Coercion, part three
I got a taste of my own medicine on Shabbat/Shabbos/Sabbath.
Someone had the brilliant (not) idea that we should sing just the Shir HaMaalot introductory psalm and the first paragraph of Birkat HaMazon/Grace After Meals and recite the rest individually and silently to ourselves. M. and I weren’t too thrilled about that—hey, it’s Shabbos, where does anybody have to go so quickly?—but we were both wary of making a fuss again, having discussed, ad nausem, just two weeks ago, the question of how Birkat HaMazon should be prayed. So I found myself in the interesting position of having to remain silent while one or two folks at our table who pray more slowly than I do finished the prayer. And I will admit that I felt a bit stifled at not being free to talk. That was odd, since I don’t feel stifled while waiting for other people to finish the Amidah. Go figure.
So now that the shoe has been on the other foot, I've given the matter of how to pray Birkat HaMazon some further thought, and this is my conclusion:
Most of the people objecting to “enforced” Birkat HaMazon are senior women. Most were raised Orthodox. Many never learned to read Hebrew. Most were not really expected to participate fully in Jewish ritual, but were raised to care for a husband and children. Most never learned many of these prayers. And—key point—I think that many of the senior women object to being “forced” to take on rituals that they were never taught and never expected to know, on the grounds that what they did, and do, was and is in accordance with the way they were raised and is good enough. I suppose that's pretty much the same objection that I have to the recent report that the Conservative rabbinate may raise the bar on kashrut observance.
So the resentment works both ways. The senior women don’t wish to be made to feel that the way they've practiced Judaism all their lives isn’t good enough. The younger women resent being treated as if we have to apologize for being better educated and/or more interested in prayer. It would be a stand-off were it not for the facts that there are more of them than there are of us and that they're our elders.
Labels: Birkat HaMazon/Grace After Meals
posted by Shira Salamone at 7:06 PM
20 Comments:
It's related to a conversation I was having with my mother recently.
If one is relying on pure mimetic tradition (i.e. this isn't what we were taught!!!!) and someone says "you are supposed to do this", there are 2 main ways to react.
1) insulted, that how you were taught is not good enough
you have shown why
2) you do it, because even if the way you did it was fine, you don't know why it was fine, and since you're committed to mitzvot, you start to do it.
This is one of the reasons that parents who send their kids to jewish schools become more frum. The kids learns something in school and comes home and says "Mommy, Daddy, why don't we do XYZ, or why do we do ABC, in school I learnt DEF". If the parents are comitted to mtizvot and don't know why they do what they do (and can't say "Sonny/Daughty, even though XYZ is something that some people do, we don't do it because in the shulchan aruch it says JKL"), they tend to take it on, as they want their kids comitted to mitzvot and they would be setting a bad example if they didn't.
So one ends up with 2 groups of people in all religious groups, those who are intellectually involved and those who are just along for the ride (this is true in all movements)
I had a post about this (the different ways of relating to questions of Torah/halacha/hashkafa) last year:
Torah geeking
Agnoxodox, if you haven't read Haym Soloveitchik's essay “Rupture and Reconstruction: The Transformation of Contemporary Orthodoxy," you can find a link to it in the sidebar at the unfortunately-not-currently-active blog the Out of Step Jew in Kfar Saba. Haym Soloveitchik's essay deals with, among other things, the mimetic tradition, that is, learning Jewish practice from one's parents (a literal "oral tradition"). He makes the case that, in the old days, Jews learned observance mostly from their parents, but now, they learn mostly from books. If I understand his point correctly, it was not always such a terrible thing to say that one observe halachah in a certain way because that was the way one's parents had taught one. Now, if you can't cite chapter and verse from the Gemara, it's not good enough.
Tzipporah, I'm not sure I'm studious enough to pass for a Torah geek--I have just enough of a case of Attention Deficit Disorder to go just as cross-eyed trying to read a page of commentary as a page in a cell-phone instruction manual. But I do enjoy a good Torah discussion.
