Deconstructing Carrie

The first time I watched Sex and the City, it was at my parents' place with my sisters, who were already fans of the show. At the time, I didn't get the appeal, or how they could stand Sarah Jessica Parker's voice and the lame "musings" that were supposed to constitute Carrie Bradshaw's column. Years later, when the show was being rerun on TBS, I turned it on one Tuesday night and quickly became addicted. I think it was somewhere in the middle of season two, when the show had become wittier and the characters, who had begun as static stereotypes, had developed just enough to be somewhat sympathetic. I also discovered that Cynthia Nixon as Miranda was compelling enough to compensate for Sarah Jessica Parker as Carrie. And, like so many women, I fell in love with Steve, the gentle bartender who takes endless abuse from Miranda and keeps coming back for more.

(Warning: Minor movie spoilers ahead.)

I almost never watch movies in theaters, but when the Sex and the City movie came out, I decided to seek out some female friends to see it with, since I knew that DH would never watch it with me on Netflix. After reading this review (e-mailed to me by the very friend I was going to watch it with!), I started to worry that the movie would be two hours of everything I didn't like about Sex and the City and none of the things I did. Fortunately, I was wrong. It certainly was silly, and it had more than its share of cringe-worthy lines (particularly toward the end), but it was also funny -- occasionally hilarious -- and there were lots of great outfits, which is all that any one who's watched the show can reasonably expect.

Still, I'm a graduate student, and it's impossible for me to watch a movie like this without feeling the urge to take it apart. And what's the point of having a blog if not to indulge in this sort of thing? So here goes:

I'm sure I'm not the first to point out that Sex and the City is fundamentally a traditional romance with a veneer of sexual liberation. The "girls" (as they call themselves) are all ultimately looking for a man to settle down with (at least by the end of the series) -- preferably one who can support their shopping habits, which seem to run them several thousand dollars a spree. (It's not clear where all this money is supposed to be coming from at the outset. Miranda supposedly works eighty hours a week at a law firm, but it's hard to figure out when those hours could be to leave room for all the daytime outings and wild nights. The others are total mysteries: Charlotte runs an art gallery until she gets married, Samantha is an event planner-turned-publicist, and before her first book is published Carrie supports herself by writing a weekly sex column -- in Manhattan! It's also not clear how they manage to walk around in those shoes without ending up on crutches -- but I digress.)

The movie, like the series, is totally unapologetic in its promotion of stereotypes. These are mostly related to the women's relentless pursuit of "labels and love," but there are others: the bald lawyer Jew with the vaguely Yiddish accent; the latino womanizer; and of course, the flamboyantly gay men who always show up just long enough to offer fashion tips and comic relief. The movie also introduced a new stereotype in the person of Carrie's "assistant," an updated version of the kindly black maid. At the end of the movie she leaves the "big city" to marry a man of the appropriate race and class (and girth), and everyone lives happily ever.

Sorry if I ruined the surprise.

Anyway, like I said, I enjoyed the movie, and if you liked the series, you probably will, too. If you don't -- or if, like so many of us, you do but are a little bit embarrassed about it -- you may enjoy this:

Conservative Teshuvot on Mikveh: The Language Issue

For Shabbat Tazria-Metzorah, I spoke about the teshuvot on mikveh recently released by the CJLS. These were not very well publicized, mainly, I imagine, because they were overshadowed by the teshuvot on homosexuality.* I intended to blog about the mikveh teshuvot once I finished blogging about the ones on homosexuality, but I don't seem to be making much progress with the latter, so I may as well address the mikveh teshuvot now. Like my d'var torah, however, this post will focus on the issue of terminology rather than the technical halakhic aspects of the teshuvot, which I'm still working through.

Okay. A few preliminary points:

1. The biblical concept of tum'ah (usually translated "impurity" or "defilement") is unambiguously negative. The clearest evidence of this is its frequent use as a metaphor for sin. This does not mean, of course, that contracting impurity is inherently sinful; impurity is caused by all sorts of unavoidable things, such as illness, sexual intercourse, and handling a corpse (someone's gotta do it). An analogy that I like to use is illness: Being sick doesn't reflect negatively the person who suffers from the illness, but we do recognize the condition as negative, and we therefore often use illness as a metaphor for morally negative traits ("that man is sick").


2. In biblical law, menstrual impurity (niddah) is no more severe than forms of impurity that affect men (ejaculation, penile discharge) or men as well as women (scale disease, contact with a human corpse, etc.).


3. Since the major consequence of impurity is that it bars one from contact with the sancta, rabbinic law as it ultimately developed regards most purity regulations as irrelevant for practical purposes now that the Temple is no longer standing. Niddah is an exception for a purely technical reason: Leviticus 18:19 prohibits sex with a woman in a state of menstrual defilement (tum'at niddah). This, according to rabbinic reasoning, necessitates that a menstruating woman refrain from sex with her husband for a fixed duration of time (see below) and then immerse in a mikveh.


