists do not invoke ancient goddesses and have no interest in doing so.80

The rabbis completely reject the worship of crude pagan polytheism and idolatry; moreover, they castigate any threats to the unity of God, and any more subtle dangers such as the notion that different aspects of powers can be found in the God-head, or that the divine has an assistant or helper. Any challenge to God was disSee Adrienne Rich, Of Women Born: Motherhood as Experience and Institution (New York: Norton, 1976), 149-50. 76 See Rita Gross, “Hindu Female Deities as a Resource in the Contemporary Rediscovery of the Goddess,” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 46, no. 3 (September 1978): 269-91. 77 Susannah Heschel, preface to On Being A Jewish Feminist, xx. Many Second and Third-Wave Jewish feminists have studied Protestant theology, most notably Melissa Raphael. 78 See Lynn Gottlieb, She Who Dwells Within: A Feminist Vision of a New Judaism (New York: HarperSanFrancisco, 1995). 79 Naomi Graetz, Unlocking the Garden: A Feminist Jewish Look at the Bible, Midrash and God (Piscataway: Gorgias Press, 2005), 2, 171. 80 Plaskow, Standing Again at Sinai, 147. 75

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missed by affirmation of God’s oneness. This is not to say that the rabbis did not have various names for referring to God. Indeed, they draw on a plethora of images and activities associated with the divine presence. These metaphors, manifestations, and images, however, are part of a coherent whole.81 According to Meir Twersky, “The desire for and emphasis upon active participation and leadership are antithetical to genuine service of the heart and contribute to the extroversion of prayer.”82 Twersky argues that there is an affinity between women’s prayer groups and paganism: “Propelled by negative momentum and misguided by erroneous teachings, some women, God forbid, could reject all remaining halakhic constraints in an unrestrained attempt to enhance their tefilla experience in particular and religious experience in general.”83 Similarly, Moshe Meiselman claims that women’s prayer groups have no halakhic status and are spiritually meaningless.84 Meiselman assumes that women’s inclusion of pagan rituals will eventually lead to a free-for-all of spiritual exploration that has little to do with halakhah and thus is not spiritually authentic.85 Problematically, halakhah cannot easily be dismissed if a feminist theology of Judaism is to be truly authentic. Rachel Adler: “The fears of feminist theologians express about the dangerous precedents for oppression in halakhah seem to be counterbalanced by an acknowledgment that halakhah also cannot be easily dismissed. Any authentic modern Jewish theology has to account for the norms and praxis of Judaism.”86 The issue of authenticity, therefore, is bound up with questions of boundaries; indeed, when does a feminist exposition that rejects the halakhic system, fails to address central eschatological perspectives, classically Jewish themes such as God, Torah, and Israel, and imports non-Jewish spiritualities, De Lange, Judaism, 109. Meir Twersky, “Halakhic Values and Halakhic Decisions: Rav Soloveitchik’s Pesak Regarding Women’s Prayer Groups,” Tradition 32, no. 3 (1998): 12. 83 Twersky, “Halakhic Values,” 14-15. 84 See Moshe Meiselman, Jewish Woman in Jewish Law (New York: Ktav Publishing House, 1978). 85 Hartman, Feminism Encounters Traditional Judaism, 112. 86 Adler, Engendering Judaism, 48. 81 82

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cease to be anything recognizably Jewish; and for that matter, theological? As Rosemary Radford Ruether argues: Why seek alternative traditions at all? Why not just start with complementary experience? Doesn’t the very search for foundational tradition reveal a need for authority outside contemporary experience? It is true that received patterns of authority create a strong need, even in those seeking radical change, to find an authoritative base of revealed truth “in the beginning” as well as a need to justify the new by reference to recognized authority. These needs reveal a still deeper need: to situate oneself meaningfully in history.87

True, the postmodern pluralization of truth, subjective individualism, meritocratic egalitarianism, and interpretive liberty ensures multiple Judaism’s, however watered down they might seem. But will these individuals and small collectives ever rival rabbinic Judaism or offer alienated Jewish women a realistic alternative to the tradition with prescriptive/practical theologies applicable to equally relevant praxis that are quintessentially Jewish in nature? If we consider the history of rabbinic Judaism (in brief): In the biblical period we see the humble beginnings of the Jewish people as Middle Eastern nomads, the settlement of the Land of Israel, and the establishment of the monarchy, the annihilation of the northern kingdom of Israel by the Assyrians, and the southern by the Babylonians, and the rebuilding of Jerusalem under Persian rule. The experience of desolation associated with the destruction of the First Temple in 587 BCE, the crisis of the Babylonian exile, and the revival of national hope with the reconstruction of the Temple, imprinted on the Jewish psyche the experience of exile and return. Moreover, the God of Jerusalem, following the exile, became the God of all the nations. The Hellenistic period, which began with Alexander the Great’s conquest of the Persian empire and ended with the destruction of the Second Temple, wit87 Rosemary Radford Ruether, Sexism and God-Talk: Toward a Feminist Theology (Boston: Beacon Press, 1983), 18.

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nessed the development of Jewish communities throughout the Mediterranean and Middle East. In the Talmudic period, the Judaism of the rabbis developed in Palestine, under Roman rule, and in Babylonia under the Parthians and later the Sasanians. The rabbis were the heirs to the scribes and priests of the previous period. They undertook the codification of Jewish law and strove to make rabbinic Judaism normative by eliminating diversity of practice and establishing universal and consistent norms. In the medieval period, the Geonim, the heads of the Talmudic academies in the Middle East, were responsible for spreading Judaism throughout the scattered communities. Indeed, the Geonim standardized the liturgy and the text of the Hebrew Bible and their responsa laid the foundations for future work. In the eleventh-century, the decline of these academies shifted the centre of Jewish activity to the west, to Spain, North Africa, and to north-western Europe. This period saw the flowering of Jewish philosophy, biblical interpretation, and poetry through notables such as Moses Maimonides, Judah ha-Levi, and Rashi. Rabbinic Judaism is an unbroken tradition, with its origin traceable to the revelation at Sinai. Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai, a survivor of the Roman invasion of Jerusalem, is the alleged founder of rabbinic Judaism. From then on, the tradition includes all the early rabbis. In traditional Judaism, there is little creedal basis; moreover, there is a lack of central religious authority, therefore, the Jew, when confronted with unexpected situations or new ideas, instinctively turns to the past for guidance since there is no human authority or canon of faith to rely on. Rabbinic/Orthodox Judaism is thus based on the doctrine of tradition and is to an extent unformulated and undefined. Traditional Judaism has never been doctrinal, although this lack of definition permits dynamism and flexibility. The Talmudic rabbis made the concept of tradition integral to their theology, although it is nowhere clearly outlined. The core of rabbinic theology is the revelation at Sinai, including the Torah and other teachings handed down orally. According to one rabbi, God revealed to Moses not only the Bible, but also Midrash and the Talmud. From the beginning, the traditional teachings have been incredibly accurate given the faithful line of transmission form master to pupil, with oral tradition considered equal to written. Indeed, the rabbis were the custodians of a rich, expanding tradition. Traditionalism is characterized by the drive to exclude new influences on Judaism and to preserve the values es-

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tablished in the late medieval period. The focus is on practice and on the study of the Talmud and its legal codes. The emphasis on tradition is not that it infers authority in itself; rather, tradition ensures the authentic transmission of divine revelation. Accordingly, the tradition is “Torah-true.”88 As we have seen, this tradition will not be easily rivaled, or even transformed. Alternatively, Jewish feminists have been critical of binary dualisms that produce a hierarchy of experience and values, including the foundational theological concept of kedushah. Jewish feminism has taken on the desacralizing nature of liberal individualism, and has relegated the question of transcendence obsolete, gynophobic, and separatist. Despite considerable efforts to equalize the status of women in the Jewish denominations, the historicist, ethicizing Reform legacy of Jewish feminist theology has left little room for intellectual inquiry into the possibility of God’s self-revelation. Instead, the exegetical, liturgical, and historiographical efforts of Jewish feminist studies have been directed at devising the ritual means and historic grounds for sexual equality in religion. It is questionable, according to Melissa Raphael, as to whether socio-religious feminist scholarship has yet demonstrated how women’s Judaism might reveal God’s presence and will to Israel as a collective within the scheme of Jewish salvation. The Jewish feminist project has inherited the post-Holocaust theological assumption of the absence of God from the victims.89 Hence, God is sexually, politically, and historically elusive to Jewish women;90 a fact Raphael tries to address in her groundbreaking The Female Face of God in Auschwitz.91 88 De Lange, Judaism, 11-14, 23-24, 26, 30. See Michael Berger, Rabbinic Authority (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998); Christianity and Rabbinic Judaism: A Parallel History of Their Origins and Early Development, ed. Hershel Shanks (London: SPCK, 1993); Jacob Neusner, Rabbinic Judaism: Structure and System (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1999). 89 Not all Holocaust survivors turned their back on traditional understandings of God. Indeed, many revitalized their faith and even atheists returned to the fold. 90 Raphael, “Standing at a Demythologized Sinai,” 199, 202. 91 Aside from Raphael’s Female Face of God, Jewish feminists have given little attention to the problem of evil (Plaskow, “Calling All Theologians,” 405 n16).

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Moreover, Jewish feminist theology has rarely focused on practicalities such as truly defining women’s new role and destiny in relation to the divine; this is perhaps impossible given the innumerable identities of postmodern Jewish feminism.

