Was the Story of Beruryah's Demise Fabricated and Inserted into Rashi to Stop Women from Learning Torah? (fixed)

I found a fascinating comment about Beruryah buried in Dovid's answers to his 'innocent' question to women: "How does it feel to be discriminated against by your own religion?"

The background on Beruryah from Encyclopedic entry by Tzvee Zahavy (coincidental, I know):

Beruryah's contemporary importance lies in her prominence as a rare woman-scholar in the male-dominated rabbinic culture. [...] The drama of her life climaxes in the so-called Beruryah Incident. She is said in an eleventh century tradition preserved by the French rabbi Solomon ben Isaac (Rashi commentary to Talmud Babli Avodah Zarah 18b) to have mocked a mysogynistic rabbinic tradition which labelled women as flighty. Meir is said to have sent a student to tempt her to prove her actions were wrong. Tragically, she is thought to have committed suicide after submitting to the advances of her husband's disciple.

humanist comments...

by the gemara where it says that 'nashan daatan kalos', there is a very bizarre rashi.

rashi says that the famous Beruriah, scholarly wife of r' meir, scoffed at this maamer chazal that nashim daatan kalos.

r' meir asked one of his students to try to seduce his wife, in an attempt to prove that the maamer chazal had a point. the student succeeded, and beruriah, overcome with shame, killed herself.

this is in avodah zara somewhere. this rashi is hotly contested. it is strange that a story of this magnitude makes no appearance in any earlier source, and it is only brought in this rashi in the 11th century, almost 1000 yrs after it would have supposedly happened.

therefore, there is a common view accepted that rashi never actually wrote this, and that in the middle ages there were women with notions that they could learn torah, and they were trying to break out etc. they used beruriah as their role model. in order to besmirch beruriah and show that she had gone too far, and that women shouldnt learn, and that beruriah should not be looked up to, this farbicated story was inserted, and the womens movement was expected to lose steam.

[...]

i dont know the source for the fabrication, but i do know that it seems to be a very plausible explanation for an otherwise very bizarre incident.it wouldnt be blasphemous to say that something was inserted into rashi posthumously; there are precendents for that idea in jewish literature (i cant bring specfic examples right now).

Whoa! Could this be true? An anonymous comment with no sources obviously leaves me skeptical, but if this comment has any truth to it, I would like to know. Was there a movement for women's scholarship in Torah in the middle ages? Did Rashi's role in writing down and canonizing the legend of Beruryah's fall (thereby discouraging admiration of Beruryah) have anything to do with his daughter's involvement a the masculine religious domain? I assume de facto that Rashi is the author, but is there room for questioning the authenticity of Rashi's commentary? Are there other examples where Rashi is contested? Or is this a classic conspiracy theory?

UPDATE: mystery solved.

CoD: "It seems bizarre that ultra-Orthodox rabbis would buy into the feminist mantra that women can and should do it all. "

Fern left this comment (CoD= comment of the day) on my post about the Women's education crisis in Israel.

I just don't understand how intelligent people can set up a social system that is so obviously unsustainable. If men are to study full time, and women are to have many, many children, then who is going to raise the children and provide for the household needs? It seems bizarre that ultra-Orthodox rabbis would buy into the feminist mantra that women can and should do it all. I thought the last 30 years had proven what a bunch of hooey all that stuff was. Maybe the news is just a little late getting to the ghetto?

Indeed, in all the dogmatism and total disregard for practicality, Kollel wives have turned into extreme feminists! They juggle everything--home, family and work.

I was educated in a kollel-lifestyle-geared school where we were taught that the ultimate zechus a woman can have in this world is by creating an environment for her husband that is conducive to learning, i.e. fully funded, fully functional home. The entire concept was difficult for me to stomach.

On the one hand, the kollel wives I knew, my teachers, were not overworked, baby-poppers who only had the capacity to think about diapers and recipes. On the contrary, these women were dynamic and brilliant and always impeccably organized and presented. Yes, they had a child about every year, and yes, their entire career consisted of teaching, but their level of Torah knowledge was enormous (they could have easily gone up against their kollel husbands), their homes were spotless and running like clockwork, their children were well adjusted and well mannered, they spoke and wrote English beautifully, etc... It was mind-boggling and inspirational to watch these women run their lives.

On the other hand, they do all of this with one totally selfless goal in mind--to serve their husbands (and to get the zechus in olam haba'ah, but I still consider it selfless). These women are not allowed to shine as individuals. Don't the men ever get the feeling that their brilliant and talented wives are being wasted in their service? For example, teaching is a most noble profession, and someone who is good at it can make a world of a difference in the lives of the future generation. But some women could be more effective and influential in other areas. Some women might do very well for this world learning, believe it or not. Just the fact that most kollel women don't have the option of being stay-at-home mothers is terribly unfair.

In my limited view of the world, a women's goal should be to serve G-d and to raise children. A husband is a partner to help in the completion of the above. Making a goal out of serving the husband is, in my opinion, a complete perversity.