4. Over time, the laws of niddah became increasingly stringent. Perhaps the most significant stringency was the conflation of the categories of niddah and zavah, with the result that couples had to wait seven days from the cessation of menstruation rather than from the onset of menstruation before resuming intimacy. This approximately doubled the length of the period of separation to about half of every month (for those who struggle with arithmetic). This is the halakhah as it is observed in contemporary Orthodox communities (at least in theory).

Now, a summary of the teshuvot:

Rabbi Miriam Grossman, following an argument advanced by Rabbi Joel Roth, rules that niddah be observed for seven days beginning at the onset of menstruation (or until bleeding ceases), in keeping with the original Torah law. She also differs from traditional Orthodox opinion in permitting non-sexual physical contact between husband and wife during niddah, eliminating the requirement of internal self-exams (bedikot), and accepting certain other leniencies. The purpose of these leniencies is to make the laws easier for more Jews to observe and to avoid putting strain on relationships. Grossman also advocates mikveh use outside marriage, particularly by women who are sexually active (in keeping with the Conservative movement's current position on premarital sex: "We don't approve, but we know you'll do it anyway").

At least as important for Grossman as these practical halakhic matters is the terminology used to refer them. She rejects "purity" language (that is, the terminology I've used throughout this post) in favor of the language of "holiness." Mikveh use, in her opinion, should be viewed as a means of sanctifying the body and sexual relationships rather than as a means of determining a woman's ritual status. In a 1992 article in Conservative Judaism Magazine entitlted "Feminism, Midrash, and Mikvah," she wrote:

one cannot talk about purity (taharah). . . without calling to mind -- if only subconsciously-- the fact that it is a relative state in contradistiction to impurity (tum'ah)... [S]uch an association has a negative impact for women. (Similarly, we would not want to use the term Niddah laws, as niddah can also be defined as "defiled.")

In the article, Rabbi Grossman proposed using the phrase kedushat mishpachah, "family sanctity." In her teshuvah, she proposes substituting kedushat yetzirah, "the sanctity of God's creation," to shift the emphasis away from the marital relationship and toward a woman's own relationship with her body. (Personally, I think it's a bit idealistic to try to introduce language that no one familiar with the subject will understand, but I appreciate the conundrum.)

Miriam Berkovitz maintains the rabbinic model of waiting seven days following the cessation of menstruation, though she rules leniently with regard to non-sexual contact, internal exams, and various other matters. Berkovitz concedes that it might be a good idea to use the language of holiness rather than purity, but she considers it important to maintain the traditional focus on marital life, so she opts for Grossman's earlier phrase, kedushat yetzirah.

Rabbi Avraham Reisner, like Susan Grossman, argues for returning to the biblical seven-day model, though he does so on slightly different halakhic grounds. He differs from Grossman in retaining the category of zavah, meaning that a woman experiencing an irregular flow of three days or more must wait seven days following the cessation (rather than the onset) of bleeding. Reisner also argues forcefully for maintaining the language of purity. Here's a bit of his argument that I found particularly eloquent:

Fundamental to the biblical description of reality is the notion of the twinned states of tum'ah (impurity) and tohorah (purity), one of which (tum'ah) is incompatible with the sacred....It would be convenient, but inconsistent with the Biblical foundation of our religion, to simply profess disbelief in a system described by the Torah at length. It might be noted, in this regard, that God, the soul and the metaphysical reality of Shabbat in the fabric of the universe are all Biblical notions that remain impervious to scientific address.

Reisner goes on to discuss the theory, promoted by such scholars as Jacob Milgrom and Baruch Levine, that the biblical attribute of impurity is rooted in an association with death. Menstrual blood, like semen, according to this theory, causes impurity because it constitutes a loss of potential life. On this basis, Reisner proposes that the cycle of niddah and purification can be viewed as a process of continual rebirth and renewal.

When I read the voting records for the three teshuvot, I was struck by the fact that Susan Grossman voted in favor of Miriam Berkovits's teshuvah in spite of their radically different practical conclusions, while she voted against Avraham Reisner in spite of their basic agreement on practical halakhah. This brought home like nothing else how important the language issue is to Rabbi Grossman.

Frankly, I can see where both Grossman and Reisner are coming from. On the one hand, I think that the concepts of purity and defilement are worth trying to understand and apply to our lives. On the other hand, applying these consequences to women alone can have troubling implications.

These are my thoughts for now. More later, God willing.

* I'm told that congregational rabbis weren't informed of their existence, which led to some rather awkward moments.

What is this Klal Yisrael of Which You Speak?*

If you follow the Jewish or Israeli news or read Jewish blogs, you've probably heard about the woman in Jerusalem who was beaten for refusing to sit at the back of a public bus. Stories like this make me wonder why I get upset over things like what rabbis eat when we have such serious problems. But then, they also make me question the reality of that "we."

