The lineup
of world leaders in Paris, linking arms and marching in protest against the
murderous rampage of Islamists on the offices of Charlie Hebdo and
patrons of a kosher supermarket was a moving sight. It even moved those who
produce the ultra-Orthodox “HaMevaser” enough to include it in their
publication. Well, most of it. You see, they photoshopped out German Chancellor
Angela Merkel, who was standing beside French President Francois Hollande.
Readers of “HaMevaser” were treated to the world as they
wish it to be: the public sector is populated only by men. Allison Kaplan Sommer, writing in HaAretz
noted that “it is
rather embarrassing when at a time that the Western world is rallying against
manifestations of religious extremism, our extremists manage take the stage – and in a newspaper owned by a Knesset
member, no less.” But Tova Ross, writing in TheForward, strenuously objected to Kaplan’s characterization in HaAretz of the “HaMevaser” photoshop job, termed the digital
deletion merely “bizarre
and comical.” “In the wake of two deliberate acts of
religious violence in France, during a year that has been particularly venomous
for French Jews and Jews the world over,” she
writes, “wouldn’t
it be better to devote valuable real estate that exists in these publications,
within such a fast and furious news cycle where reader interest wanes hourly,
for any other number of important stories that add context and insight into the
much more critical story of fundamentalism as manifesting itself in terrorist
acts against people of different faiths and political stripes?”
I should
point out that PLO Chair Mahmoud Abbas was not photoshopped out of the image.
Can there by any explanation except misogyny? And is misogyny to be taken so
lightly “given
everything else that is happening in the world?”
Much of
the Jewish world has come far in recognizing the injustice of unequal. It took
many, many centuries—and
a big nudge from larger society—to move Judaism in the direction of
egalitarianism. The Talmud encodes strict gender roles and the subjugation of
women in the public sphere[1] even more
than we find in Torah, and of course declares it to be “God’s will,” but also hints that the diminished
status of women in the community is something God regrets.
The story
begins in this week’s
parashah, Bo, where Torah interrupts the
ongoing account of the Ten Plagues to announce:
וַיֹּאמֶר יְהוָה אֶל-מֹשֶׁה וְאֶל-אַהֲרֹן, בְּאֶרֶץ מִצְרַיִם לֵאמֹר. הַחֹדֶשׁ הַזֶּה לָכֶם, רֹאשׁ חֳדָשִׁיםAdonai said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt: This month shall mark for you the beginning of the months; it shall be the first of the months of the year for you. (Exodus 12:1-2)
We are
accustomed to thinking of the first day in the Hebrew month of Tishrei (Rosh
Hashanah) as the new year, but for the Bible, Nisan is the first month of the
year. The Hebrew calendar is built on lunar months: the “birth” of a new moon signals the beginning
of a new month. Pesach (Passover) begins
on the fifteenth day of Nisan, when the moon is full. It is crucially important
to know when the first day of the month is so that we know when Pesach is. But
it’s not
always easy to determine. Today, we can scientifically calculate the new moon’s
appearance and produce a Jewish calendar stretching out centuries in advance.
But in the ancient world, declaration of the new moon required human
observation of, and witness to, the tiny sliver of new moon hanging in the sky
after a night in which the moon was totally absent. This is not as easy as it
sounds. Imagine a rainy or overcast night.
Rashi
tells us that Moses had difficulty understanding how much of the new
moon needed to be visible in order to officially declare the new month. The
seemingly superfluous word “this” (made bold in the passage
above) inspires Rashi’s
explanation. He explained that “this” indicates
that God pointed to the new moon and said, “When you see it like this, declare
[the new moon].”
Clearly,
the size of the moon is critically important to setting the calendar—the
festivals of Pesach and Sukkot fall on the full moon—but the
Sages tell a fascinating story about how it came to be that the moon is smaller
than the sun and waxes and wanes over the course of each month:
R.
Shimon b. Pazzi raised a contradiction [between two verses in the Torah]: It
is written, And God made the two great lights” and
it is written, The greater light [to rule the day], and the lesser light [to
rule the night; he made the stars also]. (Genesis 1:16).
Said
the moon to the Holy One, blessed be God, “Master of the
Universe, is it possible to have two kings serve with one crown?”
God
said to her, “Go and be smaller.”
She
said to God, “Master of the Universe, because I said to you
something that is proper, [is it fair] that I have to make myself smaller?”
God
said to her, “Go and rule over both the day and the night.”
[The
moon] said to God, “What is the purpose of this? What good is a
lamp in the daylight?”
God
said to her, “Go so that Israel will be able to calculate
through you the days and the years.”
She
said to God, “It is not possible to calculate the seasons
without the sun. For it is written, Let them be for signs and for season and
for day and for years (Genesis 1:14).”
[God
said to the moon,] “Go forth. And righteous ones shall be called
by your name.” Jacob was called small [When they had
finished eating the grass of the land, I said, `O Lord God, forgive, I beseech
thee! How can Jacob stand? He is so small!' (Amos 7:2)]. Shmuel [the tanna was
called] ha-katan (“the small one”).
