If it has been too long since my last substantive, non-poetry based post, please understand that it is not a function of my abandonment of my beloved audience (you all, about whom I care deeply), but rather because I am still in recovery from this article in the Jerusalem Post.
(If anyone has the full text of ,יעלת חן, רחמי לבב please attach it in the comments section; I could not, for the life of me, find a usable text online. Thank you.)
At first glance, Halevi’s love poetry contrasts with the piety of his theological poetry; however, a closer reading suggests that his love poetry is likewise theocentric (1). Read in isolation, יעלת חן, רחמי לבב simultaneously conveys the speaker’s obsession with his lover and reveals her malice in return, creating an unsettling ambiguity. His veneration of her in the face of her cruelty to him suggests a terminal myopia on his part. Yet, the unwavering loyalty coupled with justifiable anger recalls the interaction between God and
God and
In יעלת חן, רחמי לבב the imagery depicting
After her misbehavior,
God’s continued devotion, in spite of
(1) Theocentric poetry includes the poetry where the poet openly addresses God and his Zionist poetry. I include the Zionist poetry because Halevi demonstrates therein that a return to
(2) As Halevi uses the masculine singular for God, I address God throughout the paper using masculine singular pronouns to maintain consistency with the text. This choice does not reflect my personal theology.
John Donne, the first poetic feminist. So what if his intent was less than honorable?
CONFINED LOVE.
by John Donne
Some man unworthy to be possessor
Of old or new love, himself being false or weak,
Thought his pain and shame would be lesser,
If on womankind he might his anger wreak ;
And thence a law did grow,
One might but one man know ;
But are other creatures so?
Are sun, moon, or stars by law forbidden
To smile where they list, or lend away their light?
Are birds divorced or are they chidden
If they leave their mate, or lie abroad a night?
Beasts do no jointures lose
Though they new lovers choose ;
But we are made worse than those.
Who e'er rigg'd fair ships to lie in harbours,
And not to seek lands, or not to deal with all?
Or built fair houses, set trees, and arbours,
Only to lock up, or else to let them fall?
Good is not good, unless
A thousand it possess,
But doth waste with greediness.
“I will not be happy until none of you believe in God.”
48% of Americans believe in ghosts, yet you don't see anti-ghost evangelists.
Perhaps the belief in God is more pernicious, but I cannot imagine that going on a crusade to undermine belief in God is productive. Given that a full 95% of Americans believe in God’s existence, 64% of whom believe “without a doubt,” (I don’t even believe in my existence without a doubt) is a dialogue on the existence of God feasible or useful? If the vast majority of Americans believe in God, if a full 79% “believe that, as the Bible says, Jesus Christ was born of the Virgin Mary, without a human father,” if 60% are confident that the biblical accounts of Noah, Moses, and Genesis are literally true (but do not believe that Jews bear the guilt for the death of JC, so don’t worry), and only 40% can name more than four of the Ten Commandments, then what good does an attack on God, religion, and sacred texts do in this country? What’s the purpose? Don’t get me wrong, the basis of intellectual engagement in the world is a dialogue of ideas, particularly with those with whom you disagree. Further, if religion truly is the root of all evil, then the burden rests upon those who see the truth to spread their screed. Yet, in light of the overwhelming evidence that Americans unfailingly believe in God, I can’t help but think that a re-imagining of religion, an adjustment of the context of faith, is a more pragmatic response to the evils religions wreak than a blanket condemnation.
Whenever I have this discussion (and you know I have it often), I recall the recent demise of a certain atheistic state that used its creed as justification for murders on a scale on par with the destruction wrought in the name of God. I am not arguing that the religious texts do not encourage bloodshed in the name of God nor am I contending that they have not been the justification for an astounding amount of bloodshed since the inception of religious thinking at the dawn of time. Nor am I asserting that atheism is an inferior belief or an incorrect belief. I agree with Sam Harris that there is an “apologetic machinery that keeps telling us that we can't attack people's religious sensibility,” that is wrong and dangerous. I am arguing that Harris’s methods will in no way address the actual issues that religions bring to bear. Van Harvey, a retired professor of religious studies at Stanford University, agrees with me: " Van Harvey, a retired professor of religious studies at Stanford University, agrees with me: “not only has Harris picked a fight with those who could be on his side, but his solution -- let's all ditch God -- is laughable given the role that religion plays in so many lives.” The Washington Post article also quotes, Reza Aslan, author of “No God but God,” who clearly read my discussion with the Rooster and my post on atheism, “Religion doesn't make people bigots… People are bigots and they use religion to justify their ideology.”