I've read it (I am a proud YU grad)
That's why I used the word mimetic.
I'll make a few points.
First, Mimeticism as the only method, only worked in the Shtetl environment, where one was born and generally died, and everyone had relatively uniform practice. So you learned by doing, and generally the common practice was correct because otherwise it be pointed out to be incorrect (though sometimes rabbis jumped through hoops to justify common practice when it wasn't the "ideal").
In today's day and age where we are bombarded from all different directions with ideas that pull us in different directions, be they secular or religous, one can't rely totally on mimeticism. However, this isn't what Dr. Grach (sorry, that's what we call him, after his great grandfather) is only saying. He's saying there are legitimate behaviors that were passed down via mimeticism, but aren't the majority opinions. Because in today's day and age we tend to be machmir, we are losing these legitimate opinions, because people are rejecting their mimetic tradition. This is opposed to a mimetic tradition that is incorrect (one might argue that women not covering their hair falls under this, but a woman not benching certainly does).
Second, in today's scientific day and age, where we expect to understand everything we do and base our knowledge on basic principles, many apply the same ideas to understanding halacha.
So that's why the more right-wing segments of the Orthodox community no longer think that it's okay for a bride to cross over to the men's side of the mechitza (divider) to watch the men dance in her honor, even though the practice dates back as far as the Talmud, I think. (Keitzad m'rakda lifnei ha-kallah--This is the way one dances in front of the bride [rough translation] sure sounds like Aramaic to me, so how new a song can it be?) And that's how parents are pressured into dressing their playground-equipment-clamboring six-year-old daughters in skirts, even though, frankly, if a girl is going to hang upside down by her knees, she's a lot more tzanua (modest)in pants.
In my case, though, I suppose it could be argued that I, with my marginally-better Jewish education, am playing the "machmir" (strict) role in my shul, whereas the senior women are following their mothers' mimetic traditions. This is a pretty weird situation, given that I'm the synagogue's resident radical.
So I'm not traditional enough because I want to chant Ashrei while standing *on* the bima, rather reciting it while standing *in front of* the bima. And I'm too traditional because I want to do Birkat HaMazon.
So that's why the more right-wing segments of the Orthodox community no longer think that it's okay for a bride to cross over to the men's side of the mechitza (divider) to watch the men dance in her honor, even though the practice dates back as far as the Talmud, I think. (Keitzad m'rakda lifnei ha-kallah--This is the way one dances in front of the bride [rough translation] sure sounds like Aramaic to me, so how new a song can it be?) And that's how parents are pressured into dressing their playground-equipment-clamboring six-year-old daughters in skirts, even though, frankly, if a girl is going to hang upside down by her knees, she's a lot more tzanua (modest)in pants
none of that has to do with mimeticism vs. books, or even sane chumrot. In some ways they are similar to the conservative movement, they are adopting the practices of people outside judaism (conservative movement adopting the practices of the secular liberal elite, while the chareidim are adopting the practices of the fundamentalist muslim elite). The main difference is, is that what the ultra orthodox are saying is "shev v'al taaseh" (sit and don't do i.e. don't do something that really is permitted), while the conservative movement is saying "Kum v'aseh" (get up and do, i.e. do something that is really forbidden).
I'm also not convinced these women are following a strong mimetic tradition, speaking as someone whose parents/grandparents grew up in their generation, and while my grandmother speaks in great reverance of her parents and grand parents and how religious they were, she doesn't really know the details of their practice....
Getting back to the subject of bentching, we actually have the same issue you describe at my Shabbos table. Ironically, it's my wife that likes to sing the bentching together, and the kids who prefer to do it themselves. We usually end up doing it the latter way - we don't want to make singing something we impose on the kids by fiat - but Debbie always feels something is missing.
Elie, I'm pretty sure your father, may he rest in peace, was my father's thesis advisor, at least if I put 2 and 2 together correctly.
"the chareidim are adopting the practices of the fundamentalist muslim elite)." Youchers. Agnoxodox, that's a pretty good description of what someone called "the Talibanization of Judaism."
