A Thought On My Fringes
When someone asks me “Why do you wear a tallit katan?” There are at least five questions they may potentially be asking.
1)Why would anyone do such a thing, ie, why is it done, stam?
2)Why do you deliberately wear a 4-cornered garment in order to put fringes on, when there is no requirement to have a 4-cornered garment in the first place?
3)Why do you choose to wear a tallit katan in light of the fact that most Conservative Jews don’t?
4)Why do you wear a tallit katan in light of the fact that you are a woman, and women have not traditionally worn this garment (whether or not this is to imply that a woman shouldn’t)?
5)Why would anyone do any mitzvot?
When I’m caught on the spot by this question, it is difficult to know how to answer. The person asking usually has a clear single meaning to their question, and is unaware that there are other possible meanings, especially if their meaning is number four… and usually it is. The problem is that my instinctual answer is to 2/3. The answer to 4 is an afterthought that should follow logically from 2 and 3, given that in egalitarian Judaism, women are not a different category of Jew from men, that is full participatory members of the covenantal people, who should in theory do the same things that they would be doing were they men. Why should women be full participatory members of the people is the underlying question and that is something that can’t be addressed adequately in a 10 minute conversation.
Why might a woman not be satisfied with the woman’s traditional separate role? For a variety of reasons:
It is marginal and marginalizing.
It assumes a hetero-normative paradigm.
It assumes definition of the self in relation to others and not independently.
It negates motivation for broad education.
It is inherently unequal and implies inherent inequality of the sexes.
It is inherently a role of invisibility. It includes no outward expression of observance or identity other than covering and hiding.
Etc. The list goes on and yes, it is informed by relatively recent social and scholarly developments with regards to gender paradigms. That is not a bad thing. I believe that the developments precipitated by, and that precipitated feminism and gender scholarship more accurately reflect our reality than the paradigm set up in the times of the rabbis and previously. What has changed? A lot. Birth control has a lot to do with it. The discovery in times of need (e.g. WWII) that women were able to do things previously not thought possible. Economics, the rise of the middle class, technology, and the resultant advent of leisure as a societal norm. The study of psychology. Free access to information and education. The changing realities of the world in which we live necessitated that women begin to view themselves as beings capable of roles outside the home which would previously have been unimaginable due simply to the structure of the family and the economics of home management. Chaza”l did not anticipate the reality in which we live today, which is why we have no precedent for halachic equality between men and women. In a previous age, to place the same obligations upon women as upon men would have been utterly disastrous. That is simply not the case today and it is more likely to be far more damaging to a woman, to the family, to the social dynamic, and to the community for women to continue to see themselves as limited to the roles they held in a bygone era. The woman of today is a fundamentally different kind of person than the woman of the age of Chaza”l.
So where do we draw the line? At biology.
To be continued, hopefully…
January 8th, 2008 at 4:29 am
You really should have called this entry “Beyond the Fringe.”
That is as long as you get know of the Python precursor, Beyond the Fringe.
February 3rd, 2008 at 8:26 pm
When someone asks you “Why do you wear a tallit katan?” The answer is easy. Ignore what they say, and concentrate on replying to what you know
they are really thinking- but not saying:
1)Why are you wearing that when I KNOW only men can wear tzitzis!
2)Why do you have to wear tzitzis — Is this because you’re gay?
3)Why do you have to wear a tallit katan when I want to say its wrong but I can’t because I’m so ignorant about Judaism?
4)Why do you have to ruin Judaism by doing this kind of thing? This is why I’m Orthodox and you’re wrong.
5))Why do you have to wear a tallit katan when it makes me have to justify my refusal to do anything judaic?
Forget “hetero-normative pari— paradgm– para- whatever,” and not just because I can’t spell it. It is critical to remember the talmud mentions that the women of Rabbi Yehudah Ha’nasi’s household wore tzitzit. There was a time when this was Judaism– just as there was a time when Jews in Eretz Yisrel made the bracha “Borei minei Ma’adanim” on kishke at the seder. The fact that Judaism did not make these standard practices does not mean they were - or are alien to Rabbinic Judaism. There are practices that have fallen out of practice in Judaism and returned in new forms. Techeylet. Meditation. The Meturgeman. Mikvah. Those who prefer an ahistorical judaism (e.g. it never changed or never mattered) are annoyed all the more so as a result.
I disagree that Chazal could not anticipate anything the modern day woman: we have the concept of Eisah Chashuvah–”an important woman” to whom different standards are applied. It’s not a rhinestone studded feminist stance, but it is a shifting of awareness that has remarkable implications.
I told you I’d read this thing….