Frankly, I am not surprised at all by the series of events that ensued. Surprisingly, Agudath Israel spokesman Rabbi Avi Shafran admitted that the issue whether women may become rabbis or not is not a matter of “Torah law,” or not; in his opinion, it is morally wrong. Shafran remarked, “[If] Weiss had the backing of a world-class posek (halachic decisor) he would have a claim that he’s not departing [from the mesorah], but he does not have any such backings on the recognized Orthodox spectrum, chareidi or central. He’s changing the face of mesorah without anyone of stature behind him.”

I am curious: Where does the Torah speak about rabbis in the first place, since “rabbis” did not exist in biblical times?

But wait, it gets more interesting than just that.

Rabbi Shafran further argues that the ordination of a woman ran counter to the concept of tzniut, (modesty). It includes the idea that women are demeaned, not honoured, when they are placed in the public eye,” said Rabbi Shafran, “and that a position like the one suggested here is violative of that concept.”

Rabbi Steven Pruzansky of Teaneck, NJ, expresses a similar position in his blog: “There are two greater objections: the utter disregard of norms of tzniut, with which ModOs generally struggle, and the corruption of the methodology of psak that transmits the Mesora and Jewish cultural norms and societal values. The only way to consider in this context the compelling Jewish value of “the glory of the King’s daughter is within” (kal kevuda bat melech penima- Tehillim 45:14) is essentially to discount it and say it has no relevance in the modern Western world. Thus, this ideal of Jewish femininity – the disinclination to seek a public spiritual role, cited by Chazal hundreds of times – is simply written out of the Torah system. And why ? …”

Both of these men’s argumentation are interesting. For now, let us raise the obvious question: Is the idea of a female “poseket” (Halachic decisor) truly without precedent in rabbinic law?

One of the famous questions asked in the Halachic literature concerns the famous biblical heroine, Deborah, whom the verse explicitly states: “ At this time the prophetess Deborah, wife of Lappidoth, was judging Israel” (Judg. 4:4). The verse clearly says that a woman can serve as a judge, despite the fact this position was normally reserved for men. Faced with the awkwardness of the biblical text, a number of different responses have been offered–which for the most part, prove to be mutually contradictory.

(To be continued)

Martin Buber has always been a great inspiration to me. His views on Jewish mysticism are grounded in the interpersonal realm of the ethical. We meet God when we respect the Other who is before us. Emmanuel Levinas expresses a similar thought in many of his writings as well, but Buber still remains my favorite.

Historically, people have often tried to control God through any kind of magical means at their disposal. The scriptural prohibition against making graven images is predicated upon the belief that man can control God; only in one’s imagination is such an absurd thought possible. Buber touches on this theme in a number of different works, but in the interest of time, I will cite one of my favorite quotes Buber is best known for concerning the danger of gnosis and magic that I think cuts to the heart of our problem today among certain types of hucksters like Rabbi Batzri.

“The two spiritual powers of gnosis and magic, masquerading under the cloak of religion, threaten more than any other powers the insight into the religious reality, into man’s dialogical situation. They do not attack religion from the outside; they penetrate into religion, and once inside it, pretend to be its essence. Because Judaism has always had to hold them at bay and to keep separate from them, its struggle has been largely internal. This struggle has often been misunderstood as a fight against myth. But only an abstract-theological monotheism can do without myth, and may even see it as its enemy; living monotheism needs myth, as all religious life needs it, as the specific form in which its central events can be kept safe and lastingly remembered and incorporated.

Israel first confronted gnosis and magic   in its two great neighboring cultures: gnosis, the perception of the knowable mystery, in the Babylonian teaching about the stars whose power holds all earthly destinies in control, a teaching which was later to reach its full development in the Iranian doctrine concerning the world-soul imprisoned in the cosmos; and magic,  the perception of the masterable mystery, in the Egyptian doctrine that death can be conquered and everlasting salvation attained by the performance of prescribed formulas and gestures. The tribes of Jacob could only become Israel by disentangling themselves from both gnosis and magic.  He who imagines that he knows and holds the mystery fast can no longer face it as his “Thou”; and he who thinks that he can conjure and utilize it, is unfit for the venture of true mutuality . . . ” [1]

In another passage, we discover why the principle of the I and Thou offers the best approach to experiencing a spiritual connectedness with the Divine that goes infinitely farther than the banalization of Kabbalah we are witnessing today. While I am not completely sure whether Buber’s argument on gnosis is quite accurate, but I do think his understanding on magic and its relationship to Torah is right on the money. Buber explains further:

“This universal at-onement finds expression in the Jewish concept of yihud, or unification. Yihud is the proclamation of the oneness of God — not the passive acknowledgment of this oneness, a statement of a subject about an object, but an act of meeting, ‘the dynamic form of the divine unity itself.’ It does not take place through creedal profession or magic manipulation, but through the concrete meeting of I and Thou by which the profane is sanctified and the mundane hallowed. It is ‘the continually renewed confirmation of the unity of the Divine in the manifold nature of His manifestations.’ This confirmation must be understood in a quite practical way: it is brought about through man’s remaining true ‘in the face of the monstrous contradictions of life, and especially in the face of . . . the duality of good and evil.’ The unification which thus takes place ‘is brought about not to spite these contradictions, but in a spirit of love and reconciliation . . .’