I was raised with the concept of klal yisrael, corporate Israel, the greater Jewish people for whom I am supposed to have unconditional love. And I do feel a sort of kinship with other Jews most of the time, no matter how much I may disagree with them. But practically everything I see or hear having to do with the charedi community in Israel leads me to wonder whether I share anything significant with them at all, other than being human.

Yes, I know, they're like family. I'm supposed to love them no matter what they do. But no one in my family has beaten a woman for sitting on the back of a bus, so it's hard to know how to react.

I might feel differently if I learned that charedi rabbis were denouncing these men's actions without in the process somehow suggesting that the woman got what she deserved. So far, though, it seems like they're too busy building up legions of modesty police to make sure that little girls cover their ankles.

If you have any information that contradicts this impression, please let me know. It would be a kiddush hashem.

* Not my line.

More on Women in Science

Today's New York Times Science section has a lengthy article on women in science. The article addresses some important issues, such as the difficulty of raising children while maintaining a career in academia; advancing one's career along with that of a spouse who is also a scientist; and latent predjudices that lead to women being judged less competent than their male peers, or too aggressive when they actively pursue advancement.

Still, it irritates me to no end that the New York Times, and apparently the organizers of panels and conferences on this subject, feel the need to dismiss out of hand the possibility of cognitive differences between men and women. One would think that scientists and other highly educated people would be open to all reasonable hypotheses, that they would appreciate the possibility of a single phenomenon having multiple causes, and that they would understand that statistical trends need not have implications for individuals.

Also not addressed is the possibility that affirmative action is one of the causes of the assumption that female scientists are less compentent than males -- in other words, that what is supposed to be a solution has become part of the problem.

On the bright side, the article does offer some anecdotal evidence that attitudes toward women in science have improved significantly over the past few decades. DH also suspects that this is the case. Since it takes many years to reach the top echelons in academia, and since tenured professors tend to keep their jobs for quite some time, there is inevitably a significant lag between changes in attitude and changes in the position of women in the profession. However, I think there is reason to be optimistic.

Previous comments/rants on this subject here, here, and here.

International Agunah Day

Today is the 13th of the month of Adar, the Fast of Esther. As I mentioned last year, the Fast of Esther has been designated International Agunah Day by Yad L'Isha. An agunah is a woman who is unable to obtain a get (Jewish divorce). In modern times, such situations are typically the result of a husband's refusal to grant his wife a get, either out of spite or in order to extort money or gain custody of children. Although certain aspects of the halakhot pertaining to marriage and divorce developed in order to protect women, they are set within a patriarchal framework in which the decision to marry or divorce ultimately resides with men. Women who cannot obtain a ghet are left in an untenable situation, unable to remarry lest their children become mamzerim.

Such situations do not arise in the Reform movement, which often relies on civil divorce, or in the Reconstructionist movement, which grants unilateral divorces in cases of recalcitrance. Rachel Adler, a Reform activist and theologian, has advocated replacing the traditional marriage ceremony, kiddushin, with an egalitarian shutafut ("partnership") ceremony, in part to avoid the creation of mamzerim and thus promote harmony with other movements.

Orthodox and Conservative rabbis in the diaspora have devised various methods for preventing women from becoming agunot, including the use of conditional marriage formulas, special clauses within the ketubah (marriage contract), and prenuptial agreements that make civil divorce contingent on the granting of a get. You can read about Conservative approaches to the problem here; the prenuptial agreement sanctioned by the Orthodox Rabbinical Council of America can be found here. Responsible rabbis do not officiate at weddings unless the agunah issue has been addressed. Those of us who marry in a halakhic context also have a duty to avail ourselves of one of these methods of agunah prevention, even if we expect to be married forever (as most of us do). It is only once these precautions become de rigueur that the problem will have been resolved.

When precautions have not been taken and a woman finds herself unable to obtain a get, rabbinical courts will often attempt to annul the marriage by means of various legal loopholes. Some courts (notably the Conservative and Masorti courts and the Morgenstern/Rackman bet din) grant annulments more readily than others. In Israel, where rabbinical courts are an arm of the state, legal sanctions are often imposed on recalcitrant husbands. However, such sanctions are not always effective, and the courts are not always willing to impose them. Rabbi David Malka, an Israeli rabbinical judge, recently admitted to the Jerusalem Post that he often encourages women to submit to the financial demands of recalcitrant husbands:

"Listen, this is money that she never earned," explained Malka. "Only in theory does it belong to her.

"For instance, according to the law the wife is entitled to half of a man's pension rights even though she never worked a day in her life. I do not think she should remain an aguna because she is stubborn about receiving her half."

The ugliness of such a statement coming from a leader of a community that encourages women to be stay-at-home mothers boggles the mind.

