Just when I thought I could continue to live my life based on my own choices, I had to go and read a blog post. Whoops. Debra Nussbaum Cohen’s piece,“Why Being ‘Childless by Choice’ Often Reflects Jewish Disengagement,”featured in the Forward’s Sisterhood Blog on August 6th, actually includes the line, “I don’t know any Jewishly engaged woman who is childless by choice.”
Speaking as the alleged rare bird in this situation, a Jewishly engaged woman who does not plan to have children (that’s right-ever), I have some thoughts as to why Nussbaum Cohen may not know women like me.
Many mainstream Jewish settings claim to be welcoming of all kinds of folks. Some of them even mean it. Still, I have yet to encounter a space where I’ve felt safe enough to profess that my version of family looks drastically different than the one presented to me by the Jewish world at large.
The Jewish community has shut the door on women who choose not to have children. Where will we fit in? How will we become real Jewish women if we insist on listening to our instincts that say motherhood is not the right decision for us, instead of caving to institutional and/or biological pressure? What will we do with our empty lives? Nussbaum Cohen’s reminder to her readers that the Torah commands us to be fruitful and multiply is a prescription: women, have babies. Don’t look to contribute to the Jewish world through your intellect, your politics, your creativity, your passion for Jewish education, etc, because the only legitimate contribution is babies. Got it? Without babies, you don’t count.
Women who choose a life without children are regularly made to feel uncomfortable and guilty for our decision (or circumstances, depending on your reason for being childfree), in and out of the Jewish community. Being constantly contradicted and pathologized for failing to be the “right” kind of Jewish woman is exhausting, especially when it’s the result of our own authentic choices. Therefore, we’re driven to seek out alternative communities or build our own, rather than remain in these painful, narrow spaces.
So to Debra Nussbaum Cohen, I say, thanks for judging the level of Jewish commitment of myself and many other Jewish women whom you don’t know. As it turns out, I don’t so much want to be Jewishly engaged with you.
Despite Women of the Wall leader Anat Hoffman being banned from the Kotel plaza for 30 days, Rosh Chodesh services proceeded today in the plaza and concluded, as usual, with a Torah service at Robinson’s Arch. And they live-tweeted the whole thing!
Among other things, they tweeted:
Proof that police + rules are becoming more extreme: we have always have blown shofar, today police stopped us + confiscated the shofar
Evidently the shofar was returned when they headed down to Robinson’s Arch. Another tweet:
Shofar blowing at robinson’s arch. A beautiful, free sound
Personally, I think that wall is an idol, but if men are free to worship at its feet, women should be too.
NEWS ITEM: In a special news report published online by the NEW YORK JEWISH WEEK, a woman was designated by Rabbi Avraham Weiss to lead Kabbalat Shabbat services on Friday night, July 30, for the Hebrew Institute of Riverdale, an Orthodox Union synagogue.
So then Jason Miller, a Conservative rabbi wrote a post at his blog, the thrust of which was, “Orthodox Judaism does not have a monopoly on ‘Torah true Judaism’” because, Miller says in the post, Orthodox Jews change things too.
In response to that–its moments like this that make me love blogging, re-blogging, posting, responding, etc–Hyim Shafner, an Orthodox rabbi and contributor to the blog Morethodoxy, wrote–and I paraphrase liberally here–”Yeah, we change. But we know the Shulchan Aruch better. So we’re Torah True.”
It’s notoriously hard to figure out what the Torah really says. But here it’s not even clear what Torah we’re talking about. In our tradition, Torah can mean, most narrowly, the Five Books of Moses. It can also mean the whole Tanach. And sometimes is refers to all of Jewish law.
So when Miller says that things change, he’s cluing us into the fact that things that may seem sacrosanct now were once innovative. Monogamy and the daily requirement of prayer are innovations that do not come from the Five Books of Moses, just as a woman leading Kab Shab at HIR is an innovation for that community–and definitely not an issue that the Torah directly says much of anything about.