Anyone have ideas for a workable solution?
Operators are standing by.
when someone dies they are sent to one of two cruise ships that will take them to the afterlife, the one for those who die of natural causes, and the one for those whose lives are cut unnaturally short. When she boards the ship she finds that her first love, who died at 21, or so, in a car accident has been waiting for her. Now she must make a choice, either to become her 20-or-so year old self and live forever with him (Uri), or stay as an old lady forever. Here's the catch: if she chooses Uri it will be as if she died with him, she won't remember anything of her life after that, her husband, her kids, nothing. If she doesn't choose Uri, then he is stuck on the boat forever in limbo.
But let’s get back to the comment that initially struck me dumb. I’ve often heard of Jewish women eroticized as “ethnic,” but to reference our “chatter”? And to assert that “Jewish men in particular” find it annoying? How do I even address this level of stupidity? Although, I suppose writing a five hundred word rant about calling Jewish women annoyingly chatty hardly bolsters my case.
Sigh.
For a more considered and considerably better written post, read Yo, Yenta's Who's Hot? Your Mom.
Akiva and USY) that they tended to be female-heavy. Or female-dominated, yet in my region we always had a male president. In fact, I don't think that there has ever been a female USY International President. My father thinks that these boys are, as he so diplomatically phrased it, "idiots." When he picked me up from a B'nei Akiva event early in high school we had the following conversation on the way home:And now, a conversation between a Rooster and me:
The Rooster: I despise religion. And not just so-called "organized" religion, but all forms of religious thinking. I think it is one of the most oppressive, evil forces in human history. I think that if an otherwise sane human being can be convinced that there is an omniscient invisible man that lives in the sky, he or she can be convinced of anything. I also think the distinction made between religious moderates and extremists is somewhat pointless, because I think that moderates lend credence to the views of the extremists, and support this "hands off" policy whereby the religious views go unchallenged. I think that religious views should face the same scrutiny as scientific or historical views. Therefore, I think that espousing a religious viewpoint is tantamount to supposing that leprechauns and werewolves really do exist; there is the same amount of evidence for both. I believe that someday in the future, people will look back at the way children were indoctrinated into believing their parents' religious superstitions and see this religious training for what it really is: child abuse.
Harley: Are you quoting Richard Dawkins?
I agree that religion has been one of the most oppressive, evil forces in human history and lends itself naturally to all sorts of abuses, but I don’t think it’s inherently evil. That’s akin to saying that the abuse of science (eugenics), politics (fascism), and philosophy (the French Revolution) indicates that those infrastructures are inherently flawed. People created religions that they use to oppress and abuse people because people are evil and thus create ideologies that support their ascendancy at the expense of others; religion is one form that those ideologies take. To dismiss all religion as evil is to ignore the potential of religion to assist in ordering the world. (Am I correct in supposing that you are a libertarian and not an anarchist?) Religions should absolutely be challenged. The pervasive viewpoint that everyone’s faith should be accepted blindly because you don’t want to step on their religious toes is an absurd bastardization of the concept of freedom of religion. Religions should be challenged on the same grounds as science, philosophy, and politics because they are all attempts to organize the world and to the extent that they fail or lead to greater evil, they should be discarded. Asserting that some over-arching order exists in the world is not tantamount to expressing a belief in vampires and werewolves; that’s a very limited conceptualization of religion/theology. True, you cannot test the hypothesis of whether God exists (regardless of the attempts of Maimonides, Halevi, and Aristotle to do so) and God’s existence is beside the point, anyway. Religions provide a social order. Beyond that, they are a way for people to make sense of their existence. Do I find that particular aspect of my religion useful? Only insofar as it helps me frame self-reflective questions. Do extant religions largely fail at the goal of creating social order (or creating as much disorder as order)? I think so., but I do not use that argument to dismiss their potential to help people order their lives. For my personal views on religion, check out the Gene Weingarten Loves Me post.
