The video clip that was shown in class about the Women of the Wall provoked quite a reaction in me. Having been raised and educated with a “modern” and “western” perspective, it’s hard to process the dichotomy of patriarchal scripture and women’s rights. While I understand that I will never understand the passion with which some of the men at The Wall oppose these women, I was intriguied to know that their movement is not confined solely to “Americanized” Jews, but rather consists of members from reform, conservative, and even orthodox sects.

Their existence raised an interesting question to me. While I’ve considered it before in regard to the historical ordainments of Christian women into different sects of Christianity (not to mention female rabbis as well…), the casual “everydayness” of their message really pushed the issue for me: where is the line draw between political correctness in religion, and when does it become a social issue rather than a message of devotion? Naturally many of the verses /commandments in both testaments of the Bible can be considered archaic; after all, it is an archaic piece of literature.

I’m curious, though, as to whether humanity will be capable of evolving religion, in particular toward the equality of men and women, both spiritually and practically. In my opinion, the “creation” of religion arose from humanity’s need for guidance, for understanding, and for personal comfort. Those reasons remain true today, though in addition to them is a history of religion being used to manipulate certain hierarchies, whether it be dominance of land and power in Europe during the crusades, or, dare I say, reinforcing limiting gender roles.

What the Women of the Wall have created is a physical illustration of that question. Their success, and the success of their followers will be the answer. While already there have been changes in religions to accommodate women’s rights, this movement can literally in interpreted as taking place in the heart of religion itself. Personally, I wish them luck.

I was pretty familiar with the story of Lilith before I had read about her in Shalom Sabar’s article “Childbirth and Magic: Jewish Folklore and Material Magic.” As a Christian studying the Bible on my own, I had many questions about the first two chapters of Genesis. It seemed to me that the discrepancies between them seemed obvious and that they were definitely contradicting stories. However, when I asked my Pastor at church about it, he seemed to shrug off the question, giving me some vague and unsatisfying explanation. Further research about Genesis led to many fascinating subjects such as the gap theory (states that there is an interval of millions of years between the first two versus of chapter one in genesis, thus explaining the age of the Earth), but as a woman and a feminist I found the story of Lilith especially interesting.

The character of Lilith is prevalent not only in Christianity, Islam, and Judaism, but in other religious societies as well, like for example, the ancient Egyptian culture. I think this partly has to do with the influence and maintenance of control over women by society and patriarchal structures. The archetype of the wild destructive woman who lives beyond social norms can be used to engender fear among women and discourage people to live outside of the norm. When researching about Lilith, I thought it was interesting that she is often personified as an owl but it was frustrating to me to find that in certain translations of the Bible her name actually shows up in the text and in others it refers to her as an owl. I guess in a naïve sort of way I thought the KJV Bible would be the most accurate so I was a little surprised when in the book of Isaiah it did not directly cite Lilith. This makes me wonder a lot about translations and how a translator decides to define certain words.

I was also able to learn more about Lilith through the course I took last semester called “Women, Gender, and Judaism.” I found that instead of being a character that is feared and detested by the female community, it has been adopted by the Jewish feminist community as a symbol of female resistance and empowerment. So going from a perceptive where women almost celebrate Lilith, it became particularly interesting to learn about how Lilith was incorporated into the amulets and other forms of protection for the use of women during childbirth. Another thing that I found interesting/amusing that is more related to the general theme of protection for a mother in labor than directly to Lilith, is when Sabar’s article discussed the tradition of having the Torah with a women in labor for protection. This custom led to some interesting conflicts and adaptations. Since women were considered “unclean” after giving birth than she might desecrate the Torah, so in some Jewish communities, in order to fix this problem they would tie a string to the Torah in the synagogue and the woman would hold on to the end of the string. A little off topic, but still quite interesting.

Although I am not an expert on the character Lilith, as a member of American society I feel that my understanding of her is important, at least in representing a popular understanding of her and her role in Judaism, Islam, and Christianity. As Sabar explains, Lilith, Adam’s first wife, wanted to be positioned over Adam during intercourse, claiming that since they were both made from the clay of the earth, they were equal. Adam refused to accept these accommodations; he felt that he was superior to Lilith, and therefore, that he should lie on top. As a result of Adam’s refusal, Lilith left him. Furthermore, Lilith’s refusal to return to Adam, who surely would have continued to insist upon her inferiority, transformed her into a demon.

I was fascinated upon learning about this story in “Religion and Modern Culture,” a religion course taught by Professor Donaldson. To me, the story of Lilith represents that of the first feminist, the first woman to demand equality in a relationship. However, just as might occur today, because Lilith refused to be subservient to a man, she was cast aside, labeled a demon, or as we might say today, an “ice queen” or a “bitch.” The man, on the other hand, found a new woman, Eve, one that accepts her role as the subservient partner. This story sounds all too familiar, or perhaps, all too much like an episode of “Sex and the City.” Not only do I find this story problematic, but I also find problems with the ways in which Lilith is represented as a result of her actions. Lilith became a demon whose purpose is to harm newborn babies; in others words, women who demand equality threaten our social system and the birth of future generations, much like some argued only decades ago that women having full time jobs (i.e. equality) would cause a population decline or ruin our family values. Additionally, Lilith is a figure that women themselves are frightened of and that they must take protective measures against; sisterhood itself has been destroyed because of the ways that Lilith is represented. Representations of Lilith as a demon only serve to perpetuate the idea that women who demand equality in a relationship are evil and attempting to overthrow our social system.

