Inconsistent
During one of his presentations at Limmud NY, Rabbi Riskin commented that he'd needed his wife's assistance in preparing to host the local Palestinian mayors in their home because he couldn't even make a cup of coffee. That reminds me of an article that I read recently about Rabbi Avi Weiss that said that he was incapable of cooking a simple meal.
Rabbis Shlomo Riskin and Avi Weiss are among the leading supporters of expanded opportunities for learning, leadership, and, where halachah/Jewish religious law allows, active roles in religious services for Orthodox Jewish women. Yet neither one can do much more in the kitchen than boil water. I don't get it.
Rabbis Shlomo Riskin and Avi Weiss are among the leading supporters of expanded opportunities for learning, leadership, and, where halachah/Jewish religious law allows, active roles in religious services for Orthodox Jewish women. Yet neither one can do much more in the kitchen than boil water. I don't get it.
posted by Shira Salamone at 12:50 AM
13 Comments:
So? Both are men in their 70's (or late 60s). It was a different time and place. Why does expanded leadership/learning etc. mean that they have to personally know how to cook? Not to mention, Mrs. Riskin is a great cook, but that's a separate issue.
According to Wikipedia, R. Shlomo Riskin is less than two years older, and R. Avi Weiss is about two years younger, than my husband. True, the early 40's were "a different time and place," but my husband has somehow managed to adjust to having a wife who insisted that he share the diaper-changing and housework duties. I don't consider age an excuse for any man who isn't old enough to be my father. :)
On the other hand, maybe it's a good thing that you asked "Why does expanded leadership/learning etc. mean that they have to personally know how to cook?" Given my dubious skills in the kitchen, it's a good thing that there's still some hope for me in the Bet Midrash (study "house"). :)
My father is 71 and can't turn on the stove. You insisted your husband share responsibilities, but you are a feminist. Why do you assume that just because R. Riskin and R. Weiss are progressive in their orthodoxy (and I'd question that claim for R. Riskin in that he's not nearly as progressive as you would like him to be) that their wives equally insisted that they share the household duties? Being a congregational rabbi as both were/are is a more than a full time job, more so than an accountant. So perhaps their wives took on the full time role of rebbetzin, including the cooking. Just because you arranged your life one way doesn't mean others do.
My wife (a graduate of Barnard and a PhD, as well as a Drisha alum) is a stay at home mom who does all of the cooking. I can cook and choose to cook on Sundays, but that occurred over the years. I changed diapers, but the vast majority (let's say 95%) of household responsibilities are my wife's. On the flip side, I work between 12-14 hours a day. Everyone makes their own arrangements regardless of their public stances on things.
What's inconsistent? Do you need to know how to mop floors to believe that illegal immigrants deserve human dignity? I don't see how knowing how to cook would strengthen their position that women deserve a participatory role in shul.
Rejewvenator, you have a point.
JDub, I'll grant you that being a rabbi is almost as bad as being a doctor, in that a rabbi is "on call" 24/7. So you may have a point that a rebbitzen (rabbi's wife) might choose to take that fact into consideration when determining the division of labor in the household.
Maybe I'm just being too judgmental. This topic may be covered by the good old "MYOB" rule: Shira, mind your own business.
I don't really care what the rabbi does in his private life, but if the community expects the wife of a rabbi to take a role (hosting meals, giving shiurim etc) then they should pay her for her time too. Very often it's unpaid labour, on top of a full time job--the rabbinate doesn't pay enough to support a family. Or they shouldn't expect work from the rebbetzin and hire a female congregational leader--rabbis get training, rebbetzins don't get training in halacha (I've heard some incredibly bad halachic advice from rebbetzins) so maybe a paid female scholar would be better.
I don't buy the argument that age is an excuse. My dad's only four years younger than R. Weiss, and he's a much better cook than my mother (he taught me how to cook, too). Nor do I accept the "everyone divides duties differently" excuse. If neither of these men know how to cook at all, that means that there was never any chance of dividing the responsibilities of cooking in the first place!
I find it utterly bizarre that a daily task such as cooking would be something that only one half of a couple could do. What if the capable partner gets sick? What if they're out of town? Etc. If the preference is for one partner to do most of the cooking for whatever reason (and God knows I'm not good at sharing a kitchen), then fine. But to make the wife responsible for all the food, all the time, without even the possibility of getting help from her husband? That's not a partnership.
" . . . if the community expects the wife of a rabbi to take a role (hosting meals, giving shiurim etc) then they should pay her for her time too."
Agreed.
"If neither of these men know how to cook at all, that means that there was never any chance of dividing the responsibilities of cooking in the first place!
I find it utterly bizarre that a daily task such as cooking would be something that only one half of a couple could do. What if the capable partner gets sick? What if they're out of town?"
That's why I taught my husband to cook (albeit as minimally as I do) and he taught me how to reconcile a bank statement in Quicken (albeit at a much slower speed than Mr. CPA can do the same job). That's also why I made sure that our son knew how to do laundry and clean house before he left for college. A basic level of competence in the skills required for daily living seems a reasonable thing to expect of an adult, and a fair thing to expect of one's life partner.
One of the families that we are good friends with, he is not allowed in the kitchen. He's NOT a Rabbi, he's in IT, she's a school teacher (NOT a Morah), but she does all the cooking. He didn't learn growing up, she has no interest in sharing the kitchen.
In my house, I do more cooking than my wife. I do breakfast each morning, dinner is split (mostly her right now, as my hours are long right now, when I'm not busy, I like to cook), she does Shabbat cooking.
However, she had to teach me everything. I didn't know how to make rice when we got married. I knew how to scramble eggs and grill hot dogs, the extent of my culinary skills.
She taught me the basics, I really got into it, I can even "bake" basic things now (soft pretzels, challah).
People are different, and people assign different values to activities. I LOATH changing diapers, I am capable of doing it, but I LOATH doing it. My wife doesn't care that much. She LOATHS filling/emptying the dishwasher, I like seeing the dirty dishes go away.
Household drudgery needs to get done. Either you do it, or you pay someone to do it. I'm hard pressed to put a lot of marital value OR ideological value on it.
The Hillel (standing-on-one-foot) version: Once a person develops basic competence in household chores, *then* he/she and her/his partner can decide together who's doing what. Well put, Miami Al.
My father is turning 80 this year, God willing, and he was the one who taught me how to cook. I will try to honor my mother and not comment on her cooking.
I think a man can be a feminist and still not know how to cook. We all have different strengths and weaknesses.
An egalitarian society does not require that ALL men be decent cooks and more than it requires ALL women to be Torah scholars. The question is whether household duties are divided in a way that works for all the parties involved.
Oops, I knew I'd missed a comment somewhere.
Essentially, I don't expect everyone to be an expert at everything, but I do expect every adult to have basic "survival skills." Everyone should be able to cook an edible meal, even if all that means pasta with pasta sauce from a jar. Everyone who's physically capable of it should know how to drive, and everyone who's mentally capable of it should be able to balance a bank statement. That doesn't mean that you have to know how to drive cross-country, but it does mean that you should know how to drive a sick loved one to the nearest hospital. That doesn't mean that you should be an expert in tax preparation, but it does mean that you should be able to keep good enough records to know where you're spending money. Once an adult has the basics under his or her belt, then he/she can negotiate which ones she/he prefers or is better at.
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