[Please pardon the usual formatting problems.]
From the comments to
this post by Heshy, of
Frum Satire:
“but something smells fishy when a woman who doesn’t keep kosher or taharas mishpacha wants to put on tefillin. Is it about equality or God?”
I think it’s because Reform and Conservative Jews mainly observe mitzvot that happen in the synagogue, which almost always apply to males only. Also, yes, for many of them it is about equality more than it’s about God–which makes sense considering lots of Jews don’t believe in God yet still have Jewish social lives.
Touche, Heshy. I first started wearing a tallit when I was just short of 24 years old, if memory serves me correctly, and I wasn't very observant then. I think I was still eating pork and shellfish at the time, and I certainly wasn't terribly concerned about lighting Erev Shabbat (Sabbath Eve) candles before sunset. My observance level has gone up and down over the years, and is currently relatively decent, due at least partly to the influence of my fellow and sister bloggers. (A little peer pressure goes a long way :) ). In my defense, though, I must say that there was more than "equality" involved in my decision to wear a tallit--I was a member of an egalitarian synagogue at the time, and became convinced that, since I had equal rights, I should also have equal responsibilites. By the time I was married and a mother and we moved out of the neighborhood, I'd already been wearing a tallit for over a decade, and kept wearing it because it just didn't seem right to stop, after all those years. It wasn't until at least a decade after our move that I heard that, once one begins to perform a mitzvah, one is obligated to continue for life. At the time, I thought it was ironic that I had come to my decision to continue to wear a tallit through intuition, in complete ignorance of halachah/Jewish religious law.
[ New paragraph ¶ ]
I think Chana is at least partially correct in saying that some of us non-Orthodox women choose to wear a tallit (and tefillin) because "Reform and Conservative Jews mainly observe mitzvot that happen in the synagogue, which almost always apply to males only." It stands to reason that some of us non-Orthodox women would wish to take on what we see as some of the primary symbols of Jewish identity and observance.
"Also, yes, for many of them it is about equality more than it’s about God–which makes sense considering lots of Jews don’t believe in God yet still have Jewish social lives." So I'm "Conservaprax"--so sue me. :)
19 Comments:
As a BT, I note that there are many paths to increased observance. ME and I were fully kosher in and out of the house long before we were completely shomer shabbat. If your path to increased observance takes you through prayer/tallit/tefillin rather than through taharat hamisphacha (family purity) or kashrut, IMO it is still better for you to have begun the journey than not.
Before I knew you, I had to settle for thinking about this issue by writing a letter to an imaginary friend.
This is a good discussion and I agree that the reason women may want to wear a tallit or tefillin is because of a sense of Jewish identity.
I remember the first time I wore a tallit. That was such a powerful symbol of being Jewish for me, something very distinct. Women should be allowed to wear these ritual objects, if for no other reason than they are identity markers and women are no less Jewish than men.
I haven't wrapped tefillin yet, but I've been thinking about taking on that mitzvah.
I was in my late twenties when I gave up pork and shellfish, in my mid-thirties (after our son's birth) when we kashered our kitchen, and in my late forties when I stopped eating non-kosher beef, lamb, and poultry. Sometimes, becoming more observant is a gradual process.
I began wearing a tallit at 24 and tefillin at about 28, but didn't make the commitment to use them every weekday until two or three years ago. (I posted about it somewhere, but I can't find that post.) That, too, has been a gradual process.
That "letter" is very interesting reading, and you got some good comments, as well. I miss ex-blogger Dilbert. :(
"Women should be allowed to wear these ritual objects, if for no other reason than they are identity markers and women are no less Jewish than men." Threadzofblue, our thinking on this point is similar. You might be interested in reading my Nothing to help us pray: Women and the Sh’ma—davvenning in the abstract.
Do these same writers also question the motivation of Jews who hold seders when they don't keep (Orthodox) kashrut or go to synagogue?
There are different mitzvot and minhagim that resonate with different people, but to discourage someone from performing a permitted Jewish activity because they are NOT performing other ones strikes me as seriously perverse.