On second thought, all human created systems of ordering the world are inherently flawed. I just don't understand why you're picking on religion and it's faith in God and not politics and it's faith in a human ability to look beyond self-interest. Social contract. Yeah, right.
The Rooster: I wasn't explicitly quoting Dawkins, but I love him.
The point of religion is not (or at least should not be) to create social order. There is only one reason there should be a religion, and that is if there really, truly is a God (or gods) that wants his/her/its adherents to think and/or behave in a certain way. However, there is no God, or at least no God that exerts any influence in human affairs, so these religious rules actually come from flawed human beings with an agenda. And people are much more willing to do some heinous immoral act for God than, say, the President. But more to the point, religion should be rejected on the sole grounds that there is no rational basis for any of it. You say God's existence is besides the point. As far as I'm concerned, that couldn't be further from the truth; God's non-existence is the point!
"I just don't understand why you're picking on religion and it's faith in God and not politics and it's faith in a human ability to look beyond self-interest."
I don't agree that politics is built upon faith in a human ability to look beyond self-interest.
Also, science, as long as it does not venture beyond its prescribed limits, is not flawed.
Harley: I also love Richard Dawkins.
The purpose of religion is explicitly to create social order. The expressed purpose of all of ancient wisdom literature is to create social order (unless you buy Karen Armstrong's argument that religious ritual was about interacting with a spiritual sphere that humans innately experience). Religious systems are the precursor to politics and government. It's a system of laws and social norms. The reason that ancient religions casually moved between gods was because the god him or herself was beside the point. Not that these ancient people did not believe that gods had power, just that the details of human interaction were more important than the defense of a god. Gods were only useful insofar as they provided rain and supported the troops. If your god was better at providing rain and supporting your troops, then your god would soon become mine. That’s ancient theology for you. Religion, on the other hand, was not discrete from ethnicity, culture, or nationhood. That’s because it was an extension of those identifying factors. Religion discrete from culture/nation is a Christian idea, codified in the 5th C CE. Before then, and for some religions still, you could not separate politics and governance from religion because the purpose of religion was to provide a motivational basis for social order. Motivational because of the reward/punishment heuristic for legislating/controlling behavior, which is not different from our current penal code, except that the gods would punish you, instead of the courts.
I don’t mean that science is a flawed system, but I do contend that a faith that it won’t “venture beyond its prescribed limits,” is a naïve understanding of human agency. Science is not an independent entity. What you mean is that so long as humans don’t use science to venture beyond its “prescribed limits,” it’s not inherently flawed. My point was that to the extent that all infrastructures for ordering and explaining the world are human inventions, reliant on human beings to operate them, and to the extent that human beings are flawed and prone to abusing the system to their own benefit, all of these systems have the potential to be abused (and therefore, are flawed). I agree that science is the best way to understand the world; I don’t understand how you don’t also see that as a kind of religion.
Some systems are more prone to abuse than others. Religion is far more prone to abuse than science. I blame that on the Easter Bunny.
The Rooster: My point before was there is only one present-day justification for any religion, and that is the actual existence of a deity.
We have better ways of ordering society now, not that there isn't room for improvement.
Science is not a type of religion. Science is the complete opposite of religion: science reveals actual truths rather than obscure everything in a mystery. It also follows a rational procedure. I don't buy that "faith in rationalism" bit because human beings don't have a choice about whether to have faith in rationality; we'd be helpless without it. On the other hand, we do have a choice about whether we are going to murder people in "God's" name, or create an environment philosophically hospitable to those who do.
The difference between science and religion is that science might be used for destructive ends, whereas religion is almost always used for destructive ends, including filling a child's head with medieval bullshit. Any good that might come from religion could come from somewhere else. Therefore, religion doesn't offer anything but ugliness.
