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Judaism and Feminism: An Introduction

Feminism - the doctrine advocating social, political, and all other rights of women equal to those of men

• Creation Story. Gen 2:23-24 – Woman as Companion to Male

o Gen 3 – Disobedience in the World

The law of the sotah (‘one who has gone astray’)

The Lord spoke to Moses, saying: 12Speak to the Israelite people and say to them: If any man’s wife has gone astray and broken faith with him 13in that a man has had carnal relations with her unbeknown to her husband, and she keeps secret the fact that she has defiled herself without being forced, and there is no witness against her—14but a fit of jealousy comes over him and he is wrought up about the wife who has defiled herself; or if a fit of jealousy comes over one and he is wrought up about his wife although she has not defiled herself—15the man shall bring his wife to the priest. And he shall bring as an offering for her one-tenth of an ephah of barley flour. No oil shall be poured upon it and no frankincense shall be laid on it, for it is a meal offering of jealousy, a meal offering of remembrance which recalls wrongdoing.

16The priest shall bring her forward and have her stand before the Lord. 17The priest shall take sacral water in an earthen vessel and, taking some of the earth that is on the floor of the Tabernacle, the priest shall put it into the water. 18After he has made the woman stand before the Lord, the priest shall bare the woman’s head and place upon her hands the meal offering of remembrance, which is a meal offering of jealousy. And in the priest’s hands shall be the water of bitterness that induces the spell. 19The priest shall adjure the woman, saying to her, “If no man has lain with you, if you have not gone astray in defilement while married to your husband, be immune to harm from this water of bitterness that induces the spell. 20But if you have gone astray while married to your husband and have defiled yourself, if a man other than your husband has had carnal relations with you”—21here the priest shall administer the curse of adjuration to the woman, as the priest goes on to say to the woman—“may the Lord make you a curse and an imprecation among your people, as the Lord causes your thigh to sag and your belly to distend; 22may this water that induces the spell enter your body, causing the belly to distend and the thigh to sag.” And the woman shall say, “Amen, amen!”

23The priest shall put these curses down in writing and rub it off into the water of bitterness. 24He is to make the woman drink the water of bitterness that induces the spell, so that the spell-inducing water may enter into her to bring on bitterness. 25Then the priest shall take from the woman’s hand the meal offering of jealousy, elevate the meal offering before the Lord, and present it on the altar. 26The priest shall scoop out of the meal offering a token part of it and turn it into smoke on the altar. Last, he shall make the woman drink the water.

27Once he has made her drink the water—if she has defiled herself by breaking faith with her husband, the spell-inducing water shall enter into her to bring on bitterness, so that her belly shall distend and her thigh shall sag; and the woman shall become a curse among her people. 28But if the woman has not defiled herself and is pure, she shall be unharmed and able to retain seed.

29This is the ritual in cases of jealousy, when a woman goes astray while married to her husband and defiles herself, 30or when a fit of jealousy comes over a man and he is wrought up over his wife: the woman shall be made to stand before the Lord and the priest shall carry out all this ritual with her. 31The man shall be clear of guilt; but that woman shall suffer for her guilt. Numbers 5:11-31

If a man commits adultery with a married woman, committing adultery with another man’s wife, the adulterer and the adulteress shall be put to death. Leviticus 20:10; cf. Deut 22:22

The Sound of Silence

The need for a feminist Judaism begins with hearing silence. It begins with noting the absence of women’s history and experiences as shaping forces in the Jewish tradition. Half of Jews have been women, but men have been defined as normative Jews, while women’s voices and experiences are largely invisible in the record of Jewish belief and experience that has come down to us. Women have lived Jewish history and carried its burdens, but women’s perceptions and questions have not given form to scripture, shaped the direction of Jewish law, or found expression in liturgy. Confronting this silence raises disturbing questions and stirs the impulse toward far-reaching change. What in the tradition is ours? What can we claim that has not also wounded us? What would have been different had the great silence been filled?

Hearing silence is not easy. A silence so vast tends to fade into the natural order; it is easy to identify with reality. To ourselves, women are not Other. We take the Jewish tradition as it has been passed down to us, as ours to appropriate or ignore. Over time, we learn to insert ourselves into silences. Speaking about Abraham, telling of the great events at Sinai, we do not look for ourselves in the narratives but assume our presence, peopling the gaps in the text with women’s shadowy forms. It is far easier to read ourselves into male stories than to ask how the foundational stories within which we live have been distorted by our absence. Yet is not possible to speak into silence, to recover our history or reclaim our power to name without first confronting the extent of exclusion of women’s experience. Silence can become an invitation to experiment and explore – but only after we have examined its terrain and begun to face its implications. Judith Plaskow, Standing Again at Sinai: Judaism From a Feminist Perspective (1990)

“We All Stood Together” by Merle Feld – see attached

“Here Comes Skotsl” from Rachel Adler’s Engendering Judaism (1998) – see attached

Doing Something About It!

• Lifecycle

o Birth Customs

▪ Brit Bat

• Anita Diamant’s The New Jewish Baby Book

•

o Menarche and Menstruation (Rosh Chodesh)

o Marriage

▪ Mutual Exchange of Rings

▪ Ketubot – Evolution of its function

▪ Adler’s Brit Ahuvim

o Fertility/Pregnancy

o ****Adult Bnai Mitzvah Programs!!!!****

• Liturgy

o Relationship Between Theology and Liturgy

▪ Reconstructionist Judaism - 1945

▪ Reform, Conservative, and even Orthodox

o Marcia Falk’s The Book of Blessings

▪ Falk’s Shema and V’ahavta – see attached, see her own commentary to the text on pp. 431-ff.

o In our own Reform movement

▪ The Presence of Women at the Table

• Women in the Rabbinate/CCAR: 1975 vs. 2007

▪ Feminine Poetic Voice and Gender Neutral Translation (esp of God’s name) in Mishkan Tefilah

• Torah Scholarship

o Theology

o Torah Commentary

▪ Five Books of Miriam by Ellen Frankel (1996)

▪ The Torah: A Women’s Commentary edited by Tamara Eskenazi and Andrea Weiss (see also the new Modern Men’s Torah Commentary edited by J. Salkin)

Looking to the Future

“The Changing Face of the Rabbinate”

The Crisis of Jewish Men! See

Conclusion

Jewish Feminism as a Core Expression of Liberal Judaism

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