5. DEFINITION My fifth and final issue pertains to definition. If we recall the notable theologies that have been covered in this book: we have seen the experimental liturgy of Naomi Janowitz and Maggie Wenig; the liturgist-theology of Marcia Falk that collapses God into nature and community; Rebecca Alpert’s re-analysis of Judaism from a lesbian (and Reconstructionist) perspective; Rita Gross’ (now Buddhist) idea that God-she can be applied to every aspect of the traditional deity; Goddess-feminists Lynn Gottlieb and Carol Christ (not a Jewish thinker); Ellen Umansky’s ideas for “responsive” theology; Tamar Ross’ theology of cumulative revelation; visualizing of the divine through feminist midrash; Judith Plaskow’s “theology” of community; Rachel Adler’s “text-bound” theology and her suggestion that God, Torah, and Israel are insufficient categories for a feminist Judaism, and her conviction that halakhah is necessary for an authentic Jewish theology.92 Indeed, these theologies are foundational, inspirational, pioneering, and path-breaking, although there is no consensus: the path is rarely trodden. Theology, by definition, is a study or exposition on God, or God-language, or a particular system of religion/doctrine. Thus, we ask the question, is Jewish feminist discourse pertaining to be an exploration on the divine actually theology at all? Certainly, at the close of the 1970s, and even today, there are many questions that have not been answered. Plaksow:

92 See Rochelle Millen, “‘Her Mouth is full of Wisdom’: Reflections on Jewish Feminist Theology,” in Women Remaking American Judaism, ed. Riv-Ellen Prell (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2007), 27-50.

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SECOND-WAVE JEWISH FEMINISM What is theology? What does it mean to apply a theological process? Is feminist theology the expression of a new religion? How can we relate ourselves to the old without destroying our new experiences through the attempt to understand them in terms of old terms? These were crucial questions we felt we had to, but could not, answer.93

Nicholas de Lange defines “theology” as systematic study of belief in the divine. The subject matter, he argues, includes the Jewish definition of God, how this has changed over time, and the types of understanding of God that are possible. The idea that Judaism does not have a theology, for de Lange, is completely inaccurate given that the Bible and the Talmud are full length theological statements on God’s activities and nature. This is not necessarily doctrinal, although Jewish theological sources influenced by Greek philosophy are more systematic.94 De Lange recognizes that theological expression, at least in recent years, is not widespread among Jews: The reasons for this neglect are manifold, and include not only the predominance of secular and materialistic values and the continuing bewilderment resulting from the Holocaust, but also uncertainty arising from the pluralism which has become such a pronounced feature of contemporary Jewry. It is hard for the diverse religious denominations to find a common basis on which to begin to air their theological disagreements in a constructive spirit, and even harder for religious and secular Jews to approach each other in sophisticated debate about the place of God in Jewish life.95

For Jacob Neusner, the main point is that God is known in many different ways, but in the Jewish tradition it is always the same God Judith Plaskow, “The Coming of Lilith: Toward a Feminist Theology,” in Womanspirit Rising, 204. 94 De Lange, Dictionary of Judaism, 312-13. 95 De Lange, Dictionary of Judaism, 316. 93

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over and above the world who is manifest in history. Indeed, the central basis of Judaism is ethical monotheism.96 If we then recall the various theologies that this book has explored, there is distinct focus on liturgy, ritual, halakhah, synagogue, community, reinterpretation of the sacred texts, midrash, and in particular, women’s experience. These are not matters of theology per se. More so, the focus on God language, issues of God-she/he, new ways of describing the divine in neuter language, and the development of anthropomorphic or naturalistic imagery are only ways of potentially imaging the divine, as are midrashic projections; they are not systematic theologies, they are more like personal reflections. If these areas are to be the main focus for theological discursive, Jewish feminists need to rethink their definitions, and if theology (in the classical Jewish sense), and even God, is to have any part in their future.

CONCLUSION: JEWISH FEMINIST THEOLOGY, THE FIRST FORTY YEARS Jewish feminist theology as a prescriptive system of practical and theoretical principles or ideology does not yet exist. The extant theological texts of Jewish feminism seem to generate more questions, more ideas, and more problems than they set out to disentangle. 97 Problematically, theologies founded on liberal egalitarianism, individualism, diversity, pluralism, and grounded in comtemporaneous subjectivity must also be progressive, continually transforming themselves to accommodate the ever-changing needs of the faithful. Accordingly, Jewish feminist theology would need to be in a permanent state of revolution as the new generation re96

188.

Jacob Neusner, Judaism: the Basics (Abingdon: Routledge, 2006), 94,

97 I do not refer here to Raphael’s Female Face of God as it is a theology of the Holocaust, not a prescriptive theology. See also Rachel Feldhay Brenner, Writing as Resistance: Four Women Confronting the Holocaust: Edith Stein, Simone Well, Anne Frank, Etty Hillesum (Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1997).

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places the old with new sets of concerns, fresh axes to grind, innovative aspirations, perhaps age old gripes, coupled with awareness of external historical changes and events that demand assimilation or resolution. This is perhaps Rachel Adler’s aim in her ongoing process of renewal; her “universe of meaning, out of a shared body of precepts and narratives that individuals in the community commit themselves to learn and interpret.”98 Moreover, Tamar Ross’ notion of cumulative revelation seems equally viable as a starting point. On the other hand, rabbinic Judaism, constitutive of Jewish Orthodoxy, did not consider a systematic theology part of the plan, but the central aspects of their approach to the divine have remained unchanged for two-thousand years: God is Creator; God is taken for granted, not proved; God’s personality need not be explored; God presides over human history; God is one; God is unique; God is transcendent; God is loving; God is ruthless, and so on. The rabbinic theology is rooted in the unity of God and the three pillars of creation, revelation, and redemption.99 True, even the rabbis developed new ways of talking about God, and new ways of communicating with God, revering God, etc. However, the fundamental tenets of the rabbinic theology remain consistent. The answer, therefore, for Jewish feminism and the prospective Jewish feminist theological project is to set aside ideas of pluralism, subjectivity, individualism, inclusionism, egalitarianism, and the commitment to diversity for a moment, and to focus on what binds Jewish feminists – what are the unifying spiritual and theological factors? Can we locate an essential theological core applicable to all Jewish feminists? Is there a requisite, amalgamate root that will allow a tree with many branches to flourish? Jewish feminism, as a movement, or ideological premise, is approximately forty-years old. When we consider that rabbinic Judaism has been normative to Orthodoxy for two-thousand years, the extent of the Jewish feminist theological project is impressive, considering at the age of approximately forty, Jewish feminism is still embryonic and perhaps yet to blossom. Indeed, with the continuing development, critique, 98 99

Adler, Engendering Judaism, 34. De Lange, Judaism, 107-10.

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and reanalysis of the foundational theologies covered in this book, along with the nurturing of new approaches to feminist theology, and the expansion of the Jewish feminist corpus, the possibility of a prescriptive theology, or the incorporation of feminist sacral discursive into the tradition, need not be an impossibility as the first seeds are already present.

CONCLUSION: BEYOND THE SECONDWAVE AND THE “FUTURE” OF JEWISH FEMINIST THEOLOGY It perhaps seems strange to say “beyond” the Second-Wave and not to take into account the Third-Wave of Jewish feminism and its approach to theology, though it is an unfortunate truism that there has been little book-length exposition on the divine as systematic and regulatory discursive in the period between Judith Plaskow’s Standing Again at Sinai (1990) and the present day.1 True, Rachel’s Adler’s Engendering Judaism (1998),2 as well as Tamar’s Ross’ Expanding the Palace of Torah (2004), identify themselves as theological texts,3 though for the most part, these compositions, while perhaps characterizing themselves as theological, are also necessarily theoretical and praxis orientated. Similarly, Melissa Raphael’s The Female Face of God (2003) is not intended to be prescriptive.4 This is hardly surprising given that traditionally Jews have not done theology per se, even though the entire tradition is undergirded by integral theological principles. Instead, the evolving rabbinic tradition and the necessary theological questions have been Judith Plaskow, Standing Again at Sinai: Judaism from a Feminist Perspective (1990; rpt. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1991).See New Jewish Feminism: Probing the Past, Forging the Future, ed. Elyse Goldstein (Woodstock: Jewish Lights Publishing, 2009). 2 Rachel Adler, Engendering Judaism: An Inclusive Theology and Ethics (Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society, 1998). 3 Tamar Ross, Expanding the Palace of Torah: Orthodoxy and Feminism (Waltham: Brandeis University Press, 2004). 4 Melissa Raphael, The Female Face of God in Auschwitz: A Jewish Feminist Theology of the Holocaust (London: Routledge, 2003). 1

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dealt with indirectly through halakhah, biblical commentary, ritual, liturgy, Midrash, aggadah, and storytelling. As we have seen, this is not the case with the mystical tradition. In Kabbalah, human beings are an image of the divine and can influence and experience God through the sefirot. But the esotericism of the mystical tradition has never been fully incorporated into normative Judaism. Judith Plaskow is perhaps right to say that Jewish feminist theologians have taken a similar approach to the rabbis, particularly in the prioritization of praxis over systematic theological doctrine, though in the case of the early rabbis there was an underpinning and sustaining theology present from the start. In Standing Again at Sinai, as we have seen, theology is rooted in community. As the only feminist theologian to develop a full-length “theology” that is an exposition on the divine in relation to contemporary women and a potential re-visioning of Judaism and its Sinaitic foundations, Plaskow has received the most focus in this monograph – this should be a signal point for new theologians to step forward. Plaskow explores liturgy, ritual, historiography, and midrash in her attempt to address the social context of Jewish feminism. Rachel Adler also draws together theoretical and legal examinations, Torah exegesis, sexual ethics, liturgy, and her reinterpretation of halakhah (specifically with regards to her innovative wedding ceremony). Ross’ Expanding the Palace is an analysis of halakhic debates within the OrthodoxIsraeli community about the role of women, while her theory of cumulative revelation is not an exposition on the divine per se; rather, it is a theoretical process of building upon the tradition. Melissa Raphael’s theology, The Female Face of God focuses on the Holocaust, not on contemporaneous religious practice or the Jewish feminist movement,5 although her essay, “Standing at a Demythologized Sinai” (2006), while not being a prescriptive theological exposition in itself, draws on the major works of Jewish feminist theology to outline, as we have seen throughout this book, the desacralizing affects of modernity and post-modernity, along with the feminist propensity to reduce spirituality to immediate context, rendering any prescriptive, systematic, or normative theology virtu5

7.

