Jewish Women and the Torah

In response to this week's question, I think that Jewish women try to have the same relationship to the Torah as Jewish men do, but are often prevented or looked down upon by men for doing so, as shown in Half the Kingdom. I do no believe that studying the Torah is the only way these women can relate to scripture. However, although JBK referenced making challah, cooking kosher meals, and teaching children Bible stories and domestic traditions as other ways of relating to Torah, I think after listening to all of the women’s stories and how emotional they got when they were able to read and touch the Torah for the first time, it is evident that these other ways of relating to Torah simply aren’t enough for these women. I thought this need to relate to the Torah was accurately conveyed in the movie by one woman’s comment about how we should not be holding on to 2,000 year old traditions that are discriminatory. I believe these women just want to be on equal footing with the men in their society, and although they are relating to the Torah with these other practices, the actual act of being given the right to study it seems to be a source of empowerment for them. In response to whether or not the devotion to Torah study is out of touch with reality, I believe for people who are not part of that religion it seems like it would be out of touch with reality, but for them it is normal. They may see a lot of things that we do as being out of touch with reality. For them, the Torah is their reality, meaning that as long as it continues to be studied, readers will always be left with a derogatory view of women. I agreed with one of the women from Half the Kingdom who offered a possible solution to this situation by saying that we can’t hang onto these male texts. We need to find womens texts to study from and write new texts. Until this happens, Jewish women will constantly be fighting for equal rights.

Who's wrong in the eyes of God?

I believe that both Jewish men and women have the same relationships to the Torah in a way that they perceive the Torah as the bridge which connects the Jew and God. It is undeniable fact that the Torah has been the core of Judaism; the individual’s attempt to develop and deepen his or her personal relationship with God through studying of Torah, explains why the importance of Torah study has been stressing out among the different Jewish communities around the world.

After watching the video “The Torah and the Scholar Today,” I could completely understand the significant meaning(s) of Torah study within the Jewish society. Through watching the video, I learned that the importance of Torah study comes not only from one’s sincere desire to appreciate (or to learn more about) YHWH, but also from one’s duty, as a Jew, to preserve a special relationship that the one true God of Israel had made with the Jewish people in the ancient past. Therefore, it was not so hard to understand Jewish women’s desperation to study (or even to read) Torah while watching the video, “Half the Kingdom.”

However, while watching several women’s “unbreakable will” against their own ethical traditions, I thought of a small possibility that some of the women could have used the notion of Torah study as a weapon to fulfil one's own desire (to build a strong relationship with God or to justify gender equality to the Jewish men) whether their society or ethical traditions approve it or not.

I strongly believe that those women have every right to claim their rights and duties to worship and learn about God who loves and treats them equally as He does to men; I believe that no man has a right to stop anyone from performing religious acts. However, when I was watching the part where Jewish men were yelling at or disapproving women’s reading the Torah (or performing religious practice) in public, I wondered how God would respond to their behaviors.

Would God say that those men had a right to disapprove women’s mere desire to worship Him in public? Or, would God say that those women had a right to disorganize the society and disobey their husbands in order to worship Him in public?

I do not know what God truly wants His people to do. However, I am sure God would not want His beloved people to either discriminate one another due to gender difference or violate one’s traditional role to fulfill one’s own desire.

The Ten Commandments and Laws

After reading the ten commandments and the other laws that are given in the torah, to me it is much like a reading a handbook for a lifestyle than anything else. Many of the laws are about creating a "meal" so to speak so that it is holy in the eyes of God, as well as rules about governing ones self with others. These laws seem like guidelines as to how to be holy in the eyes of God and make ones self like him (which in the end is the ultimate goal I guess). However, the thing about these laws is that they can be very hard to follow at times. I mean when you are growing up its hard to not want to disrespect your parents (its a natural tendency I think for most), it also seems like the laws are challenges for the israelites to see if they can really live up to the image of God. The laws may seem simple but when you look closely at ones day to day life, I think that it would be really hard to constantly follow the ten commandments!

The Torah and Jewish Women and Men

If Scripture is a “relational concept” and the Torah and Talmud are Jewish scriptures, do Jewish men and women have the same relationship to the Torah?

After watching the video The Torah and the Scholar today, it’s hard not to wonder whether Jewish women have any relationship with the Torah at all. In the video we saw only males engaged with one another studying Torah (even when Rabbi Steinsaltz was teaching a class to non-religious Jews), and women only as brides, or praying and celebrating separately from the men. At the Wailing Wall, the men and women were separated by a barrier, the mehitzah (though in an older photo, men and women were praying together at the wall with no barrier). On the other hand, Rabbi Steinsaltz commented that his wife would like doing his type of work much more than he does. Didn’t you wonder why Mrs. Steinsaltz didn’t do his work -promoting and teaching the study of Talmud? And in the next movie we see, Half the Kingdom, we’ll observe Jewish women intentionally breaking down the barriers that have kept them from studying Torah and worshipping like Jewish men. It’s possible that the picture we get of Jewish women’s relationships to the Torah is skewed by the cultural and ideological biases of the filmmakers. Inspired by a romanticized ideal of male Torah learning, it probably didn’t even occur to the director of the Talmud and The Scholar to film women studying with women or at the women’s yeshivot that Vanessa Ochs describes in Words on Fire, or women engaged in Torah in other venues or in other ways. Aren’t making challah, cooking kosher meals, or teaching children Bible stories and domestic traditions other ways of relating to Torah? Is indeed study the only or most appropriate way for Jews to relate to their scriptures? That seems to be the ideological bias underlying the focus on Jewish women’s Torah study in Half the Kingdom. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. I’m inclined to agree. But didn’t we all sort of gasp as the yeshivah boys who knew more about the Talmud than current movies and pop music, or the rabbi who studied Talmud maybe 12+ hours a day? Isn’t such devotion to Torah study, whether by men or women, a little out of touch with reality?!

