Haviva Ner-David's "Life on the Fringes" (book review)

Life on the Fringes: A Feminist Journey Towards Traditional Rabbinic Ordination, by Haviva Ner-David, is a memoir of a life still being lived both in consonance with, and in rebellion against, Orthodox Judaism. At the time of the book's publication in 2000, Ner-David was still actively studying with an Orthodox rabbi for private rabbinical ordination, which she received just prior to Pesach 2006 after 12 years of study. In the book, she discusses the challenge of being an Orthodox woman committed to an increased role for women in the more public aspects of observance and in halachic decision-making.

Here are three aspects of her book that I, personally, found rather surprising.

One was her wish to find a way within Orthodoxy to accept active homosexuality. I was not anticipating such an open attitude from an Orthodox Jew, much less one studying for rabbinic ordination.

Another was her discussion of the role of B'not Yisrael (the Daughters of Israel, meaning Jewish women) in making the laws regarding refraining from sex after menstruation more stringent than the rabbis had originally proposed. Ner-David makes the case that a combination of lack of scientific knowledge and lack of availability of a standard calendar led to errors in calculating the average length of a woman's monthly cycle. The rabbis were under the impression that the average woman's monthly cycle was only 18 days. B'not Yisrael, possibly because they realized how far off the rabbis' calculations were, and possibly acting to avoid accidentally violating the law, lengthened the amount of time before immersion in a mikvah (ritual bath) and a return to permissible sex with their husbands from seven days without bleeding to fourteen days. Ner-David reminds us that this seems to be one of the rare instances in which women actively decided the halachah (Jewish religious law) both by and for themselves. (Ner-David does not say this in her book, but it also seems to me that the original ruling by the rabbis would have been much more workable if the good gentlemen, had, ya know, consulted their wives about how their own bodies worked. If you can't admit that you're lost, then give me the blinkin' map, darn it!)

But the position that Ner-David took that surprised me the most, given that she was studying to become a rabbi, was her adamant opposition to p'sak, which she defines as "a personal ruling by a rabbi who specializes in answering questions of Jewish law that must be followed once received. " Ner-David supports her father's position that p'sak is "idolatry, that people who did this were worshipping their rabbi like an idol. . . .My parents asked rabbis and scholars for advice, but they never asked for a p'sak. My parents were never willing to hand over the responsibility for their life decisions to another person, and neither am I." I agree 100%. If we have no right to think for ourselves, then the blessing "chonen ha-daat"* is a brachah l'vatalah.**

I recommend this book to both feminists and traditionalists. It's a fine portrait of someone trying to walk a tightrope between two sometimes-conflicting hashkafot (religious perspectives).


*"[Blessed is (the One)] who graciously gives knowledge."

** A "wasted blessing," meaning that the person saying the blessing has just taken G-d's name in vain.