[HANASHIR:8323] A view from another list

[shirona <shirona...>]

My last posting on this topic.  It's a promise!

Of all things to happen - my email was malfunctioning yesterday...  I was
beginning to think that perhaps this is a "message from above" - to cut it
out already.  Gladly... I'm exhausted, and I pretty much said everything I
had to say about it.  Too bad about the serious misunderstanding of some of
my analogies - so I just want to clear this one up:

The analogy to Cancer and pathology was not to say that the *practice* of
Kol Isha IS the pathology - but rather - an example of why it's important to
get to the root, the core of a problem, any problem,  in order to start
healing - otherwise there is no healing.

Just so you know - this debate was going on simultaneously on another Jewish
Music list - with about TWICE as much volume. I want to share this
particular message with Hanashir - because it gives an excellent overview of
things that were said, that I consider paramount to understanding the
problem.  Reyzl, the author of this posting, really knows what she's talking
about... ( unlike me...with less knowledge - just strong opinions, and an
uncompromising sense of Justice...)

Warning:  It's long!  But very, very good.

Shirona



----- Original Message -----
From: "Reyzl Kalifowicz-Waletzky" <reyzl (at) flash(dot)net>
To: "World music from a Jewish slant" <jewish-music (at) shamash(dot)org>
Sent: Wednesday, February 21, 2001 8:07 AM
Subject: FW: kol isha