But when Shafner says, “Yeah, but no”–again, I’m paraphrasing here–what he means is that it’s narrow and ignorant for a rabbi–like Miller–to claim that Torah is just Torah. Torah is also the broad, sprawling body of work that is Jewish law, writ large.
There’s plenty more to be said about this, but it’s my bed time. So I’ll end by saying this:
It’s a huge pet peeve of mine when people claim that something is any more or less legitimately what that something is because it has or has not changed over time. It drives me nuts when we talk about Jewish practice, the Constitution of the United States and just about everything else. Change is the only constant, friends. Now that’s miSinai. Good night.
Suddenly there came a furious knocking at my front door. Outside stood an ultra-Orthodox rabbi, with a big black hat, a long black beard, and a red canister of gasoline in his hand. Two young yeshiva students were at his side, one holding a clipboard, the other holding a baseball bat. I opened the door.
“Shalom Auslander?” the rabbi asked.
“Yes?”
“Shalom Auslander, the Jew?”
“What an odd question,” I said.
“Yes or no,” he said.
“Yes.”
The yeshiva student with the clipboard checked something off on his sheet of paper, and the rabbi handed me a small wooden box.
“It is my duty to inform you,” he said, “that you are no longer Jewish.”
NEWS ITEM: In a special news report published online by the NEW YORK JEWISH WEEK, a woman was designated by Rabbi Avraham Weiss to lead Kabbalat Shabbat services on Friday night, July 30, for the Hebrew Institute of Riverdale, an Orthodox Union synagogue.
The article goes on to say
In the past year, there has unfolded within American Modern Orthodox Judaism the first major evidences of a pending theological schism, as a small but media-savvy minority of rabbinic activists from the YCT/ IRF camp have begun pushing the MO envelope farther to the Left than mainstream Modern Orthodoxy ever contemplated. At the center of the impending schism is Rabbi Avi Weiss. He is charismatic and dynamic, rabbi of a shul with a large membership where he can introduce any innovation he desires, and he has a rabbinical seminary and rabbinical association in place to give his agenda the aura of a legitimate “movement.” Although Young Israel synagogues do not readily accept YCT graduates as congregational rabbis and the 900-member RCA does not regard YCT ordination as carrying the legitimacy of a RIETS Semikha, Rabbi Weiss has decided that he no longer needs communal approbation to venture on his own because he has the minions. More »
Around the country, yesterday, many cheered and many booed as Chief US District Judge Vaughn Walker declared Proposition 8, which banned same-sex marriage in California, as unconstitutional and in contradiction of the due process clause.
While a seeming majority of US Jews are clearly supportive of overturning the ballot proposition, known in many circles in California as “Prop H8,” the Orthodox Union made this bizarre statement, according to the JTA:
“In addition to our religious values — which we do not seek to impose on anyone — we fear legal recognition of same-sex ‘marriage’ poses a grave threat to the fundamental civil right of religious freedom.
“Forcing a choice between faith and the law benefits no one,” it added, concluding that the OU looked forward to the appeals process.
In what world does the OU live? Apparently one where they will be forced by US law to officiate at same-sex marriages? Yes, that’s right, here in America practices and beliefs are forced upon religious organizations all the time. That’s why every synagogue has to have a nativity scene or a giant set of Ten Commandment plaques…
The full statement, which can be read here, goes on to say:
Already, in states with same-sex civil unions and similar laws, religious institutions, including churches, social service providers and youth groups have been penalized by authorities for their beliefs. Forcing a choice between faith and the law benefits no one.
We look forward to the appeals process which will bring these critical issues to America’s highest courts.
Oh! Now I get it! They are against being told what to do or believe because it impedes the religious freedoms of a sliver of a tiny minority population in the US (which I really don’t understand how their freedoms are impeded at all)… What they are NOT against is taking away the constitutional rights of at least 10% of the US population who have been relegated to second-class citizen status and forced to stand by as the sacred institution of marriage is maintained for adulterers and wife-beaters… Good ol’ fashioned sense and reasoning from the OU.