What I’d like you to think about and reflect upon this week is
1) Do Jewish women and men indeed have the same or different relationships to the Torah (based on what you see in the videos and in the readings)?
2) What historical and cultural factors do you see that make Jewish men and Jewish women hold up Torah study as the ideal relationship of Jews to the Torah (as opposed to other ways of relating to the Torah, or of not really relating to it all)?

In other words. why Torah study, and why men and/or women stressing the importance of Torah study now (in 20th-21st century America, Israel, Russia)?

The Ten Commandment Lessons

The lessons God gave the Israelites after the Ten Commandments changed their lives. I am not sure, but were the Ten Commandments given to make the Israelites’ lives hard or to warm them of dangers and to show them the safe ways to go in? God also made it difficult for the Israelites to live new life. In (Deuteronomy 6 verses 6-9), I think God forced the Israelite parents and adults to must talk with the children about God’s laws. The Israelites must write words on doorposts and on gates. If the children did break the laws, who would God punish, the children, the parents, or even all the Israelites? The chaotic narrative of the transmission of the Ten Commandments is complicated. Who actually heard and saw God? Why would God want to speak to Moses, but intended the Israelites to hear the words of laws? Basically all of this seemed ambiguous in the reading.

Contradictions

I know I already mentioned this in a comment to Jackie's post but I wanted to elaborate on it again here. As I'm reading the laws, and even the 10 commandments, I keep finding places that contradict previously stated laws, similar to JBK's comment about marriage. At times, stories contradict the laws in place and other times God's own actions are the opposite of what he tells the Jews to do. The 10 commandments say "Do not commit murder" (exodus 20:14). Later God commands a genocide of all peoples living in Canaan with specific instructions of who to kill and how in Deut. 7. How does a God that commands not to kill also commands the Jews "not to spare" all "Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites." The 10 commandments also protest jealousy but in Deut. 6:15, God admits to himself being a "jealous God."
This is also remniscent of what were talking about in class concerning tattoos. Many Jews do not follow the strict dietary rules in place by the Bible yet still will not bury someone in a Jewish cemetary that has a tattoo. There are chapters and chapters about rules that Jews do not follow anymore yet stay strict about a rule that makes up only one line. I could go on and on with more examples of contradictions or cases like the tattoo rule (a ban on homosexuality vs. the story of Jonathan and David, etc.) but I guess what I am getting at is, how do modern day practitioners choose? How do we decide today which laws are applicable and which side of the contradictions to choose?

The Torah

Although the word “Torah” literally means “teaching,” I believe that Torah can also be authoritative at the same time through laws and rituals as shown in Leviticus. I think the teaching aspect of the Torah can be shown by God giving the rules to Moses, who in turn must teach them to the Israelites. Although this action is authoritative, at the time it was considered the best way to get across God’s will. Although the laws and teachings that the Israelites abide by have turned into rituals that still survive today, I thought it was interesting when Professor Kraus mentioned that you are no longer expected to carry out these rituals in the same manner, such as now being permitted to trim one’s beard. “You are not to cut off the hair from your temples or shave the edge of your beards.” Leviticus 19:27.
In regards to the connection between these laws and narratives, I think that it is possible to call both biblical narratives and the rules in Leviticus, Torah. Because the main element of the torah is “teaching,” I believe that both narratives and the rules in Leviticus are able to instill faith in their followers. I think the story of Genesis and the laws found in Leviticus are linked because in the beginning of Genesis, God created man and everything around him, which becomes the foundation of all the laws and instructions of Torah, which are specified in Leviticus. An important idea behind the ritual purity, as mentioned in Leviticus, comes from Genesis as well according to Greenstein in Back to the Sources. In the story of Genesis, when God created the world, he separated distinct areas and people from the dark chaos. Then in Exodus, Israel is distinguished from many nations, which governs the Torah’s ritual. The Torah divides the world into that which is Godlike and pure and that which is profane.

Torah as Law

Here are some ideas and questions to think about if you respond to the reading by Edward Greenstein on Biblical law in Back to the Sources.

He says,

The Laws of the Torah are one of its means of teaching; they are the specific behaviors by which God inculcates his ways -- what we call values -- in his human creatures. If we are to understand these values we must read the laws, in a sense, as a sort of body language that outwardly symbolizes something of a much deeper significance.(p.84)

It is significant that the Hebrew word "Torah" literally means "teaching," though it seems to be used in the book of Leviticus to refer to a law or set of ritual practices, i.e., "this is the torah of the whole burnt offering...," "This is the torah of beast and fowl..." I have also discussed this peculiar use of "torah" in Leviticus here. What values do the Torah's dietary laws, the laws regarding the treatment of slaves and servants, or the laws of taking a pledge from a borrower (which Greenstein discusses) symbolize?

What exactly is the connection between these laws and the stories of the Creation, the Exodus from Egypt, or other important stories from the Biblical history of the Israelites? Do the laws of purity around the sanctuary have any connection to these stories?

Moral Questions

I want to hear people's opinion on Holtz's claim that "Biblical narrative rarely moralizes. It explores moral questions, to be sure, but it is in the wit and nuance of the specific moment that one is to find the narrative's intelligence most concentrated" (63). What does this mean for modern followers of the Bible. Can we take away "morals" from the Bible? I just think this is so interesting because people usually look to the Bible for these values, and justify lifestyles based on these so-called morals.

Does Jewish Scripture have a distinctive style?

Does the Hebrew Bible have a distinctive narrative style that makes it different from ordinary books? In Back to the Sources, Joel Rosenberg seems to suggest it does. What are some examples, and how do they make reading the Bible different from reading ordinary stories?