The organization Yad L'Isha (mentioned above) has made important strides toward helping Israeli agunot, including the creation of the institution of to`anot bet din, women who advocate for other women in divorce cases. Although they have no halakhic standing in rabbinical courts because of their gender, the to`anot, who are experts in the laws of marriage and divorce, have managed to work with rabbinical judges to free many potential agunot.

Right now, however, Israeli women are in a precarious situation. Annoyed by the public pressure imposed on them by institutions such as Yad L'Isha, the Israeli Council of Rabbinical Judges has decided to sever all ties with organizations that advocate for agunot. We can only hope that there is enough negative publicity to change their minds.

Please help spread the word about this problem, and take a moment today to recite the prayer for agunot.

You can read more about the connection between agunot and the Fast of Esther here.

(Hat tip to Miriam Shaviv and OOSJ, may his blog rest in peace, for linking to the JPost article.)

Troubling Texts II: "More Bitter Than Death"

In Wrestling With God & Men, Rabbi Steven Greenberg relates his personal practice of standing during the afternoon Torah reading on Yom Kippur, in anticipation of the words "you shall not lie with a male as one lies with a woman, it is an abomination" (Lev. 18:22). One year, Greenberg writes, he asked to be called to the Torah for the aliyah containing those words.

Rabbi Greenberg's practice might seem masochistic, but it reminded me of one of my own. Whenever possible, I volunteer to read the seventh chapter of Qohelet on Sukkot. I do so because of the following passage:

Now, I find woman more bitter than death; she is all traps, her hands are fetters and her heart is snares. He who is pleasing to God escapes her, and he who is displeasing is caught by her. See, this is what I found, said Qohelet, item by tiem in my search for the reason of things. As for what I sought further but did not find, I found only one human being in a thousand, and the one I found among so many was never a woman” (Qoh. 7:26-28).

This sort of depiction of women isn’t surprising coming from a patriarchal society. Some might say that as a result of women’s inferior status, they are forced to accomplish their goals by manipulating those in power, and then those in power view them as inherently dishonest and manipulative. . .

However, if one examines Qohelet as a whole, and at this chapter in particular, I think it becomes clear that underlying this passage is, more than a distrust of women, a distrust of emotion, particularly desire or passion. Even if women did not behave in manipulative ways, from the perspective of this chapter they would be "all traps," because, from a male heterosexual perspective, they are objects of desire, and desire is dangerous. It interferes with reason.

Qohelet often expresses ambivalence with regard to the tension between passion and reason. It is interesting to compare the passage in chapter seven to one in chapter nine:

Go, eat your bread in gladness, and drink your wine in joy; for your action was long ago approved by God. Let your clothes always be freshly washed, and your head never lack ointment. Enjoy happiness with a woman you love all the fleeting days of life that have been granted to you under the sun — all your fleeting days. For that alone is what you can get out of life and out of the means you acquire under the sun (Qoh. 9:7-9).

Here again, woman is presented from a male, heterosexual perspective, and again, she represents desire and its fulfilment. Yet now pleasure is viewed in a positive light. It is to be embraced either because it is a gift from God (v. 7), or because life is short, and there is little sense wasting it on sorrow.

These texts are particularly challenging for contemporary Jews, because the underlying ideas with which they deal are still very relevant to us. We are often torn between the notion that we should enjoy life and the idea that a life of pleasure may be a waste, and that love and passion can blind us and lead us to do foolish, destructive things. The reading and study of Qohelet can provide an opportunity for reflection on this tension. On the other hand, the way these ideas are presented in the text ignores the fact that women share this intellectual and emotional struggle. The text presents women as objects, as though our sole value lay in the nature of our relationships with men.

Is there an intellectually honest, ethical way to approach these texts that at the same time recognizes their inherent worth and respects their status within our religious tradition? I think that the most responsible approach to texts like these is to acknowledge their problematic aspects, while at the same time attempting to move beyond these aspects to find a deeper, more resiliant truth. In its extended, multi-faceted search for meaning within the seemingly meaningless, the book of Qohelet itself provides a model for the struggle to find inclusive meaning in an ancient work that is, in its plain sense, anything but inclusive.

Troubling Texts I: The Sexual Prohibitions

This year, I was asked to speak after mincha, the afternoon service, on Yom Kippur. Although it immeditately occurred to me that I should speak about the mincha Torah reading, with its discussion of sexual prohibitions in general and homosexuality in particular, I remained so ambivalent about the subject matter that until the very moment that I stood at the bima, I was seriously considering ad-libbing something about Jonah.

Even after receiving generally positive feedback, I wonder whether I did the right thing by raising such a controversial subject on Yom Kippur, rather than offering a few simple words on teshuva, or a pep-talk for the final service of the day. Maybe you should tell me. (Be honest, but please, no badmouthing.)