It seems to me that this story shows how, since the creation of the Earth, there has been a constant struggle for power between men and women, one that men always win. Is the purpose of this story to show that men are indeed superior to women, and women who challenge this system are deviants worthy of expulsion from society? Sabar claims that the purpose of this story was to legitimize the use of amulets, but I question whether there were additional, more chauvinistic, motives for writing this story. It would be interesting to see how modern progressive Jews, Muslims, and Christians reconcile their faith, which involves such patriarchal designs, with their demands for equality, an idea that, according to the story of Lilith, seems to be disregarded in the Bible.

The topic of a woman’s place in Judaism has always been of great interest to me. As a woman, it is a way to search for my own place within Judaism.  I have experienced many different customs as well as had many different evolutions of my own beliefs about women in Judaism.
When I was growing up I went to a Reform shul.  My mother is Jewish but my father is not.  Because of these things I never really noticed any difference between men and women in religious circumstances.  Boys and girls became b’nai mitzvah at the same time.  Families prayed as a unit.  My mother was in charge of all religion in the household.  Women wore kippot and tallitot with as much frequency as men.  The cantor was a woman and the rabbi a man.  We invoked the G-d of our fathers and of our mothers.  I never thought twice about being a Jewish woman.  I was just a Jew, no different than the boys.
It wasn’t until probably around middle school that I began to learn that in more traditional circles there were large differences between the genders.  I began to notice that Orthodox women were always covered up and wearing skirts (which my mother explained to me was because they didn’t want to let men see the shapes of their bodies).  My mother began to put an orange on our seder plate as a form of protest against the rabbi who had once remarked, “a woman belongs on the bimah like an orange belongs on the seder plate.”  I also saw women have a bat mitzvah ceremony as adults because their communities did not have the ceremonies for girls when they were young.  But despite all of this, in my daily religious experience girls were still no different than boys.
It was when I started attending a Jewish high school that this idea was shattered.  Yes, I attended an egalitarian minyan but the girls almost seemed only to participate in protest of non-egalitarianism.  Down the hall there was a minyan in which a woman’s place was completely different.  There were two separate sections divided by a removable wall (a mechitza).  The women were not even allowed to walk through the men’s section to get to their own.  They did not wear tallitot or kippot.  They were not allowed to lead services or be called to the Torah.  I was shocked.  I didn’t understand.  I had always thought that Judaism was a tolerant religion, yet here were these girls who could do almost nothing.  And the worst part was that they had chosen to be there! I was furious and I could not understand.
I have come a long way from this initial reaction 6 years ago.  I currently wear only skirts in the presence of men and always cover my shoulders.  I am uncomfortable sitting next to men while praying though I do not feel the need for a physical barrier and am okay without completely separate sections.  I will not put on tefillin, though I would put on a tallit but find it completely unnecessary and usually do not do so.  I do however, still maintain that women should be counted in a minyan and allowed to participate fully in the service (leading prayers, being called to the Torah, etc), but I do not feel that women have obligations to fulfill the time-based mitzvot.  But, I do believe that they are welcome to perform most of them if they wish.
Obviously this change in opinion did not occur overnight.  Throughout my high school career I struggled with friends “putting themselves down,” as I saw it, but as I became more familiar with the customs some of the ideas started to click with me.  I had a wonderful rabbi who was Orthodox and taught from a completely Orthodox point of view but in a way that was completely open and understanding.  He explained the idea that women don’t do the mitzvot because they are already closer to G-d.  He also explained that modesty (tznius) and the separation of the sexes was due to men’s weakness and is not at all a commentary on women.  When I first heard these things I dismissed them as excuses for completely sexist ideas.
I went to Israel for second semester of my senior year with my high school class and I wanted to pray but the only options were often Orthodox services.  As I spent more time in these places where I originally felt so uncomfortable and that used to outrage me, I began to get more and more comfortable. When I had the opportunity to go to an egalitarian service, I felt uncomfortable sitting next to a boy.  This was the first time in my life that I had felt more connected to women than boys (I was the girl whose best friends were always boys growing up), and it felt really good.  And getting comfortable with the customs made me look at the ideology differently and I my ideas started to change.
It’s still hard for me because my mixture of beliefs is shared by very few people and I have yet to encounter a place to pray where I can be completely comfortable, but it is still very interesting to see how much my views have changed.  I see people who were in the place I was 6 years ago, and I understand them completely, but I also hope that they will really come to understand that the more traditional views are not all restrictive, that a lot of them give women more freedom and opportunity.