[King] David was ha-katan (“the
youngest”) [among his brothers];
the three eldest followed Saul (I Samuel 17:14)].
God
saw that the moon was not placated. The Holy One, blessed be God, said, “May
I attain atonement because I made the moon smaller.”
And about this R. Shimon b. Lakish said,
“What is different about the goat offering for
the new moon? For it is said regarding it, [Also one male goat for a sin
offering] to the Lord; [it shall be offered besides the continual burnt
offering and its drink offering] (Numbers 28:15). The Holy One, blessed be
God, said, “May I attain atonement because I made the
moon smaller.” (BT Chullin 60b)
In one
breath, God deemed the sun and moon “the two great lights” and in the next breath, the sun was
the “greater
light” and the moon was the “lesser
light.” These are the two conflicting verses
that R. Shimon b. Pazzi points out. The moon, with its monthly cycle, has long
been associated with women and so we can easily see this account as an allegory
explaining why women’s
status is beneath that of men: it appears to be a reflection of the heavenly
spheres, encoded into the structure of the cosmos. But let’s not lose
sight of what else this midrash says. The differentiation of size and status
between the sun and moon was not what was originally intended.
Initially, sun and moon were of equal size. God diminished the size (and
status) of the moon only when the moon pointed out something God missed, but
which we all know: a human organization cannot be run by two rulers. Not only
was the diminution of the moon’s status not part of the initial
plan, but it came about because of God’s anger: God resented the moon’s
observation that God’s
plan was inherently unfeasible and punished her by shrinking her. She objected,
and God clumsily attempted to rectify the situation by offering the
wholly unsuitable compensation of allowing her to shine both day and night. She
then honestly and forthrightly pointed out that her “compensation” is hardly a gift, so God offered that
“small” is an appellation that pertains to
several great personages (with proof texts following).
Who would
be assuaged by this rationalization? Would you? In the end, because the moon
will not give in to God’s
attempt to justify injustice, God atones. What an extraordinary claim! What is
more, R. Shimon b. Lakish tells us that the additional sacrificial offering
made each Rosh Chodesh is made not on behalf of the people, but rather on God’s behalf!
It is God’s
atonement offering for having treated the moon so improperly.
The
midrash suggests that the lower status of women in the community was not part
of the original “Plan,” and that God must continually atone
to humanity—and women,
in particular—for
setting in motion a society in which egalitarianism does not reign. This
suggests to me that the solution is in human hands. God looks to us to correct
inequality and establish the justice God wanted to plant in the world from the
beginning.
Is Tova
Ross correct in saying that photoshopping Angela Merkel out of the line-up of
world leaders is Much Ado About Nothing, and that we should focus on far more
important concerns? I think she’s entirely wrong. If we look around
the globe, we find the subjugation and abuse of women looms large and figures
into a large part of human suffering. Any society, Jewish or otherwise, whether
here in the United States or in far away Afghanistan, Pakistan, or Nigeria,
that forces women behind a “mechitzah” and beneath a “sheittel”—shunted
out of public view, excluded from having a voice of authority beyond the
kitchen—runs a far
greater risk of abuse of women than a society where all are valued equally and
function equally. Securing the social and religious realms for men and
confining women to hearth and home delivers the unequivocal message and reality
that men are superior and women must therefore be quiet and deferential.
Inevitably, women’s
lives are devalued and their health and safety compromised. We see it in all
fundamentalist societies around the world. Let us not make the mistake of
thinking that short of massacres, bombs, and military invasion, all is well.
If the
lack of egalitarianism were a problem only in the Haredi world, where deleting
images of women in the public sphere is de rigueur and women are
patronized or bullied into second-class status, it would be easier to
comprehend. But I am amazed and bewildered by others in the Jewish spectrum—modern by
most other accounts—who
defend separate prayers and privileges in the community. Separate is never equal.
Recent responses attempting to justify it that I have heard include: “It makes
my life easier,” “It’s actually
an advantage,” and “I don’t want to
do everything my husband has to do.” If
you don’t want to,
don’t. But to
hold out a fundamentally unequal society as God’s will to be imposed on all the
women in the community is morally
unacceptable, as every agunah will tell you. It is no different than
defending segregated buses and schools as “easier” and
“advantageous.” Easier for whom? Advantageous to
whom?
The very
Rabbis who encoded strict differentiation between men and women and inflexible
gender roles into early Jewish society knew, on some level, that what they were
doing was unjust. They attributed it to God, claiming that their decisions were
God’s will,
but even here they could not go the whole nine yards: God recognizes the
injustice of it and eternally atones, month after month after month. It’s time to
correct the injustice, implement full and unequivocal equality, and let God off
the hook.
© Rabbi
Amy Scheinerman
[1]
If you’re interested in doing some reading in this regard, I recommend Rachel
Adler’s classic Engendering Judaism, as well as Miriam Peskowitz’s
excellent study of gender construction in early rabbinic Judaism, Spinning
Fantasies: Rabbis, Gender, and History.