The ADL’s Abe Foxman now has a dedicated parody Twitter account, Foxmanides, sparked by the latest hypocrisy from the American Jewish establishment’s flagship org. For if nonprofits were naval vessels, then the Anti-Defamation League would be our aircraft carrier: headed by a Holocaust survivor, a key Jewish player in civil rights battles of yester yore, and one of few household names in Jewish acronym alphabet soup. Only Elie Weisel is more powerful (let’s call him our Death Star).
Foxmanides on Twitter begs some consistency from the man purportedly voicing anti-bigotted conscience. Top tweets:
Ceding our perennial demand that Palestinians remove anti-Semitism from their school textbooks. Their anguish entitles them to bigotry.
@BernieMadoff Need a Presidential pardon? DM me your price. Over a mil and we’ll throw in a benefit dinner. Fish or steak?
@OliverStone I want a worldwide telecast w/you on your knees screaming “JEWS HAVE NO POWER” or no dice. And I want you dressed as a chicken.
Oh wait, Israel’s friends with Turkey again? Armenian geno-wha?
The joke’s on Abe because he’s shocked at the blowback. He and his are losing moral authority, especially among the younger folks. I’m sure he has little clue that his reticence against consistently fighting bigotry (instead of selectively) is entrenching the ADL’s reputation as prejudiced by omission if not commission. We would be hard pressed to justify anti-Semitism if it were delivered in a “nuanced” press release trumpeting “sensitivity.” Oh wait, that was just done.
Let us rewrite the ADL’s anti-mosque statement with “the Jewish right to self-determination in their historic homeland” instead of “Islamic center” and “colonization of the Middle East” as “9/11″. Let it culminate as theirs did in the final paragraph: “It’s not about rights, it’s about what is right.” Meaning, the Jews have a right to build their state, but not in the Middle East, where sensitivities are raw. I doubt Foxman would reply to such with nuance.
Regardless, Foxmanides has been unleashed. Even The Onion knows no safety now:
New Voices Magazine, the national Jewish student magazine, is looking to pay ten college students from geographically diverse parts of the country to write and blog. And we’re going to pay for it.
Interested students can get in touch with New Voices Editor Ben Sales at ben[at]newvoices[dot]org.
“We all feel and understand the hearts of children,” said the prime minister and leader of Likud, Benjamin Netanyahu, at the start of the cabinet meeting on Sunday. “But on the other hand, there are Zionist considerations and ensuring the Jewish character of the state of Israel. The problem is that these two components clash.”
Aside from the occasional women’s Torah commentary, Jews mostly just have commentaries with no special emphasis or purpose other than to commentate.
But I was in a bookstore today and was struck by the incredible proliferation of weird Christian bible commentaries, or study bibles, as most were labeled. I wrote down some of my favorites:
The Urban Devotional Bible
James Earl Jones Reads the Bible (audio book, appropriately reading from the King James Version)
The Bible in Varsity Colors (I’m in Austin, TX, so I assume the bright orange of the cover was intended to be burnt orange, though it clearly was not )
God’s Game Plan: The Athlete’s Bible
AXIS: A Study Bible for Teens
The Teen Study Bible (is AXIS the evil version of this one?)
The Word of Promise Next Generation New Testament Dramatic Audio Bible (this one was read by an “all-star cast” including the likes of Sean Astin, the black kid from High School Musical and an old American Idol winner)
The Rhyming Bible
The Adventure Bible
The Maxwell Leadership Bible (is this like the hagadah?)
God’s Word for Students with Stylish Prism Cover
Etc.
On the one hand, I found most of these rather laughable. On the other hand, I found myself wondering seriously if we Jews are missing out on something here. Is the fact that we don’t have all of these specialized biblical commentaries just a function of our relative market share?