Chareidi Women: the Stupider, the Merrier.

This latest development, reported in Haaretz (link), infuriates me. Here are a few choice quotes:

A committee of rabbis formulating the education policy in the ultra-Orthodox community has prohibited women's continuing education programs and severely restricted other study courses, thus blocking the advancement and development of haredi women's careers.

In recent years, the reforms in the continuing education programs have not pleased the rabbis, who object to women's "academic" studies. The conservatives warned of women's "career ambitions," fearing they would now be able to break out of the "teaching ghetto" and find other jobs than teaching. Rabbi Yosef Shalom Elyashiv was quoted in Yated Neeman objecting to teachers' enrolling in "all kinds of other education programs without any supervision of rabbis on every detail".

He warned that without close supervision and determining the content, "all manner of heresy can creep into those programs."

The absence of ultra-Orthodox lecturers with academic degrees in diagnostics and consulting required bringing in lecturers from "outside" the community. Yated Neeman's women's supplement, Bayit Neeman, blasted the trend of bringing in lecturers from the "Sephardi faction" and even "completely secular" ones, warning of the women students' defilement.

Orthomom points out the cruelty and hipocricy in requiring women to support their families, but taking away almost all means of making a decent living. Dovbear points out that this ruling harms other charities who's donors will now be funneling their money to support the kollel families. I'm sure everyone is wondering why the sephardi faction is deemed a source of "defilement"?

I pose a different question: why do these chareidi rabbanim distrust women so much that they need to control ever aspect of their lives? Read the words carefully: "...the rabbis, who object to women's "academic" studies. The conservatives warned of women's "career ambitions," fearing they would now be able to break out of the "teaching ghetto" and find other jobs than teaching... R.Eliyashav... objecting to teachers' enrolling in 'all kinds of other education programs without any supervision of rabbis on every detail'... warning of the women students' defilement." I'm not out to bash the chareidi establishment, but these words make it very clear that many the rabbanim think women should be afforded the independence level of a child, who must be supervised in all respects.

I don't believe in gender equality, especially when it comes to religious practice. Men and women have distinct roles, that are for the most determined by tradition, and the existence of this notion does not confirm that orthodox Judaism is sexist or demeaning to women. However, this latest edict has to be one of the most sexist actions I've ever seen taken in the name of orthodoxy. The bias against women's intellectual capabilities to discern right from wrong, proper from improper and professional from personal is so offensive and demeaning. How is it that women can't be trusted to engage in a professional pursuit--mind you, via chareidi schools for females only with mostly religious faculty?

And if women are to be so distrusted, how is a man expected to trust his wife for his most fundamental religious needs: kosher food, taharas hamishpacha and chinuch habanim?

True Story: When I was in grade school, my 'science' teacher (a post seminary girl) concocted a ridiculous story about gravity making machines that keep the astronaut-mobiles grounded on the moon. My parents, sticklers that they are for truth, complained to the hanhalah that the young lady is unfit to be teaching if she couldn't even be bothered to read a 5th grade text book, which would have told there is in fact gravity on the moon, etc... The administrator took my parents aside and told them very seriously, "We don't think you should be so concerned with your daughter's education, because it'll only cause problems later in life when it's time for her to run her own home... Our policy with girls is THE STUPIDER, THE MERRIER. Ha, ha ha ha ha..." His attempt at sarcasm didn't work that well. Needless to say I switched schools the following year.

I honestly think that even with all the respect people have for daas Torah and emunas chachamin, there will come a tipping point where these sorts of outrageous, unfair and halakhically unjustified demands will be exposed for what they are, a means to control the population. For what end, I don't know, but the means will certainly backfire! Women are not nearly as stupid or docile as you'd like to think.

***

Update 1/3/07: I decided to cross out all the angry stuff. This ruling doesn't affect me. I can't relate to it. I went to a secular college despite being told in non-negotiable terms that it's wrong and against what Chabad believes. I don't consider it a sin to judge for oneself the salience of a particular custom (with the individual advice of someone more knowledgeable and less defiant). But I shouldn't be blowing lid off about it. Trying to stay positive... it isn't easy.

An uber-meta look at frum female blogging

The following is the abstract of a paper to be discussed at the "Works in Progress Group in Modern Jewish Studies" at the AJS conference this weekend. The title: "Domesticity and the Home Page: Blogging and the Blurring of Public/Private Space for Orthodox Jewish Women"

