She said/He said???

[Robert Cohen <rlcm17...>]

Dear friends:

The bizarre response to my several paragraphs of not too long ago responding 
to Shirona's description of an egalitarian traditional service she attended 
seems to me (no doubt mistakenly ...) to require a response--a forceful 
(and, I'm afraid, long--and certainly, delayed; couldn't be helped) 
response.

First, I'm sorry to have disappointed some undoubted well-wishers on this 
list who felt that my remarks--which actually seemed to me pretty restrained 
(!), and whose gist I continue to believe--were overly harsh or personal. 
(I'm trying to separate that out from some folks' not agreeing with 
me--which is another matter altogether.) I'm going to simply leap to the 
provisional conclusion that if some (though, I should add, not all) good 
folk thought so, perhaps it _was_ so. I certainly don't intend to introduce 
incivility to this list--and in terms of this broader discussion, I don't 
think it was I who introduced it. I perhaps should have kept Shirona's name 
out of my response, for one thing--I mentioned her name once, which may have 
been once too often. (Although Winston rebukes me for *not* mentioning her 
name!--more often, I guess--and although it will be impossible to coherently 
respond here *without* mentioning it...) I was responding to what seemed to 
me--and still seems--an endless series of self-righteous, intolerant 
postings mostly from one source; it's hard to (forcefully) criticize the 
attitude without criticizing the poster--though it's no doubt an effort 
worth making.

And I clearly erred in mistaking Shirona's description of a service for the 
service itself. I happily stand corrected and (also happily) accept sister 
Lorele's description of the service as the correct one--indeed, I should 
have inferred so from Moshe Adler's position as spiritual leader. He would 
not preside over a carnival.

Having said that, I must demur from one small piece of sister Lorele's 
valiant, and laudable, defense of her shul: She really cannot say that "no 
one was negatively affected by Shirona's watching them." How can she say? 
How can they, perhaps, even say? I continue to believe, strongly--sister 
Lorele perhaps and sister Reyzl definitely to the contrary 
notwithstanding--that observing others davening--with pride, with curiosity, 
or otherwise--has absolutely no place in any place of (serious) worship. And 
that, if you're not bothered by people watching you, then you either weren't 
aware they were watching (which is certainly possible--and might bespeak a 
*high* degree of focus in prayer) or, less happily, you weren't, at that 
moment, very focused in prayer at all. (Or you may have been very focused 
til the moment you realized you were being watched, which is part of the 
point.)

It is, no doubt, possible for people to be inspired by watching others pray; 
I know of this. And my own intensely disapproving (or overheated?) reaction 
may in part stem from my exceedingly disliking, myself, feeling watched 
during prayer (*not* necessarily by women!)--It's incompatible, for me, with 
the spiritual communion that is the goal of prayer: the unself-conscious 
sense of "dissolving of the self ... of union ... of infinite spacelessness" 
that a neurologist (!) recently identified as corresponding with states of 
prayer and meditation. (He's the author of the forthcoming book WHY GOD 
WON'T GO AWAY [!].) Indeed, sister Reyzl's comments only make things worse. 
To watch men at prayer to see if they're uncomfortable, angry, guilty 
(!--How can you tell?), or resentful--none of this is appropriate behavior 
in a synagogue or minyan.

As I mentioned in my previous posting, many women whom I've talked with, or 
heard from, like being separated in shul so they *won't* be watched. Why 
aren't men entitled to the same respect?

Now having said *that,* attention must--or I think should--be paid to the 
preposterous, ignorant, condescending, and/or hostile responses that my few 
paragraphs occasioned (or, apparently, provoked):

1) A small footnote (not covered by the description above): Moshe Adler 
*was* married to (the feminist theologian, as she was described) Rachel, but 
they have been divorced for many, many years. I'm not going to enlarge on 
that; but I *will* observe, though only Rav Moshe knows, that I suspect that 
his (Moshe's) openness to egalitarianism in davening is, at best, 
problematically and complexly related to Rachel's own understanding of the 
intersection of Judaism and feminism.

2) While I'm on this subject: Winston W., in a posting that begins by 
observing that I was not "reading Shirona's posting properly," charges, 
bizarrely, that I "attack" Rabbi Adler "for his leadership." I do? Where? I 
may or may not have read Shirona's posting properly, but Winston doesn't 
seem to have read mine at all. I had, and have, nothing but regard for Rabbi 
Adler, and I expressed nothing but regard in my posting--which Winston 
surely *didn't* read "properly."

3) Winston also, perhaps meaning it lightheartedly, indicates that he put 
together a program of women's music for my ... enlightenment? edification? 
(That's not, of course, why he did it, but he seems to suggest that it might 
serve that purpose.) Well, I'm always ready to hear new music--including new 
women's music; including Shirona's, which has been praised highly here--but 
this is a bit much, even lightheartedly.

Listen up, Winston et al.: I've been showcasing and promoting Jewish women's 
music well before the Internet, on which you transmit your programs, 
Winston, existed--and continue to do so right up to the present and, G*d 
willing, (already scheduled) future. In some 100 radio programs, on 
prime-time (and drive-time, and late-night) New York City radio; on National 
Public Radio; in hundreds of lectures and classes, where I've introduced 
Jewish women's music to audiences that would probably never have heard it 
otherwise; in magazine articles; in my forthcoming CD. (Indeed, I give 
entire lecture/presentations on Women in American-Jewish music.) Given the 
opportunities I've had (and created)--and, more to the point, availed myself 
of--it's questionable that anyone on this list has done more--or, maybe, 
even as much--to promote Jewish women's music to more people than I have, 
over as long as I have.

