You never know the connections you build. While I was on vacation in Orlando, I got an email from someone at Oakton Community College, who had gotten my name from Women of the Wall. Could I speak on a panel in March on Feminism and Religion? Me? Aren’t there other women in Chicagoland more qualified than me? You go all the way to Israel to come back to me in Elgin? You just never know how this networking stuff works. Of course I will. Every time I serve on a panel and say I am Rabbi Margaret Frisch Klein from Congregation Kneseth Israel, I build the congregation. There are still people who do not know that there is a synagogue in Elgin, even after 123 years. So Friday morning found me driving to Oakton. Having attended Oakton Elementary School in Evanston, it felt a little like coming home. More on that later.
There were five women on the panel. A Catholic who lives in Evanston and works for Women’s Ordination of Priests, http://www.womensordination.org an attorney who works for child protective services for the state and calls herself a feminist Morman, a Buddhist woman who with her husband opened a meditation center and a Muslim who founded the Side Entrance, http://sideentrance.tumblr.com
There were three questions that we were asked to prepare. I joked that in this season of Passover, I would expect FOUR Questions.
This is a topic that is near and dear to my heart. When I decided to be a rabbi, I didn’t set out to be a woman rabbi, but as you might have noticed, that is what I am. No escaping or ignoring it. My first week of rabbinical school I got a mikveh question from the rabbi’s wife. I routinely get questions about domestic violence, rape, nursing, weaning, menopause. I think women are not necessarily comfortable asking their male rabbis these types of questions.
I started my discussion with props: an orange on a seder plate in order to show how Judaism is a layered tradition and to tell both parts of the story, a picture of Barbie wearing tefilin and my Woman of the Wall tallit.
I felt both underprepared and over prepared. I was glad I went to the plenary session entitled Glitter Science to put this event in a context. How do we market science to girls? How much pink and purple and glitter? How do we make sure that girls stay interested, are nurtured, are encouraged, are prepared and stay involved? The research is clear. The more diverse a workplace is, the more likely it is to be successful at problem solving and EVEN at making more money.
So the questions:
- How does your faith tradition nourish you as a woman?
I found this question challenging. So did the other panelists. There is no question that my faith nourishes me, in all sorts of ways. But as a woman. It felt like reading a page of Talmud. There are even some times where instead of nourishing me, it is an impediment.
Nonetheless, when I thought about it I found that the traditions that are unique to women to be nourishing.
I love lighting Shabbat candles and the peace that can envelope a house when we prepare for Shabbat.
I like baking challah—even if I rarely get to do it anymore. Again that sense of shalom bayit, peace of the house with the pleasing smell of baking bread can be transformative in a busy week.
I like mikveh, the Jewish ritual bath. It has been the source of much solace and healing in my own life, particularly as a violent crime that was perpetrated on me—precisely because I am a woman. There is something about immersing monthly that enabled me to see myself as loveable and holy once again. I could talk about that aspect at length—and have on a different panel at a national mikveh conference hosted by Mayyim Hayyim in Boston where I chaired the panel on mikveh for healing and hope. It wasn’t one single immersion, that helped heal for me; it was the rhythm of going every month. However, others would argue, including my own mother, that the use of mikveh is how women are still enslaved in Judaism—or at the very least it is a misogynist religion. (And during the panel the convener had to define misogynist since more than one panelist used the term.)
I realize that part of what I love about Judaism is that it is rooted in tradition—all the way back to the matriarchs, Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel and Leah. However, this is a tradition that has continued to evolve so that it is flexible enough to meet the spiritual needs today. Those matriarchs did not used to be included in our daily service. Now for denominations they are. People are writing new rituals that include a girl’s baby naming, or a Bat Mitzvah or a ceremony to mark learning to read, getting a driver’s license, leaving for college or becoming menopausal. And some of these are even happening in the Orthodox world.
Prayer nourishes me as a woman. One of the first classes I taught a fifth grade girl argued with me that God is never male nor female so why was I using masculine pronouns. She was right. And this was 1983—early in Jewish feminism. There are even ample examples of God as neither male nor female or having female imagery. El Shaddai, HaRachamim, Shechinah to name a few.