Abstract

What if Glückel of Hameln, the seventeenth-century memoirist who wrote her life experiences as a legacy for her twelve children, had blogged instead? The emergence of the “blogosphere” as a new medium for self-expression raises critical questions about the way the public and private realms are positioned in cyberspace. While conventional memoirs and diaries represent private life writing that, like Glückel’s, might become public through publication, blogs are journals that at once combine the intimacy of personal reflection in the diary format with the globally accessible (and commercialized) public arena of the World Wide Web. In this paper, I will examine the phenomenon of Jewish women bloggers in the American Orthodox community, looking specifically at the ways in which this particular medium has provided women with a public voice to discuss matters that, traditionally, belong to the private sphere, thus subverting the public/private dichotomy that is at the heart of traditional Jewish culture. My work will be contextualized in a discussion of the use of blogging by women more broadly as a means of politicizing conventionally “private’ issues. In addition, I will consider the value and significance of reading blogs for those who are not active writers in the genre, again comparing this phenomenon to the case of Glückel, whose widely read memoir is a staple of courses on Jewish women’s history. (link to pdf) (via Hirhurim)

I had some thoughts on this topic when I started blogging almost a year ago. In fact, it was my very first real post (read The Unwanted Veil). I can't wait to hear the Jewish Studies spin on this topic. I suspect it won't be earth shattering, to say the least, as these academic 'state the obvious' papers tend to be.

The phenomenon of orthodox female blogging isn't so much an issue of public vs. private domain anymore. What's interesting to me is that the blogsphere may the only venue for intimate but appropriate mingling, so to speak, between very religious men and women.

The separation between genders is very pronounced in ultra-orthodox circles. I once visited the Vizhnitzer Rebbe's home and was surprised to see two separate dining rooms, one for men and one for women. I asked the rebetzin why this was necessary between family members and she said that it was because of the children-in-law. In chabad the boundaries are obviously a lot less extreme, but there is still the understanding that married men and women do not form friendships. People are of course friendly, cordial, even talkative at times, but the discussion never goes past the surface, lest anything becomes personal or emotional and then develops into a connection. I suppose that in more modern circles this separation exists much less, but I don't know the dynamics of those relationships. In my little world, women socialize and exchange ideas exclusively with women or in the context of their families (for example, at a shabbos table with the husband present). For very religious women, the internet is possibly the only opportunity to get a non-relative male perspective on issues. Even for the non-religious woman, it may be the only way to peer into the frum guys' world and get a glimpse of the famed yeshivish debating. Either way, one must appreciate the novelty of this form of communication in that it allows for so much more freedom and democratization without compromising modesty or fidelity.

The opposite must be true for men as well. Reading frum women's blogs opens up a new world and allows for a sort of interaction that is unlikely in person. Now that's a topic I would like to hear about.

II: Things I do not know about sheva nekiim and femininity

'The daughters of Israel have undertaken to be so strict with themselves that if they see a drop of blood no bigger than a mustard seed they wait seven [clean] days after it' (Ber. 31a). [hattip MOB]

There practice of counting an additional 7 clean days before mikvah is without a doubt inconvenient and unpleasant for all. It turns out that the righteous daughters of Israel chose to be extremely stringent in this area in order to avoid coming close to any sin. I fully understand the concept of building a ‘fence’ around a prohibition, but I have a hard time accepting that the women of yore voluntarily turned the most uncomfortable, inconvenient chumra into halakha and enforced it on all following generations. Jewish women are usually so practical; the chumra of sheva nekiim is not.

It’s been said (somewhere in the blogsphere, but can’t remember where—links appreciated here) that giving credit to the women for establishing the practice was done as a rhetorical device. I doubt that because it’s rare to see and therefore begs an explanation. The feminine voice was so rarely heard in halakhic ruling; why did they choose to speak up specifically here?

I’ve also heard it said that perhaps the sheva nikiim were designed as an indirect, acceptable form of practicing birth control. But apparently this is would be a cruel and also unreliable method as it only affects about 1/3^rd of women who practice family purity. Also, the majority of orthodox women want to have many babies—so again the logic fails.

What then could possibly motivate the righteous women to accept and enforce this tedious practice? Did Chava not do enough damage to femininity through similar overextension of a chumra into absolute issur?

See part I: Things you may not knkow about sheva nekiim and infertility.

Orthodox Single is another way of saying Forever Infertile... and that's unfair.

I recently shared a shabbos lunch with three single women. They were around 50 years old. One was divorced with a teenage child; the other two had never been married. These women were accomplished professionals—funny, intelligent and all around good company. I wouldn’t presume to guess why they never married, but I caught myself wondering if they still considered themselves on the make. Did they still think that their life was incomplete without a spouse? Were they deeply unsatisfied or had they come to terms with living a single, but vibrant and meaningful life?

It then occurred to me that their marital status was really not the issue at all. What intrigued me was that two of these women never had their own children and most likely never will. Sometime during the meal we were discussing property taxes and estate planning and the topic of children who fight over their parents’ estate came up. One woman leaned over to the other and mumbled, “I’m lucky I’ll never have that problem.” She laughed at the irony, but I saw it as nothing less than tragic.

I suppose that by today’s progressive standard a woman can be complete without having experienced childbirth or motherhood, but I feel that would only hold true when considered in the context of choice. A woman who does not wish to be a mother is better off staying single and/or childless. But these women at my table, who are orthodox and theoretically family oriented, are forced into childlessness not by choice, but by circumstance.