On my New York radio shows, btw, I broadcast-premiered any number of women 
singers and albums; proudly showcased Debbie Friedman more than 20 years 
before Carnegie Hall, and many years before so much of the Jewish world 
embraced her; and invited as guests the first invested woman cantor in this 
country, the first woman member of the Rabbinical Assembly, and the first 
woman rabbinical student at JTS--as well as many of our most prominent 
Jewish feminists (Rachel Adler, btw, included). I didn't agree with 
everything all of them said, but I believed in giving exposure to a very 
wide range of voices in Jewish life, including views both more and less 
"traditional" than my own, on any number of subjects.

One of the finest compliments I ever received, from a woman friend rather 
more feminist and religiously liberal than I, was that I was a genuine 
pluralist--one of the few she had ever known. I wonder whether the same 
could be said of a few of the intolerant, self-righteous voices we've heard 
from here--who profess respect for diverse views but don't, it seems from 
various discussions, actually respect them.

4) As icing on this particular cake, Shirona actually suggests--also maybe 
lightheartedly, I suppose, but surely seriously as well--that, since (?) I 
was offended, as I am, by her observational behavior in shul, I naturally 
(?) would take a contrarian position regarding what Shirona calls "cultural 
cross-pollination" in Jewish music.

Surprise: I've studied, taught, and written and broadcasted about the 
"cross-pollination" evident in American (and other) Jewish music for 
somewhere between 15 and 25 years, and studied, taught, written about, and 
celebrated (within appropriate parameters) the borrowing of melodies in 
Jewish prayer in particular (though many authorities, and some of my own 
teachers, are dubious or disapproving about the practice)--including 
lecturing for groups of cantors on the phenomenon; collecting scores, or 
hundreds, of examples of borrowings; and even inspiring and generating some 
original borrowings. Indeed, some of my students learned the concept of 
borrowing melodies for prayer from me (hopefully, within the [fluid] 
parameters I taught!) and went on to incorporate the practice into their own 
Jewish lives.

If we are to avoid labeling, which one poster gently seemed to suggest I was 
doing, why not begin by not attributing all manner of demonized beliefs to 
those we disagree with?

5) Instead, a number of posters made some preposterous inferences from my 
few paragraphs. (And in the age of Rush Limbaugh, aren't people embarrassed 
to "ditto" others rather than think for themselves?) One of Winston's 
correspondents (who did not intend, it turns out, for Winston to post his 
remarks) pronounced himself "on the opposite end of the religious/political 
spectrum" from me. Huh? How in the world does he know where I am on either 
spectrum (as if that's a simple matter of, uh, labeling, anyway). Maybe he's 
in touch with Shirona, who avers that she and others "know where I'm coming 
from" (well no, actually, you don't) and depreciates the "values" I'm 
"desperately holding on to"? Huh? Which values? Modesty and humility (*not* 
pride, which I believe has no place) in prayer? Unself-conscious focus and 
intensity in the synagogue?

Oh--and in *what* synagogues should perhaps be touched on too, since 
Winston, for example, absurdly infers that I was offended by "a congregation 
[the one Shirona visited] that "has come out of the 18th century." Putting 
aside what Winston or any of us knows or doesn't know about 18th-century 
worship--I suspect that some 18th- and 19th-century congregations probably 
resembled some of today's more formal liberal (non-Orthodox) synagogues than 
they did, say, Orthodox minyanim--here's what _I_ know: I've davened, 
studied, and taught in Reform, Conservative, and various styles of Orthodox 
synagogues; with Hassidic and neo-Hassidic congregations; in havurot and 
egalitarian minyanim (one of which, in fact, I co-founded); and in Jewish 
Renewal settings.

(A delicious footnote: Lorele advises that in her shul--which was the 
original locus of controversy--a group of worshipers--herself included--sing 
settings of Salamone Rossi at services, thus bringing the *16th century [and 
the 17th] into their congregation!)

What I wrote may have been overheated or too personal in tone, but it 
doesn't approach--remotely--the distortions and vitriol, let alone the sheer 
stupid, sexist, misandrous rubbish, that it elicited from others (in 
postings some of which you haven't seen). I resent it, and it ought to give 
rise to a great deal of soul-searching on the part of some posters and 
correspondents.

Meanwhile, I'll continue, "in touch with my own conscience," as Shirona has 
it, to try to reflect what Lorele calls "the courage to act on what [I] feel 
is correct." (A group of traditionalist Conservative rabbis--not my rebbes, 
by the way--manifested that, and had "the guts to act on [their] 
beliefs--even in the face of a hostile peer environment" [Shirona's words 
again], and so broke with many in_their_ peer group, the Conservative 
movement and, I think, the Rabbinical Assembly, in part on the issue of 
ordaining women; do Shirona and others respect, and honor, them?)

I'll try, along the way, to seek guidance from the One whose will I do not 
know (unlike several posters, who professed *to* know) but can only 
seek--perhaps, sometimes, in moments of blissfully unobserved, 
un-"performed," unproud prayer. (I do not, myself, allow for enough of 
them.) May every one of us--those who agree with me and those who don't; 
those who have offended me and those (the same people?) whom I have 
offended--know that special place in the heart--and be able to get there 
whenever we need to.
--Robert Cohen

"To be nobody but myself--in a world which is doing its best, night and day, 
to make you everybody else--means to fight the hardest battle which any 
human being can fight, and never stop fighting."
--e. e. cummings
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