On the panel I heard similar themes. The Muslim reminded me that God is neither male nor female and that it wasn’t Eve who tempted Adam. Hagar is a good role model for providing for her child. The Buddhist talked about the argument to ordain women going all the way back to the Buddha’s aunt who argued for women’s ordination. After that there were Buddhist nuns.
- What does it mean to be a feminist in your religious tradition?
This week Gloria Steinmen celebrated her 81st birthday. This is Women’s History Month and we observed International Women’s Day and Girl Scout Week earlier this month so it seems appropriate that this panel finishes out March. And so I wonder–what does this picture of Barbie wearing tefilin, the Jewish leather prayer straps usually the domain of men mean? It could mean that as Jewish women we have made it in America. Or it could mean that we as Jews have made it in America. Or could it be something else, because as feminists, is it the image of Barbie we want for our daughters?
As the Jew on the panel, I get to claim Gloria Steinem, and many of the early feminists as Jews. Or at least secular New York Jews and that is a category by itself. Bella Abzug, Rachel Adler, Susan Brownmiller, Merle Feld, Betty Friedan, Debbie Friedman, Letty Cohen Pogrebin, Marge Piercy, Judith Plaskow. So many household names. And my own mother who worked tirelessly for women’s rights, equal pay for women and gave up a promising scientific career because she got pregnant with me. Yes, I am the reason my mother did not win a Nobel prize for medicine although her office at Columbia did! There are many women whom I stand on their shoulders. Beruiah, the wife of Rav in the Talmud who also was a teacher, Gluckel of Hamlin, who owned her own business in the 1600s and went all over Europe to fairs to sell her wares and to marry off her children. And she kept a journal so we have a record of it all. Rabbi Regina Jonas, the first modern woman rabbi ordained in Germany in the early 1940s and was killed at Auschwitz. Rabbi Sally Prieslan, the first woman rabbi ordained in the Reform Movement in 1972, Dr. Susannah Heschel, who edited On Being a Jewish Feminist, Blu Greenberg, who wrote How to Run a Traditional Jewish Household, and On Women and Judaism, Rabbi Dr. Judith Hauptman, author of Rereading the Rabbis and ordained by the Academy for Jewish Religion, while being a Talmud professor at JTS, Dr. Rivka Haut, one of my professors and one of the founders of the Women of the Wall, Anat Hoffman, the executive director of Israel Religious Action Center and the director of Women of the Wall and so, so many others.
Unlike other people on this panel, my tradition has been ordaining women for seven decades and roughly half of all rabbis in the United States are women. Having a Bat Mitzvah is standard. Baby girls have a baby naming to welcome them into the covenant. Men and women sit together in many congregations and even in the Orthodox world you can find women’s minyans, prayer groups, Bat Mitzvahs, baby namings and discussions to rival this one. There are even a few women in the Orthodox world who have been ordained as rabbis, using the term Rabbah or Maharat, and I applaud Rabbi Avi Weiss and Rabbah Sarah Hurvitz for having the courage to do this. There is even the JOFA, The Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance, not an oxymoron. https://www.jofa.org You might even want to use the old phrase, “You’ve come a long way, baby.”
It makes me feel good to think about each of them. But it is not as simple as that. Judaism is a 5000 year tradition that prides itself on having more than one answer to any question. Let’s take Judith Hauptman’s book. Were the rabbis of the Talmud misogynist? In some ways they were ahead of their time and the surrounding cultures. They allowed for divorce and remarriage, for abortion, for punishment for rape. They allowed for women to pray—even required it. Women read Torah, some wore tefilin, some even blew shofar or were mohels (people who perform circumcision.
Yet today in some places in Judaism, those are not the case. When I lived in Israel there was not a word for woman rabbi in Hebrew, just for a rabbi’s wife. That was NOT what I was planning to be. Then there was the rabbi who told me I couldn’t be a rabbi because I was a woman and that is why G-d had allowed me to be attacked. It took years to recover from that and when I was in Israel just prior to ordination I cried when an Orthodox rabbi blessed me at the Ramhal synagogue in ancient Akko.
