Women Prevented From Crying, Mourning, Approaching Graves By Haredim In Yavne, Israel

Women are "impure" because of menstruation and according to the "Jewish religion" are prohibited from approaching  graves.

Preventing women from Mourning
A personal testimony by Oranit* about a family funeral
Prepared and translated from the Hebrew by Nomi Saraga
Kolech (also in yesterday's Jerusalem Post)

My cousin was killed last month. At the funeral, I joined my family that was waiting at the open-sided shelter at the Yavne cemetery. The shelter was divided into two sections by a low fence - one for men and the other for women - so I headed towards the women's section. I imagine there were about a hundred women there with me. Before the funeral began, a woman employed by the cemetery instructed close relations to enter the purification room to say their final farewells before burial. The mother of the deceased, his wife, his daughters, and his sisters entered the room.

Then the body of the deceased was carried out to the men's section. Many women, myself included, broke down and cried, but Rabbi M., who led the ceremony, raised his microphone and called out, "Women, stop crying! Calm down! No shouting. Control yourselves. We can't hear the eulogies with you going on like this." I was stunned, hurt, and humiliated. I am pretty sure that people are still allowed to cry during funerals. Yet I was too confused and shocked to respond.

The men recited the Kaddish and started to carry the body towards the gravesite. We women followed, but the cemetery woman blocked us with her body. She held the mother of deceased firmly and did not let her go, saying, "Forbidden. It's forbidden."

The female members of the family did not understand what was going on and some of us protested. The men who had proceeded to the grave may have heard the noise we were making but they did not protest that we were being forced to stay behind. Some religious women of my family repeated what the cemetery woman had said. Some said, "If it's forbidden, it's forbidden. Let us calm down." Others said, "We must not harm the sanctity of the dead. Women should not come near the graves. It will damage our wombs."

But the woman who works at the cemetery said something completely different: that due to a high rate of deaths of young people in Yavne, "We have vowed that women will not approach the grave during the burial - and that would be the Tikkun (healing) of Yavne." She said that we women are impure "because we menstruate and according to Jewish religion we are prohibited from walking amongst the graves."

Even if this claim is true (and this must be checked thoroughly,) the cemetery woman has no right to prevent all women from participating in funerals for the slightest chance they might be menstruating. The decision whether I approach the grave or not is mine.

I felt sorry for the mother, wife, sisters, and daughters of the deceased, who could not witness the burial. I believe mourners should participate in their loved one's burial as part of the mourning process, so they may grasp their loss and reach closure.

We implored the woman from the cemetery. We argued with her and amongst ourselves. In the meantime, some men were already returning from the burial. As they passed near us, they said we could approach the grave now since the burial had been completed. Yet cemetery woman still refused and said, "It is not good for the departed. Don't you understand? You are sinning against the dead. You are harming his soul" and with that she silenced us. She overwhelmed us. The father of my departed cousin is religious and some of the women said he might want us to obey these shocking orders. We did not want to endanger him or his son in any way in the world to come. So we stopped trying.

When we lose someone close, we become aware of our physical fragility and reevaluate our life. Life may end at any given moment; and yet instead of easing the pain of others when times are difficult, there are those who add suffering to suffering. The pain of my loss was aggravated by the cruel restrictions made by the people of Yavne's cemetery. They discriminated against me because I am a woman. They chastised me for expressing my feelings and forbade me from seeing my cousin's burial. Besides feeling stunned and sad, I also felt guilty for not protesting aloud. The emotional "catch 22" was too much for me; I could not bear to make a difficult situation even worse by raising a commotion.

Surprisingly, I have been in this same situation before - and again in Yavne.    Yet back then, I had assumed it was a one-time occurrence. Three years ago, at the funeral of my grandmother of blessed memory, my mother's mother, we were also forbidden to approach the gravesite. At that time, I walked out of the open-sided shelter and saw the burial from afar; no one came to shoo me away. However, my mother and her sisters did not witness the burial at all.

My mother is religious; she doesn't make a fuss. If someone tells her "that's the way it is", then that is it. This memory remains very painful to her. But she bears no bitterness towards those who forbade her from accompanying her mother on her final journey.