Judith Plaskow, “Calling All Theologians,” in New Jewish Feminism, 6-

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ally impossible. Moreover, Raphael outlines Jewish feminism’s rejection of supernaturalism, hierarchy, numinous otherness, and the eschatological elements so vital to the tradition.6 Furthermore, Raphael’s The Female Face is perhaps the only Jewish feminist text to address the problem of evil and God’s relationship to, and role in, the Holocaust.7 If we recall, both Marcia Falk (1996) and Lynn Gottlieb (1995) developed liturgical theologies,8 while Ellen Umansky’s article entitled, “Creating a Jewish Feminist Theology” (1989) seemed to highlight more problems than it did solutions.9 More so, Rebecca Alpert’s Like Bread on the Seder Plate (1997) is little interested in the theological implications of lesbian inclusionism and reinterpretation of the tradition, and more focused on gathering the necessary texts to begin the ambitious process of religious transformation.10 Finally, T. Drorah Setel (1986) suggested that the main challenge confronting Jewish feminist theologians was to overcome the dualistic modes and hierarchy of the tradition,11 6 Melissa Raphael, “Standing at a Demythologized Sinai? Reading Jewish Feminist Theology Through the Critical Lens of Radical Orthodoxy,” in Interpreting the Postmodern: Responses to “Radical Orthodoxy,” eds. Rosemary Radford Ruether and Marion Grau (New York: T & T Clark, 2006), 197-214. See Melissa Raphael, “Goddess Religion, Postmodern Jewish Feminism, and the Complexity of Alternative Religious Identities,” Nova Religio 1 (1998): 198-215. 7 Plaskow, “Calling All Theologians,” 10. 8 Marcia Falk, The Book of Blessings: New Jewish Prayers for Daily Life, the Sabbath, and the New Moon Festival (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1996); Marcia Falk, “Toward a Feminist Jewish Reconstruction of Monotheism,” Tikkun 4 (July/August 1989): 39-53; Lynn Gottlieb, She Who Dwells Within: A Feminist Vision of a New Judaism (New York: HarperSanFrancisco, 1995). 9 Ellen Umansky, “Creating a Jewish Feminist Theology: Possibilities and Problems,” in Weaving the Visions: New Patterns in Feminist Spirituality, eds. Judith Plaskow and Carol Christ (New York: HarperSanFrancisco, 1989), 187-198. 10 Rebecca Alpert, Like Bread on the Seder Plate: Jewish Lesbians and the Transformation of Tradition (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997). 11 Plaskow, “Calling All Theologians,” 6; T. Drorah Setel, “Roundtable Discussion: Feminist Reflections on Separation and Unity in Jewish Theology,” Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion 2 (1986): 113-18.

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though perhaps in doing so, Jewish feminist theology has in its rejection of holiness, otherness, and distinction lost sight of the divine, the aloof God of Sinai. As we have seen, these texts outline the dynamics of gender exclusionism in the tradition, though as foundational expositions on the divine they are notably grounded in praxis. Even Judith Plaskow admits of the earliest efforts: These works seemed to mark the launch of Jewish feminist theology. It would be not simply a discourse about reimaging God, but a broader exploration of often unexamined assumptions concerning authority, revelation, God, community, and the nature and origins of gender distinction. It would make clear the connections between fundamental Jewish beliefs and Jewish attitudes and practices. As it turned out, however, in the last twenty years, only Rachel Adler, Tamar Ross, Melissa Raphael, and I have published full-length Jewish feminist theologies.12

The focus on practical concerns is perhaps understandable, however, given that the majority of issues first confronted by the Jewish feminist movement were to do with the mitzvot, the liturgy, segregation in the synagogue, exclusion from the minyan, access to leadership, and specific halakhot, among other things. These integral feminist concerns had little to do with theology, per se. Indeed, Plaskow: I would have to argue that one of the great strengths of Jewish feminist theology lies in its connection to concrete issues in Jewish life. If new theologies don’t help women to assume leadership in the new Jewish community and to become full participants in Jewish study, ritual, halakhic decision making and other arenas, then they become empty speculative exercises ra-

12

The emphasis is my own; Plaskow, “Calling All Theologians,” 4.

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ther than genuine contributions to the process of feminist transformation.13

Plaskow is saying that theology is redundant if it does not contribute to the equalization of the sexes or the advancement of women into leadership positions. Moreover, Plaskow appears to suggest that theology is most useful when it is employed for the advancement of women in the tradition and the community. But this is merely reducing exposition on the deity to the level of political necessity. The objective of theology is to discourse on the divine presence; God’s relationship with humanity, the divine will and purpose; the nature of God, and experience of the deity. The speculative exercises that Plaskow is quick to dismiss are integral to the development of feminist theology; only through the enlargement of the feminist corpus and the nurturing of the range of sources available to the feminist theologian, will Jewish feminist theology flourish. Are we to assume that Plaskow is subtly calling time on the theological project she has, to an extent, overseen? In the foreword to New Jewish Feminism (2009), an anthology composed by a number of female rabbis, and cantors, Anita Diamant declares: The arguments about women’s participation and inclusive language may linger, but they are vestigial, nothing but rear-guard skirmishes. It’s over. We won. Which is to say, the Jewish people have been blessed with a new, vital chapter in our history. Am Yisrael Chai, thanks to the work and wisdom of Jewish women, which has led to new paradigms in virtually every aspect of our communal and personal lives, including a flowering of more democratic institutions, more congregational singing, more meaningful rituals, more political action, more books. And women’s inclusiveness and inclusion has been the model

13 Plaskow, “Calling All Theologians,” 8. See See Michael Myers, Judaism Within Modernity: Essays on Jewish History and Religion (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2001).

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SECOND-WAVE JEWISH FEMINISM for the enfranchisement of all Jews, regardless of sexual orientation, race, abilities, or religion of origin.14

In light of the advances made by Second-Wave Jewish feminist activism, and given Judith Plaskow’s linking of theological discursive with feminist reform, are we to assume that Jewish feminist theology can only justify itself through its opposition to the androcentrism of the tradition and in light of women’s past and current subordination vis-à-vis men. Certainly, feminist theological discourse need not only define itself in terms of women’s historically marginal status. Again Diamant: Twenty-first century Judaism begins in a radically different place. This is the first time in Jewish history that women’s voices – not just singular and extraordinary characters but a large and varied chorus – have been added to the public discourse about everything: about God and halakhah, about the governance of our synagogues, about marriage and how we educate our children, about our money, about the substance and fire of our lives.15

As a loosely defined movement, contemporary Jewish feminism, according to Diamant, embraces the fact that women are now sanctifying things not considered sacred in the past: “the stories of our lives, the power and wisdom of our grandmothers, the sacrifice and triumph of the counter-histories, the counter-narratives, the counter-theologies, of the Jewish past.”16 Perhaps, however, the future of Jewish feminist theology is bound up in revering the past efforts of the Second-Wave, during which numerous freedoms were restored to Jewish women, but at 14 Anita Diamant, foreword to New Jewish Feminism, xii. Am Yisrael Chai: “The people of Israel live.” 15 Diamant, foreword, xii. See Anita Diamant, The Red Tent (London: Macmillan, 2001) – this retelling of Dinah’s story is written as a novel. 16 Diamant, foreword, xiv.

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the same time looking forward to the future by recognizing that its foundational theological project has become stagnant, and like the discriminatory layers of the tradition that many Jewish feminists have deemed unnecessary, is in urgent need of vitalization, transformation, and renewed impetus. True, the work of Second-Wave feminist theologians is inspirational and without exception pathbreaking, but given the limited range of theological sources currently available there is significant room for innovation. What is more, it is a fact that what is good for one generation is not necessarily true of the next. Indeed, it was the early rabbis themselves who suggested that the tradition should be progressive as opposed to static and that immanent theologies are necessarily subjective. Judith Plaskow herself perhaps sounds the “death knell” for Jewish feminist theology in its current popularized form. Plaskow argues that the feminist analysis of the “patriarchal” Jewish canon raises the wider issue of whether the sacred texts can continue to have authority today. Plaskow points to historical scholarship and religious diversity as factors that make it increasingly difficult to believe in the divine authority of the Torah. Moreover, Plaskow argues that feminist difficulties with male God-language and the masculine image of God lead to the question of whether it is any longer possible to believe in a supernatural, transcendental deity in the age of science.17 Nonetheless, for Plaskow: “Theology contributes to Jewish feminism in several ways: it provides a theoretical framework for other feminist developments, it links the feminist project with larger religious questions about what it means to be a Jew in today’s world, and it prods feminist thinking in new directions.”18 This comment might be true in theory, but conversely, there is little “theology” is in the matrix of Jewish feminism. Indeed, Donna Berman’s essay for New Jewish Feminism is entitled “Major Trends in Jewish Feminist Theology,” though is only able to review earlier theorists such as Plaskow, Rachel Adler, and Rebecca Alpert.19 Certainly, there is little necessity in going over old Plaskow, “Calling All Theologians,” 10. Plaskow, “Calling All Theologians,” 8. 19 Donna Berman, “The Work of Rachel Adler, Judith Plaskow, and Rebecca Alpert,” in New Jewish Feminism, 12-22. 17 18

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ground: we know traditional Jewish theology was created by men for a male audience.20 In fact, the dynamics of gender alienation in Jewish theology need not be explored again except for context. Even nearly forty years after the inception of Jewish feminism it is unfortunate that the following question should remain, in itself a reminder that the extant theological discursive is inadequate. Elyse Goldstein: There is a growing interest among feminists in the image of the Goddess and the notion of Shekhinah. Reawakening what we think might have once been goddess-like aspects of YHVH, and incorporating new goddess symbols for the One God who truly encompasses all things, some women who feel that Judaism did not offer them a spirituality or a voice feel more connected. Women need a personally relevant religious vocabulary, a vocabulary that has been lacking in traditional sources. … Shekhinah, Goddess, theology redefined or traditionally understood, depictions of God as Mother and/or Father, descriptions of God as indwelling as well as being outside of us, creation theology, hidden metaphors still leave us with this question: Does the Jewish belief system as we have it now, as we have inherited it and continue to practice it, with its attendant language, offer a sense of self-validation and self-esteem to women? Or is it in need of a radical reformation?21