Here are a few excerpts:

There has been a great deal of emphasis lately, in the political arena as well as within the leadership of the Conservative movement, on the verse reading “Do not lie with a man as one lies with a woman; it is abhorrence” (Lev. 18:22). But really, the entire framework of the Torah reading is problematic. Many of the regulations in it are based quite explicitly on the idea that women are the sexual property of men. We read, “Do not uncover the nakedness of your father’s wife; it is the nakedness of your father” (Lev. 18:8); in other words, you, male reader, may not have sex with your father’s wife, whether she is your biological mother or not, because her nakedness, her sexuality, belongs to your father. Because most of the sexual prohibitions in this chapter are based on this principle, we don’t have any discussion of many of the more pressing issues in contemporary sexual ethics.. . . The premise of the text is that men can have multiple sexual partners and women can have one, and that sexual relations are problematic primarily when they involve a woman who belongs to another man.

The discussion of homosexuality in the Conservative movement has, to a large extent, I think, sidestepped some of the most fundamental questions that this chapter raises. To what extent is the Torah a product of its historical context, and to what extent is it timeless? Conservative leaders generally agree that Judaism allows human beings a good deal of interpretive license with the Torah, but there is much less agreement on the limits of that license, or on whether there even are limits. This is because there is no consensus on the even more fundamental question of the nature of the Torah’s authority. Is it the direct word of God revealed to human beings? Is it God’s word interpreted by human beings through the prism of their own experience? Or is it a noble, but ultimately flawed attempt by humans to figure out what God’s will might be? These are crude articulations of complex theological ideas, but I think that it’s important to articulate them even in this very crude form, to convey some sense of the range of positions held by people who consider themselves Conservative rabbis.

I also think that, however we approach these issues, egalitarian communities such as this one can’t in good conscience take the prohibition against sexual intercourse between men at face value. Both its context and its wording strongly suggest that the prohibition is fundamentally about maintaining the boundary between male and female, and that is a boundary that we routinely transgress in our religious practice. Whatever our perspectives on the fundamental theological issues I mentioned earlier, the fact that we’re here indicates that we all believe, on some level, that although the disparity between the status of male and female was quite conspicuous at earlier stages of the Jewish religion, it is ultimately unjust to perpetuate that disparity. . . .

I’m not going to make a halakhic argument. . . but I would like to discuss what I think is an interesting exegetical and philosophical approach to this prohibition.. . . This interpretation is advanced independently, in different ways, by the Reform feminist theologian, Rachel Adler, in Engendering Judaism and by the gay Orthodox rabbi, Steven Greenberg, in Wrestling With God and Men. Both authors see this law as fundamentally prohibiting men from turning other men into women. It is a reading that actually fits the wording and context of the verse very well, and it explains why the Bible doesn’t prohibit lesbian sex. In a society in which men have a higher status than women, sexual intercourse between men disrupts the social order in a way that sex between women doesn’t. It degrades one of the partners by turning him into a woman.. . . So there is a concern for justice here, a concern that men not “declass” or degrade one another, just as there is a concern fro justice behind the prohibition against sleeping with another man’s sexual property. It isn’t the inclusive justice that we would demand today, but it is a concern for justice nonetheless.

Adler and Greenberg both go a step further in their readings of this verse to suggest that we bring it up to speed with our contemporary sense of justice by employing a rabbinic exegetical principle called ribuy, or “expansion.” Rabbi Greenberg specifically focuses on the word 'et, which can function either as a direct object marker or as a preposition meaning “with.” For the ancient rabbis, 'et was code for a missing element. And from a contemporary perspective, it seems clear what missing element should be read into this verse: not only is one forbidden to degrade a man sexually, but one is also forbidden to degrade a woman sexually. It’s a clever reading; clearly on the original meaning of the verse, but not entirely out of keeping with it, either. In a way, it’s a natural extension. As Adler writes, “what makes the Torah sacred is not that it has one fixed eternal meaning, but that its meanings are inexhaustible" (p. 1256).

I went on a bit after that about the importance of sexual boundaries in the modern world and the relevance of the topic to Yom Kippur, but this post is long enough already, so I'll leave all that out. What I'm chiefly wondering is, did I take "questioning the fundamentals" too far, consdiering the context? Is this an appropriate approach to text and tradition for a traditional egalitarian community? Should I lay off this topic already?

Next in this series: A d'var torah on Qohelet.

The Daughters of Zelophehad as a Model for Halachic Change

The story of the daugthers of Zelophehad (Num. 27:1-11) is often looked to as a prototype of Jewish feminism. A group of women approach Moses, the leader of the entire Israelite nation, and demand, before all the members of the Israelite hierarchy, that they be granted a right previously restricted to men: the right to inherit land.

A close reading of the story (or Hirhurim), however, reveals that this interpretation has serious flaws. The daughters of Zelophehad argue not on their own behalf, but on behalf of their deceased father, who, they say, has a right "live on" by keeping his allotment of land within the family, a right that the current system would deny him because of his lack of sons. The ruling issued at the end of the narrative addresses precisely this complaint, and not the inequality of the sexes: the daugthers will inherit their father's land, but only for the purpose of ultimately passing it on to their sons. Moreover, in order to ensure that the patriarchal system of land-tenure is maintained, the daughters of Zelophehad (and presumably any women to whom the ruling applies) are required to marry within their father's tribe.