*An assumed name

Kolech's halakhic overview (in Hebrew).

[Hat Tip: Dr. Pepper, Shaken But Never Stirred.]

Comments

[Office of the Chief Rabbi]

And the reason Kohanim can't go in the cemetery is that...they are ritually pure (well, relatively) and shouldn't go among the corpses which are sources of ritual impurity. So is a menstruant going to make the corpses more impure? Or even less dead?

How about a hypothetical Scene II:

"OK, we've gotten the women out of here, some who might be niddah. Now, any of you men who have ejaculated recently and haven't been to the mikveh, sorry, you can't some into the cemetery."

[Yochanan Lavie]

Maybe having women at the kever will lead to mixed dancing; especially if the ma'at is Undead and comes back as a Nosferatu.

[Radical Feminist]

This reminds me of some sick fantasies that I and several of my fellow female Yeshiva brats had in the day. It involved women marching bravely through the streets of Me'er Shereme, proudly waving boxes of tampons. NOW THAT, is how you clear a traffic jam, in those parts.

[Ben]

I've been to Jewish Orthodox funerals number of times and never heared of such restriction. This can not be true.

[Yosef ben Matityahu]

"This can not be true."
it's sad ben, but this (& worse than this), is unfortunately true.
our religion is run now by sorcerers straight from the dark ages.
you probably never heard before. but it's coming soon to a cemetery near you.
and it's going from bad to worse from india to ethiopia and from the bering strait to tierra del fuego!

[critical_minyan]

even though this story is sad it is illustrative on how chumras start.
Some people died in Yavneh. Maybe 2 or 3 people more than statistically should have died during a time period.
The Rabbi realized drastic action must be taken to purify an angry G-D.
What makes G-D angry. One thing. Menstrual Blood.
Time for a new chumrah.
Lets ban women from being able to mourn properly. Thats what will stop the deaths from happening.
This is obviously ridiculous. But the story is illustrative on probably how 90% of our chumras formed.
kitniyos, gabrukz, the sheitel, who knows.
it started to please an angry G-D and statistical anomalies.

[ah-pee-chorus]

Office of the Chief Rabbi : great post. but why do all the intelligent things that come from your esteemed office not reach the mainstream media? it seems the reasonable ones only end up here.

[ah-pee-chorus]

how do any intelligent people still accept these ancient superstitions as having emanated from an omniscient, omnibenevolent creator? yet when these same people hear of tribes and other religions that believe in equally silly nonsense they ,appropriately, laugh at them. every devout believer needs a good mirror.

[mordecai]

Well my wife is not Jewish and she cannot be buried next to me in a Jewish cemetary. This "regulation" appears acceptable to many of my fellow Jews.

In Israel there was a story of an Israeli soldier who was technically not Jewish because his mother was not Jewish and could not be buried in a Jewish cemetary. Of course the Karaite Jews who go by paternal lineage would consider him Jewish.

As my wife is in hospice care at the moment the issue of her burial is real and of present concern.

I wonder to what extent this quaint custom has its roots in hatred and bigotry that is justified by some mystical mumbo jumbo about Jewish souls. Is this yet another "rule" derived from the "oral Law" that was allegedly whispered into Moses' ear by G-D? Does G-D really care?

Maybe this is just the Jewish variant of not allowing blacks to drink from the same water fountain.

[Office of the Chief Rabbi]

Curious how female blood impurifies and male blood purifies.
Studied a medieval berit milah text that had the baby's blood drip into water, and the pre-Bar Mitzvah boys washed their hands in it.
Check out Covenant of Blood: Circumcision and Gender in Rabbinic Judaism (Chicago Studies in the History of Judaism)

Ah-Pee-Chorus-There is a Sanity Clause in the office employee's manual. If you're sane, you can't work there. I want to keep my job, so I save the sanity for here.