As we can see, Goldstein asks the question, the very same question posed decades ago by the classic theologians of Jewish feminism: is Berman, “Major Trends,” 12. See Karen Armstrong, A History of God: From Abraham to the Present: the 4000-Year Quest for God (London: Vintage, 1999); On Being A Jewish Feminist: A Reader, ed. Susannah Heschel (1983; rpt. New York: Schocken Books, 1995); Rita Gross, “Androcentrism and Androgyny in the Methodology of the History of Religions,” in Beyond Androcentrism: New Essays on Women and Religion, ed. Rita Gross (Missoula: Scholars Press, 1977), 7-21; Womanspirit Rising: A Feminist Reader in Religion, eds. Carol Christ and Judith Plaskow (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1979). 21 Elyse Goldstein, in New Jewish Feminism, 2. 20

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the Jewish belief system “in need of radical transformation”? According to Arnold Jacob Wolf, “The first waves of Jewish feminism were, not unexpectedly, angry, unnuanced, and often downright ignorant.”22 Wolf notes that the early writers were distinctly rejectionist; analyzing the Torah and the tradition as irredeemably sexist and discriminatory, and to be rejected either wholly or in part. These feminists, for Wolf, believed their former faith was “dangerous if not lethal” for women, and was “definitely, incorrigible.”23 Whether or not Arnold Jacob Wolf’s analysis of the formative years of Jewish feminism is necessarily true is perhaps irrelevant. The truth is that for years now, according to Anita Diamant, Jewish feminists have been citing Miriam the prophet as a foremother for leadership;24 claiming Hannah, the spiritual seeker, as the inventor of personal prayer, and explicating Esther and Ruth as examples of feminine courage.25 The early rabbis sanctioned independent prayer, more so given the halakhic prohibitions on women’s public religious activities. Certainly, in the aggadah, the prayers of Esther and Hannah are both given favorable commentaries.26 Moreover, even those feminists who operate outside of the tradition are attracted to the biblical and rabbinic “heroines,” as they are to the feminine Shekhinah – as we have seen, the independent presence 22 Arnold Jacob Wolf, “The New Jewish Feminism,” Judaism 47, no. 3 (Summer 1998): 351. 23 Wolf, “The New Jewish Feminism,” 351. 24 See Norman Cohen, “Miriam’s Song: A Modern Midrashic Reading,” Judaism 33 (1984): 179-90; A Feminist Companion to Samuel and Kings, ed. Athalya Brenner (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1994); Jill Hammer, Sisters at Sinai: New Tales of Biblical Women (Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society, 2001); Muriel Rukeyser, “Miriam: The Red Sea,” in Breaking Open (New York: Random House, 1973), 22; Ellen Frankel, The Five Books of Miriam: A Woman’s Commentary on the Torah (New York: G. P. Putnam, 1996); Judith Gates and Gail Reimer, Reading Ruth: Contemporary Women Reclaim a Sacred Story (New York: Ballantine Books: 1996); Alicia Suskin Ostriker, The Nakedness of the Fathers: Biblical Visions and Revisions (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1997). 25 Diamant, foreword, xiii. 26 Linda Kuzmack, “Aggadic Approaches to Biblical Women,” in The Jewish Woman: New Perspectives, ed. Elizabeth Koltun (New York: Schocken Books, 1976), 251.

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of God in the rabbinic tradition.27 The answer, therefore, remains, as it perhaps always has, with the biblical and rabbinic traditions. Tova Hartman: Feminism’s antagonism to traditional religion often blocks us not only from fully understanding those who have made the decision to remain within tradition, but those who have chosen to leave. This leaving invariably entails more complexity and pathos, in both its motivations and its consequences, than many theorists would lead us to believe.28

In the rabbinic tradition, Yahweh is a transcendent deity with the ability to direct and control human beings from without and above. According to the rabbis, God is present in the smallest aspects of life and within humankind. The rabbis, however, did not develop a formal theological doctrine; rather, initially God was experienced almost as a tangible presence. Indeed, in the earliest of the Talmudic writings, God was experienced as a mysterious, numinous, yet somehow physical phenomenon. The Holy Spirit, according to the rabbis, watched over creation allowing its presence to be felt through fire, wind, the clanging of a bell, and in knocking sounds. The idea of “presence” was so indicative to the fledgling rabbinic tradition that any official doctrine would actually have been unnecessary. The rabbis believed that each of the Israelites standing at the base of Sinai experienced God in a different way. Thus, God adapted to each person’s own comprehension. Accordingly, the 27 See Judith Hauptman, Rereading the Rabbis: A Woman’s Voice (Oxford: Westview Press, 1998); Joel Wolowelsky, Women, Jewish Law, and Modernity: New Opportunities in a Post-Feminist Age (Hoboken: Ktav Publishing House, 1997); Tova Hartman, Feminism Encounters Traditional Judaism: Resistance and Accommodation (New England: UPNE, 2007). 28 Hartman, Feminism Encounters Traditional Judaism, 3. See Phyllis Trible, “Eve and Miriam: from the Margins to the Centre,” in Feminist Approaches to the Bible, eds. Phyllis Trible et al. (Washington: Biblical Archaeology Society, 1995), 7; Blu Greenberg, On Women and Judaism: A View from Tradition (1981; rpt. Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society of America, 1996).

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divine presence could not be described in any standardized formula as if it was the same for all persons; rather, God is exemplified by and through subjective experience. An individual’s experience of God is dependent on his or her own temperament and personality. Each of the prophets experienced God differently. In short, any prescriptive doctrine would have been unnecessarily limiting. The rabbis figured that God was totally incomprehensible; not even Moses had been able to decipher the mystery of the divine. Furthermore, King David admitted that to understand God was impossible. The Jewish people, as a result, were prohibited from speaking the name of the divine; a continuous reminder that any effort to describe God would be inadequate. The divine name was written as YHWH in scripture. The idea of God was intended to encourage wonderment of life and a sense of ambiguity, not to provide religionists with practical solutions and facts. The rabbis argued that even to praise God too often through prayer would be unproductive as mere words are inadequate. God encircled the world, although he did not reside in it with the other creatures. These mysterious images were inadequate, however, as they were merely imaginative portrayals of an indefinable “something.”29 Shekhinah, nevertheless, as the attribute of presence, was a more tangible, even physical, aspect of the divine integral to the rabbinic tradition. The prospect of reengaging with the tradition is understandably a work in progress.30 Inescapably, no amount of feminist reanalysis and critique will make the gynophobia of the tradition and its patriarchal foundations go away. Moreover, the androcentrism and masculinist theology of the Bible will never be erased, even with the development of feminist midrash, biblical exegesis, and textual hermeneutic. What is more, the historical connection with the tradition, its theology, and its three-thousand year old continuity cannot simply be disregarded. For those who decide to radically renegotiate their relationship with the tradition, or exit it altogether, the vacuum will have to be filled; so far, liberalistic and non29

90-92. 30

Karen Armstrong, A History of God (London: Vintage Books, 1999), Hartman, Feminism Encounters Traditional Judaism, 3.

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traditional Jewish feminist theology has not plugged the sizable gap. The fact is that no stand-alone Jewish feminist theology will be able to rival the tradition (even more so if it identified primarily as “feminist” instead of inclusionist). Alternatively, the work of Orthodox feminists such as Tamar Ross, as we have seen, does at least suggest the opportunity to further incorporate feminism and women’s experience into the tradition, where there are already feminine images of deity, even if they are few, and the ever present masculinist assumptions, however unpleasant, are not to be taken literally, even if it often seems this way. Moreover, despite the androcentrism of the biblical and rabbinic traditions, God, in whatever form, is underpinned by the notion that the deity transcends sexuality (however unlikely this often seems). Working within the tradition, perhaps liberal Jewish feminists might reconsider the rabbinic Shekhinah in light of the fact that as the attribute of presence, and as grammatically, and therefore intentionally feminine, she is a traditional model through which to develop new understandings of the divine.31 Perchance, as a final note, men will contribute more to Jewish feminist theology, or inclusive Judaism;32 though as a mere historian, it is certainly, and thankfully, not for me to try to guide the future agenda.

31 See Raphael Patai, The Hebrew Goddess (1967; rpt. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1990). 32 Diamant, foreword, xiii.

GLOSSARY Abba: “Father” (in the mystical tradition). Adonai: way of referring to the sacred name of God (see YHVH). aggadah: (lit. “narration”) the (non-legal) sayings, legends, interpretations, and folklore of rabbinic literature. agunah: (lit. “bound,” “tied,” or “anchored”) a deserted wife whose husband cannot be located to grant her a get (bill of divorce). aliyah: (lit. “ascending”) being called up to read the Torah aloud to the congregation, or can refer to immigration to Israel; aliyot: plural. almanah: widow. Amida: the central prayer of all four services: shacharit (morning), mincha (afternoon), maariv (evening), and mussaf (additional). Am Yisrael Chai: “The people/nation of Israel live.” Amoraim: rabbis of the Talmudic period cited in the Gemara. androcentrism: centre or focus on men, often with neglect to women. androgyny: showing characteristics of both sexes. anthropomorphism: the attributing of human characteristics to God (anthropomorphous: human in form). apikores: heretic or apostate. Aristotelianism: influence of the philosophy and principles outlined by Aristotle. Ashkenazim (plural): Jews of central and Eastern European origin. ba’al: husband. Bar Mitzvah: (lit. “Son of the Commandment”) a boy who has obtained legal and religious maturity on his thirteenth birthday. barukh atah: “blessed are you.” Barukh atah Adonai Eloheynu melekh ha-olam: “Blessed are you, Adonai/Lord our God, king of the universe.”