Harley: I've been thinking about this discussion a lot over the weekend. I'm not sure I can argue that religion is a better form of social control than more modern forms (or even that it's an adequate form). The justification for religion that you miss is the communal aspect, which I think is an extension of your view of religion as discrete from other identities. The reason I maintain my Judaism is not because I desire a halakhically (Jewish lawfully) ordered world, but because I find that the Jewish community enriches my life, providing me with a context for socialization, a common language and mythology, and rituals that infuse my life with meaning. (In person, one day, we can discuss my very personal views on religion and death rituals, but it’s not suitable to post online.) You could argue that the reason I find my identity through Judaism and not through my other ancestral labels (Russian, Polish) is a result of the religious bigotry that forced my ancestors into the Pale (and, therefore, my point provides another example of the evils religions wrought on the world; although that bigotry was more political than religious in nature and execution). Within the framework of history, religion offered a social cohesion when nationality was denied. In modern times, you could argue that religion is no longer necessary to provide a social framework, but I think that denies a basic human need to belong to a community, a need that’s not necessarily met by nationality (in a nation as diverse and disperse as the U.S.).
As for “faith in rationalism,” that’s not what I meant when I referred to science as a religion. I was being reductionist: if I define religious epistemology as an attempt to discern the universal order, then science is a form of religion, in the sense that it attempts to uncover a universal order. In this sense, it’s absolutely an improvement over religion and philosophy for all the reasons you raised.
Lastly, don’t try to sell me on “science might be used for destructive ends, whereas religion is almost always used for destructive ends” because it forces me into an argument of scale. Religion may provide the justification and impetus for war, but science provides the tools (my favorite example is the invention of the cross bow during the Crusades). Raising that argument forces me to take what appears to be an anti-science position, which I find absurd and unnecessary, particularly because I am not against science by any stretch of the imagination. You say, “Any good that might come from religion could come from somewhere else.” Offer me some positive suggestion about what good religions offer and from where else you’d garner that good and I’ll concede. But don’t try to convince me that philosophy or politics can replace religion, because that’s a replacement of kind.
At its base, Judaism is a patriarchal religion. Irrespective of our post-modern insights into the role of women in the Tanakh, in rabbinic literature, in Jewish history, Judaism was constructed on the idea of separate spheres. It's encoded in our ontological literature (heaven from earth, firmament from firmament, light from darkness) and in our rabbinic literature (holy from unholy, sacred from secular, kahal from ki avi). In all of our source material, a clear distinction is made between the spheres in which a man operates and the spheres in which a woman operates, the laws a man is bound to uphold and the laws a woman is bound to uphold. Furthermore, regardless of our history of strong female figures, our religion is patriarchal from its roots. Our God takes exclusively male nouns (I do not buy the neuter argument), the majority of our prophets were male, the priesthood was a male trust, and the rabbis are all men, all dictating the religion. Instead of going into the social, historical, and theological minutiae to explain why our religion and social structure were thus constructed, I'll point you to the brilliant Tikva Frymer-Kensky (z"l), whose prolific work on this subject far outshines any attempt I would make to do the topic justice.
Any conversation we have on women’s roles in Judaism must take the fact of Jewish patriarchy into account. Inserting the emahot (matriarchs) into the Amidah does not actually address the issue of separate spheres, it provides a gloss that makes us feel as if we are addressing the issue.
Online, there's no community investment. The reach and anonymity of the Web allow people to act like jerks without the normal social consequence of alienating the people they live, work and play with. Not everyone online will do this, but everyone can, and so some do. Some, too, are just trying to hide from social challenges, but that doesn't work either, as you've found. Lower thy expectations, drastically. Or, if that's too unappealing a thought, go back to dating off-line.
Her advice brought incited two trains of thought:
1) Given the cohesiveness and size of the Jewish community, are Jewish bloggers safe from the social consequence of alienating the people with whom they live, work, and play? I have seen some vitriol online and I have also witnessed the real world consequences of poorly thought out responses. To the extent that we feel anonymous, because our community (although often internally divided) is so small, inevitably, we will encounter those we patronize online. Those people we alienate may be our fellow congregants, fellow Jews in the Woods, fellow YU grads, fellow aunt’s cantor’s brother-in-law. In a similar vein, do online Jewish interactions substitute for real, live Jewish interactions? Is a virtual Jewish community the same as a real, flesh and blood Jewish community?
