Response to Ellenson JJE.pdf

Ronit iRshai Bar Ilan University and The Shalom Hartman Institute Response to ellenson “Interpret or Perish” The Theological Project of Jewish Feminism—A Response to David Ellenson In his inspiring lecture in memory of Simon Rawidowicz, David Ellenson (drawing on Rawidowicz) presents exegesis as the backbone of Jewish tradition and as its most important mechanism of vitality and continuity. “Interpret or perish” underlies the unbroken relevance of halakhah and Jewish tradition. If we assume that contemporary insights challenge the traditional world in various complex ways, two important questions arise: First, given that religious people are exposed to various critiques of religion and have internalized most of its tenets, is it at all possible to return to tradition?1 Second, even if we posit that the reflective person can make this return, is every element open to reinterpretation? Feminist criticism has erected a very thick barrier between women and their Journal of Jewish Ethics, Vol. 2, No. 2, 2016 Copyright © 2016 The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA JJE 2.2_05_Irshai.indd 76 19/04/16 1:36 PM religious tradition. That tradition is an extreme case of the marginalization and exclusion of women, and the stifling of their voice, to the point that Cynthia Ozick called its effect “excision.”2 Does the profound recognition of the male orientation of the Jewish tradition allow women to return to it? If so, how can they justify it? Is exegesis the most important tool for bridging the gulf? Hasn’t feminist criticism cast doubts on whether interpretation can fundamentally alter their patriarchal assumptions? To use Audrey Lord’s metaphor, can the master’s tools be used to dismantle the master’s house? To put it another way, can the tools of patriarchal tradition be employed to refashion tradition? In general, I believe that the justification of returning to tradition has been insufficiently addressed in the theoretical writings of Jewish religious feminists (in contrast to Christian feminists). It is taken for granted—and perhaps that is for the best. This is because the return to tradition and the attempt to imbue it with gender justice for women assume that tradition has an important role to play in the constitution of identity (by providing the raw materials of individual identity—values, beliefs, myths, and the like) and is also a precondition for individual liberty, inasmuch as individuals can enjoy a diversity of choices and have the ability to assess them only if these options are part of their own cultural and traditional context.3 As Schüssler Fiorenza noted, if women cast aside their tradition, because it is patriarchal, they will be left without a culture, history, or religion, a situation that will merely increase their marginality.4 How, then, can the tools of traditional exegesis itself be used to rework Jewish tradition in the direction of gender justice? It seems that Adler’s and Ross’s complex answers to this question effectively blur the dichotomy of the “traditional inside” and the “nontraditional outside” (given that the modern religious person lives with a multifaceted mind-set) and propose important links between changes in halakhah and changes in consciousness. The work of exegesis cannot take place “internal” to tradition only. It cannot effect the change if it is not open to “external” ideas. This is the deep meaning of the nexus of nomos and narrative that Adler deftly applied to the context of halakhic change. If there is to be motivation to find the exegetical tools that can effect a halakhic transformation, the narrative, too, must change. The religious and halakhic consciousness that is reflected in the nomos is intimately linked to the story that the members of the religious community tell about themselves. When that consciousness is patriarchal, so, too, is the nomos. Interpret or Perish JJE 2.2_05_Irshai.indd 77 | 77 19/04/16 1:36 PM Even though Ross seems at first sight to disagree with Adler, inasmuch as nothing in her project is oriented toward the transcendent dimension, she actually shares her ideas. The concept of cumulative revelation, which preserves the transcendent while also allowing new exegetical “hearings,” is implanted entirely in postmodern thought and the idea of nomos and narrative. In Ross’s theology, the divine injunction itself is a human project, the voice of the congregation of believers. The (halakhically committed) exegetic community, with its preferred narratives, is the final normative arbiter of what can and cannot be seen as the divine word, and in this way effectively creates the divine revelation. The divine is always understood and created through the human prism. So if notions of equality serve as the conceptual and narrative underpinning, feminism can be accepted as a new divine revelation. So Adler’s renunciation of the transcendent dimension is not so far removed from Ross, although it is possible that holding on to the notion of transcendent revelation (despite its essential immanence for Ross) is more important for the Orthodox feminism epitomized by Ross than for Adler, who is affiliated with the more liberal current. In my own work, I rely to no small extent on the link between nomos and narrative. Recently I have shown not only how Orthodox feminism in Israel uses this paradigm to wage its battles, but also that Israeli courts sometimes wait for the internal narrative to mature before intervening to impose liberal concepts. This happened, for example, in the rulings by Justice Elon in the case of Leah Shakdiel’s appointment to a religious council, and later with regard to the Women of the Wall.5 In my book I also proposed that an important part of the project of religious feminism is to understand that narratives do not lie outside halakhah, in the sense that they are its triggers, but that sometimes halakhah itself morphs into narrative, turning into an ethos that nourishes itself. Where Adler and Ross believe that narrative makes it possible to fashion a new halakhah, I fill in the picture and propose the possibility of moving in the opposite direction as well. In tandem with the need to create a new narrative that can make it possible to amend halakhah, the inside work, within the world of halakhah itself, must also be carried out. That is, breaking down the existing halakhic stories into their factors, the ability to see that they are not inevitable and to replace them with other halakhic stories that rest on the very same sources—but now such as embody gender justice—can themselves create a new “halakhic narrative” and support the process of effecting changes in halakhah. 78 | jouRnal of jewish ethics JJE 2.2_05_Irshai.indd 78 19/04/16 1:36 PM When patriarchy loses its charm in the nomos, there will also be far-reaching implications for the narrative in which the religious community lives and works, and it will find it easier to permit additional halakhic changes. In other words, the activity required is not only on the narrative plane, but in both the halakhic and narrative dimensions. In that sense, “interpret or perish” become crucial to the religious feminist project. Ronit iRshai is a lecturer and assistant professor in the gender studies program at Bar Ilan University and a research fellow at the Shalom Hartman institute in Jerusalem. She was a visiting scholar at Harvard Divinity School during the academic year of 2007–2008. Her research focuses on gender and Jewish Law (halakhah), philosophy of halakhah, bioethics, and feminist jurisprudence and its relation to Jewish law. Her first book, Fertility and Jewish Law: Feminist Perspectives on Orthodox Responsa Literature, was published by Brandeis University Press in 2012. notes 1. See Avi Sagi’s important treatment of the challenge of returning to tradition and his distinction between tradition and traditionalism: Avi Sagi, A Challenge: Returning to Tradition ( Jerusalem: Shalom Hartman Institute; Bar Ilan University Faculty of Law; Hakibbutz Hameuchad, 2003), 15–29 (Hebrew). 2. Cynthia Ozick, “Notes Toward Finding the Right Question,” in On Being a Jewish Feminist: A Reader, ed. Susannah Heschel (New York: Schocken, 1983), 120–51. 3. Avishai Margalit and Moshe Halbertal, “Liberalism and the Right to Culture,” Social Research 61 (Fall 1994): 491–510. 4. Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, In Memory of Her: A Feminist Theological Reconstruction of Christian Origins (New York: Crossroad, 1994), 28–29. 5. Ronit Irshai and Tanya Zion-Waldoks, “Israeli Modern-Orthodox Feminism: Between Nomos and Narrative,” Mishpat U’mimshal 15, no. 1–2 (2013): 233–327 (Hebrew). Interpret or Perish JJE 2.2_05_Irshai.indd 79 | 79 19/04/16 1:36 PM