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Standing Again at Sinai: Judaism from a Feminist Perspective
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About Standing Again At Sinai: Judaism From A Feminist
Review "An extraordinary achievement." -- -- Elisabeth Schüssler Florenza, author of Memory of her and Bread Not Stone "Here is one of those exceptional books which is born a classic." -- -- Nina Beth Cardin, Hadassah "[Plaskow's] analyses are in-depth, her thinking erudite, and everywhere is there evidence of scolarly research." -- -- Miriam L. Zimmerman, National Jewish Post and Opinion Product Description A feminist critique of Judaism as a patriarchal tradition and an exploration of the increasing involvement of women in naming and shaping Jewish tradition. From the Publisher A feminist critique of Judaism as a patriarchal tradition and an exploration of the increasing involvement of women in naming and shaping Jewish tradition. About the Author Judith Plaskow is a professor of religious studies at Manhattan College. She is cofounder and coeditor of the Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. Chapter One Setting the Problem, Laying the Ground The need for a feminist Judaism begins with hearing silence. It begins with noting the absence of women's history and experiences as shaping forces in the Jewish tradition. Half of Jews have been women, but men have been defined as normative Jews, while women's voices and experiences are largely invisible in the record of Jewish belief and experience that has come down to us. Women have lived Jewish history and carried its burdens, but women's perceptions and questions have not given form to scripture, shaped the direction of Jewish law, or found expression in liturgy. Confronting this silence raises disturbing questions and stirs the impulse toward far-reaching change. What in the tradition is ours? What can we claim that has not also wounded us? What would have been different had the great silence been filled? Hearing silence is not easy. A silence so vast tends to fade into the natural order; it is easy to identify with reality. To ourselves, women are not Other. We take the Jewish tradition as it has been passed down to us, as ours to appropriate or ignore. Over time, we learn to insert ourselves into silences. I Speaking about Abraham, telling of the great events at Sinai, we do not look for ourselves in the narratives but assume our presence, peopling the gaps in the text with women's shadowy forms. It is far easier to read ourselves into male stories than to ask how the foundational stories within which we live have been distorted by our absence. Yet it is not possible to speak into silence, to recover our history or reclaim our power to name without first confronting the extent of exclusion of women's experience. Silence can become an invitation to experiment and explore-but only after we have examined its terrain and begun to face its implications. This chapter has two purposes: to chart the domain of silence that lies at the root of Jewish feminism and to take up the methodological presuppositions that inform my thinking. While it is not my primary intention in this book to set out an indictment of Judaism as a patriarchal tradition, criticism is an ongoing and essential part of the Jewish feminist project. Not only is criticism a precondition for imagining a transformed Judaism; without a clear critique of Judaism that precedes and accompanies reconstruction, the process of reconstruction easily can be misconstrued as a form of apologetics. In exploring the territory of silence and describing my methodology, I mean to prevent this misunderstanding by clarifying the stance and intent that underlie my constructive thinking. Exploring the Terrain of Silence In her classic work The Second Sex, Simone de Beauvoir argues that men have established an absolute human type-the male --against which women are measured as Other. Otherness, she says, is a pervasive and generally fluid category of human thought; I perceive and am perceived as Other depending on a particular situation. In the case of males and females, ho