——

Notes:

[1] Martin Buber and Will Herberg (ed.)  The Writings of Martin Buber (New York: Meridian Books, 1956), 261-262.

[2] Maurice S. Friedman, Martin Buber: The Life of Dialogue (New York: Routledge, 2002), 167.

In Turkey today, the Turkish police discovered a grizzly sight.  They discovered the body of a young 16 year old girl who was buried alive by her relatives in the city of Adiyaman, southeastern Turkey. Her name for the moment remains for now, anonymous. The police found her body in a  sitting position with her hands tied, in a two-metre hole dug under a chicken pen outside her home in Kahta. Police believe it was an honor killing because she “shamed” her family by talking to teenage boys. So far, the father and and grandfather  have been arrested and held in custody pending trial.  The girl’s mother was arrested but was later released. An autopsy shows that she was alive and conscious as she was being buried. Even more shocking is the fact that 200 such honor killings take place in Turkey a year. According to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) estimates that the annual worldwide total of honor-killing victims may be as high as 5,000, however even these statistics may not reveal the actual number of cases since most families who commit these crimes do not  exactly volunteer information to the local census Bureau.

When I discussed the incident with my good friend named Gloria, who lives in San Fransisco, she made several some poignant remarks relevant to our story.

“ What punishment was given to the boys who she supposedly consorted with? Probably nothing…fits right in with what I was saying about how men feel they have to control women at any cost…even to destroy one’s own child if she gives any appearance of impropriety. No issue is as important to men as that of controlling the sexuality or what passes for the sexuality of women…I got that message loud and clear when the orthodox rabbi once told me to stop singing…you probably remember how that ended up…I told the imperialistic rabbi at a boy’s hair cutting event I attended once (I also recall how he likened the boy’s hair to the first fruits. Really? Since when is hair a fruit?!) to wear ear plugs or to leave if he could not stand how he was aroused by the sound of my voice. It is always the men who want to control the women. As far as charm goes, these men have nothing to worry about, for it is highly unlikely any women will find these men the least bit appealing. ”

My friend Gloria also thinks one of the reasons why men hate women so much in these cultures is because men are wholly dependent upon women for their lives. Without a mother, they could not exist; they depend upon a mother’s care for the most vulnerable part of their lives. In addition, a woman’s sexual ability far exceeds a male, making these men feel inferior in so many other ways. So, they commit themselves to controlling the feminine because they resent their dependency on women. The image of God as “Father,” may indirectly contribute the exploitation of women, according to some scholars.

Carl G. Jung writes that every man has a feminine aspect to his personality that is in touch with the  inner feminine side of a man he refers to as the “anima,”that is always present in the unconscious of the male. The “anima,” stands in contrast to the animus, which represents masculine characteristics. Assertive women, according to Jung, are generally more in touch with the masculine aspect of their hidden personalities.

Misogyny is a transcultural and transhistorical phenomena. Among many religious societies, we see how gender barriers tend to be reified and rigid. Men are men, and women are women; a psychological integration of the genders is considered taboo because it is so threatening to the  diminished male ego.  Consequently, when we observe the conflicts in Israel between the Haredi, Hassidic communities and the secular world, in almost every instance we find men attempting to control the women of their lives; weak people with puny egos will always try to exert power over people they perceive to be “weaker” than themselves.

Q. I read recently in the Jerusalem Post about a funeral that took place in the Yavneh cemetery, where the women were prohibited from walking near the graves, and one of the reasons given was because it “damages their wombs.” Another Orthodox woman said, “Due to the high rate of deaths of young people in Yavneh, the community undertook a vow not to approach the grave during a burial – and that would be the tikkun (healing) of Yavneh.”

A woman defending the custom, explained:

We implored the woman from the cemetery. We argued with her and amongst ourselves. In the meantime, some men were already returning from the burial. As they passed near us, they said we could approach the grave now since the burial had been completed. Yet the cemetery woman still refused and said, “It is not good for the departed. Don’t you understand? You are sinning against the dead. You are harming his soul” and with that she silenced us. She overwhelmed us. The father of my departed cousin is religious and some of the women said he might want us to obey these shocking orders. We did not want to endanger him or his son in any way in the world to come. So we stopped trying …) [Jerusalem Post, March 12, 2009]

What is the reason for this antiquated custom? Why is there an association between a woman’s menstruation and death? Can a woman serve as a pallbearer?

A. Great questions!

The Talmud in BT Sanhedrin 20a discusses funeral etiquette:

“Our Rabbis taught: Wherever it is customary for women to follow the bier, they may do so; to precede it, they may do so likewise. R. Judah said: Women must always precede the bier, for we find that David followed the coffin of Abner, as it is written, “And King David followed the bier” (2 Sam. 3:31). They the Rabbis said to him: ‘That was only to appease the people, and they were indeed appeased, for David went to and fro, from the men to the women and back from the women to the men, as it is written, So all the people and all Israel understood that day that it was not of the king to slay Abner’ ( 2 Sam. 3:37).