"He's [Haym Soloveitchik] saying there are legitimate behaviors that were passed down via mimeticism, but aren't the majority opinions. Because in today's day and age we tend to be machmir, we are losing these legitimate opinions, because people are rejecting their mimetic tradition." And so, we end up with Talibanization.
"The main difference is, is that what the ultra orthodox are saying is "shev v'al taaseh" (sit and don't do i.e. don't do something that really is permitted), while the conservative movement is saying "Kum v'aseh" (get up and do, i.e. do something that is really forbidden)."
What we need is something in the middle. Unfortunately, the middle seems to be losing ground both to the right and the left, with much of the Orthodox world moving rightward lest they give the false impression of being, heaven forbid, Conservative, and Conservative Judaism still trying to make up its mind how halachic it wants to be.
Elie, why not compromise? Do Birkat HaMazon aloud every Shabbat M'varchim HaChodesh, to keep your wife happy, and leave the other occasions for doing Birkat HaMazon open to a decision on the spot.
I don't see why a normal, comitted to halacha, modern orthodoxy doesn't fit your bill?
You would have issues with the fact that its not egalitarian, but not being egalitarian is not a sign of talibanization.
If a woman wants to wear pants, it doesn't bother me so much (I could see myself marrying a woman who wears pants and covers her hair, and covering hair isn't a sign of talibanization either).
A lot of what you refer to the orthodox movement moving to the right is just that they are more knowlegable and more comitted to mitzvot. 50 years ago, maybe only 50% of the "orthodox" community was shomer shabbos, today it's much closer to 100% Is that a sign of a move to the right? Was it correct that before they were not? No, and to say so is stupidity.
The chareidi world has spiraled off to the right, the modern orthodox world has "moved to the right" but mostly through increased education.
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I can relate to your post although I live and daven in quite different places. I attend two different shuls: one is an egalitarian Conservative shul (in paris) where some members are very observant and the other is my local tiny Orthodox shul. In the latter the women (mostly from Sephardic backgrounds) can read no Hebrew whatsoever and have been raised to believe that women need not Jewish education; secular education is ok since it helps you get a good job (go figure!!). In addition they are not very observant (not all keep kosher and most do all sorts of things on shabbat).
First when I daven there they make me feel like I am the Ultra-Orthodox Jew in the community. Secondly I can't understand why they can stand this gap between secular and Jewish education and hope that their educated daughters will go on observing a religion that treats them like idiots.
Elie, I'm pretty sure your father, may he rest in peace, was my father's thesis advisor, at least if I put 2 and 2 together correctly.
Very possible! Azriel Rosenfeld, U of MD?
yes. though most of my peers knew him as the baal koreh of the beis medrash minyan (I think, its been a long time though).
It was the Hashkama Minyan in Shomrei Emunah, Kemp Mill.
Agnoxodox, aside from my egalitarian perspective, there are other reasons why I don’t think I could become Orthodox . My hashkafa (religious viewpoint), in terms of both theology and halachah (Jewish religious law), is pretty far to the left of even a left-wing Modern Orthodoxy way of thinking.
Ilana-Davita, my only rule is that all comments on my blog must be phrased in respectful language. No "idiots," please.
Your experience is oddly similar to mine. I'm considered a relatively learned woman in my local synagogue, only because so many of the women never had an opportunity to get much of a Jewish education. Even in my own generation, I have female friends who were never sent to Hebrew School. I certainly hope that the days of reserving Jewish education for males are over.
your philosophy doesn't really fit within the espoused theology of the conservative movement either, beyond the fact that many conservative jews theology is really reconstrunctionist (kaplan had a huge influence on many rabbis coming out of JTS).
True. I've always said that, theologically, I'm pretty much a Reconstructionist, but ritually, I'm closer to traditional egalitarian Conservative. As for my approach to halachah, the jury's still out. I don't accept patrilineal descent, but I don't like being told not to eat non-kosher plain pizza, either. :)
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