Agunot and Obsolescence

Response paper for 19 Sept. 2006

JWST 237

Binkovitz

I didn’t find that many things in the discussion [in class] of Halakah and marriage significantly surprising (the system is glitchy and – gasp! – male-centric.) but it hadn’t occurred to me before the references to modern-day agunot in Israel that the bugs of a sexist system which in the Middle Ages gained its power from the fact that it was the only governing body under whose jurisdiction the Jews fell in everyday life, could, in fact, continue to be problematic despite the added presence of secular governmental authority and civil marriage.

One thing I did find troubling, although it was not specifically related to marriage or even to women’s specific dealings with Halakah, was the near-total inability of Orthodox Judaism to overturn any entrenched rulings, even if they were post-Talmudic and even if there were opposition arguments registered by respected contemporaries of the subsequently accepted authorities. It seems to me that such a fear of contradicting one’s elders severely hobbles Judaism, whose main merits are the tradition of questioning the judgements and values of others and its ability to adapt to changing times and various host culture conditions, especially in light of the fact that many of the post-Talmudic rulings were based soley on what was socially acceptable or even economically viable at the time.

Thoughts on Haskalah: German Emancipation and Now

English translation follows the German.

German Senior Seminar
Response Paper - 2007.02.14
Binkovitz
Es erstaunt mich immer wieder, wie die alte Sachen von jüdischer Identität, die erst im Haskalah nach Vorne gekommen sind, immer noch anspruchsvoll und deutlich sind. Es hat schon über 250 Jahren gedauert, nicht nur um akzeptiert zu werden, aber auch uns selbstzubejahen. Mit dem Haskalah hat man erst gefragt was eigentlich Judentum ist, und das fragt man heute immer wieder. Es gibt auch neue Nuancen von dieser Frage, und auch damit neue Verschiedenheiten von Vorurteilung, aber immer noch, geht man aus, daß die Juden zum Beispiel (wie Honigmans Erlebnis) Geschäftsinhabern sind.
Auch frage ich mich, was eigentlich für mich Judentum ist; auch habe ich die Werke von Mendelssohn und anderen von dem Haskalah hilfreich und entsprechend zu meinem eigenen Identitätskonstrukt. Man hat auch mir Fragen wie „Wie habt ihr die Medien so gut kontrolliert?“ gestellt.
In Deutschland hat ein wirkliches Dialog stattgefunden zwischen nichtjüdischen Deutschen und deutsche Juden nie (nach Gershom Scholem) stattgefunden, sondern innerhalb jüdische Gesellschaft, und vor allem, in dem Juden, der sich „aufklären“ wollte (damals. Und jetzt in dem Juden, der schon „aufgeklärt“ ist aber weißt noch nicht, noch seit 250 Jahren, genau wie man das, was nicht mehr „Aufklärung“ heißt, in der jüdischen Identität einwickelt.) fand so ein echtes Dialog wirklich statt. Und so findet es noch statt. Die Werke des Herz Wessely errinern mich an den Werken meines Bruders, der Wessely nie gelesen hat. Wir kämpfen noch (wie der bibliche Jacob) mit den Unbegreifbaren.

German Senior Seminar
Response Paper - 2007.02.14
Binkovitz
It continues to suprise me how the old issues of Jewish identity that first came to the fore in the Haskalah (Jewish Enlightenment) continue to be challenging and relevant. It’s taken over 250 years so far, not only to become accepted, but to affirm ourselves. With the Haskalah the question first was raised of what Judaism actually is, and one continues to ask it today. There are of course new nuances to this question, and with those there are also new types of prejudice, but still assumptions linger, for example, (like Honigman’s experience) that all Jews are shopkeepers.
I too ask myself what Judaism is for me; I too have found the works of Mendelssohn and other Haskalah figures helpful and instructive to my own construction of identity. I too have had to answer questions like, "How do you people control the media so well?"
In Germany a true dialog between non-Jewish Germans and German Jews never (according to Gershom Scholem) took place, but within Jewish society, and most importantly, within the Jew who wanted to „enlighten“ himself (at that time. And now within the Jew who is already „enlightened“ but doesn’t know, still after 250 years, exactly how to incorporate that which we no longer term „enlightenment“ into the Jewish identity.) such a true dialog really did happen. And continues to happen. The works of Herz Wessely remind me of the writings of my brother, who has never read Wessely. We continue to wrestle (like the biblical Jacob) with these intangibles.