Ba’ale Tosfot cites two views from the Jerusalem Talmud regarding this Talmudic passage: one approach suggests the reason why women should not lead a funeral procession, because it was Eve, who introduced death to the world.[1] However, others contend that because of modesty, it became customary for men to lead the procession (which is contrary to the view expressed by R. Judah cited above).

There is a big difference whether the custom of women following the bier is because of modesty or whether it is attributed to Eve’s sin.

Now, the Zohar (ca. 12th century) complicates the discussion and adds an entirely new wrinkle to the above Talmudic discussion.

R. Simeon further said: ‘I swear to you that the majority of people do not die before their time, but only those who know not how to take heed to themselves. For at the time when a dead body is taken from the house to the place of burial the Angel of Death haunts the abodes of the women. Why of the women? Because that has been his habit since the time that he seduced Eve, through whom he brought death upon the world. Hence, when he takes a man’s life, and the males are accompanying the dead body, he mingles himself on the way among the women, and he has then the power to take the life of the sons of men. He looks on the way at the faces of those who come within his sight, from the time they carry the dead body out from his house to the place of burial until they return to their homes. It is on their account that he brings about the untimely death of many people. Regarding this it is written: “But there is that is swept away without justice” (Prov. 13:23). For he, the Angel of Death, ascends and brings accusations and recounts man’s sins before the Holy One, blessed be He, so that the man is brought to judgment for those sins, and is removed from the world before his time.

The Zohar now offers its own view of proper funeral etiquette:

What is the remedy against this? When the dead body is carried to the place of burial, a man should turn his face in another direction, and leave the women behind him. Should the latter pass in front he should turn round so as not to face them. Similarly, when they return from the place of burial he should not return by the way where the women are standing, and he should not look at them at all, but should turn a different way. It is because the sons of men do not know of this, and do not observe this, that the majority of people are brought up for judgment and are taken away before their time..[2]

The Zohar’s position ought to be fairly clear: all women must atone for Eve’s sin. The connection between menstruation and death has long been a part of Western religion, for among the punishments Eve receives in Genesis 3, according to rabbinic folklore, was the beginning of her menstrual cycle—all this is subsumed under the penalty “I will greatly increase your pangs in childbearing” (Gen. 3:16) as noted by Seforno and Malbim in their biblical commentaries.  Women are thus viewed in early rabbinic tradition as being responsible for the presence of death in the world, and the menstrual cycle is a collective punishment all women must bear for a substantial part of their lives.

Kabbalists sometimes cite another verse in Scriptures that associates women with death, “Her feet go down to death; her steps lead straight to the grave” (Proverbs 5:11)–as an allusion to Eve! For this reason, women are forbidden to serve as pallbearers among the Orthodox. Non-Orthodox brands of Judaism allow women to serve in this capacity.

R. Joseph Karo, author of the Shulchan Aruch rules that women should not participate in the procession to the grave, lest they bring harm to the world.[3] Rabbinical scholars like  the Kabbalist R. Isaac Luria[4], as well as the Vilna Gaon, urge women not to even enter a cemetery until they have gone to the mikveh (a ritual bath for purification).[5] According to Luria, the law applies no less to men who had sexual relations or a seminal emission as well, for they too, must immerse themselves in the mikveh since the demonic forces of evil are believed to cling to an individual who has not immersed.

The Kabbalah influences the Jewish legal system known as ”Halachah” more than most people realize. Halachic authorities are divided whether this applies when the woman is counting her “seven clean days” after her menstrual bleeding has ceased. As a side note, some rabbis believe that a woman should not go to a synagogue while she is bleeding, but most authorities think it is permitted during her seven clean days.

As mentioned above, nowhere in the Talmud is there any mention at all of this custom. Jewish mysticism modifies the Christian doctrine of Original Sin, and redirects the blame–to the women [men have been blaming women for the ills of the world since ancient times], who are believed to represent the incarnation of Eve. These mystics influenced the tradition, and that would explain why the incident in Yavneh created a ruckus.  Of course, this law, like many others, is rooted in classical misogyny. To our regret, sexism retains an honored place in the Zohar and for those who admire the study of the Kabbalah, it is imperative we realize that its authors had feet of clay, and were indeed men of their age. The Zohar is far from being an inerrant work of religious literature.

In the spirit of speculation, I would add that customs, such as this one, may have a basis in something tragic that occurred in a Jewish community long ago. Perhaps a pregnant woman attended a funeral one day, and she miscarried while she was standing in front of a grave. The horror of such an awful experience might have left the community in a state of trauma, and as Kabbalists and rabbis tried to find a connection between the events (the funeral and the miscarriage).[6]

Lastly, the term “kever” (that typically means “grave”), but may also signify uterus and womb.[7] This could partially explain basis for the Zohar and subsequent Lurianic custom about women not entering a cemetery in a funeral procession.