That said, it seems to me that the story can still provide a model for feminist change within halacha, as well as for any change that seeks to expand the rights of various individuals and groups within the Jewish community.

In this regard, the following features of the story are noteworthy:

1. Change is initiated by laypeople (in this case, people from a particularly low stratum of society). These people observe that the legal system, as it stands, does not do justice to certain members of the community.

2. The laypeople do not request justice; they demand it.

3. That said, they do so within the communal framework, by bringing their complaint to the religious authorities (in this case, Moses and God).

4. The religous authorities take their complaint seriously and address it. They do not dismiss those making the complaint because of their lack of status, or because of their tone, or because the complaint is based on the fundamental value of justice rather than the particulars of Israelite law.

5. The result is a partnership between bold laypeople and bold leaders, both willing to modify the legal system when it is in the interest of justice to do so.

Of course, there is one glaring difference between the situation in the parsha and the situation facing Jewish communities today. God very seldom speaks directly to our rabbis and tells them exactly what to do. Instead, we try to preserve the integrity of halacha by working within a textual tradition, which seems to say something slightly different to each individual who confronts it. But here again, I think the idea of partnership is key. We can't just wait for the texts to tell us what to do or for rabbis to tell us what to do. We have to figure out for ourselves what isn't right with the status quo and then try to work together, with our leaders and with our halachic tradition, to change it for the better.

Parsha Backlog

I gave a d'var torah Friday night on parshat kedoshim, but I haven't had a chance to blog on the subject until now. The theme of the d'var torah was competing conceptions of holiness: the holiness of separation, which requires Israelites to separate themselves from other nations by observing commandments that impose divisions on the natural world, and the holiness of justice and compassion, which tends to minimize differences rather than accentuating them.

The idea "holiness through separation" is most clearly expressed in a passage toward the end of kedoshim (Leviticus 20:23-26):

You shall not follow the practices of the nation that I am driving out before you . . . I am Adonai your God, who has set you apart from other peoples. Therefore, you shall set apart the pure beast from the impure, and the impure bird from the pure, and you shall not make yourselves objectionable through the beasts, birds, and all that creeps upon the ground that I have set apart for you as impure. Thus shall you be holy to me, for I, Adonai, am holy, and I have set you apart from other peoples to be Mine.

A number of precepts in the parsha seem directed toward enforcing this type of holiness, e.g. the prohibitions against interbreeding animals and plants and against wearing clothing made from a mixture of materials (19:19); the injunction against sorcery and consultation of spirits, which threatens the divisions between life and death and between human and supernatural (19:31); and the sexual prohibitions (20:10-21), which enforce differentiation between male and female, human and animal, pure and impure, kinship and marriage.

In contrast to these are the precepts that minimize difference, e.g. the injunctions to leave portions of one's produce to the poor (19:9-10) and to treat employees fairly (19:13), thereby reducing disparities in wealth; the injunction against recognizing differences in class when issuing judgement (19:15); and the commandment to "love one's fellow as oneself" (19:18). Perhaps most exemplary of this second type of holiness is the prohibition against oppressing the stranger, which is based on an explicit injunction to identify with the Other (19:33-34):

When a stranger resides with you in your land, you shall not oppress him. The stranger who resides with you shall be like a citizen among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.

Both types of holiness can be related to the principle of imitatio dei. The former demands that Israel behave as a unique people, separate from the world, just as God is unique and seperate from the world. The latter demands that human beings follow God's example in recognizing the godliness inherent in others:

As He clothes the naked, so must you clothe the naked. [As] the Holy One, Blessed be He, visited the sick, so must you visit the sick. [As] the Holy One, Blessed Be He, comforted mourners, so must you comfort mourners. [As] the Holy One, Blessed Be He, buried the dead, so must you bury the dead (Sotah 14a).

Is it possible to harmonize these two types of holiness, which so often seem to be in conflict with one another? The suggestion that I made Friday night was that our very struggle to balance these conceptions of holiness can itself be part of the pursuit of holiness. (A bit of a cop-out, but I think the idea has merit.) For this blog, I'm going to add another, somewhat more controversial suggestion, relating specifically to the sexual prohibitions.*

My suggestion is based on the historical observation that, while differentiation has always been a major aspect of Jewish practice, the specific divisions that we make have been fairly fluid. For example, the Torah prescribes an intricate system of differentiation between pure and impure, most aspects of which have fallen into disuse since the destruction of the second Temple. On the other hand, contemporary halakhah prescribes an intricate system for separating meat from dairy, a division that does not exist in the Torah per se. Similarly, while we uphold the Biblical prohibitions against adultery and incest, our framework for understanding them has changed. In the Bible, both the prohibition of adultury (as expressed in Lev. 20:10) and many of the incest prohibitions (as expressed in Lev. 18:7-16) are based on the idea that women "belong" to men, and that sex with another man's wife is akin to trespassing on his property. Today, we tend to view adultury as a violation of a mutual bond between two people, while incest is variously viewed as a violation of trust, an abuse of power, or an inappropriate "mixture" of two types of relationships. This shift, of course, is a result of our changed view of women, which can be regarded as a recognition of the godliness inherent in every human being, male or female.