[Rabbidw]

To Ben: It is true. It almost happened when my Father OH' passed away in Yerushalayim 7 years ago. My mother and my sister were made to stand at the back of the cemetery. All other females were banned completely. The Chevrah Kadisha did all sorts of dancing as they buried my father,when I objected, they told me that their dancing would get my father into heaven. That hurts me to this day, as my father lived a good life, and I don't think he had to rely on someones dancing to get into heaven. BTW I was not supposed to be there myself, as supposedly sons are not to be at the funeral of his father. We knew someone who was involved with the chevra and therefore I was allowed, and my Mother and sister were allowed to attend , quietly, in the back. If we did not have these "connections" we would not be allowed to attend at all.

[ah-pee-chorus]

mordecai :

does it really matter what the purported source of gods undeniable words is? it is another shameful example of how believers can act cruelly in the name of good.
i wish you all the best and good luck while hoping you can find a solution which brings you peace of mind.

[ah-pee-chorus]

Office of the Chief Rabbi :
understood. your secret is safe with me.

[David Bar-Magen]

YL would probably say: Women and men crying together at a funeral might lead to mixed dancing...

[ah-pee-chorus]

Women and men crying together at a funeral might lead to sex outside of marriage and that might lead to mixed dancing.

[David Bar-Magen]

Ah, that's right. And we can't be having that...

[Chicago Samson]

No Yochanan, the men and women are buried separately so it won't lead to mixed dancing--the most heinous of sexual sins.

[A. Nuran]

Ye fucking gawds. This is just beyond belief.

[Nomi Saraga]

Hi,
I wrote (and translated) this article and I'm glad to see it here!

The article first appeared in www.kolech.org (not KULANU as you wrote; "KOLECH", which means "your voice" when addressing a woman) and in the English blog of Kolech -
http://kolech.org/blog.asp

Kolech also published a review of the halachic aspect of this matter (in Hebrew): http://www.kolech.org.il/show.asp?id=31514

[Shmarya]

I fixed the typo. The link to the halakhic overview is at the bottom of the post as it was from the beginning. Thanks…

[Shirel Cohen]

Thank you for this eye-opener. Judaism is a man's religion, women are relegated to secondary, non-threatening roles. Recently a yeshiva bucher approached me and another woman--and, to my amazement and hilarity, scooted aside in a w i d e detour to avoid walking between us. Two women, two donkeys.....as they are warned. Must we suffer for men's struggle to control their basic urges? Primitive. Disgusting. Get a grip!

[critical_minyan]

its very easy to explain all this aberrant behavior by haredim, the child molesting, the blood rites at the cemetery, the mistreatment of animals, the anti-Israel rhetoric and coddling of Jew hating dictators, by simply cutting them off and kicking them out of the religion.
these people are not Jewish anymore, their ancestors used to be Jewish, just like the first Christians and the descendants of the Marronos of Spain.
If one of my family members was to marry a Haredi, I would insist on a full Orthodox conversion by a qualified Rabbi.

[Norm]

I was on an el al flight a number of years ago and seated in coah on the aisle. A black had asked me to move to the middle seat obviously so he did not have to sit next to the woman on the other aisle (we were in the middle). I politely told him "no thank you." He ended up standing all the way from about Cyprus to Long Island.

[Rabbidw]

Norm, please check your spelling. You typed "a black (politically incorrect) had". Did you mean a black hat?

[Isa]

mordecai
I just heard snippits of this and did not ask any questions
A Jewish cemetery in Minneapolis:
Bushes/plants were planted in this cemetery so non-Jewish 'relatives' could be buried in the same cemetery but yet there was a separation. Other cases could be the father or mother of a ger.A Jewish funeral home would be whom to ask, I suppose.
How about a non-denominational cemetery?

[daas torah]

I think its time to go through the jewish cemeteries and find people who had non-orthodox conversions.
this can be another fun hot-potato.

[Shirel Cohen]

non-orthodox conversions decried and denied, asking people to change seats on public transportation to accomodate men, women relegated to the back of the bus(just like the Blacks in the US. hmm....), and more--the list goes on. Hopefully Ms. Saraga-- in the name of human rights-- will tackle these subjects in the near future.

