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Gender Differentiation and Spirituality

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 April 2015

Ze’ev W. Folk
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Extract

Not enough has been done to integrate the value of equal rights for women into Jewish religious life and teaching. On the one hand, traditional Judaism (both in its sources and by its spokesmen) differentiates between the status of man and woman, without seriously taking into consideration the feeling of the latter, and without respecting her human rights. On the other hand, Jewish Feminism starts from modern individual or group feelings of frustration, without taking God seriously, with little understanding for the spirituality of Bible and tradition and with recklessness regarding the preservation of the Jewish family and people.

Jewish Feminism is quite right to criticize Jewish tradition for failing to lift up the lack of attention to women's contribution to both the spirituality and the preservation of Torah Judaism. Tradition did recognize the contribution of women to both spirituality and preservation, but indirectly and in a form that would not be appropriate for the modern day.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Law and Religion , Volume 12 , Issue 1 , 1995 , pp. 85 - 103
Copyright
Copyright © Center for the Study of Law and Religion at Emory University 1995

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References

1. Greenberg, Blu, On Women and Judaism: A View from Tradition 3 (Jewish Publication Society, 1981)Google Scholar.

2. Frymer-Kensky, Tikva, The Bible and Women's Studies, in Davidman, Lynn & Tenenbaum, Shelly, eds, Feminist Perspectives on Jewish Studies 16–39 (Yale U Press, 1994)Google Scholar.

3. See Setel, T. Drorah, Roundtable Discussion: Feminist Reflections on Separation and Unity in Jewish Theology, 2 J of Feminist Studies in Religion 113 (1986)Google Scholar; Plas-kow, Judith, Standing Again at Sinai: Judaism from a Feminist Perspective 96 (Harper, 1990)Google Scholar; Plaskow, Judith, Jewish Theology in Feminist Perspective in Davidman, & Tenenbaum, , Feminist Perspectives at 69Google Scholar (cited in note 2); see Falk, Ze’ev W., Law and Religion: The Jewish Experience 69 (Mesharim Publishers, 1981)Google Scholar.

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5. Compare the experience of Frankl, Victor E., Man's Search for Meaning: An Introduction to Logotherapy (Beacon Press, 1963)Google Scholar.

6. See Dresner, Samuel H., Rachel (Fortress Press, 1994)Google Scholar; Frymer-Kensky, , The Bible at 20Google Scholar (cited in note 2); Hauptman, Judith, Feminist Perspectives on Rabbinic Texts in Davidman, & Tenenbaum, , Feminist Perspectives at 57Google Scholar (cited in note 2).

7. Gen 2:17.

8. BT Berakhot 31b.

9. The warning to keep away from women means keeping away from sensuality. The Hebrew language lacks the abstract terms of eros, sex and libido, and uses the term “woman” also in this sense.

10. For example, Plaskow, Standing Again at Sinai (cited in note 3).

11. M Sotah 9:15.

12. Friedan, Betty, The Femmine Mystique (Penguin Books, 1965)Google Scholar; Friedan, Betty, It Changed My Life (Norton, 1985)Google Scholar; Flax, Jane, The Family in Contemporary Feminist Thought: A Critical Review, in Elshtain, Jean B., ed, The Family in Political Thought 223 (U of Mass Press, 1982)Google Scholar; Greenberg, , On Women at 13Google Scholar (cited in note 1).

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16. For gender differentiation see Aristotle, , Politics (Penguin Books, 1973)Google Scholar; Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, Emile (Dent, 1974)Google Scholar; Kant, Immanuel, Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View (Nijhoff, 1974)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hegel, George W. Friedrich, The Philosophy of Right (Oxford U Press, 1967)Google Scholar; Freud, Sigmund, Complete Introductory Lectures in Psychoanalysis (Allen & Unwin, 1971)Google Scholar; Gilligan, Carol, In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women's Development (Harvard U Press, 1982)Google Scholar; Degler, Carl N., In Search of Human Nature: The Decline and Revival of Darwinism in American Social Thought (Oxford U Press, 1991)Google Scholar; Fisher, Helen E., Anatomy of Love: The Natural History of Monogamy, Adultery and Divorce 189 (Norton, 1992)Google Scholar; Ross, Jacob J., The Virtues of the Family (Free Press, 1994)Google Scholar.

17. On Jewish spirituality compare Green, Arthur, Jewish Spirituality (Crossroad Publishing, 1986) (3 vols)Google Scholar; and Falk, Ze’ev W., ed, ‘Al Yahadut weRuchaniyut in Haromach, Gevuroth, Jewish Studies offered R. M. C. Weiler 337 (Mesharim, 1987)Google Scholar; Firmage, Edwin B., Weiss, Bernard G., Welch, John W., eds, Religion and Law: Biblical-Judaic and Islamic Perspectives 127 (Eisenbrauns, 1990)Google Scholar.

18. Cohen, Arthur A., The Natural and the Supernatural Jew (Pantheon Books, 1962)Google Scholar.

19. Compare BT Yoma 29a; Midrash Psalms, 22.

20. 1 Kings 11:5, 33.