55 women have been arrested in Israel for wearing a Woman of the Wall tallit. Others have been beaten for wearing tefilin. In my own synagogue when we hosted a Men’s Club event, a visitor came in, complemented the breakfast that obviously the Sisterhood must have provided, (they did not, it was the Men’s Club) and demanded after being introduced to me as the rabbi, that we not count minyan. I explained that at my congregation we do count women, but that I was sure we would have more than 10 men and he would be welcome to just count those. Then I asked my ritual chairperson to add peppermint schnapps to my morning coffee.
So while we may have come a long way—there are still mountains to climb.
- How are men and women treated differently in you tradition? Why? How has this changed over the course of history?
For the beginning of written “history”, men and women have been treated differently. If you look at the story of Adam and Eve, Eve becomes known as the temptress. Even Rashi, one of our leading Jewish commentators said about Eve that you should be careful about women because Eve was a “gadabout.” Hagar, the concubine of Abraham, at Sarah’s own suggestion, is thrown out of Abraham’s camp even though she is the first person, male or female to name G-d. Sarah is left out of the decision to take Isaac up the mountain to be sacrificed. Rebecca is responsible for ensuring the covenant continues but through trickery and the rabbis accuse her of not having enough trust. God tells Moses to tell the people of Israel consecrate the people and have them wash their clothes and be ready for the third day so that they can receive the 10 Commandments. Moses adds to this and says “Prepare yourself for the third day. Do no go near a woman.”
Historically in the Talmud, women, children and slaves were not obligated to any of the time-bound positive mitzvot, commandments. So they did not have to lay tefilin, or pray three times a day or many other things. We were told that it was because we didn’t need the structure of those time-bound obligations. We had a higher spirituality. But it left us out. What was seen as an exemption became known as a prohibition. One who is exempt cannot be the agent of one who is required. So for instance, men are required to recite birkat hamazon, the blessing, grace after meals and Kiddush, the blessing over wine that sanctifies time. Working at an assisted living facility as the rabbi, I made Kiddush one Shabbat and this nice older woman came up to me, told me I chanted beautifully and now could a real man make Kiddush so that it would count and it would really be Shabbat?
Originally men and women both had to immerse to be purified after an seminal emission or after a woman’s menstrual cycle. Every one had to immerse before going up to the Holy Temple in Jerusalem and there is ample archaeological evidence that there were many mikva’ot surrounding the Temple. There was a large “women’s court” at the temple and that is where the second night of Sukkot and the water drawing ceremony was observed. After the destruction of the Temple, in 70 CE, it was just the woman after her period and that seemed oppressive to some. No matter how many times people (men?) would tell women that they would feel like a bride again, it always seemed to be unequal and harder on the woman.
In the morning blessings there is a traditional blessing that men recite in the synagogue that thanks G-d for not making me a woman. Most Conservative and Reform prayer books have changed that language to make it more palatable. I am intrigued by a version that appeared in the Cairo Genizah that changes the formulation to “…who has created me a human and not beast, a man and not a woman, an Israelite and not a gentile, circumcised and not uncircumcised, free and not slave.” There are scholarly arguments that this is the prayer the Apostle Paul was referring to when he declared that there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female.” And there are other scholars who believe that Rabbi Judah was reacting to Paul’s words. So I am much more comfortable when I daven (pray) the language that the Conservative Movement instituted with the positive affirmation of what we are: free, Jewish and created in G-d’s image, neither male nor female. In any case, you see just how layered this tradition is, and why many have seen it as misogynist.
As Judaism reinvented itself to be a religion of prayer and study and not sacrifice at the Temple, men’s spaces became dominant, and men’s leadership became paramount. This led to a lessening of the role of women. Nonetheless women were tasked with the education of the young and for personal status—for example the lineage of Judaism is passed down through the mother—the matrilineal argument, still in effect in most Jewish communities.
However, by the 19th Century, with the Enlightenment and with the growing role of women in society in general, people began to re-evaluate women’s roles in the synagogue and bring them back into the main worship space and in leadership roles. Mixed seating happened in the early 1840s. In 1890 Ray Frank was the first woman to “preach” from the pulpit. The first Bat Mitzvah was held in 1922, the daughter of Rabbi Mordechai Kaplan, the founder of Reconstructionist Judaism. Counting women in the minyan. Women’s organizations such as Women of Reform Judaism and the Women’s League for Conservative Judaism, (Sisterhoods), Hadassah and women’s campaigns of Jewish federations all taught leadership skills to women. All of these have expanded the role of women in Judaism.