Outside of the orthodox world, it’s becoming the norm for single women to be having children. Even in the most liberal crowd, there’s a stigma that goes with artificial insemination, but I think this last resort for a single woman running out of time is considered more or less reasonable. The Jewish Week ran an article some time ago about women who became pregnant without a partner and concluded that they are higher up on the ladder of acceptability than unmarried women who are naturally impregnated, by accident or not. Mind you, these considerations are not based on religious or halakhic standards. Now consider the orthodox woman who is in a totally different playing field, where the standards of acceptability are the most stringent. With so many who remain unmarried these days, so much so that the term ‘old maid’ has become quaint and irrelevant, their issues must be addressed. I don’t care to judge them or call them picky or too ambitious and career driven; the reality is that they are put in a terrible bind by virtue of their being orthodox.

So how do we treat single middle aged women: as lepers who should be punished for their inability to settle down, as unstable and incompetent people who can’t be trusted with parenting and should therefore not be allowed any viable alternative? Or how about treating them simply as infertile? Many women are infertile because of biological reasons; let these women be considered infertile based on sociological reasons.

Infertile couples have many options and untraditional ways to become parents, from adoption to in-vitro fertilization to surrogate pregnancy. Sperm donation is the most restrictive and complicated option, (if the child later marries a relative of the sperm donor, it would be incest/ if the donor is a cohen, his sons are cohanim and are restricted in who they may marry, etc…) but there have been ways to circumvent the problems, e.g. using non-anonymous donors. Despite the countless ethical and halakhic issues involved in each of these choices, the rabbanim have been making huge and commendable efforts to enable orthodox couples to use the latest technology and to adopt what’s available to halkaha (see infertility resources). The question is, who should qualify as infertile so that they can benefit from all these options.

Until now the window of opportunity has been tightly guarded by the powers that be, lest the argument be made that gays should also be given the opportunity to procreate using whatever means available. But while homosexuality is a halakhic issue, single motherhood is not. I’m not convinced that giving women who don't have the opportunity to have children in a traditional way a chance to do so outside of marriage would destroy the sanctity of the family.

As radical as my opinion sounds, I predict that should this become a reality, the first people to jump on it would be the frummest. Most older singles I know are modern orthodox. In many ways it’s easiest to be single in the modern world, because there’s more opportunity outside of family life for fulfillment (communal, professional, and in some circles even physical). But a highly observant single who passes a certain age without marrying is virtually doomed to remain lonely, separate and completely uninvolved in community life, because nobody can accommodate them. It’s the same reason infertile religious couples have such a hard time finding acceptance and support—because everyone married has children and there is simply no room for any deviation from that lifestyle. But why should being single be considered deviance?

I state my case especially for women, because a man never quite runs out of time (until he’s dead) or capacity for having children, whereas a woman has that ominous biological clock hanging over her head. This is very much my gut feeling and not an informed opinion—I know very little about the halakhic implications of fatherless conception—but even if it were unsolvable, the possibility of adoption remains. Everybody knows a frum single woman who would die to adopt children and raise them in the proper way, but doesn’t only because it’s just not done. Well, I don’t think ‘it’s just not done’ is a good enough reason to stop people from doing positive things that could be accommodated for in halakha.

It’s obvious that what used to work no longer does. Insisting on sanctimonious values and relative definitions of Jewish family hurts the growing number of people who don’t fall into traditional categories. (This isn’t even tradition so much as a recent and local definition because, for instance, before the cheirim d’Rabeinu Gershom one man could have been the father/husband to many families and his presence was unnecessary. When arranged within the bounds of halakha, a woman can raise her children alone and be recognized as a family unit.) If this puts me on the fringe, then so be it, but I feel that it’s only a matter of time before these supposedly scandalous alternatives will be uncovered as the reasonable and permissible options that I think they are.

"Lo I'm Haaretz Chassid" Part II

A comment on my last post:

I realize this post came out terribly unclear! I meant to write about how women can be very uninvolved in Torah but at the same time spiritually dedicated, and nothing more is asked from them. I know I'm not making this situation up--it's everywhere. Think about the fact that there is no s'char limud Torah for women. It's encouraged only for commandments that apply. In other words, "lo am haaretz chassid", a man who is an ignoramus cannot be a chassid (righteous)--there is no way he can fulfill his purpose as a good Jew without learning and knowing. A woman, on the other hand, can be the exemplary Rebbetzin with only second hand knowledge from men on only applicable issues, i.e. kashrus, taharas hamishpacha, tznius, etc.

That's the issue I wanted to bring up and discuss, using myself and my husband only as an example. Instead I got so carried away expounding on my husband's virtues that I left the main point for the last paragraph! I guess that makes me a good wife, but a terrible writer! :) In any event, I hope this comment clears things up and you don't view the post a biographical piece with a little philosophy at the end. View it as social commentary with a little biographical information thrown in to serve as example.

Waiting to hear from you...

Comment here.