He pussyfoots around the issue for a while, it’s not as emphatic as I would have hoped it to be, but it is a prominent Jewish voice of support. Disappointingly, it has conditions:
Presently, there are two legitimate concerns about the proposed center.
First, with a $100 million price tag, what are the exact sources of funding? The public has a right to know that the donors all subscribe to an open, inclusive and pluralistic vision of the center.
Second, do the center’s leaders reject unconditionally terrorism inspired by Islamist ideology? They must say so unequivocally. This is critical for the institution’s credibility. There is no room here for verbal acrobatics. Otherwise, the pall of suspicion around the leaders’ true attitudes toward groups like Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Hezbollah will grow – spelling the center’s doom.
If these concerns can be addressed, we will join in welcoming the Cordoba Center to New York. In doing so, we would wish to reaffirm the noble values for which our country stands – the very values so detested by the perpetrators of the September 11th attacks.
The second concern is the most troubling because it asks the kind of needless question that the fear-mongering right-wingers who want to turn this project into a wedge issue for the midterm elections. We do not need to hear from Imam Rauf whether he opposes terrorism or not. He opposes it. Publicly. Regularly. It’s kind of his thing. He is a moderate Muslim religious leader. That’s why he’s a prominent guy. This is like claiming that we need to ask Avraham Avinu if he believes in one god or many!
Rabbi Geoffrey Claussen has written an interesting piece on whether or not there’s real hope for an American Neo-Musar movement. The whole piece is here, and here’s a snippet:
…The pietistic Musar movement, led by Rabbi Israel Salanter (1810–1883), argued that the intellectual study of texts was necessary but insufficient for the development of virtue. He contended that the intellect, with its limited strength, cannot easily uproot the bad moral habits that are planted deeply in human hearts. Salanter and his disciples suggested that character education requires supplementing conventional study with a range of practices that can help a person to identify moral struggles and bring discipline, “musar,” to wayward appetites and emotions. Along with intellectual study, the leaders of the Musar movement advocated introspective meditation and journaling, conversations about one’s moral situation that elicit critical feedback, chanting and visualization exercises that engage the emotions, a deep commitment to the ethical and ritual requirements of Jewish law, and engaging in acts of kindness beyond what the law requires. Moreover, they encouraged individuals to design personalized exercises, tailored to their own natures and targeting their own problematic character traits.
The Musar movement’s leaders sought to focus the Jewish people on the cultivation of virtues—qualities including love, justice, compassion, generosity, reverence, faith, humility, equanimity, and patience—and they argued that such virtues are not easily acquired. They saw moral development as requiring constant labor—ongoing introspection and continual efforts to improve one’s character traits. But, as Salanter observed, all people resist making these sorts of efforts. Businesspeople may devote great energy to selling their products, he noted, and scholars may devote great energy to making sense of scriptural passages, but few people devote much effort to the “work of Musar”—to the work of improving moral character.
A large percentage of those who were committed to the practice of Musar in the twentieth century were killed in the Holocaust. Some teachers emigrated to the State of Israel or to North America, but the legacy of the Musar movement survived there only in a small number of insular, “ultra-Orthodox” academies. In the U.S., moreover, very few of those teachers emphasized the disciplined practice of Musar in their teaching; one prominent rabbi is said to have concluded that American students could not handle the immense effort that Musar requires.
It is, then, something of a surprise that the Musar movement has experienced a real revival in America over the past decade. ….This model of spirituality is decidedly counter-cultural. Growing numbers of Americans want religion to help them feel good about themselves, rather than demand self-criticism. We prefer to encourage our innately good instincts, rather than discipline our emotions and desires. We increasingly aspire to do away with guilt and shame, rather than acknowledge a place for such feelings. We like our friends to accept whatever we do, rather than offer reproof. We have created a religious marketplace that offers quick fixes for spiritual problems, and we shy away from requirements of relentless, demanding inner work. More »
Despite Women of the Wall leader Anat Hoffman being banned from the Kotel plaza for 30 days, 
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