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Bat Mitzvah: (lit. “Daughter of the Commandment”) a girl who has obtained legal and religious maturity on her twelfth or thirteenth birthday. berakhah: blessing; berakhot (plural). Beth Din: (lit. “house of judgment”) rabbinical court run according to halakhah. Binah: (lit. “understanding”) Sefirah in Kabbalah associated with women and the feminine. In rabbinic Judaism binah refers to intuitive ability exceeding that in men. brit: covenant. brit milah: (lit. “the covenant of circumcision”). Ceremony performed after eight days on the new born male, when the foreskin is removed amid the blessings. cantor: (hazzan): member of the Jewish clergy who chants the prayer service. Challah: ritual separation of a portion of dough which is then burned in the oven before baking the rest of the loaf. chametz: leavened food. Conservative Judaism: denomination that while remaining loyal to halakhah, accepts that the law and the tradition can evolve to address modern issues. darsheni: interpret me! da-ta-kala: weak-minded. derash: inquiry/seek. din: “power,” normally in stern judgment, or law. Ehyeh-Asher-Ehyeh: “I am who I am,” or, “I will be who I will be,” or “I am that I am,” in response to Moses’ question concerning the name of God (Exodus 3:13-14). eisegesis: where an interpreter tries to mould the biblical text and its meaning around their own beliefs. Elah: Goddess. elilah: female idol. el mistater: God who hides. Elohim: from El: deity; expresses concepts of divinity/deity. Elohut: feminine noun meaning divinity. En Sof: in Kabbalah, the deity prior to manifestation in the world. eschatology: area of theology dealing with last things, such as life after death and divine judgment. Eshet Chayil: woman of worth or valor. etz hayyim: “tree of life.”

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existentialism: philosophy emphasizing freedom of choice and responsibility. An existentialist creates their own values and determines their own destiny. feminism: belief advocating the cause of women’s rights from within a particular social, political, economic, sexual, or religious context. galut: exile or the Jewish diaspora. Gan Eden: the heavenly garden of Eden. gashmiut: physicality. Gehanna: Hell. Gehinom: purgatory. Gemara (Aramaic): (lit. “study”) commentary on the Mishnah. Geonim: plural of Gaon; leaders of the Talmudic academies in the Middle East. get: official Jewish bill of divorce; gittin (plural). Godhead: source of the reality that humans know as God. goy: non-Jew. goyishe: gentile. gynophobia: hatred or fear of women. Haftarah: (or Haftorah) reading of the prophets with the weekly Torah reading. Haggadah: (lit. “telling”) book from which the Seder service is conducted on Pesach which recounts the exodus. halakhah: (lit. “the way”) Jewish law, including the oral tradition and the Torah; halakhic: connected to Jewish law; halakhot (plural). halakhist: expert in halakhah. halitzah: the ceremony through which a levir renounces his obligation to marry the yevamah, allowing her to choose freely her next husband. hallah: special bread for Shabbat and festivals, usually braided. Hanukkah: the Festival of Lights celebrating the Maccabean victory of 167 BCE. Haredi: generally, ultra-Orthodox Jews who believe non-Orthodox Jewish denominations are deviations from the authentic tradition due to their rejection of halakhah and their doubts regarding the divine revelation of the Torah. Hashem: name used to talk about God in everyday conversation. Hasidism: Jewish pietistic sect founded in the eighteenth-century by Baal Shem Tov. Founded for common people allowing ac-

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cess to the joy of the tradition with strict observation of halakhah. Haskalah: (lit. “cultivation of the intellect”) the Jewish Enlightenment. Havdalah: ceremony to mark the end of a holiday. Havurah: (lit. “fellowship”) movement among American Jews involving the founding of multi-purpose groups that meet for prayer, religious festivals, and debate; havurot (plural). Hei: letter of God’s name that symbolizes the feminine Divine. hesed: kindness, love, mercy. hilonim: secular Jews; hiloni (singular). Hod: “Majesty.” Hokhmah: “Wisdom.” Holy Spirit: rabbinic term used interchangeably with Shekhinah. humanocentrism: an assumption that humans are the central element of the universe. hypostasis (Greek): an aspect of the Godhead. Ima: “Mother” (in the mystical tradition). isha: woman. Jewish Renewal movement: denomination that seeks to renew the divine-human relationship, along with the relationship between the community and the divine presence. The Jewish Renewal movement is influenced by the Hasidic and Kabbalistic traditions. Some critics of the movement have labeled it a type of “New-Age” Judaism. Kabbalah: (lit. “received tradition”) the Jewish mystical tradition mainly associated with its popularized version developed in thirteenth-century Safed. Kaddish: prayer recited in the daily services and by mourners. kaddosh: (holiness) the absolute otherness of God; or radical separation of the divine from the world. Kantian: based on the philosophies of Immanuel Kant. Kashrut: (lit. “fit” or “proper”) Jewish dietary law. kavanah: spiritual intention, particularly during prayer. kavod: honor, respect. Kavod ha-tzibbur: the honor of the community. kedushah: holiness. Kehillah: type of Jewish community in Eastern Europe. Kether Elyon: “Supreme crown.”

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ketubah: (lit. “document”) Jewish marriage contract given by the groom to the bride outlining his obligations during the marriage and in the event of a divorce. kiddush levana: ceremony hallowing the moon. Kiddushin: betrothal. The legal act effecting marriage. kinyan: an act that formalizes a legal transaction. klal Yisroel: the whole community of Israel. kol isha: (lit. “the voice of a woman”) prohibition on men hearing women sing. kosher: food fit for consumption according to Kashrut. Ladino: Mingling of Spanish and Hebrew sometimes spoken by the Sephardim. lakahat: (lit. “to take”) to marry. levir: brother of a married man who has died childless, obligated to perform levirate marriage. levirate marriage: marriage of a widow whose husband died childless to one of his brothers. lulav: palm branch. Malkuth: “kingdom.” In Kabbalah also called “Shekhinah.” Mashiach: “Messiah.” maskilim: followers or adherents of the Jewish Enlightenment. Matriarchs: Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel, and Leah. matzah: unleavened bread eaten on Pesach. mechitza: (lit. “divider”) partition in some synagogues which separates the sexes. menorah: seven-branched oil lamp used in the Jerusalem Temple; also refers to the eight-branched candelabrum used on Hanukah. mesolelot: lesbianism or acts of sexual intercourse where there is no penetration. midrash: (lit. “inquiry” or “investigation”) Jewish biblical exegesis. Midrash (capitalized) refers to the body of rabbinic literature; midrashim: plural. Midrash generally refers to a rabbinic interpretation of a biblical text in the form of a story, though is a method of textual interpretation employed by Jewish feminists and even Christian and secular writers. mikvah: ritual bath used by a married woman after menstruation and childbirth.

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minyan: (lit. “number”) quorum of ten required for a prayer service. In most Orthodox communities only males count toward the minyan. Mishkan: “dwelling place.” Mishnah: (lit. “repetition” or “study and review”) second-century CE rabbinic legal codes. mitzvah: commandment; mitzvot (plural). One (or more) of the 613 commandments issued by the Torah. Can also mean “good deed.” mohar: bride price. monolatry: the worship of one God with the acknowledgment of the existence of many deities. nashim: women or wives. nashim da’tan kala: lit. “women who are weak-mined/willed.” This Talmudic dictum was used to justify women’s exclusion from the study and authoritative interpretation of the sacred texts. Neoplatonism: theological and philosophical doctrines based on the teachings of Plato. Nerot: the ritual lighting of candles. Netsah: “Lasting Endurance.” Niddah: (lit. “separation”) a menstruating woman required to undertake ritual immersion. numinous: the presence, sacredness, and power of the divine. n’varekh: “let us bless.” Olam Haba: “the world to come.” onah: (lit. “span of time”) rabbinic sexual obligation a man owes his wife. Onah is valid even if the sex is not reproductive. Orthodoxy: denomination in Judaism based on the Torah and its law, which is eternal and unchanging (although there are many interpretations of this law). Orthodox is considered the most traditional and reflective of the rabbinic Judaism of the past. parzufim: “countenances.” Patriarchs: Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. patriarchy: social, familial, political, or religious system with men at the head, with privilege traced through the male line. Pesach: Passover (commemorating the exodus from Egypt). peshat: literal meaning. phallocentrism: attitude that emphasizes and praises men and maleness.

pritzut: licentiousness.

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Purim: (lit. “lots”) Spring festival commemorating Jewish deliverance from Haman’s genocidal plans as told in the Megillah. rabbinic Judaism: mainstream Judaism since the sixth-century CE based on understanding of oral and written Torah. Rahamin: “Compassion.” rav: rabbi. rebbetzin (Yiddish): wife of a rabbi. Rebono shel olam: “Master of the World.” Reconstructionist Judaism: religious movement founded by Mordecai Kaplan and grounded in humanistic and ethical principles that believes Judaism to be an evolving civilization relevant to particular generations. Reform Judaism: movement originating in nineteenth-century Europe that places little emphasis on halakhah and holds the majority of services in the vernacular. remez: hints. responsa: legal opinions written by the rabbis, perhaps written in response to a particular question. Rosh Hashanah: (lit. “Head of the Year”) beginning of the Jewish new year. Rosh Hodesh: (lit. “Head of the Month”) the New Moon, or first day of the Hebrew month, celebrated for one or two days. ruach: “spirit.” Mind and reasoning powers thought to survive death. ruhniut: spirituality. Saboath: God of the armies. seder: order or arrangement. Sefirah: one of the ten stages of emanation of the Godhead in Jewish mysticism; Sefirot (plural). Sephardim (plural): refers to Jews of Spanish or Portuguese origin. Sefardi: singular. Shabbat: (lit. “rest” or “cessation”) the Jewish Sabbath, Friday evening to Saturday night; Shabbos (Yiddish). Shakan: “dwell.” Shavuot: (lit. “weeks”) the Summer Festival of Weeks. Shekhinah: Jewish mysticism describes her as the feminine aspect of the divine presence, although the biblical and rabbinic traditions refer to Shekhinah as the divine presence in the world. Sometimes written as Shechinah or Shekhina.