"Lo I'm Haaretz Chassid"

I'd like to introduce my dear husband, Talmid Chacham GED. As you may have surmised from his pseudonym, he is my perfect compliment. Between my am haratzus, his scholarship in Torah, his detachment from the shtusim of the world and my extpertise therewith, we make a very well rounded and happy couple, b"H.

I met my dear husband (DH) shortly after my 20th birthday and agreed to marry him within a week and a half of our first date. This surprised me as much as anyone else, especially since I'd never considered myself the marrying-young type. I had only recently gotten back from seminary, had just begun college, and was full of many grand plans which included marriage, but only as a by the way. (Side point: many frum girls would rather not get married as young as they do, but do so only because they're afraid they'll miss the boat if they wait.) This changed as soon as I met DH and suddenly my close to half a year engagement seemed like an eternity.

My friends, who were all single, treated me as the go-to-girl for dating and marriage advice, as I seemed to have gone through the process so effortlessly. The thing that amazed them the most was that I had no qualms about marrying a guy who was so much more religious than me. Indeed, I married DH knowing full well that he is light years ahead of me in both observance and Torah knowledge. I didn't know much, but I knew that these were things to value and respect (and I also hoped to pick something up by osmosis).

The truth is that on a superficial level, we're both fully observant chabadniks who went through yeshiva and live the same lifestyle, etc... But in fact, it's quite possible to be very different while sharing the same labels. I went through high school going to movies, listening to Pearl Jam, reading Cosmo and just generally goofing off. Seminary was my first exposure to learning chassidus, where I did get involved, but since I felt it was an externally induced situation, it didn't turn my life around . Don't get me wrong, I was a thoughtful, well behaved teen; but looking back I realize that I did not internalize Judaism beyond the mandatory good behavior.

My husband, on the other hand, spent his days learning Torah. This would be a good time to explain the GED addendum to DH's name. Unlike my PhD, which is just a gimmick, DH's GED is real. Although he attended an excellent yeshiva high school that offered both Jewish and secular studies, my DH considered it bittul Torah to attend any afternoon classes, so he sat them out in the bies medrash and learned. Surprisingly his rebbi's did not discourage it, so it was only in his 20's when it was time to think about earning a livelihood that DH got a diploma equivalence. Till this day, though he works full time, DH spends every free minute with a sefer (or chazarra mp3). [correction: I'm afraid this was unclear-- DH got a GED, semicha and then went on to finish grad school, so he's a professional, not a kollel guy.]

When I was still a newlywed, my father told me something that made me bitter at the time but was otherwise good advice. He said, if you want to have something to talk about with your husband besides what's for dinner and the weather, you'd better start learning. I think he meant it both as a compliment to DH for being so engrossed in Torah and point out that I should take a more active role in being Jewish. Don't worry, it's been years and though I'm still an am haaretz, DH and I still have plenty to talk about. But my father had a point and I'm not proud of the fact. I actually intend to change it now that I finally graduated from college and have some more time and mental space open to learn Torah. The amazing thing is that I never really thought it was a problem.

I often wonder how it is that women have completely different obligations, not only in action but in attitude, towards Judaism. Besides for the time-sensitive commandments from which we're exempt, there is an unwritten rule that says that as long as a woman does nothing prohibited, she is considered an observant Jew, whereas a man must actually do positive in order to be considered religious. Of course women have plenty of mitzvahs, but practically speaking a frum woman who does not daven, learn, or engage in Torah in any way is not rare. (Things that must be done in order to avoid a prohibition can't be neglected though.) A guy would never get away with it; he simply would not be considered frum!

I'm sure some men resent that women get away so easy with religious obligation, but at the same time many women resent that they are not invited into the boy's club of everyday Torah, despite their willingness to participate. This inconsistency plays itself out regularly in my domestic life. My husband is a holy Jew who spends his days doing mitzvahs and learning Torah, while I spend my days doing my own thing, plus some mitzvahs and a little Torah. To an outsider, we're both frum, but that's not the whole truth. He's the frum one and I'm mostly riding on his merits.

[ DH is no less fun or cool or open-minded or attractive because of his religiosity, so don't even go there!]

un-Happy Mother's Day

In honor of this year's Mother's Day, I cried for two hour straight. I know that Mother's Day is supposed to be a celebration of motherhood and a day of appreciation for the sacrifice and dedication that goes into motherhood, bla bla bla... but instead of focusing on the positive, I spent the day rehashing all those fleeting year-long thoughts I have about motherhood, which include a lot of guilt, frustration, and fear of failing my family. I'm not talking about the day to day pressures of being a parent, such as discipline, accidents, or lack of sleep. I'm talking about the greater responsibility involved in being handed a life, a soul, a complete human being. When I think about the status of my motherhood, so to speak, I can't help but cry. Let me try to explain:

I spent the last several years in a demanding and highly competitive college. I have a part-time job that I do from home, which keeps me busy in addition to homework. I am also doing a year long internship, because my field requires experience, not just a degree. More importantly, I have a great marriage, a beautiful child, and many blessings in my life (baruch Hashem). You must be asking yourself why on earth I would have anything to complain about. The truth is I shouldn’t, but I can’t help but feel completely overwhelmed and saddened by it.