[Dr. Dave]

This story is ridiculous. A corpse is an Avi Avot Hatumah and anyone who comes in contact with a corpse is an Av Tumah. To say that menstruants are more Tamei than a corpse is halachically nonsensical.

I have been a member of a chevra kadisha for years and have not heard a more ridiculous chumra.

[David Bar-Magen]

Because haredi culture fears the possibility of a man having sex with a menstruating woman, there are several boundaries set up...

1. One may not touch an unrelated woman.
2. One may not converse familiarly and at length with an unrelated woman.

...which are increasingly bizarre...

3. One may not gaze at length upon an unrelated woman.
4. One may not sit next to a woman on a bus.

...and even more bizarre...

5. One may not shop at the same time as women.
6. One may not view the image of a girl, aged three and over, in any media. Faces in newspapers are pixelated or absent entirely.
7. Names of women are discouraged from appearing in newspapers. Rabbi "Namestein's" wife, if she must be mentioned, is Rabbanit Namestein.
8. The primary reason for forbidding texting is the firm belief that any and all men will immediately use the device to solicit sex from women.

And this bit about the graves may be the most disturbing of all.

Of the eight boundaries that I mentioned, I think only the first two might even enter the ballpark of potential hook-up territory. And even then, only under very specific circumstances.

The rest are designed to generate fear, repulsion, myth and demonization. It's women's fault for being female. How dare they have periods? How dare they look attractive? Don't they know better than to ensnare innocent yeshiva boys with a singl glance?

[Nomi Saraga]

Dr. Dave,

There are two options:
1. Either the people in charge actually believe their own nonsense and don't care about the halacha. Perhaps, then, they care about power and superstitions and it's easy to tell women what to do. Men would have never agreed to stay behind for any reason.

2. They do know this is nonsense but think the women are uneducated and obedient enough to obey any ridiculous religious order. In which case, the people in charge are just cruel.

My guess is that their real goal was to prevent women from hugging their male relatives or accidently touching them when approaching the grave.

Maybe the people in charge felt it might be awkward to admit this openly. People might become outraged or say it is none of the Rabbi's business if they hold their brother's hand or not. So maybe the people in charge made up some scary stuff to make sure no one even tries - not even those who are not scared but assume that the family is ok with it? Who knows.

[ah-pee-chorus]

the elephant in the room cannot be ignored. the torah is quite misogynistic with frequent references to women's impurities. these rabbis are simply better adherents to the author's desires than many of you would like. to eliminate ancient myths and superstitious rulings such as these requires admitting that the author was not god. something most readers here are not prepared to do. until then, the rabbis are properly taking their lead from the book's author. the torah does not permit you to water down or eliminate concepts you may now find abhorrent.

[Yochanan Lavie]

OCR: "There is a Sanity Clause in the office employee's manual" And he gives me presents every Chanukkah.

OCR, read "God's Phallus" and "The Savage in Judaism" both by Howard Eilberg-Schwartz. Interesting books.

[Yochanan Lavie]

When I die, I want a Jewish burial in a non-denominational cemetary so I can be interred next to the woman I love.

[David Bar-Magen]

I don't believe that's necessarily a fair statement. The labeling of a menstruating woman as ritually impure does not have to translate into absurd, superstitious ordinances meant to prevent anyone female from doing or saying anything that any random, sexually frustrated hermit might find alluring.

The Torah regards a niddah as impure, not a seductive pariah. Haredi culture, OTOH...

[ah-pee-chorus]

the halacha mandates that you may not have any contact with a niddah. thats not just "haredi culture". the ultimate problem is the source in which women are chattel.

[ah-pee-chorus]

so-called mod. orth play a fallaceous game. on one hand they would like the torah interpereted in a way they consider reasonable. they would like to say that slavery shouldn't be allowed, or that homosexuals should not be put to death. but on the other hand, they consider those branches of judaism which advocate for looser, more man-influenced rules to be heretical and worthy of laughter and scorn. at least the haredim are consistent and admit that they do yearn for the day when all rules of torah will be followed as written including death to homos, sabbath defilers, etc..
moderen orth. is an untenable position.