2) Jewish dating online! Now recently single, I have been inundated with the natural predators of the Jewish world: older Jewish women who know that their nephew is just perfect for me. Really. We’re besheret. Excellent. My personal life aside, there is not one single Jewish person I know who has not at some point tried J-Date (myself excluded). And of course, blogging about online J-dating proliferates, but the only site you really need to visit is Esther Kustanowitz’s JDaters Anonymous (also visit her other sites because she funny and insightful). For a more advice-based site, visit the Single Dating Service, which offers such useful advice as How to write an interesting personal profile and How to end a relationship
kkot. I understand if you don't want to observe the holiday, but c'mon, you live in America. Are you going to tear down Christmas decorations too? If you follow that line of thought then Christians, many of whom think that Christianity superceded Judaism, have the same right to remove any religious paraphernalia that offends them. Of course this assumes that Halloween is a religious holiday, which it may still be to some Wiccans. Or Pagans.
Given the premise that no one can be a Bad Jew because the label encompasses ethnicity, culture, and tradition as well as religion, why do I periodically feel like a Bad Jew? This morning, Annie and I had a lengthy discussion regarding sexuality and halakha. As you may have surmised, Annie and I have slightly different perspectives on Judaism. Both of our Judaisms are complicated, but Annie’s is explicitly halakhic and usually within the rubric of Modern Orthodoxy. On the other hand, I am the type of Jew that Michael on Jewlicious mocks (“satires”) on a regular basis. I’m a post-halakhic, post-denominational, Brooklyn-dwelling, socially radical, academic Jew; and I don’t know what half those words mean. I am precisely the type of Jew that your mother doesn’t want you to bring home, but that the YU boys hit on in hopes of slumming it for a night (and yes, Annie, they always bring their tefilin to daven in the morning). From a halakhic perspective, if we are viewing Judaism solely through a religious lens: I am a Bad Jew. There, I said it. I have secret Bad Jew shame. I choose not to be halakhic Jew. For a myriad of reasons that I won’t delve into here, I do not consider myself bound by the Jewish law enunciated in Rabbinic Literature. To the extent that I do observe some Jewish law (such as kashrut), I do so to connect to my religious heritage. Those Jews who consider Judaism to be primarily a religion, defined by following halakha (whichever gloss of the halakha they deem authoritative), would rightfully question my Jewishness. To them, I am not really Jewish, even though I am biologically Jewish. Back to our discussion on from this morning: sexuality and halakha. I have some emphatic views about sexuality, which I would be pleased to discuss with any of you, but not here and not now. Suffice to say, my views on sexual expression tend to align with Dan Savage. That fact, combined with my politics and my views on Judaism, leads to some fraught moments, when I emotionally react to Jewish law in marginally sane and slightly illogical ways. The following conversation occurred in reaction to this astounding post on The Kvetcher, who’s reflecting on a post written by The Failed Messiah.
Annie, far more staid than I, responds intelligently to my qualms and queries about Jewish law concerning sexuality.
Annie: The prohibition against pre-marital sex was derivative: don't have sex w/someone who is niddah, and then the rabbis said that young women can't go to the mikveh, keeping them in a perpetual state of niddah. In 15th Century, 
Harley: Why did you stop being shomeret neggiah?
Annie: two reasons: 1) I found the halakha derivative and was a bit bothered by the fact that rabbis were legislating my body contrary to what I felt the intention was. It felt like a perversion of the halakhic process.
2) It was governing all of my male-female relationships, and not in the way that it intended. It made my male friends awkward, it sexualized all touch, and made people think all the time about the fact that they weren't touching me. Now, I am just not touchy and it is less of a concern. People aren't thinking, “oh, she's holding back.” My guy friends would stand a few feet away; every interaction was fraught. The rabbis started with an ideal that isn’t particularly Jewish, found a law that could be twisted to fit that ideal, and legislated. Having unmarried women not go to the mikveh is not a "fence around the law." It, in fact, makes it EASIER, not harder, to transgress the original issue of having sex with a niddah. The cases of rape almost always presume that a woman is not niddah, they rarely deal with it because sleeping with a niddah is an offense which I think merits death. It is considered adultery. It is a de'rabbanan. So if you go to the mikveh you break a rabbinic law. If you have premarital sex and are niddah, you break a Torah law
Harley: Niddah is from the torah?