To my mind (and I'm sure I'm not the first to have suggested this), changing our approach to homosexual relationships would simply be an extension of the shift in our approach to male-female relationships. The imperative of holiness through justice and compassion demands that we lessen our emphasis on the distinction between male and female and re-emphasize the boundaries created through mutual commitment.

*This is partly an attempt to compensate for missing parshat acharei mot, which also catalogues the sexual prohibitions (Lev. 18:6-23).

Hopefully the Last Summers Post

Cathy Young finally wrote a column on the Summers affair. As expected, it is the most clear-headed take on the subject that I've read, and I've read quite a bit. If you're not completely sick of the whole business by now, definitely check it out.

By the way, if you'd like to read what Summers actually said, it is available here. The groveling letters are here and here.

Summers in Deep Shit

*sigh*
Institutions suck. I've never met an institution that didn't.

Sullivan on Summers

What he said.

I particularly like this quote, from Steven Pinker:

Look, the truth cannot be offensive. Perhaps the hypothesis is wrong, but how would we ever find out whether it is wrong if it is 'offensive' even to consider it? People who storm out of a meeting at the mention of a hypothesis, or declare it taboo or offensive without providing arguments or evidence, don't get the concept of a university or free inquiry.

The Summers Controversy

As a friend pointed out this morning, it's all hearsay. There were no reporters at the conferences, and no tapes or transcripts of the speech have been made available to the public. I am trying not to jump to conclusions, but I must admit, I am very angry -- and not at Summers.

It is the height of hypocrisy when the very people who (justifiably) accused Bush of manipulating science for political purposes suggest that the relationship between biology and academic interests is not a legitimate subject for inquiry. It is a closed-minded, knee-jerk reaction to walk out of the room when you hear an economic theory that offends your sensibilities. And, in the end, the theory ought not be so offensive.

No one in academia would deny that women can be brilliant mathematicians, scientists, and engineers. It is patently obvious. The issue here is the proportion of women to men in the technical fields. Should Harvard do everything it can to ensure a one-to-one ratio of female to male scientists, even if the pool of talented female scientists is significantly smaller? Would that really be "equal opportunity employment"?

Call me a closet misogynist, but I think that men and women alike should be treated as individuals, not statistics. The notion that academic departments (the sciences, no less!) "need" more female professors is no more reasonable than the notion that every child "needs" a mother and a father. A mature individual can examine the broader picture without drawing conclusions about herself and her colleagues. It was reasonable for Summers to expect that level of maturity at an invitation-only conference at Harvard.

There is a vast middle ground between biological determinism and the idea that sex is a social construct. The more that we understand about the human mind and the human body, the more complex the nature/nurture problem seems to become. This subject should be studied honestly and openly, not in the service of some extremists' conception of gender. And those who discuss it honestly and openly should not have to apologize, especially at a so-called institution of higher learning.

UPDATE: Here is an interesting look at the "mommy factor," which Summers also mentioned.

Unanticipated Consequences of Egalitarianism

I first began to wear a tallit gadol when I was married, about a year ago. It was a full tallit, in plain white: not particularly feminine, but not too masculine either. I figured it wouldn't clash with any of my outfits.

I assumed that it would take a while to get used to wearing a tallit, but I didn't anticipate the degree of difficulty I'd have keeping it on. When I stood up, it slid off. When I sat down, it slid off again. What was particularly strange was that I'd learned how to put it on from my husband, and he didn't seem to have this problem.

Finally, I realized what the trouble was: my shoulders aren't broad enough. See, I'm a chick.

As the months went by, I seemed to be getting better at keeping it on (although when I was given hagbah or gelilah, I had to pretty much wrap it around my neck if I didn't want it to end up on the floor). Then summer rolled around, and suddenly I had major slippage problems again. It took another woman who wore a full tallit to explain that silk and satin blouses are particularly condisive to slippage. Unfortunately, all my dressy summer blouses but one are silk or satin. (I have four in total. I really need to go shopping.)

Today, I finally went to Brookline and bought myself a clip. It was the cheapest one they had, in a yellow metal, to match my rings. I hope it helps.

Update: The clip helped a lot :-)

I could have stayed home and baked cookies. Oh, wait...

It would be disingenuous to suggest that I disapproved of cookie baking, by First Ladies or anyone else. (The same goes for other desserts. I even briefly -- very briefly -- considered contributing to the Edwards campaign during primary season in exchange for the senator's mother's recipe for peanut butter pie.)

