CCAR
JOURNAL
| A REFORM JEWISH QUARTERLY |
SUMMER, 1997
Published by the Central Conference of America Rabbis
| A REFORM JEWISH QUARTERLY |
In many ways Plaskow's statement is what the issue that you hold in your hands is all about. It is about women's voices. It is about women rabbis voicing their opinions, wrestling with texts, thinking about God and theology and ritual and the future of Judaism. It is about women rabbis sharing their wisdom, their questions, their doubts, their expertise. It is about what Sally Priesand's ordination twenty-five years ago heralded: women finally entering into, and helping to shape, the conversation of the Jewish people.
One of the things that has always fascinated me about the Talmud is how, upon opening a tractate, the reader is immediately plunged into the give and take of human discourse. It is almost magical. A lone reader is suddenly surrounded by ancient company: Rabbi Meir, Rabbi Judah Ha-Nasi, Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai, et al. join the reader at his or her table as the passion of the debate surges.
But the conversation in our foundational texts is written by men, for men. Women are absent from the texts except as a topic of conversation, a conversation from which we have historically been banned. Twenty-five years after Rabbi Sally Priesand's ordination, it is clear that this kind of exclusion is unjust as well as spiritually debilitating for us as a people. If we are truly concerned about Jewish continuity and the survival of Judaism into the twenty-first century, then we need the gifts and offerings of each and every member of our community: women and men, gay, lesbian, bisexual and straight, young and old. We are a richly varied people. This is one of the main sources of our strength and vibrancy. Exclusion would only drain the lifeblood from our community.
And so in this volume you will encounter some new voices that you may not have heard before. A quick perusal of our table of contents will tell you that we cover a whole gamut of topics. The guest editorial board and I wanted this issue to be eclectic, honest, and real. We wanted to, in the words of noted feminist thinker Nelle Morton, "hear into speech" the women of the Women's Rabbinic Network (WRN). After all, in the twe nty-five years that women have been ordained, although a smattering of poems and book reviews by women rabbis has appeared in this Journal, women rabbis have served only as respondents in a small number of symposia; to date, fewer than twenty women rabbis have had a full-length article published.
This is probably the result of a number of factors that certainly warrant further examination. For now, suffice it to say that it is difficult to break into a conversation when the experience of so many centuries of exclusion is seared into a group's collective unconscious. We hope that this issue of the Journal will, among other things, make it easier for women rabbis to find their voices and to have their voices heard in the future.
Throughout the ten months that the editiorial board and I worked on this Journal, we were ever aware of the importance and historic significance of this project. We knew that we were creating a document that would help future scholars understand what life has been like for the pioneers ordained during the first quarter- century of women in the rabbinate. Distanced by time, those in the future will be able to analyze this material far more easily than those of us immersed in its reality. But there are several patterns that immediately emerge and deserve comment now.
For most of recorded history the world has been viewed through the lens of male experience. That is why the starting point for feminist scholarship in virtually every discipline is women's experience. Therefore, you will notice that many of the articles you will read in this issue include more biographical information about the authors than you might ordinarily expect. Even when reflecting upon the future of the Jewish community or the challenges of feminism to mainstream Judaism, the authors often provide rather intimate portraits of themselves. In this work the personal and the professional, the private and the public, often converge.
Something else that is perhaps unique about this material is its dialogical nature. We have devoted many pages to a roundtable discussion that took place at the 1997 WRN conference in San Diego, California. We also have a section entitled "Tosefta: Ad-ditional Voices" which is comprised of excerpts from longer works which, regrettably, we could not include in their entirety. While this section is not a conversation per se, one quote immediately flows into the next to both visually and conceptually s uggest the rhythm of dialogue, a chorus of voices.
You will notice that several of the articles introduce non-rabbinic voices into the conversation. This is emblematic, I think, of a feminist commitment to inclusion and empowerment: not only do women rabbis need to enter the conversation, so do other female Jewish communal leaders as well as laywomen in our communities.
In addition, in this volume there is an admitted and glorious lack of un iformity. Some of the pieces are long and some very short; some survey the surface of the terrain they explore, others dig down deep; some flesh out a subject, some serve to open up conversation. Moreover, we sought out representation of a variety of experiences and views. We wanted to hear from rabbis who are not in mainstream congregational settings; we wanted to make sure that the experience of lesbians in the rabbinate was discussed; we wanted to make sure that both traditional and nontraditional views of Judaism were included. From the beginning we envisioned this work as a communal project, like the building of the Mishkan, with each person bringing her own unique offering of the heart.
It is our hope that when you open this volume, you will experience something akin to the experience of opening a volume of Talmud....immersion in a sea of variously provocative, stimulating, inspiring, and wondrous conv ersation.
I wish to express my deepest gratitude to the more than ninety women who contributed to this work. It was a great pleasure to be phoned, faxed, and Fed-Exed by so many old and new friends.
I would also like to extend heartfelt thanks to the following people: Rabbi Zari Weiss and the Publications Committee of the CCAR for bringing the idea of this Journal to the WRN; Rabbis Henry Bamberger, Rifat Sonsino, Paul Menitoff, and Elliot Stevens for their support and guidance; Rabbi Joan Friedman for writing the beautiful dedication with which this volume begins; Ellen Milchin, our transcriber, and Louise Stern, our meticulous copy editor, both of whom made our work so much easier; David Wilson, our production manager, whose creativity and kindness made the process of putting this Journal together a true joy; Robin Sachs, whose brilliant photograph you see on the cover; my partner, Jennifer Honen, who tirelessly xeroxed, sent and received faxes and offered both technical and moral support.
A tremendous debt of gratitude is due to our talented editorial board: Rabbis Jody Cohen, Sue Levi Elwell, Deborah Joselow, Janet Liss, Marjorie Slome, Julie Spitzer, Bonnie Steinberg, and Nancy Wiener. We came together for many, many long and intense editorial meetings, and they spent innumerable hours poring over the material, making suggestions about articles, and helping to shape every aspect of this issue. Their input and insights were invaluable.
Finally, I'd like to express love and appreciation to all of the women rabbis who have been ordained in the last twenty-five years. Their courage, their vision, their dedication to the Jewish people have fueled and inspired the project of creating this Journal.
On the cover you see the tallit of the Women's Rabbinic Network. It was created at the WRN conference held in Berkeley, California, in 1993. Every woman present was invited to fill in, with lustrous color, one of the shapes outlined on the prayer shawl by artist Nancy Katz. What a wonderful metaphor this tallit is for the WRN: rich, vibrant, alive, inclusive, a varied and brilliant tapestry. We think that this tallit is also a wonderful metaphor for the Journal you are about to read: bold, creative, a varied and brilliant tapestry, the work of many loving hands.
We are proud to bring this offering to the CCAR. We are proud to celebrate the twenty-fifth anniversary of Rabbi Sally Priesand's ordination by contributing to the recovery of women's hidden voices and to the creation of Jewish teachings that are, at long last, the product of the whole Jewish people. We are deeply proud to be part of a movement committed to this vital work.
Donna Berman, Guest Editor
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