Works that might help you know what I'm talking about:
Mein Vater, mein Großvater, mein Urgroßvater, und ich by Barbara Honigman
Words of Peace and Truth by Napthali Herz Wessely
Judaism as Revealed Legislation by Moses Mendelssohn
On Jews and Judaism in Crisis by Gershom Scholem

Response

From View message header detail Web_Administrator
Sent Friday, December 8, 2006 2:09 pm
To [name]@oberlin.edu
Cc
Bcc
Subject RE: Comments

Dear Lauren Binkovotz,

Talk Show Host Dennis Prager speaks solely for himself. His statements
do not reflect the position of the US Holocaust Memorial Museum, whose
board is not self-appointed.

Respectfully,

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

100 Raoul Wallenberg Place, SW

Washington, DC 20024-2126

(202) 488-2642

If the board is not self-appointed, how can one of its members speak "soley for himself"? This response doesn't make any sense.

Reaction paper for class #4
JWST 237
Binkovitz
The two issues that most caught my attention in the first chapter of Women and Jewish Law were the issue of men’s honor being infringed upon by women’s assumption of the commandment to read the Torah, and the question of “how much” a woman’s mitzvah was “worth”.
The issue of honor, when traced back to the root, seems to have no halakhic basis prior to the rulings regarding k’vod ha-tzibbur. I was surprised that Biale let this issue go so easily; after carefully following a convoluted thread of logic back to its non-existent source, she moves onto the next topic without any further speculation as to where this notion of women’s inferiority may have actually come from. Perhaps she didn’t have space or perhaps that question is beyond the scope of her book (being a largely multi-religious problem) but I was dismayed with her failure to at least acknowledge that closer scrutiny of this issue is in order because it seems to represent a disappointingly omnipresent tendency to view men’s subjugation of women throughout history as somehow natural, if not entirely acceptable, due to its thorough permeation of so many cultures.
The issue of the “worth” of a mitzvah on the other hand, is a reaction to the material as well as to its presentation. It seems to me that a lot could be discovered by an examination of exactly why these scholars consider it important to “quantify” mitzvot, insofar as they say that a woman’s fulfillment of a commandment from which she is exempt gains her “less of a reward” than when a man does it. Even if this were true, and there is some kind of quantized spiritual reward system, where on earth do these men get the audacity to act as though they understood and were capable of administering it? As far as I know there is no reference to quantified divine rewards for specific acts in the Torah. Ultimately I would hypothesize that this, too, is a construct devised to support the circular system of gender-based oppression throughout history.

Dennis Prager

submitted at http://www.ushmm.org/museum/contact/ :

-----

My name is Lauren Binkovitz and I would like to indicate my support for those who feel that Dennis Prager's cultural hostility with regard to the Muslim community is antithetical to what one would hope to learn from a careful study of the Holocaust, and reflects instead a dangerous ignorance and self-preferential absolutism. Please take seriously the recommendation that he be removed from the US Holocaust Memorial Council.

Thank you,
Lauren Binkovitz

-----

May I suggest the following to my readers:

Step 1: Familiarize yourself with the comments recently made with regard to a Muslim public official's decision to be ceremonially sworn in using the Koran rather than the Christian Bible and decide what you think about his controvertial comparisons between that and "Mein Kampf".

Step 2: Formulate an informed opinion in regard to the expressed sentiments and relate that to his suitability to serve on the US Holocaust Memorial Council.

Step 3: Go to the above link and articulate your opinion to them.

my jewish studies classes

i'm taking a class on women in jewish history (oberlin college fall 2006 jwst 237 with prof. magnus) and since i am doing a lot of writing for this class, i thought i would post it here to make up for the lack of writing on this blog recently. you will be getting my twice-weekly reaction pages as well as longer papers i have to write throughout the semester. these entries will also be cross-posted to pesematology.blogspot.com, my feminism blog that has been languishing almost as long as this one.

i'm also taking a class called "God and the Holocaust" (oberlin college fall 2006 relg 253 with prof. raviv) for which i am reqired to write some stuff too.

so if anyone still reads this, you can get excited about new posts again!

i got stripes.

at one point in the past few weeks, an email came into my figurative hands from a girl studying theology. it was not addressed to me, but was forwarded to me despite my not knowing the sender because of its particular relevance to a certain tendency i sometimes have toward self-injury as a response to emotional stress.

it contained, among other things, a quotation from isaiah.