That said, when it becomes a matter of public relations importance for publicly successful women to prove that they can also produce tasty, homespun baked goods, something has gone seriously awry. Where does the impetus come from? Don't Americans realize that these women have other things to do?

I wouldn't want to deprive the world of Laura Bush's Oatmeal Chocolate Chunk Cookies or Teresa Heinz Kerry's Pumpkin Spice Cookies. It's just that I don't understand why they, in particular, should be stuck in the kitchen. Why not have a vice-presidential bake-off instead? I wouldn't mind a recipe for Dick Cheney's Chocolate Chippers, or John Edwards' Jelly Thumbprints. In the meantime, we might be able to get an interesting debate out of Laura and Teresa. How about it, America?

From The Commentators' Seder: A companion volume to The Commentators' Haggadah including additional inspiring halachic insights and homilies, by Rabbi Yitzchak Sender:

"The story of the Exodus must be recited in response to questions. This was mandated by our Sages based on the pasukim which state, 'and you shall tell it to your son'; והגדת לבנך, and similarly, 'and when your son will ask': והיה כי ישאלך בנך. . .

"The question then arises, what about a daughter? Is she permitted or even obligated to ask? . . . The opinion of the Aruch HaShulchan. . . is that a daughter is allowed to pose questions on the Seder Night, but only if there is not a son present.

"Related to this halachic principle of בן קודם לבת, a son taking precedence over a daughter, there is an inspiring story which I heard from Ha Gaon Rav Moshe Hershler, of blessed memory. As the boat which was carrying Rav Yisrael of Sklov, that eminent student of the Vilna Gaon, neared the shores of Eretz Yisrael, a violent storm arose and the boat sank. Rav Yisrael, who was traveling with his small son and daughter, proceeded to grab them each under one arm and swim to shore. Because of the strong current, he soon realized that he would not make it to shore unless he released one of the children and had one hand free with which to battle the waves. Turning to his daughter, he explained to her, with a broken heart, that the halacha required that she be the one he must release (based on the Mishnah in the last chapter of מסכת הוריות, where it is clearly stated that saving a son takes precedence over saving a daughter, because a son is obligated to fulfil mitzvos and a daughter is not). His small daughter replied to her father as follows: 'If that is the halacha, so be it, dear Father.' She then proceeded to grab her father's beard and hang on to it tightly with all her might, refusing to release her hold. Explaining to her puzzled father why she was doing this she said: 'Your halacha says: בן קודם לבת, and this is what you must do; but my halacha is different, it tells me: וחי בהם: the mitzvos were given to live by, and I must do everything I can to preserve my life.' As she was speaking the storm suddenly subsided, and Rav Yisrael was able to wade to shore safely with both children under his arms.

"“Rav Hershler concluded this story by saying that when it was told to Rav Yehezkiel Abramsky, tears welled up in his eyes and he remarked; 'Ribbono Shel Olam, how great are your people that a father could say to his beloved daughter with such unswerving faith that this is the halacha; and that a daughter could reply with such loving acceptance and could display such genius in applying the halacha so appropriately to her own situation!'"”

Q: How many Orthodox feminists does it take to change a light bulb?
A: Ten, but they're not a minyan, and the change has to happen very slowly.

Steven I. Weiss is in the process of producing a detailed series of posts on the current JOFA (Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance) conference for Protocols. As much as I support the organization, Weiss' posts have only made me more glad that I am no longer in the JOFA world.

Some people are under the impression that I began to pray in egalitarian settings because I am a "feminist." Not so. I went egal because I was sick of being a "feminist." As a member of an Orthodox community, I couldn't escape the "feminist" label. Eventually, I embraced it, going to "feminist" conferences, praying in all-women "feminist" settings, joining the ranks of the protestors every time the Orthodox advisor made a decision that curtailed women's participation in the minyan. I even headed a "feminist" club for a while and scheduled a number of "feminist" gatherings, including some "feminist" services.

The problem was that I didn't have the personality to be an Angry Woman. Whenever an actual conflict arose, I passed the buck to another "feminist" or sighed and did as I was told. I required a tremendous amount of emotional support from other women to suggest even the most modest change in the infrastructure. I am very obedient, you see; I'd rather follow the rules than join a revolution.

In the end, I did what made the most sense for someone like me: I joined a community with different rules. Now I can be obedient and still read from the Torah, lead services, and express opinions that were once regarded as radical. No one at Egal thinks of me as a "feminist," and let me tell you, that is very liberating.

As I remember JOFA conferences, just about every idea expressed therein was either not quite Orthodox or not quite feminist. I mean no disrespect; after all, they are trying. Every Conservative ruling, it seems to me, is either not quite halakhic or not quite progressive. Yet I've joined a Conservative community nonetheless. I'd rather be in a community that accepts egalitarianism and struggles with halakha than the other way around. That is my personal choice.