Annie: “Do not draw close to a woman when she is a niddah; relations are forbidden [at that time]." (Leviticus 17:18)
Harley: I see these laws as leading directly to the objectification of women and the denigration of their bodies as dirty.
Annie: [The laws concerning niddah] are an example of the rabbis trying to exert social control in a way that I dislike and I dislike their halakhic process. The reason you don't have sex with a niddah is not because it is dirty, but to contain sex to the times when a woman is the most fertile. Back to procreation. (If you are going to talk logic instead of ritual.)
Harley: My frustration is that there seems to be no way to discuss extra-marital sex within the confines of Judaism without being privy to laws that I find offensive.
Annie: My issue is that you are reacting emotionally to the laws outside of them. You consider two things simultaneously which I believe false. I think that if you look for "reasons'" for the Torah's laws, you invalidate a lot of it. If you say: we keep kosher b/c... then you are lying because the torah does not say so [give reasons]. We are ASSUMING, based on historical evidence. So if you react to those rationales and base your beliefs on those, then you are not, in fact, reacting to the Torah and rejecting something out of hand for the incorrect reasons, but you are reacting to the justifications or historical reasons that you assume are the case. Religion is about separating holy from secular
Harley: I am not looking for justification. I don't believe there are necessarily rational bases to many laws and if there were they'd be beside the point. The point is the law, where we are now. I just disagree with their definition of holy. It goes against who I am at the base of my being.
Annie: Because you assume that tehora is about bodily purity
Harley: It is about being a body. To say that a woman is ritually impure because of bodily functions is about body, even if it's not about physical impurity.
Annie: When men have an "emission," they have to go to the mikveh before they can eat.
Harley: That’s wrong also.
Annie: Why? The idea of holy in Judaism is about separating from your body. That is why we fast on Yom Kippur: to have a "rest" from bodily functions.
Harley: Because that falls in the genre of law that also makes people feel that their natural bodily functions are wrong, evil, impure. It's about being a body and distancing ourselves from our bodies. It is the opposite of body positive, even if it's about ritual purity, the rituals surrounding the purity are physical and the cause of impurity is physical, so the effect, whether intended or not, is to place a pall over a person's body that you are impure at certain times. I understand separation of holy from unholy, pure from impure. I think it's wrong to say that someone's body is impure as a result of a natural bodily function. It's one thing if you've handled a dead body, but for a woman to be impure because she menstruates, whatever the justification, makes women feel impure, explicitly.
Annie: I think that that is a modern interpretation and it exists because we now tie mikveh to marriage and thereby patriarchy. Ideally a woman should go to the mikveh every time she has her period, independent of men, so that then she is suitable to enter the temple, just as a man who has an emission needs to go to the mikveh. It is a recognization of the fact that our bodies are vessels, and that within them resides a soul, something of higher purpose that is in some way eternal. It recognizes our humanity
Harley: Yes, the moment it was legislated by men, it became external and thereby has its effects. Mikveh is not inherently wrong. I know many women who derive meaning from going to the mikveh, but I cannot separate it from it's source (post-biblically, when it's transformed from a presumably female-derived ritual to a male-legislated ritual) and it's tied into the general history of labeling women's bodies as dirty
Annie: But you need to recognize that your issue is not with mikveh, but with the a) rationale given to it, b) the fact that men legislate it, and c) your idea that it is tied into dirtiness of women's bodies, which are corollaries to the original law.
Harley: The original law caused those corollaries
Annie: Right, but the point is that your problem is not with the Torah law, but with its execution. The original law existed and PEOPLE caused them. Now, women are beginning to be yoetzet halahkot and legislate over the laws of niddah (it is becoming more common in
Harley: To invoke Neil Gillman: if your myth is broken, how do you rebuild?
The photos are from the Mikvah Project.