[Yochanan Lavie]

APC: I disagree with all-or-nothingism. "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds." Emerson.

[ah-pee-chorus]

YL: while for me the belief is yes or no, there is plenty of room for many levels of belief. but how can one demand a literal interperetation whilst advocating practices which require non-literal , or human morality influenced practices.
not to put words in your mouth, but it seems that you have a conservative judaism philosophy, where torah can be considered to be god-inspired and non-literal, combined with orthopraxy. different than mod. orth.

[critical_minyan]

all these are gedarim (fences) to make sure that no sin takes place.
what is the sin. having sex with a menstruating woman.
the haredim have created so many gedarim, so many restrictions, that unfortunately we have to write them off as a whole seperate religion.
Nebich, a whole generation lost to Yiddishkeit.
The Charedi Gedolim are finishing what Hitler started. The destruction of the remnants of European Jewry.

[David Bar-Magen]

APC: Halacha mandates not having sex with a niddah. There is nothing in halacha about not shopping in the same supermarket as one or pixelating the faces of little girls who still think a period is a punctuation mark. That is haredi culture and that is what I'm commenting on.

You're attempting to turn the sexual bizarro world of haredim into a comment on the Torah; you state it is the unequivocal elephant in the room, which I submit is an unfair leap of logic.

The Torah merely forbids intimacy with a menstruating woman on the grounds that she is ritually impure. Haredim take that prohibition and set so many gedarim around it that it no longer resembles a biblical mandate and highly resembles a misogynistic pissing contest.

[ah-pee-chorus]

david: the article says the reasons are,

"We must not harm the sanctity of the dead. Women should not come near the graves. It will damage our wombs."

"we women are impure "because we menstruate and according to Jewish religion we are prohibited from walking amongst the graves."

these were not gedarim against sexual contact.

[Chicago Samson]

The term “kever” (which typically means “grave”), but may also signify uterus and womb.* Both nuances may explain the logic that is behind the Zohar’s proscription in (found in II Zohar 196a-b,) which is arguably one of the sources of the Haredi custom.

Of course the idea that women are responsible for the evil and death of the world derives from texts that are even more ancient than the Talmud or Midrash, e.g., Sirach 15:24,25:24; Life of Adam and Eve 44:2; Apocalypse of Moses 14;2. Long before the Zohar or Kabbalah was a twinkle in some rabbi's eye, generations of people attributed the evils and problems of the world to women; subsequent rabbinical tradition only confirmed a belief that amounts to an early Judaic version of Original Sin, that eventually influenced Christianity.

* The Talmud in BT Nidah 21a raises the question whether it is possible for the "kever" (uterus) to open without bleeding, see Even Shoshan Hebrew Dictionary s.v. “kever”.

[ah-pee-chorus]

cs: quite informative. thanks

[David Bar-Magen]

APC: I understand that that's what the woman said, and that's exactly the problem with haredi culture. She genuinely believes in a breadth of superstition stemming from, as Chicago Samson demonstrated, esoteric mystical sources that have little or nothing to do with the biblical prohibition of intimacy with a menstruating woman.

Yes, the Torah does consider a niddah to be a ritually impure state of being, but that doesn't make women the sole source of all the world's problems. Adam may have blamed Eve for his own sin, but they were both cursed.

Therefore, while I do agree that haredi culture is wrong in their deeply superstitious and fearful behavior toward women, I do not see the Torah as the obvious elephant in the room to which this behavior must be attributed.

[Yochanan Lavie]

YL:...it seems that you have a conservative judaism philosophy, where torah can be considered to be god-inspired and non-literal, combined with orthopraxy. different than mod. orth.

Posted by: ah-pee-chorus | March 12, 2009 at 12:39 PM

You are not wrong. I would have been comfortable in the Conservative Judaism of 40 years ago. But not today's, which is Reform-Lite. So, UTJ is the closest approximation. I am not totally orthoprax, 'cause I'm lazy. I am more Paradox.