> Judith wrote:
>
> >I really wasn't going to get into this one again! But since you put it
> >this way Shirona, I'm with you all the way.(except the "America" part,
> >please :)  ) Judith
>
> Ditto, ditto.  I am with you ladies.  I graduated from the most
> religious girls yeshiva in America, but I wouldn't walk into any
> synagogue that has a mekhitse unless I am out of town and have no choice.
>
> Someone wrote:
>
> >Being fiercely critical of a code which one regards as demeaning is
> >>>hardly disrespect.
>
> Well said.
>
> Alex wrote:
> >Please!  If you want to let us in on your position, you can do it
> >on-list.  You've extended this invitation to enough of us to go
> >public.  I would submit that you don't know how much anyone who
> >disagrees with you does or doesn't know about Halacha, and that you
> >assume that a disagreement with your position could only stem from
> >ignorance.
> >or, as you say, give it the benefit of the doubt because of its
> >endurance, I respectfully disagree.
>
> Let me add to this.
> Whenever any one gives you this rhetoric, what they mean is that they
> haven't had a chance to give you the rationalization and mystification men
> have honed for years on this point or that the listener hasn't bought into
> the argument yet.  It is the usual disrespectful style many Orthodox men
> have of telling you that if you haven't bought into it, it's because you
> have not studied Talmud.  The only way this argument ran for so long is
> because they made sure that women were never had access to the Talmud and
> thus couldn't argue Talmudically.  It was forbidden to teach women Talmud
> for fear that if any woman would master that argument style, she would
gain
> the power to change things to their convenience.  Any man who attempted to
> teach girls Torah got serious sanctions from the religious authorities, so
> that only a handful of highly learned rabbis could get away with teaching
> their daughters, and even then it was done secretly, no matter how
> brilliant the daughters were.  They shut women out of learning, out of
> organizational power, relegated them to small sections behind curtains.
>  Freeing women from the requirement of fulfilling mitsves was extended to
> denote a prohibition against doing mitsves.  Well, they can't stop things
> now.  Once women began being educated, the genie was let out of the bottle
> and there is no way of getting it back in.
>
> Most Orthodox Jewish today women don't believe don't believe in kol isha,
> but will not openly challenge it.  They have chosen to wait while others
> are studying in preparation for making the changes.
>
> Trudi wrote:
>
> >As  for Kol Isha, I still say that it is not something that I want
> >to help perpetuate. I know all of the arguments for and against.
> >Frankly, I view it as more a sociological phenomenon and Wolf is
> >right as far as I am concerned. It is just a justification for
> >keeping women in their place. Not all religious traditions are
> >spiritually based. And it's time to call Kol Isha what it is: a
> >mysogynist phenomenon of days gone by. If people are comfortable
> >with it. Some women I know still wear sheitels.
>
> I agree wholeheartedly that kol isha is men's means of keeping women in
> their place, but I don't know if we can say that it is simply or only
> misogynist.  It is also a rabbinical means of controlling men and making
> sure that they keep to Judaism, especially in the wide, open Diaspora.  As
> Margaret Mead once wrote, the success of a society is determined by how a
> society keeps the men occupied while the women are taking care of the
> babies.  Well if you keep the men occupied with duties and ritual requir
> ements, you have to buy them off with something to massage their egos and
> this is what was chosen.  Religion used to be in the hands of the fertile
> women, but was now assigned to the male realm and women have been told
that
> they have to pay the price by suppressing themselves.   Whatever the life
> in early times were, this paradigm is not necessary or productive in
modern
> times with its high infant survival rate, low birth rate, birth control,
> modern medicine, longevity, democratic governments, etc.   Don't have more
> time to explain this point further.
>
>
> Ari wrote:
>
> >It's not necessarily an equivalent action, Winston. I can't speak
> >to the specifics within the Orthodox community, but certainly within
> >the feminist movement, all-women events are, in part, a reaction to
> >a society that is male-dominant and often woman-exclusionary
> >(hopefully, less so today, than 30 years ago, but certainly not to
> >such a degree that the issues have become irrelevant), nor are such
> >events as common, or as large, or as economically significant as the
> >men-only events.
>
> Correct, but I just want to add to this.  Women get together in feminist
> seyders to discover, restore, and/or develop the feminine aspects of
> important Jewish religious life and rituals - an arena from which they
> have been, for many centuries, denied a role or input.  It is also a
> means of gathering for strength and support in their/our attempt to
> restore that feminine sensibility in general Jewish ritual.  Once those
> things will be worked out, there will no longer be any to limit this
> to just women.  Second, because making halakhic peysakh preparations in
> your own home are so difficult, Jewish women are exhausted by the time
> the seyder happens.  A women's seyder is probably the only real
> opportunity women have to focus on the text, meaning, ruakh of Peysakh
> without worrying about the kneydlakh and if everyone got served properly.
> The men sit like kings at the table and they are the slaves, especially
> on Peysakh.  Now, of course, since I choose to follow all peysakh rules
> halakhically in my kitchen, I have of course willingly enslaved myself
> on this yontev.  I should also tell you that I am always planning to go
> to a feminist Seyder and have yet to get to one myself.
>
>
> Jordan wrote:
>
> >When I speak of Jewish Jurisprudence and Orthodoxy, it
> >is only because the Orthodox movement is taking on the chin on this list
> over
> >Kol Isha.
>
> And why should it not be?  Why should any man be able to sing and dance
> where ever and when ever he wants, be he spiritual or not, and a woman, no
> matter how spiritual, simply because of her gender, is not allowed to?
>   When you have Orthodox congregational leaders telling a woman singer who
> is to perform for women that they will not advertise her concerts, in case
> a man might be tempted to go it, why does the women's anger surprise you?
>  Exposing men's potential weakness is the big fear, while a woman's
> talents, spirit, or religiosity counts for dirt.
>
>
> Hanna Yaffe wrote:
> >>>
> >I know the power of the voice, both male and female, and I can appreciate
> that there are some men who are on a spiritual path, and a beautiful voice
> could distract such a person, but such people are really rare, and it's a
