I’ve been thinking about this for a good while and debating whether to blog on the subject. I was rather hoping that I’d get a chance to continue to discuss this and related issues at GoldaLeah’s blog,
Go West, Young Jew, after she published her Wednesday, November 09, 2005 post,
Standing Again at Sinai I (Feminist Judaism). Unfortunately for the Jewish blogosphere, GoldaLeah decided to retire from blogging, and therefore, her series on Feminist Judaism was never continued. So I guess I’ll just have to pick up where she left off.
Therefore, without further ado . . .
First of all, let’s get the obvious out of the way. The prayer recited by men thanking
Hashem “who has not made me a woman” has, frankly, been beaten to death already. Besides, one of my unfortunately anonymous commenters from my Thursday, October 14, 2004 post, "
Men in Halachah—Shirking their responsibilities," already answered the question, in my opinion:
“The trio of blessing God for not making "me" (e.g. a Jewish man) a woman, gentile or slave may well have been instituted to directly contrast with Pauline Christian theology, wherein there exists "no man nor women, Jew or Greek, free or slave, for ye are all one in Jesus Christ" (my own paraphrase of the verse). In other words, the purpose of these blessings is to asssert that there are differences between groups which Christianity, then on the ascent, sought to abolish. And we are not all "one in Jesus Christ". The beracha women recite, "she-asani kirtzono" is nearly a thousand years newer than the other berachot, which date to the 3rd or 4th century. So you cannot ask why the formula for men did not read "she-asani ish". It would have necessitated other affirmative declarations for consistency, such as "for making me a Jew" and "for making me free". Then the point that this was in contrast to Paul's doctrine would not have been apparent. You can surely ask why the woman's formula was written as it was. But that is not a question on Talmudic sages, it is a question on whomever it was that composed that blessing in the 11th or 12 century.”
Okay, that’s enough of that. But that still leaves us with this beauty (from the
Torah-reading part of the weekday
Shacharit/Morning Service): “May it be the will of our Father who is in heaven to preserve among us the sages of Israel, them, their wives . . .”
The writer of this prayer obviously takes it for granted that there’s no such thing as a female scholar. Otherwise, why would he bless the wives separately, as if it were unheard of for a wife, or an unmarried woman, to be a scholar in her own right? (Beruriah [the scholarly wife of Rabbi Meir] and the 20th-century scholar Nechama Leibowitz are both turning in their graves.) The solution is to skip the word “
u-n’sheihem,” “their wives,” leaving the word “them.”
And here’s another beauty, from the
Torah-reading part of the
Shacharit/Morning Service of
Shabbat (Sabbath): “He who blessed our ancestors, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—may He bless this entire holy congregation along with all the holy congregations; them, their wives . . .”
Since many of us are of the opinion that wives are already included in the term "holy congregations," the solution, again, is to skip the word “
u-n’sheihem,” “their wives,” leaving the word “them.”
However, I pose this question to my Orthodox readers: Given the fact that women are not counted for a
minyan (quorum needed for certain prayers and ritual actions such as reading from the
Torah scroll) and that they do not participate in a public way in the prayer service, neither leading any part of the service nor participating in the reading of the
Torah scroll, the Prophets, or the Writings, are women, halachically speaking from an Orthodox point of view, part of the congregation? I’m trying to understand whether, from an Orthodox perspective, mentioning the wives separately
includes those who would otherwise be assumed to be
excluded or
excludes those who would otherwise be assumed to be
included.
Then there’s the question of which individuals should or should not be mentioned in the first paragraph (
Avot/Fathers/Ancestors section) of the
Amidah prayer. On GoldaLeah’s aforementioned post, David commented, "Hazal say several times that we would have no right to daven if not for God teaching us how. By all right, we should not be allowed to address God at all. The only reason we may say 'God of Abraham, God of Isaac, and God of Jacob' is that God calls himself 'God of Abraham...'
GoldaLeah replied, “This might explain why people aren't willing to change things, but it doesn't explain why it's right for it to be that way. Look again who you are relying on...Hazal...male sages. I wonder if a woman sage would have come up with an equally tennable reason for including the matriarchs in our prayers, had she been given the chance to do so.”
Finally, as a native speaker of English who’s not fortunate enough to be fluent in Hebrew (yet—that’s why I’m in an Ulpan Hebrew class), I run square into the unavoidable problem that the Hebrew language has no “neuter”—even the words for “parent” and "ancestor" are masculine. Under the circmstances, I’m forced to ask myself whether I might not be seeing sexism where it wasn’t necessarily consciously intended. Does
ish, man, automatically include woman? Does
ben, son, also include daughter? Does
avoteinu, our fathers, automatically include our mothers?
Years ago, I made the following decision: When
davvening (praying), I would consider any quote from anywhere in the
Tanach/Bible to be sacrosanct, but any prayer written by the
rabbanim (rabbis) would be fair game. So I’ve been adding the words
imoteinu (our mothers) to
avoteinu (our fathers), and
b’noteinu (our daughters) to
baneinu (our sons), in prayers written by the
rabbanim, such as the blessings after the
Sh'ma quotations and the blessings in the
Amidah prayer.
Ish, man, has become
adam, human (which is, as I was saying, also masculine, but about as neuter a word as Hebrew can provide). The problem is that, of late, I’ve come to wonder whether
I’m excluding people who might otherwise be assumed to be included. What’s your opinion? Should I drop the extra words and assume that the original text includes them? Or should I continue along my present path on the assumption that the text was written by and for men and that, therefore, the masculine terminology can be assumed to have been chosen thoughtlessly at best or deliberately at worst?
Was the standard traditional prayer book written for
all Jews?
Or this a classic case of “Pay no attention to that woman behind the curtain?”
January 10, 2006:
1) I neglected to mention that I'm leading a discussion on this subject at a
chavurah (layperson-led) service this coming
Shabbat. So I'd appreciate all the input I can get, as it helps me clarify my thinking. Thanks for your support.
2) I forgot this beauty, from
Birkat HaMazon (Grace after Meals)—
Nodeh l'cha . . . al britcha she-chatamta bi-v'sareinu, We thank You . . . for the covenant that You sealed in our flesh. As GoldaLeah was saying in her post, there are some texts that simply don't apply to women. I'd be happy to give credit to the person from whom I picked up this one years ago, if I could remember who the person was: To the phrase "
al britcha she-chatamta bi-v'sareinu, We thank You . . . for the covenant that You sealed in our flesh," add the word "
u-vi-l'vaneinu, and in our hearts."