"Isaiah 53:3
The punishment that brought our peace was him; and by his wounds we are healed.
(WEB)
Upon him was the punishment that made us whole, and by his bruises we are
healed. (NRSV)
The chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.
(ASV)

By his stripes, my stripes are healed.

[...]

last night this line floored me. I was silent before it for about 20 minutes
before I could take another breath. Funny how those words hit you sometimes...
like they're alive and changing. Sometimes you blow past them; sometimes they
blow you away. [...]"

she was right about the words. upon reading this email i was glad that she had found something in them, but as for my part, i blew right past them.

yesterday i went to mainz with a group of friends, of whom i was the only non-christian and the only american. (i met them by hanging out at campus für christus because the first real friend i made in germany was a girl whose life completely revolves around this group, and they never tried to convert me, and gave me free food to boot.) we went to the house of some americans there to work for a similar organization and they had invited some other americans too, including three girls from the same city as the girl who sent the email, although they didn't know her. the first girl told me about her struggle with identity issues, depression, and the other typical college student stuff, and how that led her to her current expression of christianity. the second grilled me fairly intensely about my personal beliefs (but in a respectful, intellectual way that i totally enjoyed and appreciated). i ended up discussing minimalist photography of decaying apparata of industry with the third.

the second conversation took up the majority of the time i was there, and i was overall very pleased at how challenging it was, and how well i was able to answer her challenges to my own (if not to her) satisfaction.

in the middle of this conversation, she pulled out her pocket bible and flipped to...

isaiah 53:3

"woah." i thought, and then proceeded to give a complex explanation, that suffering for one's ideals is holy, and a description of the purpose i believe is served by the promise of a messiah yet to come, illustrated by the "moshiach is coming tonight" story. the girl didn't seem to find that very satisfactory, and i found it only partially so, but we got off onto other abstract issues of theology and it was left at that.

later that night, i was laying in bed trying to sleep. i was kept awake by the feeling of being crushed by certain past hurts, and the horrible thought that i had probably perpetrated similar acts of selfish neglect of those who had been close to me. i felt alone. i felt desperate. it was dangerous, and i began mentally groping for something to hold onto. i thought of the passage whose words i had blown past twice in the past few weeks.

and i thought of something i said to shaun a few months ago. that i don't believe God had to come to earth as jesus to experience suffering, because i believe that God comes to earth as every person and experiences all of our suffering.

and it clicked. that is what i think "by his stripes, we are healed." means.

the theology major had said, "by his stripes, my stripes are healed." but for me, by my own stripes, i am healed. because God is not a distant nebula or a man who died two thousand years ago. God is a part of me, animating me, experiencing my pain with me, in real time. how could i even consider hurting this body, when God is inhabiting it with me, and already suffering so much (exactly as much as i do, and more) on my account?

suddenly i wasn't alone anymore. i felt safe. i felt held. still lost, still hurt. but hopeful. healing. better.

as i was leaving the gathering in mainz, the first girl i had talked to came up to me to say goodbye. she also said, "there is... more." i asked if she had read any annie dillard even though i really didn't expect her to know what i was talking about. she said she had.

"there is, God help us, more."

softly now: i think praying over food makes it tastier and more filling.
softly now: i think keeping the sabbath the week more productive and easier to deal with
softly now: i want to do more traditional jewish stuff because i think it makes life more interesting
shaunxglisten: its fun to hear you talk about it
shaunxglisten: interesting
softly now: it's fun to talk about!
softly now: being jewish is a party!
softly now: lol
3:25 PM
shaunxglisten: HAH
softly now: a lot of my friends have said that knowing me makes them want to convert
softly now: i make this shit look gooood
softly now: hahaha
shaunxglisten: hahahaha
softly now: really though i love it. it's social justice and personal reflection all rolled into one
softly now: and then baked until crispy
softly now: mmmm knishes.