On the Plight of the Orthodox Feminist

Every week a group of us in Tel Aviv get together to study Jewish History via texts written by different influential figures. Last week I facilitated the group and we covered Rachel Adler’s “The Jew Who Wasn’t There,” an article written by a then Orthodox woman presenting the problems of the conflict between Feminism and Traditional Jewish texts. In the article she details the ways in which the diminished status of women in the eyes of Halakha puts them in a difficult predicament of finding their place in Judaism. She bemoans the fact that traditionally women’s only role was vis a vis their family, husbands, home and community with no option for creating a personal relationship with their God. The models of virtuous women that have arisen through the ages are also found to be limiting for they are usually deemed “Tzaddikot” for their denial of their body, as opposed to the men who are viewed as scholarly and pious and each in their own way. Luckily, she proposes a solution which will save women from their tenuous position - re-reading texts with an empathetic ear to the plight of the woman and creating new precedent which will expand their position in the community.

One line in the article has clawed into my mind and has yet to be shaken free, “All of this can be quickly rectified if one steps outside of Jewish tradition and Halakha.” Since she is writing as a woman who is devoted to the text and to Halakha that is seen as an untenable solution, but she cannot help but note that her frustration and tension only exist if she maintains fidelity to traditional observance. (It is perhaps noteworthy that she eventually finds her spiritual home in the Reform community.) As the group analyzed her writings, my roommate commented that she thought that this position must be impossibly difficult, to reject the conclusion of the Rabbis and yet to remain bound to their word. How would that work? And why would you want it to?

Before I left Jewish observance this was an issue which haunted me. The tomes of Hebrew and Aramaic texts which comprise the Halakha were my primary mover and spiritual home. My goal was to be a Talmudic scholar. And yet, with every turn I found more doors closed to me than open. The troubling thing for me was not just the rampant chauvinism in the community, but rather that this view seemed to have more basis in tradition and Halakha than mine did. Or, to quote a letter I wrote at the peak of my struggles, “What if God really is a sexist?” I understood Adler’s solution of re-reading and re-interpreting texts to allow women to have a more prominent role in Torah and the community, but I was disturbed that special dispensations needed to be made at all. And no amount of apologetics could assuage the pain, for they lacked the history that those who sought to marginalize me had.

When I started on my path towards non-observance, I was spurred by questions that had arisen through my study of the texts and history. However, when I finally decided that my doubts were inextinguishable, I stayed away (and continue to stay away) mainly because of this issue. Why struggle to come to terms with a religion that denies me a place when I can live in a time in which my value is taken for granted?