CS: When all that extra-biblical stuff introduces inyanim not in the miqra, such as mysogynistic crap, I begin to sound like a cranky Karaite and say: Go back to the Bible! When miqra itself is problematic, I tend to sound like a mushy Recon Rabbi and advocate creative interpretation.

"Do I contradict myself? / Very well then! / I contradict myself. ? I am large, I contain multitudes." Walt Whitman from "song of Myself."

(Not to be confused with "Dancing With Myself" by Billy Avodah Zarah).

[Chicago Samson]

The thought occurred to me that if one were to eliminate all the problematic Lurianic and Zohar nonsense about sexuality (obviously some great men had too much time on their hands and an overactive imagination worthy of a Freudian study), Orthodoxy might be a little more appealing. Certainly Halacha would seem relatively normal--as if such a thing is truly possible.

The real problem is not the Halacha, but the men who interpret it as a closed rather than an open-ended system. Power and control are the true gods the Haredi in Israel,and elsewhere, worship. I would call them true behaviorists, who are more concerned with micromanaging Jews, Judaism, and ultimately God.

[ah-pee-chorus]

David Bar-Magen : if a group of objective aliens were given the torah to analyze without any commentaries or haredisms, which do you think they would choose?
1. the society following the teachings of this document consider men and women different but equal.

2. women have a clearly higher status than men.

3.men have a clearly higher status than women.

i'd bet a lot of money that choice 3 wins by a landslide. what would you bet on?

[ah-pee-chorus]

yl: i appreciate your honesty.

[Chicago Samson]

Apikurus, my friend, I think that the Haredim are indeed aliens from a different world, and they (like Chabad) observe a religion that only strangely resembles Judaism.

Sefardim call them Voos Voosniks for good reason, for they live by the mantra, "Voos is dis?!!!!"

[ah-pee-chorus]

Chicago Samson : i couldn't agree more.
they even have a website, vos iz bullshit.

[David Bar-Magen]

APC: Let me be clear. Certainly, as it pertains to modern day convention and society, I would also choose #3.

However, to cite the Torah as the source of this woman's bizarre statement about the Jewish religion forbidding women to enter a cemetery on the grounds of possible niddah status is incorrect. While the Torah does--as I've reiterated a couple of times--describe a menstruating woman as impure, it does not classify her as some sort of pariah who may not conduct her day-to-day life.

Haredi society did that part of it. World society in general used to regard a woman having her period as "ill," and unfit to perform daily tasks, but it seems that haredim have hung on to this viewpoint, mysticized it, and attached several dozen superstitions to it.

And that's why I blame them, not the Torah.

[neo-conservaguy]

You are not wrong. I would have been comfortable in the Conservative Judaism of 40 years ago. But not today's, which is Reform-Lite. Must resist. Must resist. Must resist...

[neo-conservaguy]

Can't resist. Reform-Lite? Tell that to the many shomer Shabbat, shomer kashruth families at my shul. Please, you know better - there is wide variance of halachic understanding and practice in the "Conservative Movement". There are shuls that lean toward a "Reform" approach to some things, and some shuls that are more like the UTJ.

[Chicago Samson]

I personally think the Haredim believe there spoken word has almost incantational power; once they define something as forbidden, poof! It is forbidden. Like an infant, they expect the world and their communities to bow to their whims.

But as I have argued before, the communities allow this abuse to occur. I was speaking with my cousin in Baltimore, whose Rav is quite a young and brilliant Talmid Chacham, a real nice guy. But he lacks the gonads to challenge the corruption regarding Kashrut scams, the conversion problems of the Haredim, pedophilia--he is afraid of being tarred and feathered by the Gedolim he looks up to for taking a contrarian position.

The Gemora in Sanhedrin 97a says it clearly: It has been taught, R. Judah said: in the generation when the son of David comes, the house of assembly will be for harlots, Galilee in ruins, Gablan lie desolate ... the wisdom of scribes in disfavour, God-fearing men despised, people be dog-faced, and truth entirely lacking, as it is written, " Honesty has disappeared; the one who tries to avoid evil is robbed. The LORD watches and is displeased,for there is no justice." (Isa. 59:15).