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Shema: (lit. “hear”) refers to Deuteronomy 6:4 and is part of a prayer said twice daily: “Hear O Israel the Lord our God the Lord is One.” Shoah: (lit. “chaos,” “tragedy,” or “destruction”) term increasingly used to refer to the Holocaust (Greek: “the destruction of life by fire”), the murder of six million Jews by the Nazis. shofar: ram’s horn trumpet. shtetl (Yiddish): Eastern European village. shul (Yiddish): synagogue. shuttaf: partner. Siddur: (lit. “order”) Shabbat and daily prayer book. Siddur Nashim: prayer book for women. sod: mystery. sukkah: booth. Sukkot: the Feast of Booths celebrating the harvest. takanah: rabbinic legislation in the post-Talmudic period that can modify halakhah. tallit: (lit. “cloak”) prayer shawl; plural: tallitot. Worn during daily services and on Yom Kippur. Talmid chacham: Talmudic scholar. Talmud: (lit. “instruction” or “learning” or “study”) sixty-three volumes containing the Mishnah and the Gemara. The Babylonian version was completed in approximately 500 BCE and the Jerusalem version in the preceding century. Tanakh (acrostic): The Hebrew Bible (thirty-nine books) including the Torah, Nevi’im (prophets), and Ketuvim (writings). The word “Tanakh” is an acronym of its three parts. Tannaim: rabbis contributing to the Mishnah. Tanna: singular. techinot: Jewish women’s prayers of the Ashkenazi tradition. tefillah: prayer. tefillin: phylacteries – small black cases containing biblical passages which are fixed to the head and arms by straps during weekday morning prayers. Tehom: “abyss” or “deep.” (the) Temple: the Holy Temple in Jerusalem in which animal sacrifices were offered to God. King Solomon constructed the First Temple in approximately 950 BCE, which was destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 BCE. The Second Temple was built in about 515 BCE and was destroyed by the Romans in 70 CE.

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Tetragrammaton (Greek): Hebrew name of God written using four letters: YHWH. thealogy: “thea”: Goddess; a neologism. The study of religion and theology from a feminist viewpoint. theism: belief in the existence of God, particularly one that is revealed supernaturally. theodicy: vindication of God’s goodness in light of evil in the world. theology: the study of God and religion. theosophy: belief that the knowledge of God can be achieved through mysticism, intuition, and inspiration. tikkun: rehabilitation, repair, and synonymous with social action. tikkun olam: (lit. “repair of the world”) the imperative to contribute to the betterment of humankind. Torah: (lit. “Teaching”) the Five Books of Moses, the Written Law: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. treyf: non-kosher. tumah: ritual impurity. Tzniut: modesty. tzur Yisrael: “rock of Israel.” unheimlich (German): weird, uncanny. Yahweh: God’s name in Israel. yeshiva: (lit. “sitting”) traditional academy devoted to the study of the sacred texts; yeshivot (plural). Yesod: foundation. yevamah: a woman whose husband dies without having had children who is subject to a levirate marriage. YHVH: the Hebrew name for God, pronounced “Adonai.” Yiddish: the historical language of the Ashkenazim resulting from a fusion of primarily German and Hebrew, but also Aramaic, Old French, Old Italian, and Slavic languages. Yo’atzot Halakha: female law consultants. Yom Kippur: Day of Atonement (generally believed to be the holiest day of the year in the Jewish community during which Jews fast and ask forgiveness for their sins. Zeir Anpin: lesser countenance in Jewish mysticism.

zenut: prostitution.

Zionism: movement seeking the return of the Jewish people to Israel/Palestine/Canaan accordingly. Zohar: (Book of Splendor) Kabbalah’s main text.

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zonah: a prostitute/woman who engages in zenut (sexual promiscuity).

BIBLIOGRAPHY A Ceremonies Sampler: New Rites, Celebrations and Observances of Jewish Women. Edited by Elizabeth Resnick Levine. Indiana: Women’s Institute for Continuing Jewish Education, 1991. Abrams, Judith. The Women of the Talmud. Northvale: Jason Aronson, 1995. Ackelsberg, Martha. “Families and the Jewish Community: A Feminist Perspective.” Response 48 (Spring 1985): 5-19. _____. “Spirituality, Community and Politics: B’not Esh and the Feminist Reconstruction of Judaism.” Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion 2 (Fall 1986): 109-20. Ackerman, Susan. “The Queen Mother and the Cult in Ancient Israel.” Journal of Biblical Literature 112, no. 3 (1993): 385-401. Adelman, Penina. Praise Her Works: Conversations with Biblical Women. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 2005. Adler, Rachel. “A Question of Boundaries: Towards a Jewish Feminist Theology of Self and Other.” In Tikkun Anthology, edited by Michael Lerner, 465-71. Oakland: Tikkun Books, 1992. _____. Engendering Judaism: An Inclusive Theology and Ethics. Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society, 1998. _____. “Feminist Judaism: Past and Future.” Cross Currents 51, no. 4 (2001): 484-88. _____. “I’ve Had Nothing Yet, So I Can’t Take More.” Moment 8 (September 1983): 22-26. _____. “The Jew Who Wasn’t There.” Davka (Summer 1971): 711. _____. “The Jew Who Wasn’t There: Halacha and the Jewish Woman.” Response: A Contemporary Jewish Review (Summer 1973): 77-82. _____. “The Virgin and the Brothel and Other Anomalies: Character and Context in the Legend of Beruriah.” Tikkun 3, no. 6 (November/December 1988): 28-32, 102-105. 257

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INDEX Aaron, 124 Abihu, 115 Abraham, 52, 53, 90, 142, 186 Academy for Jewish Religion, 189 Ackelsberg, Martha, 23, 25, 26 Adam, 186, 191 Adler, A., 11 Adler, Rachel, xiv, 21, 22, 26, 66, 126, 127, 130, 131, 133, 134, 135, 136, 218, 225, 232, 236, 238, 241 anthropomorphisms necessary, 79, 130, 132 control/possession, 182 critique of female Godlanguage, 132 el mistater, 127, 136 Engendering Judaism, 135, 136, 199, 235 God's otherness necessary, 125, 128, 132 halakhah, 133, 134, 229 liturgy, 127 Orthodoxy, 126 Reform Judaism, 126 rejection of coherent theology, 127 relational theology, 130 text-bound theology, 130, 131, 132, 134, 218

unitive spirituality, 127 women peripheral, 22 Adler, Samuel, 11 Afrekete, 157 aggadah, 3, 31, 180, 187, 205, 236 Agus, Arlene, 23 Ahasuerus, 2, 34, 188 Alexander the Great, 226 Alpert, Rebecca, xiii, 105, 241 critique of Marcia Falk, 105, 106 influence of Reconstructionism, 20, 102, 106, 229 lesbian fiction, 107 lesbian transformation of tradition, 103, 104, 106, 229 Like Bread on the Seder Plate, 103, 237 ordination, 102 prepositional theology, 107, 108 rejection of hierarchy, 108 rejection of Jewish particularity, 108 rejection of normativity, 108 rejection of supernaturalism, 108

283

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Torah through lesbian lens, 106 American Congress of Jewish Women, 15 American Equal Rights Association, 13 Amida, 201 Anthony, Susan B, 13 anti-Semitism, 12, 43 Antler, Joyce, 16 Antonelli, Judith, 175 Asherah, 72, 76 Ashkenazim, 13, 36 assimilation, 14 Astarte, 90 Auschwitz, 61 B’not Esh, 81 Babel, tower of, 68 Bar Ilan University, 166, 170 bar mitzvah, 9 Beauvoir, Simone de, 40 The Second Sex, 17, 84 Berkovits, Eliezer, 61 Berman, Donna, 204, 213, 241 Beruriah, 3 Biale, Rachel, 38, 45, 104 Women & Jewish Law, 45 Blumenthal, David, 55, 170 holiness, 55, 56 Brooten, Bernadette, 3, 42 Buber, Martin, 60 theology, 59 Buddhism, 229 Shambhala tradition, 151 Canaanites, 22, 119, 120, 140, 158, 161, 164, 224 Cantor, Aviva, 28, 34 Catholicism, 16 Christ, Carol, xiv, 137, 140, 142, 143, 144, 145, 164, 218, 229

critique of male Godlanguage, 145 Goddess, 138, 145, 146 God's accountability, 142 story-theology, 138, 140, 141, 144 Christian anti-Judaism, 4, 43, 44, 45, 54, 60, 161 Christian feminism, 4 Christian theology, 154 Coffin Mott, Lucretia, 13 Cohen, Hermann theology, 59 Coleman, Sarah, 210 Coming Age, x, 202, 203 Conference of Jewish Women, 12 Conservative Judaism, 9, 16, 19, 23, 28, 38 Committee on Law and Standards, 25 liturgy, 46 Rabbinical Assembly, 25, 38 Corinthians, 41 Cover, Robert, 133 Daly, Mary, 150 David, x, 201, 202, 219, 245 Davka, 21 de Leon, Moses, 117 Deborah, 3, 6 Deuteronomy, 68, 72, 105, 196, 222 Diamant, Anita, 239, 240, 243 The Red Tent, 188 Dinah, 186, 188 eco-feminism, 210 Eilberg, Amy, 28 Einhorn, David, 11 Eisenstein, Ira, 100, 101 Enlightenment, 59, 126

INDEX Equal Rights Amendment, 1923, 16 eschatology definition, ix Essenes, 45 Esther, 2, 3, 6, 34, 88, 188, 243 Eve, 187, 191 existentialism, 59, 60 Exodus, 41, 53, 68, 73, 74, 105, 112, 143 Exodus Rabbah, 196 Ezrat Nashim, 23, 24, 25, 27 Ezuli, 157 Fackenheim, Emil, 61 Fairfield University, 153 Falk, Marcia, xiii, 94, 95, 96, 97, 99, 100, 101, 109, 118, 129, 229, 237 Book of Blessings, xiii, 87, 93, 94, 98, 101, 105 critique of male Godlanguage, 96 immanentist theology, 94, 99, 101 influence of Reconstructionism, 20 neuter language, 94, 95 n'varekh, 97 rejection of classical theology, 94, 101 rejection of hierarchy, 94 rejection of Jewish particularism, 94 rejection of traditional formula, 99 Shekhinah inadequate, 96 universalism, 94 Female Hebrew Benevolent Society, 14 feminism