It would seem that my schedule and lifestyle would better suite a type-A workaholic who preferably has help. I, on the other hand, am disorganized and easily harried, I don’t have any help with housework or nanny-ing, I need too much to sleep to function normally, and I have a problem with procrastinating… In short, I am completely overwhelmed. I find myself always exhausted--too tired to keep in touch with friends, too tired to go out with my husband, too tired to fulfill any household duties beyond what absolutely cannot be overlooked. (So while I’ll make a healthy dinner every night, I might not wash the dishes until two days later. I sometimes don’t even notice how much needs to be done, until there isn’t a clean pair of socks to be found or the like.)

The worst is that since I’m out of the house for so many hours, I send my daughter to a full day day-care. I carefully chose an excellent program where I thought I could leave my daughter for many hours worry free, but I was wrong. Despite how warm and loving the teachers are, and even though my daughter is extremely happy (she asks to go to school on weekends) I still feel horrible that she is not with me for most of her waking hours during her young and most impressionable years. There’s no way to get around not spending enough time with your kids; quality time does not substitute for quantity of time together. My daughter certainly doesn’t act neglected--her behavior and development are wonderful--but I still know that what I’m doing is wrong. For those few afternoon hours that we do have together, I shut off the phone and do nothing responsible so I can focus on my daughter; but that does not make my friends and other family happy when they're trying to get in touch with me, nor does it make me happy when I'm supposed to be doing something important.

So what are my options? I can't be a stay at home mom because that would also be utterly irresponsible. I have one child who's old enough for a full day at school-- clearly not what's considered enough of a 'burden' to warrant not working. Also, staying home would just give me more time to remember that I only have one child, even though I so badly want more; so it's good that I stay very busy. I also couldn't possibly waste my expensive education by not using it--my parents would be devastated (and rightfully so) after having paid so much in tuition.

The other option is that I get my act together and make it work. There are women who have no problem working full time and raising several children, all while maintaining their sanity, so why can't I? I'm no basket-case and I've been functioning fine until now, so with enough work it should all start to fall into place. In fact, I should be proud of my achievements; my daughter is an adorable, well taken care of kid, I am graduating with a totally decent GPA, and I got a job offer in a prestigious institution. All in all, things have gone really well for me (bli ayin hora). But come Mother's Day and I'm still really sad, because what I want to be most, a full time mother up to her neck in kinderlach, I'm not. Instead I'm drowning in deadlines, papers, and projects that all pull me further away from home.

They say it’s human nature to want the very thing you don't have, but I'm ashamed to feel this way. It's a crime that I would even complain at all, considering the real problems other people have G-d forbid (i.e. no children at all, not being able to find a job, poor health, etc). To be clear, 364 days a year I feel busy but blessed, and mostly very happy. On Mother's Day though, I feel totally inadequate, and the fact that my problems aren't problems at all, but rather self-imposed stressors, doesn't make it better. I'm just glad that around here people don't actively celebrate Mother's Day, using the lame excuse that "every day is mother's day" even though I don't think I could handle having to evaluate and judge myself as a mother more than once a year.

So now you know why I waited a full day before posting my thoughts on Mother's Day. It wouldn't be right to everyone out there who deserves a happy and festive Mother's Day--especially my own mother who gave up a potentially fabulous career after having several children one after another. She did what she thought was right for her family and never looked back. I should learn from her example and be more open to whatever comes my way. I truly believe that Hashem only gives us what we could handle. Apparently my combination of work and kids is what's suited for me best--who am I to question or complain? In the end, I'm just happy Mother's Day is over so I can go back to being a busy and happy working mom who hasn't a free moment to self-obsess. Now it's time to carry on, so I wish everyone a lot of strength to do whatever it is that they have to do in this world and a lot of wisdom to be able to find joy and satisfaction in it.

Progress moving backwards

The Satmar Rebbe was buried early this morning, bd"h. According to some reports, his family members all signed a contract agreeing to every detail of the funeral, most importantly who would be allowed to speak and in which congregation (Williamsburg or Monroe). The internal family struggle doesn't concern or interest me, but when I read this at Modern Orthodox Woman some time back, I was absolutely flabbergasted--I think it's appropriate to repeat today.

When the former Satmar Rav (R'Joel Teitelbaum) died in 1979, his wife eulogized him at his funeral. This came to light during a discussion on whether a women is permitted to speak divrei Torah before a crowd of men in a shul where a sefer Torah is present. One commenter brings the opinion of the Satmar Rav who, in line with the movement's philosophy on women's modesty, considered it strictly forbidden for a women to speak in shul. At his funeral, however, his Rebbetzin spoke at the mike of the main congregation in Monroe before thousands of chassidim and hundreds of Rabbanim. According to the first hand account, the Rebbetzin wept for five minutes in a kol rom. (There should be tapes of the event, but they are obviously kept under wraps.)