Those are certainly points to consider, Tzipporah.
to discourage someone from performing a permitted Jewish activity because they are NOT performing other ones strikes me as seriously perverse.
True. Consider the case of a boy about to become bar mitzvah (or a girl bat mitzvah) who plan to have a non-kosher bar mitzvah party afterwards. I don't know any rabbis who would have had the kids as students in the first place who would refuse to allow the bar mitzvah to proceed. OTOH most C and O rabbis I've discussed this with would not attend the reception, not even for a few minutes.
Correct, the sociological problem is a tendency to reflect upon Jewish customs where the public synagogue mitzvot are more important than the actually more important ones in the home.
It is more important for the family to have a Kosher home than either spouse don tefillin or tallit. So while I have no problem, per se, with a non-yet observant woman donning tefillin or tallit, the system should suggest that it is more important to her that she keep the home based mitzvot than the public gender ones.
Hence we are in a bad situation where we discourage a woman from taking on an additional mitzvah, one is which she is not obligated in.
Her choosing to take the public mitzvah is admirable, but if she thinks that it is more important that she do that than what she is obligated to do, it is bad.
So, for you, it's a matter of priorities.
Completely. If the motivation is purely feminism, that is bad, because it turns the mitzvah on its head from that of obligation to privilege, which I find bad. Fulfill mitzvot, don't consider it an honor and privilege, then you are missing the point.
On top of that, if you decide to focus on that, you risk demeaning the "feminine" mitzvot, that while not female per se, are traditional the domain of the wife/mother.
So while I think it is wonderful for women to choose to take the obligation of Tallit and public prayer, I think it is terrible if they decide to focus on that and become dismissive of candle lighting, kashrut, etc.
"because it turns the mitzvah on its head from that of obligation to privilege"
If the rabbis of old hadn't considered time-bound mitzvot (commandments that must be performed at specific times) to be a privilege, they would never have written the brachah/blessing for a man that thanks HaShem for not having made him a woman (whose obligation to perform time-bound mitzvot is generally limited).
I think it's true, though, that playing off one set of mitzvot against another is bound to be offensive to someone, not to mention The One.
That's kind of the underlying philosophy, as a Jew, Freeman, or Man, one has the privilege of serving extra mitzvot.
Whiney, complaint oriented Judaism is a modern invention... :)
Wiseguy. :)
I skip the complaints by skipping the negatives: I follow the Conservative minhag (based on the text in an ancient siddur, I've heard), and thank HaShem in the positive--Praised is [the One who] made me a Jew, who made me a free person, who made me in His image. (When I'm not serving as baalat tefillah/prayer leader, I end the third brachah/blessing with the phrase, "Who made me a woman.")
I'm with Al, albeit without the irony. It is somewhat whiny, complaint driven Judaism to say "But I want to wear a tallit. It makes me feel nice. It doesn't matter that I don't keep kosher. It doesn't matter that it's not even really a mitzvah. Me, me, me, me."
Judaism isn't about "me, me, me." It's a system of obligations, not privileges. I'm not saying spirituality and drawing closer to God isn't part of it (indeed, the major part of it), but it's not about the individual's experience in the system.
I'm glad that people think they find meaning in the ritual, but they're finding the wrong meaning. Doing what YOU want and not what God wants, isn't the essence of Judaism. It's the essence of You-ism.
Even in my fairly LWMO mindset in which I push for appropriate egalitarianism (e.g., women learning and teaching), I have trouble with the mindset of "but I wanna do that" that really comes across in the "I'm a feminist first and a Jew second" camp. It's one of the reasons I don't particularly like JOFA. I'm not a feminist, and I believe that pushing the feminist agenda is a mistake. Equality within the halakhic framework is not about feminism.
Let the flaming begin!
Relax, JDub, I don't "flame." I'm a strong proponent of civil conversation, and see no reason why disagreements must be disagreeable. :)
I prefer Larry's perspective, that "there are many paths to increased observance." And I also think that Tzipporah has a point: Do you ". . . also question the motivation of Jews who hold seders when they don't keep (Orthodox) kashrut . . . " I must admit that I find it upsetting that a woman's motivation for accepting upon herself the obligation to perform time-bound mitzvot, such as wearing tallit and tefillin, is constantly being challenged. I wear a tallit and tefillin for the same reason that you do, which is that the Sh'ma says that that's what the Children of Israel are supposed to do.
