More on Women in Orthodox Judaism

[Sarah]

There are definitely TONS of nuances within Orthodox Judaism, and I think the role of women is just difficult to understand from outside the culture. As someone who didn't grow up Orthodox and is now (Modern Orthodox machmir, if you must know--YU style:)) there are so many things that didn't make sense to me at first that feel much clearer to me today. But I think in general we always want to be careful in assuming that women are being degraded simply because they are in a more right wing movement.

[gardenvarietycitizen]

I appreciate human insights into how odd ritual religious laws may actually affect our lives, but one of my pet peeves is making the assumption that these insights are THE reason for those laws.

Judaism actually has a term for ritual laws that make no rational sense: "chukim". There is no official religious reason other than "because the Lord of the Universe says so".

I find it to be an interesting attempt at "middle of the road" position made by some commenters on various Orthodox forums - on the "right" you've got people who will say "well, these are the rules, they are not friendly to women but I don't care, because that's what God commands and I'm proudly NOT caring what Western sensibilities might have to say on the matter - in fact, the stricter the better to show my non-liberal-Westernness," then you've got (fewer) people on the more "modern" end of the spectrum who again will say "well, them's the rules, but let me say I think we can open things a bit if we are careful about what is the actual rule and what's chumras, but I have to accept that it might contradict Western sensibilities" (implied: and I'm not so happy about it but what can ya do, still there might be room for a BIT of egalitarianness and aren't these pants only made for women? so I can wear 'em).

And then there's the middle position, people who are quite strict and very much with the "God says so" but ALSO want to appear as enlightened and thinking of women, which is where all the "actually these rules respect women more than your slutty Western morals do" people, who will read in all those rationalizations and assumed insights for the rules. And yeah, you can find a lot of them on kiruv-aimed sites. Big time - they have to attract people who have come up in secular society, after all.

[2xx1xy1JD]

I was thinking specifically of those laws that have no apparent rational explanation, like keeping kosher. Your comments, though, are pretty accurate when it comes to women's issues in general in Judaism.

Re kiruv (outreach): there's a mix of marketing and genuine belief. I know some of the people who have written on those websites. If Sara Chana Radcliffe writes about positive parenting on aish.com, it's because she genuine believes that this is the best way to parent and therefore what G-d wants us to do. She'll just leave out all the examples of people using Proverbs in horrendous ways, unless it's a passing reference to people misinterpreting things.

Similarly, plenty of Orthodox women DO genuinely feel that there is a pro-woman spin to things in Orthodox Judaism. Some selectively ignore the negative parts, some are so convinced by the good spin that they become really upset by the negative.

You can also have genuine theological differences. Left-wing modern Orthodoxy sees equality not just as a modern Western notion, but as something rooted deep in the Torah, going back to the notion that we are all created in the image of G-d, and therefore share an innate and precious human worth that exists despite any differences. Chabad, meanwhile, actually teaches that the feminine will dominate in the world after the coming of the Messiah, so the women's movement can be seen as a sign that the redemption of the world is near! http://www.chabad.org/theJewishWoman/ar ... minist.htm

There is also a political dimension to all of this.

In the minds of many, concern for issues of women's equality = Reform. [That ignores the fact that it took the Reform movement until 1972 to ordain its first female rabbi, but compared to mainstream Conservative and Orthodoxy, they were innovative.] This leads to a knee-jerk reaction against certain women's issues in some Orthodox circles. If someone points out that there isn't actually anything in Jewish law that says that women cannot be rabbis, well, they must really not be Orthodox, since they don't intuitively know that some things are just not done.

http://garnelironheart.blogspot.com/201 ... ement.html

Chabad is an interesting flashpoint as well. There is evidence that the late leader, the Lubavitcher Rebbe, was sympathetic to feminism, and both he and his wife had attended university. He not only allowed but insisted upon including pictures of females in publications, and on having new centers established by husband/wife teams. There are areas where he was clearly pushing the envelope on women's issues in Orthodoxy, but it's also clear that there was push-back from other Hasidic groups. As a result, there's a bit of a political split (which mirrors the other split in the movement), with the outreach rabbis pushing for maximum inclusion of women, while those in Brooklyn and Israel Chabad communities push the other way because they don't want the other ultra-Orthodox Jews to look down on them.

[finleeport]

I always did admire the Jewish People, they worship life while we Christians worship death. And we persecuted and oppressed them for many centuries. Makes me feel ashamed.

But I also thank the Jews for their faith in the God of Abraham. If it hadn't been for them, we would have never known about the God of Adam and Eve. And technically, Jesus was Jewish, so therefore we Christians are worshiping a Jewish God.

And according to the Jewish Feminist Blue Greenberg, the oppressions of women in other religions/cultures were not common in Jewish communities. Jewish women were relatively free from them, and only a very minor community of fundamentalist Jews refuse to allow women to drive or work outside the home.

[Soldier of the One]

I like how this thread is developing - great discussions!

Not much to add here, everyone is saying it intelligently. Just enjoying the ride :)