> real shame that many of us suffer because the mainstream orthodox
> community, and its leaders cannot find the courage to say Yes, but keeps
on
> saying NO, even when there are plenty of loopholes, and a way could be
> found to be lenient.
>
> Don't worry, they are not going to be saying no for long, because there
are
> too many orthodox women who have freed themselves to pursue the kind of
> spiritual life men have always enjoyed and they now want to express their
> voices.  It not only that they are expressing their voices, but it has
been
> undeniable that when they do, they have something worthwhile to say,
> something equally good if not better than many men.  Books with women's
> talumdic commentaries are now beginning to come out.  These voices can no
> longer be squelched.  They will no longer be able to hold women back by
> saying that "modesty" is required because men have no self-control.
>
> This whole complaint that a voice beautiful voice of a bal-tfile can
> distract people from their spiritual path has been made about many (male)
> cantors, hence hasidism's avoidance of operatic cantors and encouragement
> of congregants (male of course) finding their own voices in the prayer.
>  But a male bal-tfile with a beautiful voice is still sought after, while
> women with any voice, beautiful or not, is squelched.  If you take away a
> person's voice, you take away the person's power, and hence this is what
> kol-isha is really about.  Women were/are not asked to find their own
> voices, because the powers that be didn't/don't want women asserting
> themselves in any way.  In Europe and in America, they had shuls and
> shtiblakh for every trade and economic groups, but no one ever encouraged
> or allowed women's tfile groups.  It was considered foolish, degrading,
and
> abhorrent for any melamed to even teach girls how to pray, even if they
> wanted to or even if they were wealthy enough to have others taking care
of
> the children.  (You can even see that social policy expressed in the
> wonderful Yiddish film/play "Grine Felder".  Even after girls yeshivas and
> seminary were established in post-War years, girls/women were not
> encouraged to find any spiritual voice in any place or anywhere, moreover,
> they were restricted to immediate family.  It is only now that frum girls
> succeeded in secular education and saw that they are able to achieve
> equality with men in every field of endeavor that they realize that they
> can tackle Talmud too.  This is what will make a difference now.  Various
> institutions and circles have arisen in the last 10 years to prepare
> Orthodox women for Talmud instructions and now, even the rabbinate.  As
> several educators and rabbis have said, getting women prepared for the
> rabbinate has not been difficult.  In fact, a whole group of women are
> already ready.  Getting rabbis (male) to break rank with the brotherhood
is
> what has been difficult.  Many, many girls are now seriously studying in
> Israeli yeshivas.  Drisha Institute in NYC, in fact, prepares women for
the
> rabbinate, but can not bestow that title on them.  The good news is that
> two Orthodox women recently received Orthodox smicha (=rabbinical
> ordination).  One, however, won't tell the name of the rabbi who gave her
> smicha for fear of the reprisals he would suffer from the rabbinical
> syndicate :).  (She already got a position in a Conservative synagogue in
> Switzerland.)  So, soon, soon, the Orthodox men won't be able to stop
these
> Orthodox women and kol isha will be made inert.  Orthodox feminist
> conferences are extremely successful and about 1500 women came to the one
> last year in NY.  (This year's conference is supposed to take place now in
> February but I don't have any details on that.)  What the rabbis
discovered
> when they forbade women from attending a Queens, NY Orthodox women's tfila
> group 2-3 years ago, their prohibition inspired such groups to multiply
> three-fold.   Less than a dozen existed at that time and about 50 sprung
up
> less than a year later.   They already see that they can't control the
> women as well as they used to.
>
> They could invent things like shabes clocks, shabes key rings, automatic
> elevators, answering machines, sealed & frozen kosher food, selling
> chomets, etc. to get around halakha, but they have refused to make any
> changes to free women from the unfair and unjust, ancient, self-serving
> male interpretations of Torah.  All this while they made up a variety of
> rules, regulations and stipulations to close women off from the legal and
> social discourse on the issues that effect women and their lives.  Don't
> worry Shirona, it's only a matter of time now.  More and more Orthodox
> women are mastering the texts and they, with the help of Rabbi Saul Berman
> (someone I have dearly loved since first studying Talmud with him in a
> mixed gender class thirty years ago in Boston) will make the necessary
> changes in Orthodoxy.  Chareydi, I don't know, but they will significantly
> change in a generation or two, as they already have in the 20th century.
>
> One way you can help this is by supporting/advertising women's yeshivas,
> Orthodox women's prayer groups, Orthodox women's publications (good for
> gifts) and program's like Rebbitsn Michelle Gartner's program and forming
> other events/concerts/recordings/stations for women's spiritual voices.
>  HUC in New York has had several such concerts and events and it would be

> good if people re-created those programs and/or repertoires in concerts in
> their local communities.  These are some of the many ways of fighting this
> thing and of speeding up the process.  I think that having conservative
> women cantors rather than Reform women cantors in developing and
performing
> good programming would probably be more helpful in breaking down the
> Orthodox camp.  You can get together with women rabbis from JTS to help
> develop various programs in your local area.  These are the kinds of
> actions that will help get kol isha changes made.  Orthodox men and rabbis
> have to see spiritual Jewish women in their community wanting such things
> for them to feel that must stand aside when the female scholars (and a few
> courageous men) will stand up to present the legal arguments for the
> changes.  In fact, when enough men will see women insisting on releasing
> their spiritual voices, they will support the legal arguments coming in
the
> next 2-10 years.
>
> That kol isha rulings offends us, we know that.  That we are upset about
it
> and that we won't walk into a shul where these rules apply, many of us
> already do that.  The important thing is what are we going to do about it.
>  No, sitting in the men's section is not the answer.  :)    Sing Shirona,
> sing and keep on singing and get other women to sing with you, no matter
> who is present.  That's the answer, I think.
>
>
> Reyzl Kalifowicz-Waletzky
>
>
> ---------------------- jewish-music (at) shamash(dot)org 
> ---------------------+
>