The Vagina Dialogues

B"H

In the world of contemporary piety, if you want to discredit a person or a community or a practice, often the most efficient way is to cry Feminism. Occasionally, my wife receives letters from strange or anonymous men assaulting her lifelong commitment to sofrut as a Feminist vendetta, which therefore desecrates the Holy Torah etc., etc. Sometimes these accusations are made in public forums, in which cases I am baffled at the bold confidence (or lack of concern??) these men have that they aren't making lashon hara. But in all cases what I find most remarkable is that they ask no questions. How can a complete stranger honestly inform my wife of what her motivations are, whether they are lishma or not, without bothering to ask first? Does this sort of action make any sense at all?

One explanation is that these frum men are arrogant and behave accordingly, but I find this unsatisfying. The handful who write out of the blue demanding that my sinful wife repent now or await the wrath of haShem, they could be arrogant. But as for the majority of Frum men, and women, who we never hear from but who nevertheless likely assume that a woman in sofrut must be a strident Feminist bereft of Yirat Shamayim -- they can't all be characteristically arrogant people, so there is something else going on.

Today [which was two months ago, for those fascinated by my working procedures here at Mishkaneer], I finally got around to reading the extensive comments thread on Miriam Shaviv's piece about women's aliyot, and a number of things began to crystallize. One is why Alisha holds heroine status around our house. Another is how much halakhic discourse on vital issues like gender identity is crippled with endless pilpul of the most ironic kind. Another, closely related, is how ignorant and unsophisticated is the Orthodox intelligentsia's understanding of our own supposed enemies. And, finally, there is the most underrated matter of Faithful Patience which, more than anything else I can think of, our generation is spiritually challenged by lacking.

To be clear about what I mean by "pilpul of the most ironic kind," let me first emphasize that I do not consider complex, subtle, esoteric, even hairsplitting halakhic argument to be pilpul. What I consider pilpul is any halakhic argument that does not address actual human experience. If a computer could do the analysis, and do it better, why should we waste our precious holy lifeforce?

Oral Torah exists not to make Written Torah complete. Written Torah is complete in and of itself. Written Torah is the soil of Realization, containing all nutrients needed. Oral Torah is the ever-expanding, ever-infilling network of roots necessary to make all of those nutrients available and digestible to our constricted mortal consciousness.

As far as the tree is concerned, maybe it makes no difference whether roots are distinct from soil. Rootsoil -- it's that place were sustenance comes from. (See R' Hillel and the ger who accepted only Written Torah, until R' Hillel taught him the Aleph-Bet forward one day and backward the next.) But from the standpoint of the roots, it is the tree and the soil that must be united. That's the whole raison d'etre of roots, to interface with both soil and tree so as to bring the former into the latter, just as Oral Torah's sole purpose is to bring Written Torah into our daily life.

Now, saw off the tree at its trunk, leaving roots dangling loose and free in the ground, and you've got pilpul, a.k.a. halakhic rot, a.k.a. much of what is accepted, in error, as Oral Torah.

What makes some pilpul ironic is the paranoid schizophrenia that animates passionate cases against Modern Secular Humanist values in a culture that has already accepted those values' guiding logic. If the heart of Feminism is an aim to neutralize patriarchy -- that is, to accord adult women categorical parity with adult men in respect to each individual's agency and self-ownership -- and if Orthodoxy is fundamentally opposed to Feminism, then Orthodox outreach (read: marketing) should never operate by appealing to women's independent agency to make significant lifestyle determinations for themselves, not to mention for their families. Yet such practice is normative. Why? Well, either it is a trick, or there actually is no fundamental disagreement between Feminism and Orthodoxy as we know it.

If the latter is true, as I believe, then why all the blustery, and experientially irrelevant, offensive against Feminists? As with most entrenched conflicts, the sustaining force is ignorance, born of each side's refusal to honor the other's motivation. Pious Feminists have cast religion as anti-woman, and the pious Orthodox have cast Feminism as anti-religious. It doesn't matter who started it; each claim is ridiculous, and saps dignity from the cause it means to promote.

Where this discussion gets back to Mishkaneering is the question of how we can, practically speaking, build conversations and communities that are "of Faith," to appropriate the new catchphrase, as opposed to, well, not of Faith. I think I can spot a Faithful person, or attitude, or interaction, with ease. What is the tell-tale sign? I will begin with what the tell-tale sign is not: It is not confidence, it is not certitude, it is not uncompromising or unwavering insistence; it is also not self-annihilation, snap agreement, or obsequious acceptance. It is lack of fear. In particular, it is lack of the fear of listening. To truly listen -- not just hear, but listen -- without fear is to register a vote for G!d's goodness, to submit to the unknown possibility of radical oneness. To engage the Other (any Other) with the fearless Patience necessary to truly listen to, and speak to, him/her/it, is probably the highest act of faith available to any person. Consider that the social awkwardness commonly attributed to Moshe Rebeynu might be nothing more (or less) than a quality of Faithful Patience: to be long to listen, and deliberate to speak.

I would like to make occasion, this Rosh Chodesh, to celebrate two lovely pieces that appeared recently in the Jewish blogosphere. This is an appropriate time, in the countdown from Pesach to Shavuot, for good models in the Faithful Patience necessary to get us there. First is Bloghead commentor Alan Scott's "checklist for the proper Jewish encounter with the strange":

1. Al tadun et chavercha. Take a breath and don't Judge.

2. Ad shetagia limkomo. Talk to the stranger, attempt to understand where s/he's coming from.

3. Ubacharta bachayim. Evaluate as it pertains to your own religious needs/growth. Make certain you know your sources.

4. Mekabel kol adam besefer panim yafot. If you sense a dissonance between your perception of Torah ideals and what you are encountering, continue to communicate with kindness. Express your concerns. However --

5. Al tomar Kiblu da'ati. If this does not get where you want, you may not resort to hatred, force, or ridicule.

6. En dan yechidi ela Echad. Be satisfied in God's powers of present/future judgement. Appreciate God's creative capacity. Do not expect to enforce your own subjective rulings within God's universe.

Second, just today, is this revision of a beautiful meditation on The Outside-Inside World, in Voices from Our Side of the Curtain, a promising new blog by "a group of young Orthodox women dedicated to celebrating the many diverse voices of women in our community."

Chodesh tov!