But you reject the idea that Jewish law is in human hands, and those humans have expressly stated you are exempt from those mitzvot. So, to take on a mitzvah that you are not commanded in, is different than a non-kosher Jew holding a seder. There, the person is fulfilling an obligation. No such obligation exists for you, and it is almost certain that no such obligation was observed by women at the time the Torah was given (or written, to avoid a separate theological discussion). There is no evidence, literary or otherwise, to support the idea that women wore a tallis or tefillin prior to modernity. That people call out Rashi's daughters is itself proof of this, since it was clearly an anomaly.
I don't actually care about women wearing tallit and tefillin. But it's really more about their feelings and less about commandments, since it's not a commandment for women.
And I wasn't worried about you, Shira, you are almost always civil.
"But you reject the idea that Jewish law is in human hands"
That would be pretty ironic--since I'm not sure that a supernatural god exists, in who else's hands could Jewish law possibly be? :)
"those humans have expressly stated you are exempt from those mitzvot." The humans who made those decisions were all male. It would be more accurate to say that I object to the fact that Jewish law was, and is currently, almost completely in the hands of males.
"to take on a mitzvah that you are not commanded in, is different than a non-kosher Jew holding a seder. There, the person is fulfilling an obligation. No such obligation exists for you,"
True, but again, none of *my* half of the Jewish people had a say in determining what our obligations should be. Again, if it's no big deal, why do men bless G-d for being obligated?
Jdub, do you distinguish between "secular" and "religious" feminism? I'm in fundamental agreement with you as to the nature of jewish religious law; but I certainly wouldn't extend that position to the secular world.
I do have a continuing struggle with what I perceive as the continuing secularization of judaism, particularly in the Conservative and LWMO pews (since I see Reform as already a "secular" form of judaism).
Too Old to Jewschool Steve, I'm not sure that "secularization" is necessarily the term that I would use, given that all of the groups you mentioned profess a belief in G-d. If I may rephrase, I think your point is that Reform, Conservative, and left-wing Modern Orthodox Jews are too highly influenced by secular culture.
Perhaps we disagree on what I've heard described as "creative assimilation," the process of integrating some aspects of other cultures into one's own culture in such a manner that the "imports" have a positive influence. The rabbis of older times were experts at this, judging by what I've heard. For example, one of my former rabbis taught that the Seder is based on the original form of the Greek Symposium, minus, obviously, the "dancing girls," which is why we end the meal on a serious note by eating the very plain afikoman as "dessert." Assuming that that theory is correct, the rabbis seem to have found a way to turn the libations to the Greek gods into the four cups drunk in honor of *our* G-d's promise of deliverence from slavery. Can we not find some equally creative way to assimilate feminism into Judaism? Halachic observance has certainly been enhanced by the addition of Yoatzot Halachah, and I find it difficult to believe that the idea of female advisors for female issues (and "issues") did not result from feminist influence, given the fact that Nishmat’s Keren Ariel Women's Halachic Institute to train Yoatzot Halacha, Women Halachic Consultants wasn’t established until 1997.
Steve,
I'm a humanist, not a feminist. I treat people according to their abilities and qualities, not their sex. In truth, I despise nearly everybody, but at least I treat them all equally misanthropically.
Shira,
No, I would argue that the yoatzot halachot were moved by their desire to learn Torah. Much like Sara Schnerir, in her quest to help women learn torah since they were accomplished secularly, so to did Rabbanit Henkin find a way to increase women's learning. I think she would be the first to decry your use of the word feminism to denote why she did what she did, as would I. Rabbanit Henkin firmly recognizes the different spheres of influence for men and women in halacha.
At this point, I think we've gotten as far as we can since we clearly come at this from completely different angles, so I will simply abstain further from this. Let not my silence be read as assent!
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