I believe something like this in the Satmar community would cause enormous controversy today as well, but a community can only handle so much strife, and chassidim is slowly reaching a breaking point. I doubt anyone signed the Rebbetzin a permission slip to speak at her husband, the great Rav's funeral; I'm also sure that her actions, which directly disobeyed her husband's ruling, were a shock to many and perhaps even an offense to some. But notice that the things that cause a stir today are not indicative of change, growth or breaking from irrelevant or unproductive ways of the past; today's controversies are a very sad reflection of our concerns.

The Invisible Women of Satmar

My title, Tien Mao's photo (HT Dovbear): last night's funeral procession in Williamsburg.

Megilla reading for dummies... oops, I meant mommies

Yesterday my daughter came home from school with an arts-n-craft that would make any normal parent proud… leave it to me to cringe at the site of a gragger. It was the noisiest contraption I’d ever heard; taking it out of the knapsack alone sent out a good 80 decibels of unbearable noise into my otherwise peaceful apartment. The engineering was straightforward—two (heavily decorated) paper cups fastened together and filled with noisy junk. I finally found where my school money goes—they don’t fill these cups with popcorn kernels or rice; I’m proud to say that my daughter’s school fills her gragger with quality material--the biggest dried lima beans you ever saw and, I bet steel marbles as well. What were they thinking, the noisier the better? Being the patient mother that I am, I immediately hid this monstrous contraption away until Purim. I thought, “I won’t have to hear it until Megilla reading when I take it out in its right time.” It then dawned on me that I’d have to install a silencer on the gragger before letting my daughter walk into shul lest I wish to be stoned by my fellow congregants with those very lima beans.

So that’s how the dilemma began. Consider the following:

1. Women are halakhicly required to hear the Megilla twice on Purim (with equal stringency as men).
2. Women are traditionally the ones toting the little (read: noisy) ones along to the Megilla reading.

These two conditions are mutually exclusive and virtually impossible to fulfill at the same time. Anyone who has sat through a Megilla reading in a non-yeker shul (how do they do it, btw?) knows that of the usual 95% of the service that makes it over the mechitza, another 15% of the words are skimmed right off the top during Megilla reading (comstumes rustling, graggers graggling (?), babies crying, mother’s pleading for some silence, etc…) Clearly, not a good combination.

In Israel they deal with this situation brilliantly. The megilla is simply read twice so the kids can be shifted between parties. Why American’s don’t adopt this practice stumps me. Maybe some feminist groups protested saying that this equates motherhood with womanhood and further assumes the caretaking role to the female, etc… I think this is as fair a deal as it gets, as in, 'I go deaf for 45 minutes, okay, now your turn'. But somehow it hasn't caught on in orthodox circles. I have gone to private home readings in the past but I still ended up toting along the blasted gragger, accompanied by its eager owner. How could anyone expect me—with my kid who's highly prone to noisy debacles and my embarrassingly short attention span—to be able to hear the entire Megilla intact?

Now, what if women could read their own Megilla? Imagine we could claim the same immunity to noisy accessories or interuption as our male counterparts, i.e. “can’t you see I’m part of a minyan here, isn’t it a little sacrilege to ask me to---insert child-related activity here--?” I’ve often heard, in hushed tones though, that in certain instances woman are fully allowed—even encouraged—to make a minyan and lead their own services. Mikras Megilla, it turns out, may be one of them. [Full disclosure: my pseudonym is Am Haaretz for good reason, so bear with my very imprecise overview of the halakha.]

What are the issues and what’s holding us back?

There are two aspects of reading Megilla: (1) pirsum hanes, publicizing the miracle, which is satisfied by hearing the Megilla read aloud, and (2) mechiyas amalek, wiping out amalek (Haman’s) name, which is satisfied through reading aloud. Women are clearly obligated in the first because they took part in the miracle, but they don’t have any obligation to erase Amalek. In addition, Megilla takes the place of reading Hallel on Purim and women, unlike men, are not obligated in reading Hallel. For one person to include another person in a mitzvah, they must share equal obligations; in this case, the woman cannot satisfy mechiyas Amalek or Hallel for a man and therefore cannot read Megilla for him. (Sources: bahag & machreshes). This still does not explain why women can’t read Megilla for themselves or each other.

I did some quick, superficial research, and unbelievably I found that most rabanim consider ten women a proper minyan for reading the Megilla and even blessing harav eth riveinu! (I didn't even know you need a minyan for Megilla.) There appears to be no specific halakhic problem with women reading Megilla amongst other women. (Please don’t generalize and/or extend these opinions to women’s prayer groups, because the issues there are completely different.) If you follow this link and scroll down to "Women Reading Megillah", you'll see quotes of many interesting people's opinions, most of which seem to support the notion. Even this dissenting opinion of R'A. Soloveitchik is unconvincing, as no actual prohibition is cited:

“…in those communities, such as in Israel, where there is already an established custom to have a second Megillah reading for women, it is irrelevant whether the reader is male or female. Elsewhere, where such a minhag is not so common, a special women's Megillah reading should not be permitted (for hashkafic and public policy reasons).”

