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D’rash Erev Shabbat/Erev 7th Day Pesah ~ Friday evening April 25, 2008
I have always thought that as a woman born and raised in the latter half of the 20th century - in the midst of what is now known as the “2nd wave of modern American feminism”, I stood at the shores of freedom. The opportunities, at least compared to what I knew about the generations who came before me, seemed limitless.
Recently, though, I had one of those rude awakenings – my eyes were re-opened to a disturbing reality. In researching this wave of modern American feminism that reached its zenith in the mid-60’s and early 70’s after being sparked perhaps by Kennedy’s Commission on the Status of Women, but more likely by the publication of Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique, I conducted a google search in an attempt to find some new and enlightening resources that perhaps were missed in the standard literature databases that scholars (and people like me who strive towards scholarship) use, yet – what I found (and far too easily) were numerous websites raising up hateful and hurtful challenges to the great strides that women and men have made in this country over the last ½ century. Now at first, I thought to dismiss this material outright as marginal and barely influential at most. But then a comment made by my daughter caused me to rethink my initial dismissal. If you’ll allow me this anecdote: the Sunday before Pesach, in preparation for our seder, I took out the table linens, left them on the dining room table (in piles mind you), and then left for a leisurely and long bike ride, my first outdoor ride of the season. Upon returning, my eager 9 year old exclaimed – ‘come look mommy’ as she walked me in to see the beautifully ironed cloths now neatly adorning the tables in our dining room. As Chuck was standing just feet away from us, I couldn’t resist commenting how great a deal this was – “Mommy takes out the linens and Daddy irons them.” To which my 9 year old responded in an all-too serious and knowing tone, “yes – but that’s not right.” Surprised, I probed further – ‘what do you mean that is not right?’ to which she replied, ‘mommies are supposed to do the ironing’.
‘Mommies are supposed to do the ironing’ -- Such a comment from a child raised in a household where mommy, and for that matter daddy too, rarely if ever iron. Moreover, my children regularly see their father doing household chores – Chuck is one of a rare breed, he actually seems to like vacuuming! And more significantly, due to the nature of our work schedules, our children see their father doing these chores far more often than they actually see me doing these same chores. So where did that ‘ironing’ comment come from? It certainly did not come from what is modeled in our home. And, it isn’t really at all about the ironing. It is all about stereotypes and images which so many of us thought we had conquered, but which clearly impact us in a way far beyond our consciousness. So much for standing at the shores of freedom. Now those hateful websites scare me; perhaps the accomplishments that men and women have made towards equality are not so secure.
According to our Rabbinic tradition, we stand, on this eve of the 7th day of Pesach, at the shores of our liberation from bondage – it is a moment to ponder our redemption both past and future. Our tradition calls us to draw into our collective consciousness the experience of journeying through the parted waters out of Egypt and into freedom. As Americans we value our freedom and consider elements of such freedom - namely justice, liberty, and equality as fundamental rights. But, do we simply play lip service to these values, or do we challenge ourselves to step through the mucky waters to work for the ongoing expression of these values?
When it comes to equality between men and women, we have reason to be proud of our Reform heritage. As early as 1846, in a report to a Rabbinical conference held in Breslau, our leaders of that day proclaimed “it..a sacred duty to express most emphatically the complete religious equality” of women. Again in 1885, the formulators of the Pittsburgh Platform stated that Reform Judaism would never reach its highest goals without giving equal voice to woman and man. In 1922, the faculty of the Hebrew Union College resolved and the CCAR affirmed that it could not “logically and consistently” deny the privilege of ordination to women - 1922. That being said, however, practice did not follow its idealistic impulse. HUC did not grant ordination to women until 1972 despite the presence of women in the school since the opening of its doors in the late 19th century and the many attempts to convince the leadership to grant women such honor -- they were granted the academic degrees associated with the Rabbinic program, but not the blessing of ordination.
It took a progressive Rabbi in Germany, a free thinker – indeed one of the founders of the World Union for Progressive Judaism – our international Reform arm, to grant ordination for the first time to a woman. In 1930, Regina Jonas was denied the right of ordination after completing the Rabbinic program at Germany’s liberal seminary, the Hochschule fur die Wissenschaft des Judentums. Despite the fact that academic and Rabbinic giants of her generation (including Leo Baeck, Julius Guttman, & Ismar Elbogen among others) all attested to her competence, one hold out on the faculty left her ordination-less. Finally in 1935, one of her teachers - Rabbi Max Dienneman, in an act of defiance of the seminary’s decision, agreed to confer independent ordination upon her and thus she was able to function formally and officially as a Rabbi until her death at the hands of the Nazis in 1944.
With such precedent, why did it take us Americans so long – why was it not until 1968 that a woman was formally welcomed onto the path towards seminary ordination here on American shores. Examples abound of women who were functioning as Rabbis in America long before they were acknowledged as such – women such as Paula Ackerman, Ray Frank, & Beatrice Sanders; but again the ideals of equality and justice that we hold so dear came long before the institution of practical change.
Real change takes time; indeed, it takes as much patience as perseverance to enact change. Recall that the Israelites who are about to journey through the Reed Sea are not the same individuals who will have the privilege of entering the promised land. The Biblical text acknowledges that a generation must pass – changes in outlook, social mores, and behavior must occur in the community before the Israelites are able to understand what their freedom from bondage means and the responsibility such freedom entails. The journey has really just begun.
From its start, America was a country where European values of enlightenment were allowed to blossom, but Americans – Jews in particular – aspired towards European bourgeois values of domesticity as well. A woman’s role in the home as help mate and mother were not only viewed as primary but all-encompassing.
Considering that women gained the right to vote in this country as late as 1920 (not even a hundred years ago), great – indeed incredible – strides with regard to real equality have been made. If I was an adult during the years of my childhood, I would not have had the opportunity to stand on a bema in the official capacity I do today. And, my children have had and will continue to have opportunities that were not available to even my generation. Yet at the same time, the accepted images and stereotypes with which I was raised that I had hoped would not impact my children are still floating just beneath the surface of all the strides that have been made, and in a very real way limit our present day redemption. Who knew that my daughter, born just before the turn of the 21st century, would still think that the job of ironing belongs solely to me because I am a woman. Are we as a society still enslaved to stereotypes that do no more than to limit the roles of both women and men while at the same time keeping them bound to some outdated expectation?
Images and stereotypes can and should function in a positive manner in society. We model some of our best behaviors on the images to which we are exposed; but when those stereotypes impinge on our choices – on our freedom to choose to be the best we are able to be, when they hold us in bondage, then we limit our ability to live up to the responsibility that redemption requires of us.
As we stand on these symbolic shores of freedom this festive Shabbat, let us remain cognizant of this responsibility - namely to ensure that the values and ideals of equality for which so many have worked throughout history are continually acted upon in our world.
Cantor Rhoda J. H. Silverman