285 definition, 6 Fiorenza, Elisabeth Schussler hermeneutic of suspicion, 41 Firestone, Tirzah, 189, 192 midrash as alternative to theology, 188 First National Conference on Jewish Women 1973, 25 First Temple, 226 First-Wave feminism, 1, 12, 13 definition, 17 Friedan, Betty, 16 The Feminine Mystique, 16 Frymer-Kensky, Tikva, 118 Fuller, Mary Woman in the Nineteenth Century, 13 Garden of Eden, 68, 202, 219 Gemara, 110 Genesis, 68, 105, 164 Gnosticism, 171 Goddess, xiii, xiv, 43, 75, 76, 85, 90, 138, 145, 146, 147, 151, 155, 156, 162, 163, 164, 189, 190, 242 human sacrifice, 158 Goddess feminism, 43, 137, 138, 143, 145, 147, 157, 158, 159, 160, 161, 162, 163, 164, 165, 224, 242 thealogy, 161, 162, 164, 213, 215 Gog, 202 Golden Calf, 124 Goldstein, Elyse, 196, 208, 213, 242 Gottlieb, Lynn, xiii, 30, 57, 118, 120, 121, 138, 187, 229, 237 God-she, 119, 121

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importation of Canaanite and Near Eastern perspectives, 120, 122 ordination, 119 She Who Dwells Within, 121 Shekhinah, 119, 121, 123 Graetz, Naomi, 224 midrash, 188, 191 Gratz, Rebecca, 14, 15 Greenberg, Blu, 31, 32, 48, 137, 168, 169 On Women and Judaism, 168 theology, 169 Greenberg, Irving, 62 Gross, Rita, xiv, 80, 116, 151, 155, 224 Buddhism, 137, 148, 151, 229 critique of male Godlanguage, 148, 149 female God-language, 69, 148, 149, 150, 151, 152 gender fluidity of Godlanguage, 70, 74, 148 Goddess, 149 Goddess-language necessary, 150, 151 neuter language insufficient, 69, 148, 150, 151, 152 Habitat for Humanity, 47 Hadarshan, Moshe, 114 Hadassah, 15 halakhah, xiv, 206, 236, 240 definition, 4 prohibition on new blessings, 99 ha-Levi, Judah, 227 Hammer, Jill, 71, 160, 161, 189 Goddess, 189 midrash, 189

Hannah, 243 Hartman, Tova, 88, 90, 137, 166, 169, 170, 179, 180, 185, 217, 244 commitment to the tradition, 185, 217 critique of anthropomorphisms, 90, 122, 147, 165 critique of Goddess, 147 Hasidism, 141, 203 Haskalah, 1, 13 definition, 11 Haskalah movement, 11, 57 Hauptman, Judith, 3, 4, 23 Havurah, 23 Hebrew Union College, 14, 28, 126 Hera, 90 Heschel, Abraham Joshua, 88 Heschel, Susannah, 22, 33, 34, 40, 41, 43, 44, 45, 47, 48, 193, 194, 214, 224 method, 194 Hillel, 114 Hilton, Michael, 165 Hinduism, 224 Hitler, Adolf, 45 Hoffman, Lawrence, 98 Holocaust, x, 60, 61, 62, 84, 139, 163, 170, 206, 228, 230, 236 Auschwitz, 43, 61, 62, 139, 205 Buchenwald, 139 loss of faith in traditional God, 60, 62 uniqueness, 60 Hosea, 143, 166 Hyman, Paula, 21, 23, 24, 27, 35

INDEX International Council of Women, 12 Isaac, 142 Isaiah, 69, 124, 159, 222 Ishtar, 157 Isis, 157, 160 Jacob, 142 Janowitz, Naomi, xiii, 87, 91, 92, 93 Jeremiah, 73, 112 Jesus, 43, 44, 45, 53 Jewishness, 44 Jewish anti-feminism, 6, 8, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 157, 206, 218 Jewish anti-paganism, 76, 146, 158, 160, 163, 224 Jewish feminism, passim abandonment of eschatological tradition, 201, 209, 216, 220, 237 academia, 27 accusations of paganism, 224 desacralizing nature, 80, 122, 123, 129, 135, 153, 196, 197, 199, 200, 204, 213, 215, 216, 217, 218, 221, 222, 228, 231, 238 diversity, 46, 83, 214, 215, 219, 220, 226, 231, 232 focus on praxis, 50, 66, 200, 207, 214, 218, 236, 238 Goddess, 157, 159, 160 halakhah, 225 influence of Reconstructionism, 20 liturgy, 28 midrash, 138, 187, 190, 192, 193, 231 minyan, 33

287 Orthodoxy, 31, 33, 137, 165, 168, 169, 170, 175, 200, 206 post-colonial theory, 210 queer theory, 210 refusal of normativity, 207, 209, 214, 215, 232 rejection of binary dualisms, 237 rejection of hierarchy, 128, 129, 182, 183, 216, 228, 237 self-contradiction, 50 Shekhinah, 116, 118, 190 threat of excommunication, 30 transgender identity, 210 women-of-color, 210, 212 Jewish Feminist Organization, 17, 25 Jewish feminist theology, passim abandonment of eschatological tradition, xi, 122, 134, 199, 215, 217, 219, 220 authenticity, xii, 85, 95, 135, 137, 148, 156, 165, 177, 190, 205, 208, 223, 224, 225 definition, 6, 229 external audience, 215 focus on praxis, 50 influence of Reconstructionism, 134 influence of Reformism, 81 limited corpus, 196, 204, 213 plurality, 134, 208, 210, 211, 214, 215, 232

288

SECOND-WAVE JEWISH FEMINISM

rejection of hierarchical otherness, xi, 85, 128, 129, 134, 147, 199, 216, 221, 237 rejection of holiness, 129, 199, 216 rejection of Jewish particularism, 199 rejection of normativity, 85 rejection of supernaturalism, xii, 122, 134, 147, 199, 220, 221, 222, 237 rejection of transcendence, 135 social justice, 205 subjective experience, 50, 84, 101, 207, 232 Jewish Ladies’ Visiting Association, 12 Jewish League for Woman Suffrage, 12 Jewish Liberation, New York, 28 Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance, 168 Jewish Renewal movement, xiii, 118, 119, 123, 206 Jewish Spectator, 21 Jewish Theological Seminary, 28 Jewish women, passim absence from communal leadership, 19, 28, 32, 50, 73, 79, 213, 238 age of religious majority, 11 aliyah, 10, 22, 46, 47 anti-Semitism, 11 as cantors, 28 as chattel, 53, 183 as enablers, 1, 2, 7, 32, 33, 34

as family breadwinners, 10, 36 as managers of the kosher home, 7, 8, 10, 15, 26, 32, 35, 36 as other, 10, 17, 72 as rabbis, 28, 29, 31, 42 association with redemption, 5 bat mitzvah, 9, 46 binah, 5 biological differences, 8, 24, 26, 47 challah, 2 communal prayer, 24 diversity, 210, 212 divorce, 9, 14, 20, 24, 49 exclusion from minyan, 8, 10, 11, 19, 33, 87, 91, 238 exemption from time-bound positive mitzvot, 8, 10, 11, 21, 22, 24, 46, 238 First-Wave feminism, 6, 12 Haftarah, 9 halakhah, 4, 5, 10, 17, 24, 31, 32, 33, 36, 39, 40, 46, 48, 88, 133, 238, 243 honor of the congregation, 9, 22 inadmissibility as witnesses, 9, 11, 20, 23, 24 issue of agunah, 9, 37, 38, 39, 40 Jewish survival, 7, 10, 32, 35 ketubah, 4, 38, 39 kol isha, 8 marriage, 37, 38, 39, 40 mechitza curtain, 10, 19, 184 mikvah, 9 mitzvot, 2

INDEX nerot, 2 niddah, 2 not obligated to pray, 8, 10, 87 onah, 4 philanthropy, 10, 12, 14 physical abuse, 37 physicality, 8, 26, 27, 66 prayer groups, 33, 46, 79 ritual impurity, 9 secular feminism, 12 separate spheres, 14, 16 spinsterhood, 15 status in first-century Judaism, 44, 45 status in pre-rabbinic Judaism, 3, 42 stereotypes, 2, 7, 10, 12, 33, 35, 36, 37, 47, 49, 121, 180 tefillin, 46 Tzniut, 8, 9 unable to lead service, 8 unable to study the sacred texts, 8, 10, 19, 41, 46, 180 Job, 69 Jones, Regina, 42 Judith of Bethulia, 6 Jüdische Frauenbund, 12 Juno, 90 Kabbalah, 56, 57, 75, 109, 116, 117, 139, 141, 171 Neoplatonism, 57 theology, 56, 57 Zeir, Nuqrah de, 117 Zohar, 71, 117 Kant, Immanuel, 59, 60 Kaplan, Mordecai, 20, 61, 100, 103, 108, 223

289 Katan, Ursula, 211 Kedar, Karyn, 195 ketubah, 104 Kien, Jenny reistatement of the Divine Woman, 147 Kohenet, 189 Koltun, Elizabeth, 23, 27 Kook, Abraham Isaac, 170, 171, 172, 200 Kuzmack, Linda Gordon, 7, 10 Lange, Nicholas de, 230 Langer, Suzanne, 63 Lazarus, Emma, 15 Poems and Translations, 15 Leah, 46, 124 Leifer, Daniel, 39 lesbianism, 30, 104, 106 Lesbos, 138 Leviticus, 9, 30, 41, 103, 104, 105 Liberal Judaism, 58 Lilith, 187 Lilith, Ryiah, 210 Lurianic Kabbalah, 57, 117, 203 Shekhinah, 117 Magog, 202 Maimonides, Moses, 55, 104, 203, 227 Aristotelianism, 55, 171 dogmatic theology, 54 lesbianism, 104 liturgy, 88 Neoplatonism, 55, 171 Thirteen Principles, 55 Mark, 54 Marxism, 174 Mary, Virgin, 160 Maybaum, Ignaz, 61 Mayer Wise, Isaac, 14