So I ask you, is public policy more binding than a more meaningful, halakhicly proper, fulfillment of a mitzvah? Might it be time for a hashkafa shift to better acommodate a mother's needs? Or is it wishful thinkingon my part to expect a better Megilla reading/listening experience if women were in charge?

It's true, I'm a STUDENT (unrelated to Gil)

Just recently I had to register for graduation from college. (Yay!) Unlike the typical female graduate in my class, I am

1. ultra-orthodox,
2. married with child,
3. non-feminist, and
4. sober.

This presents quite a few struggles. The most recent issue that I had to tackle was which last name do I put on my diploma? I got married after enrolling in college, so my academic nom-de-use has always been my maiden name. My professors know me as Ms. three-syllabic- eastern-european- crack-your-teeth- trying-to-pronounce-correctly. Anything I'd done academically went under that name, and when I eventually run for president I want my professors to be able to say, “I remember her, she was my student.” Add that to the fact that my parents paid for my ridiculously high private university tuition, and I ask myself, how can I not give my 'single' persona any acknowledgment? The problem is that, in reality, that person doesn’t exist any more outside school walls; I am now known to everyone as Mrs. three-syllabic- western-european- eat-a-knish-while-talking. I can't overlook my married name (for obvious reasons) so what's a girl to do?

If I take the feminist route and hyphenate, the resulting name will be illegal in many states (or at best, heavily taxed) and I'll never get a decent job or have any of my work published, because there won’t be enough room on a business card or book cover. Besides, what will my daughters do one day when they marry the next generation of heimishe-oh-too-long-to-bear Jewish name bearers? They'll be extradited to Thailand and forced to settle in Theppitak- karoon- boonyanan... (+ another 163 letters)! If I were a guy, everything would be so much simpler.

So, as a favor to humanity and a gesture to all my loved ones, I settled on keeping both names, but with no hyphen, so that my maiden name can be referred to with an innocuous middle initial. And that is how I averted a major family crisis.

The (un)wanted veil

Orthomom recently posted a clipping of a short article called “How the Internet is Lifting the Veil from Orthodox Jewish Women,” that cited several orthodox female blogs as a ‘rare glimpse into an otherwise closed world’. The hyperbole that the unaffiliated use to describe our mysterious community is not a surprise, but I’d like to suggest that, in fact, there is a ‘viel’ over us orthodox woman and we are hiding behind our traditional role more than we’d like to admit. Before I get my shietel ripped off by angry mobs of enlightened, opinionated (and roaring) women, let me explain:

The Jewish blogsphere is fairly populated by female bloggers. In my unscientific poll of different websites’ blogrolls, I found that while we are a minority, our voice is present in equal measure to our relative involvement in communal/cultural affairs. It seems that men are much less likely to link to women’s blogs (if at all), while women link mostly to men’s blogs but also add their few girlfriends onto their blogroll. (Update: that was a mistake). I’m almost surprised that the JIB awards didn’t list a category for ‘best female blogger’.

Despite our solid presence, men seem to enjoy a far greater degree of security in this virtual world of blogging. The most popular male bloggers have, for the most part, been out-ed. Even if I personally don’t know their names, it’s obvious that many of their readers do. I have also seen a considerable amount of men using their real names: Gil Student, Stephen I. Weiss, Robert J. Avrech, to name a few. I dare you to find that many religious women unafraid of divulging their identities online. The rare exception, (i.e. Esther K.) are either professional writers who don’t benefit from anonymity or questionably orthodox. The rest of us cling dearly to the generous anonymity that the internet provides. I’ve seen countless bloggers trembling in fear of having been identified and threatening to shut down their blogs if someone were to publicize their identities—and more often than not, they were female.

Why is blogging considered a surprising, possibly dubious activity for an orthodox woman? Okay, dubious might be pushing it, but it is still on the fringe of acceptability. Why else would public acknowledgment of the blog tarnish a women’s identity? One (not I) can argue that since the entire function of a blog is to fulfill the narcissistic need for self-expression, to act as a personal reality TV channel focused on the writer’s life and mind, a woman that exercises extreme modesty of behavior and thought would not relate to this kind of venue for self-expression. RenReb, the Joan of Arc of the new breed of orthodox female bloggers, flies in the face of the traditional image of a rebetzin—she’s saucy, she’s funny, and she uses words like cocky—but despite her claim at totally forthright presentation, she is tediously careful with conserving her anonymity. I wonder (and let me know if I’m wrong here) whether she, or any other lauded female bloggers, would admit to falling into line with traditional expectations of the orthodox woman by avoiding public exposure.

I wish my favorite female bloggers would finally come out of the closet and reveal themselves—if not to promote identity and expression among orthodox women, then at least to give their fans a chance to admire them in person!