My mother's great, great, grandfather, R’ Yisrael Salanter explains the ‘dog face’ analogy as referring to leaders and officials, whose qualities will mirror those of the dog described above. At first glance, it appeared to the onlooker that the dog was the one in charge, forging ahead and leading the way. However, when encountering a situation which required some decision-making, the dog needed to look back at the person it was ‘leading’, in order to ascertain where that individual wished to head. The dog then chose its path based on the preference of the real master.

This metaphor really describes the kind of religious leadership we have today, and as it says in the recent Batman movie, "Gotham City gets the leaders it deserves, but not the kind of leaders it needs." The same could probably be said of our times as well.

[ah-pee-chorus]

David Bar-Magen : yes, we agree the torah not the source for these bizarre statements. our difference seems to be that i believe given the choice 3, that we both agree applies to the torah, the torah gives a green light to this type of misogynistic superstition. not that i hold these moronic haredim blameless. but , certainly the torah does not directly call for this.

[Chicago Samson]

The problem is not the Torah itself, but how we interpret its teachings. Not even the Torah expects us to live in tents like Abraham and Sarah did in Genesis. We live in a different social reality, and thank God, the rabbis generally had good sense when it came to reinterpreting sections of law like lex tallionis (the eye for an eye). Obviously, there are glaring topics and problems the Sages did not deal with, e.g., the abolition of slavery, gender issues and egalitarianism, the rights of children, the problems of pedophilia, gay rights, and other sundry modern topical concerns.

Their knowledge of science and general culture was pretty meager at best, and their conduct was sometimes questionable--at least from the viewpoint of modern ethics. I say we take the best of their teachings, and discard the rest--which is pretty much what the world of Responsa has learned to do over the centuries.

Fortunately, it took a man like Maimonides to boldly re-create Judaism into a modern religion. Let us not forget that he wrote his Mishnah Torah to ultimately replace the Talmud, probably because he recognized many of its fundamental flaws and limitations.

[Yochanan Lavie]

"The thought occurred to me that if one were to eliminate all the problematic Lurianic and Zohar nonsense about sexuality (obviously some great men had too much time on their hands and an overactive imagination worthy of a Freudian study), Orthodoxy might be a little more appealing..."

Read David Bakan: "Freud and Jewish Mysticism."

[Chicago Samson]

Read David Bakan: "Freud and Jewish Mysticism."

Already did over 20 years ago.

Thanks

[Hometown Postville]

Food for thought... what if God turns out to be a woman???!!!

[Yochanan Lavie]

HP: God is incorporeal and therefore not analogous to a human being- therefore is both and neither male (n)or female. The Schechina, the manifestation of the Divine Presence, is feminine for example. I know you were joking, but it's a serious issue, BTW. Hebrew, unlike English, has no neutral pronouns, so everything must be either male or female. A woman conservative rabbi, of all people, gave me a convincing explanation of why Gd is usually manifested as male. A goddess figure could give birth to the universe out of her own body, whereas a "male" God is transcendent. But secular scholars would just say we're a bunch of male chauvinists, on the other hand.

[Chicago Samson]

Yochanan, you make a good point; here are some old notes I wrote back over thirteen years ago or so.

"Similarly, in Isaiah 42:14, the prophet also depicts God's bio-centric passion for justice in feminine terms:

For a long time
I have held my peace,
I have kept still
and restrained myself;
now I will cry out
like a woman in labor,
I will gasp and pant.
Isaiah 42:14

The imagery of God acting as a mother giving birth to her child, portrays a Divine Presence that is present alongside those people who are trying to midwife a new world where human degradation, apathy and suffering no longer exist. This organic depiction of God does not portray the Divine reality as being extrinsic or unaffected by the harsh presence of evil that is incarnated by malevolent people. The Talmud and the Midrash both describe the unfolding of the Messianic Redemption as the Hevlay HaMashiach--the birth-pangs of the Messiah.