21. Jer 4:17.

22. Ezek 8:l4.

23. Deut 23:18.

24. BT Chagigah 16a.

25. Num 30:2-16.

26. 2 Maccabees 7; 4 Maccabees.

27. R. Joseph, for example, used to rise when hearing his mother's steps and to say, he rose before the Shekhinah (BT Qiddushin 31b). He probably meant that he heard God's word through his mother's instruction.

28. Women use the male “great tradition” for developing their own religious concerns. See The Memoirs of Glueckel of Hameln (Schocken, , Lowenthal, M. trans, 1977)Google Scholar; Weissler, Chava, The Traditional Piety of Ashkenazic Women in Green, Arthur, ed, Jewish Spirituality from the 16th Century Revival to the Present 245 (Crossroad, 1987)Google Scholar; Sered, Susan Starr, Women as Ritual Experts: The Religious Lives of Elderly Jewish Women in Jerusalem (Oxford U Press, 1992)Google Scholar.

29. A remarkable innovation during the last five years was the education, certification and function of women “Rabbinical Attorneys” in the rabbinical courts of Israel. A group of orthodox Jewish women has thereby been permitted to join the legal discourse, which is the last step before joining the ranks of the rabbinate.

30. Compare Jewish feminist literature and the Lilith magazine.

31. Plaskow, , Standing Again at Sinai at 208–09Google Scholar (cited in note 3); Greenberg, , On Women at 16Google Scholar (cited in note 1).

32. Gen 18:27.

33. See Ezek 20; Neher, Andre, L'exil de la parole; du silence biblique au silence d'Auschwitz (Jewish Publication Society, English trans, 1981)Google Scholar; James, William, The Varieties of Religious Experience 268 and following (Fontana, 1971)Google Scholar.

34. Walsh, Mary Roth, ed, In a Different Voice: The Psychology of Women 211 (Yale U Press, 1987)Google Scholar; Ross, , The Virtues of the Family at 189–209, 253–66 (cited in note 16)Google Scholar.

35. BT Niddah 45b.

36. Prov 7:4.

37. Gen 41:39.

38. Deut 4:6.

39. Is 29:13.

40. On female emotion compare BT Chullin 72a; Niddah 3a. On the need for using conscience and moral feeling compare Falk, Ze’ev W., Religious Law and Ethics: Studies in Biblical and Rabbinical Theonomy (Mesharim, 1991)Google Scholar.

41. BT Ketubbot 28b.

42. Gen Rabba 39:2.

43. Tanchuma, Ki Tissa 6; Pinchas 10:2; Cordovero, R. Moshe, Tomer Devorah 1:1 (Feldheim, , Miller, R. Moshe trans, 1993)Google Scholar.

44. T'ai Chi Chu’uan is the art of achieving a goal by wisdom and patience, which is also the way advisable for women in a patriarchal set-up.

45. BT Megillah 14b.

46. BT Sabbath 133b.

47. BT Betsah 32b; Yevamot 79a.

48. BT Yevamot 63a.

49. Id.

50. BT Yevamot 113a.

51. Ex 33:19; 34:6; BT Sabbath 133b. On the care of daughters for their old mothers see Berger-Sofer, Rhonda, Pious Women: A Study of Women's Roles in a Hassidic and Pious Community: Mea She’arim (Rutgers U, Ph.D. diss, 1979)Google Scholar; Yayanti, Vimala, Women in Mea Shearim (Hebrew U, Master's Thesis, 1982)Google Scholar; on warm relations between female siblings compare Feitelson, Dina, Aspects of the Social Life of Kurdish Jews, 1 Jewish J of Soc 201 (1959)Google Scholar.

52. Mic 6:8.

53. M Demai 6:6.

54. JT Sotah 13:7.

55. Derekh ‘Erets Zuta 7.

56. BT Megillah 13b.

57. BT Sabbath 113b.

58. Gen Rabba 53:9.

59. Ps 45:13.

60. Compare BT Berakhot 24a.

61. M Ketubbot 7:6; BT Ketubbot 72ab.

62. Tanchuma, Gen 34:1.

63. JT Ketubbot 6:8; BT Ketubbot 67b.

64. Compare Sered, Women as Ritual Experts at 71-74 (cited in note 28).

65. Lev 19:14.

66. Sifra ad loc, BT Pesachim 22b.

67. BT Ta‘anit 24a.

68. BT Berakhot 24a.

69. JT Sanhedrin 2:4, 2b; BT Berakhot 61a.

70. BT Sukkah 51b.

71. BT Berakhot 17a.

72. M Ketubbot 13:11.

73. JT Sotah 1:4, 16d.

74. BT Yevamot 63a.

75. Sered, Susan Starr, “She Perceives her Work to be Rewarding”: Jewish Women in a Cross-Cultural Perspective in Davidman, & Tenenbaum, , Feminist Perspectives at 185 (cited in note 2)Google Scholar.

76. Id.