290

SECOND-WAVE JEWISH FEMINISM

Meiselman, Moshe, 225 Mendelssohn, Moses, 58, 59 theology, 58 Messianic redemption, x, 202, 203, 219 Midrash, xiv, 2, 5, 52, 97, 109, 115, 116, 186, 200, 227, 236 definition, 186, 187, 188 Mekhilta, 186 Midrash Rabbah, 186, 187 Sifra, 186 subjective projections, 193 minyan definition, 8 Miriam, 5, 119, 187, 192, 243 Mishnah, 38, 110 Mordecai, 2 Moses, 41, 64, 83, 112, 115, 124, 192, 227, 245 Mount Moriah, 192 Nadab, 115 Naomi, 105 National Conference on Jewish Women and Men, 25 National Council of Jewish Women, 15 National Union of Women Workers, 12 Native Americans, 119, 224 Nazism, 45 Nehemiah, 167 Neusner, Jacob, 231 New Jewish Feminism, 213, 239, 241 New Testament, 3, 53, 158 Nineteenth Amendment, 1920, 13, 15 Noah, 68 North American Jewish Students’ Network, 25, 27

Novick, Leah, 157 Numbers, 68, 105, 112, 222 On Being A Jewish Feminist, 210 Orthodox Judaism, 7, 16, 19, 23, 25, 31, 32, 39, 40, 42, 54, 59, 60, 137, 176, 185, 211, 214, 227, 232 liturgy, 88, 126 sexist morning benediction, 8, 11 theology, 160 Oshun, 160 Ostriker, Alicia Suskin midrash, 190 The Nakedness of the Fathers, 190 Oyo, 157 Ozick, Cynthia, xiii, 51, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 71, 84, 158, 165 anti-paganism, 63, 64, 89, 122 halakhah, 64 rejection of Shekhinah, 122 women's inequality sociological, 63, 64, 65, 71 Pagels, Elaine, 103 Pappenheim, Bertha, 12 Patai, Raphael, 110, 115 patriarchy definition, 4 Paul, 53 Persians, 226 Pesach, 2, 28, 29, 46, 78 Pharisees, 45, 158 Philadelphia Jewish Foster Home, 14 Philadelphia Rabbinical Conference, 14 Plaskow, Judith, xiii, 4, 5, 23, 31, 41, 49, 51, 52, 53, 54, 66, 67,

INDEX 68, 69, 70, 73, 74, 75, 76, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 84, 85, 93, 101, 109, 117, 122, 146, 152, 158, 159, 160, 172, 181, 182, 183, 184, 185, 199, 200, 213, 218, 221, 224, 229, 236, 238, 239, 241 anthropomorphisms necessary, 71, 79, 148 creation of deity beyond anthropomorphisms, 72 critique of Cynthia Ozick, 71, 158 critique of male Godlanguage, 67, 70, 72, 73, 74, 147 critique of Rita Gross, 74, 151 erotic power, 183, 184, 185 female God-language, 68, 71, 76, 158 halakhah, 70 influence of Reconstructionism, 20, 66, 84 midrash, 192 neglect of eschatology, 203 otherness of women, 66, 67, 68, 70, 72 plurality of God-language, 77, 78, 82, 83, 84 rejection of hierarchy, 74, 82, 152, 185, 221, 222 rejection of Jewish particularity, 66 rejection of rabbinic control model, 184 rejection of supernaturalism, 221, 241 sex and spirit, 180

291 Shekhinah inadequate, 74 socio-theology of community, 67, 76, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 85, 186, 204, 222 Standing Again at Sinai, 65, 76, 81, 83, 204, 235, 236 women's inequality theological, 65, 71, 73 Priesand, Sally, 25 Protestantism, 16 Psalms, 68, 73, 112, 196 Purim, 2, 46, 87 Quakerism, 13 rabbinic Judaism, 4, 5, 7, 37, 42, 44, 55, 116, 126, 183, 186, 192, 195, 202, 206, 225, 226, 227, 232, 244 Aha, Rabbi, 111, 115 Akha, Rabbi, 124 Akiba, Rabbi, 114 Amoraim, 99 androcentrism, 1, 3, 31, 44, 45, 49, 72, 73, 84, 175, 214 Ashi, Rabbi, 124 attempts to ameliorate women's status, 3, 4 emphasis on tradition, 227 eschatology, 201, 202, 203, 219 Gehinom, 219 Geonim, 227 Huna, Rabbi, 103 Jewish particularity, 54 kavanah, 126 Lakish, Rabbi Simeon ben, 123 lesbianism, 103, 104 Levi, Rabbi, 196

292

SECOND-WAVE JEWISH FEMINISM

liturgy, 88, 89, 119 primacy of halakhah, 52 Raba, 103 Rashi, 103, 227 rejection of polytheism, 224 theology, 52, 53, 54, 62, 78, 109, 112, 113, 114, 152, 227, 230, 231, 232, 241, 244, 245 Zakkai, Rabban Yohanan ben, 227 Rachel, 46, 124 Raphael, Melissa, ix, x, xvii, 76, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 116, 128, 129, 162, 163, 164, 199, 205, 206, 207, 208, 216, 219, 220, 228, 237, 238 critique of Judith Plaskow, 76, 81 The Female Face of God in Auschwitz, 228, 235, 236, 237 Rebecca, 46 Reconstructionist Judaism, xiii, 20, 25, 28, 66, 94, 101, 103, 106, 128, 206, 222 critique of transcendence, 127 definition, 20 liturgy, 46 Rabbinical College, 20, 102 rejection of hierarchical otherness, 128 theology, 20, 93, 108, 127 Reform Judaism, 9, 11, 14, 16, 19, 21, 25, 53, 101, 102, 126, 205, 206, 208, 216, 222, 228 Breslau Conference 1845, 11 critique of Orthodoxy, 60

critique of rabbinic Judaism, 58 Frankfurt conference, 1845, 11 interpretive liberty, 58 liturgy, 99, 211 proto-feminist pledges, 11 theology, 58 Response, 21 Rich, Adrienne, 89, 223 Rikvah, 124 Roman Empire, 227 Rose, Ernestine, 13 Rosenbaum, Eve, 211 Rosenzweig, Franz, 59, 60, 61 Rosh Hashanah, 22 Rosh Hodesh, 28, 46, 98, 124 Ross, tamar Expanding the Palace of Torah, 235 Ross, Tamar, xiv, 137, 170, 199, 200, 238 critique of Rachel Adler, 135 cumulative revelation, 171, 172, 173, 174, 175, 176, 177, 200, 229 Expanding the Palace of Torah, 170, 171, 236 inclusivist theology, 171 influence of Abraham Isaac Kook, 171, 172 Roth, Cecil, 279 Rubenstein, Richard, 61 After Auschwitz, 61 theology, 61 Ruether, Rosemary Radford, xiv, 85, 177, 178, 179, 185, 226 theology subjective, 137, 178 Ruth, 105, 243

INDEX Ruttenberg, Danya, 212 Sadducees, 45 Samuel, 73, 104 Sappho, 138 Sasso, Sandy Eisenberg, 25 Scarf, Mimi, 37 School of the Jewish Woman, New York, 21 Second-Wave feminism definition, 18 Second-Wave Jewish feminism definition, 21 Sephardim, 15, 57 Setel, T. Drorah, 237 Shabbat, 2, 46, 67, 78, 180 Shekhinah, xvii, 5, 57, 63, 71, 74, 96, 98, 142, 211, 242 Shekhinah (mystical), 57, 74, 116, 117, 118, 119, 121 Shekhinah (rabbinic), 53, 75, 96, 109, 110, 111, 112, 113, 114, 115, 116, 123, 124, 125, 147, 243, 245, 246 femininity, 110, 111 frequently misinterpreted, 109 grammar, 110 Shulman, Gail, 30 Siddur Nashim, xiii, 87, 91, 93 female God-language, 91 Siddur Sim Shalom, 93 Society of Jewish Maternity Nurses, 12 Sodom, 192 Solomon, 181 Song of Songs, 180, 181 Spain Expulsion, 60 Spanish Inquisition, 13 Spinoza, 57, 58

293 SS, 139 Stanton, Elizabeth Cady, 13 Steiner, George, 62 Stone, Lucy, 13 Sukkot, 22 Szold, Henrietta, 15 Talmud, 104 lesbianism, 103 Temple Emmanuel, New York, 14 Temple University, Philadelphia, 102 Temple, First, 60, 62, 76 Temple, Second, 45, 60, 62, 112, 113, 226 Teutsch, David, 100 theology definition, xi Third-Wave feminism, 6, 47, 200, 210, 235 Trible, Phyllis, 53, 166, 167 Twersky, Meir, 225 Umansky, Ellen, xiv, 25, 31, 84, 153, 154, 156, 187, 209, 237 Goddess, 137, 153, 155, 156 responsive theology, 155, 156 theology, 153 Union of American Hebrew Congregations, 14 Vashti, 34, 224 Venus, 90 Verbermacher, Hannah Rachel, 42 Vietnam War, 16 Waskow, Arthur, 123, 124, 125 Weidman, Susan, 28 Weiss-Rosmarin, Trude, 21 Wenig, Maggie, xiii, 87, 91, 92, 93

294

SECOND-WAVE JEWISH FEMINISM

white slave trade, 12 Wiesel, Elie, 139 The Town Beyond the Wall, 139 Wolf, Arnold Jacob, 132, 243 Wollstonecraft, Mary Vindication of the Rights of Women, 13 Woman Question, 11 Women’s Joint Congressional Committee, 15 Women’s Liberation Movement, 18

Women’s Protective and Provident League, 12 Women’s Zionist Organization of America, 21 World Council of Jewish Women, 12 Yemanja, 160 Yentl’s Revenge, 209, 210, 212 Yohai, Simon ben, 113 Zealots, 45 Zephaniah, 68 Zionism, 161, 206, 211