According to the Talmud, the Messiah was born on the day of Tisha B' Av, the Ninth of Av for the number nine symbolizes birth and new life. One of the most popular and intimate rabbinic names for God is Rachmana – “The Merciful One.” The Hebrew word for "compassion" "rahameem" comes from the Hebrew word "rechem" for “womb.” God's compassion and mercy are not extrinsic for in a metaphorical sense, we come from God's womb. The womb is the place where all life is mysteriously conceived, carried and born.

One of the oldest Kabblalistic teachings posits the radical belief that the entire creation forms God's very own 'mystical body' and are organically interrelated. All this suggests a profound mystical view: God's Presence is wholly inseparable from the world. It was only later in the Kabbalah (and subsequently in Hassidut,) the creation of the physical and spiritual cosmos occurs through process of the Tzimtzum—Divine contractions.

These contractions resemble the contractions and movements a mother has culminating in the birthing process of a human being. The bond between mother and child continues beyond pregnancy—a mother’s love never ceases to flow even when a child behaves disrespectfully. As a spiritual metaphor for the Divine, the mother/child imagery represents both interdependence and relatedness."

[Yochanan Lavie]

Thanks, CS, very interesting. A bit anthropomorphic for me, but on a metaphorical level, it works. I always wanted a womb with a view...

[Hometown Postville]

Are these the same rabbis that justify sex with three year olds and molestation of young boys?

[Yochanan Lavie]

The Jewish Cemetery at Frumport
Apologies to Longfellow

How strange it seems! These Hebrews in their graves,
Close by the street of this fair shtetl town,
Silent beside the never-silent Jews,
At rest while daveners schukle up and down!
The hats are black as dusk, that o'er their heads
Wave their lulavim in the chag haSukkot,
While underneath such leafy tents they keep
The long, mysterious Exodus from Egypt.
And these shumrah matzot, so old and brown,
That pave with level flags their sedar plates,
Seem like the tablets of the Law, thrown down
And broken by Moses at the mountain's base.
The very names recorded here are strange,
Of foreign accent, and of different climes;
Schneersohn and Nachman interchange
With Abraham and Jacob of old times.
"Blessed be God! Dayan Ha Emet!"
The mourners said, "and Death is rest and peace";
Then added, in the certainty of faith,
"But the mourning of womenfolk shall cease!"
Closed are the portals of the Ezrat Nashim,
No weeping of Rachel now the silence break,
Nu, the Rabbi reads the latest chumra log
In the grand dialect that Tevye spake.
Gone are the women, but the men remain,
And not neglected; for a hand unmet,
Scattering its bounty, like mashev haRuach,
Still keeps their graves and their Yahrzeit lights.
How came they here? What burst of Sinat Chinam,
What persecution, merciless and new,
Drove o'er the sea--that desert desolate--
These Ishmaels and Hagars of the Jews?
They lived in narrow 'hoods and 'burbs obscure,
Crown Hts and Boro Park, in Teaneck and New Square;
Taught in the Yeshiva of black hats to endure
The life of chumra and the death of desire.
All their lives long, with the unleavened bread
And bitter herbs of chumrot and their fears,
The wasting famine of the heart they fed,
And slaked its thirst with marah of their tears.
"Nu, toyrah m'Sinai!" was the cry
That rang from town to town, from shul to shul;
At every gate the accursed Esther
Was mocked and jeered, and spurned by males.
Pride and subjugation hand in hand
Walked with them through the world where'er rabbis went;
Fondled and beaten were they in their hands,
And yet unsatisfied but [sexually] incontinent.
For in the background figures vague and vast
Of Rebbes and of roshei yeshiva rose stern,
And all the great minhagim of the Past
They saw deflected in the present time.
And thus forever with furitive look
The mystical kabbalists they read,
Saying it backward, like a magic book,
Till life became a Legacy of the Dead.
But oy! what has never been, shall be no more!
The groaning Yidden in travail and in pain
Perform new chumrot, that do not the soul restore,
And the dead Rebbes never rise again.

{Until Techiyat haMatim, of course, when we all do- whatever that means).

[Chicago Samson]

Not as funny as your better pieces, better luck next time, we want more of your comic relief!

[Yochanan Lavie]

D'oh!