Some things seem like we have always done them. When I was a college freshman, for women’s week, I was asked to read Torah. I had always done that and assumed that in most congregations this was true. It was not. So the decision was that I would read Torah on Friday night without the traditional blessings, just for Torah Study. The issue with Torah reading for women frequently gets confused with blood. (Why are men so afraid of blood?). It was told to us that women cannot touch a Torah while menstruating because the impurities would be passed to the sacred scroll. Not true we learn later. Like the waters of the mikveh, the Torah cannot be made impure by a menstruating woman. Women were encouraged in the Talmud to not read Torah, although again it was permissible, because women had time to practice and might show the men up! And yet this is the very issue that is still being fought over by the Women of the Wall who have been denied having a Torah scroll on the women’s side of the Western Wall.
Much of what has been used to “keep women down” is about modesty. It is stated that the voice of a woman, Kol Isha, can be so alluring that women cannot sing in public or sometimes even teach. In Israel this can be taken to ridiculous levels. So in a country where there is mandatory army service, even for women, there are battles about whether women can sing in army shows or accept awards for academic scientific research! Some of it is about modesty of dress. Married women in the Orthodox world are expected to cover their hair, again to not be alluring. They also where long sleave shirts, longish dresses and some groups require women wear pantyhose, even in the hottest of weather. Just this weekend a picture was banned in Israel of a 2 year old girl’s feet. Really. Touch is another issue. Some Jews are “Shomer nagiah”, again because of the fear of touching a woman who might be menstruating. There are even some bus routes that do not let women sit with men on the bus, despite a Israeli Supreme Court injunction against this prohibition.
Some of these battles—over woman’s dress, voice, bus routes, etc are not unlike what we see in the Catholic Church or in very traditional Muslim Circles. I was amazed to hear of the work of Side Entrance and allowing Muslim women and girls access to Muslim prayer spaces. And she was interested to learn of the work of Women of the Wall.
We are preparing now for Passover. On my seder plate there will be an orange. Why is there an orange? There are two stories. Only one of which is true but both of them are relevant. The first goes like this: Dr. Susannah Heschel was given a speech in Miami Beach. On old man stood up and angrily said that a woman belongs on a seder plate like a woman belongs on the bimah. That would have been important enough. And that was the story that was told for a generation. But it is not what happened. And we confirmed it in person with Susannah herself this year when she, my husband and my best friend, a Catholic priest were in Selma earlier this month to mark the 50th anniversary of Bloody Sunday. The real story goes like this: At Oberlin College in a hagaddah written by Oberlin students to bring a feminist voice to the seder, a young girl asks a rabbi what room there is in Judaism for a lesbian. The rabbi rises in anger and shouts, “There is as much room for a lesbian in Judaism as there is for a crust for bread on the seder plate.” Heschel was inspired by the idea but bread was going too far. It would invalidate the plate, the meal, the holiday, the very question itself. It would reflect that lesbians themselves are somehow impure and a violation of Judaism itself. The next year, Heschel put an orange on her family seder plate because it “suggests the fruitfulness for all Jews when lesbians and gay men are contributing and active members of Jewish life.” Today the orange symbolizes all people who feel marginalized, the widow, the orphan, the stranger, the LGBTQ community. And yes, women. Some day we may all be free to celebrate within the Jewish community this holiday of freedom in the way that makes sense to us.
There will also be a Miriam’s Cup. The Miriam’s Cup was added to the seder in the early 1980s by a Rosh Hodesh group in Boston. By the mid 80s it was already a part of my seders. There is a midrash that there was a well that only Miriam could find, of fresh, living waters, Mayyim Hayyim. After Miriam’s death it disappeared and it is our job to find it again. And so a Miriam’s Cup is added to the seder table. We add spring water to it from each person’s water glass. For me, that fresh, living waters and our need to search it out is what feminism and religion is all about. An oxymoron? No. It is ours to discover and make our own.
