RABBI ARTHUR SEGAL: JEWISH ECO-JUDAISM: METZORA: WOMEN'S RIGHTS

RABBI ARTHUR SEGAL: JEWISH ECO-JUDAISM: METZORA: WOMEN'S RIGHTS

 

 RABBI ARTHUR SEGAL:CHUMASH CANDESCENCE:

PARASHA METZORA: LEVITICUS 14:01-15:33

CHUMASH CANDESCENCE
 PARASHA METZORA
LEVITICUS 14:01-15:33
SHABBAT HA GADOL

Rabbi Arthur Segal www.jewishspiritualrenewal.org
Jewish Renewal www.jewishrenewal.info
Jewish Spiritual Renewal http://rabbiarthursegal.blogspot.com
Jewish Spirituality
Eco Judaism
facebook.com/RabbiArthurSegalJewishSpiritualRenewal
Hilton Head Island, SC, Bluffton, SC, Savannah, GA

"God created man in His image...He created them male and female...God blessed them and God said to them: Be fruitful and multiply" (Genesis
1:27-28).

My apologies to you, dear reader, if the content of this week's d'var
Torah causes anyone any unpleasantness. This Torah portion in the early Reform
services was not read, and a portion from one of the Prophets was
substituted for it. Some may consider its topic to be X-rated. I can
assure you that it is all from our Torah and our Talmud. If you are
uncomfortable with it, please set it aside for another time. These
chapters however were studied vigorously not only by our sages but also
by the Church fathers. The ramifications these chapters have had on Western
society's view of sex, women's roles, women's rights and bodily fluids
has been astounding.

Genesis says that men and women are made in God's image and were
created by God. We were commanded to multiply, the first of the Torah's
613 Mitzvoth. We were created, as you know, from your biology classes,
with our females having the ova (eggs) that would once fertilized
by our species male seed (semen) in her uterine wall grow and nurture
into a child. If this wall is not embedded, it is sloughed off monthly in
what is called menses. It is a wonderful system, made as we are
traditionally taught in God's image by God. God would not make us full
of dirty and contaminated fluids, would He?

"A man from whom there is a discharge of semen shall immerse his entire
flesh in the water and remain contaminated until evening" (Lev. 15:16). "Any
bedding  upon which the person with the discharge will recline shall be
contaminated, and any vessel upon which he will sit shall become contaminate" (Lev.
15:04).  "Anyone who touches the flesh of this man...remains contaminated" (Lev.
15:07). If the "contaminated person" spits on someone, that person becomes
contaminated (Lev. 15:08) and any riding equipment he sits on becomes
contaminated (Lev. 15:09). A woman having had sex is contaminated until
the  evening (Lev. 15:18). "When a woman has a discharge, her discharge being
menstrual blood, she shall be in a state of separation for seven days and
anyone touching her shall remain contaminated until the evening" (Lev.
15:19). Her bedding and clothes become contaminated and anyone having sex with
her, is contaminated for seven days (Lev. 15:20-24).

The Talmud teaches that semen or a zav-emission is contaminated. It causes
contamination to the emitter and anyone who touches it or him. The Talmud
called a man who has had a seminal emission a baal keri. If one has a
second and then a third emission, his level of contamination and what he needs
to do to purify himself increases. If one sits on a blanket that a baal keri
sat  upon, he becomes contaminated. If he sits upon ten blankets, with the
bottom most one being the only one that the baal keri sat on, he still
becomes contaminated (Rashi).

The Talmud extracts its laws of family purity, taharat ha mishpocha,
from verses 15:19-28. The basis for the laws of a menstruant (niddah) and
the period of time each month a man is forbidden to his wife (niddut) are
found in these verses according to the sages. The rabbis posited that since
husband  and wife are sanctified to one another, these laws of family purity
are the basis for the religious survival of the family unit.

Talmud Niddah 66A states that since it is difficult for a woman to know
exactly when she has stopped menstruating, whether her discharge is
menstrual blood, clotted blood, or another type of discharge (zavah), she needs to
bring a "bedeka" cloth to her rabbi for him to look at it to make the
determination if she is allowed to again cohabit with her husband.
Since it is difficult to determine if the stains on this cloth are fresh blood,
dried blood, or a zavah secretion, the Talmud says the women of Israel took it
upon themselves to assume they are in a state of zavah contamination when they
have any discharge. This then adds an additional period of time a woman's
normal monthly flow when sex with her husband is prohibited. This practice is
still done today in traditional communities.

"Mundus Vult Decipi," the world wants to be deceived. Our people did not
invent family purity laws, nor did we take them to their furthermost
degree. Other cultures that preceded us in the Middle East had similar
prohibitions, and the Koran, which was written a short time after our Talmud, has
multiple pages describing every imaginable color pattern of a woman's discharge.

If there is any area where Judaism goes to an absolute extreme it is in
the separation of the sexes, says Rabbi Dovid Rosenfeld. Traditionally, boys
and  girls were sent to separate schools on the pretext of sexual separation.
However the effect was to keep girls unschooled and untaught in Torah and
Talmudic laws that controlled their lives and keep them well versed in
child care, cooking, and other household duties. In a traditional
synagogue men and women are separated with a mechitza partition. Mixed social
gathering  and dating were almost nonexistent. Match making with arranged shidduchs
(engagements) was the norm.

The Talmud says a man and woman who are not married to each other cannot
be alone in a place where it is unlikely for someone to intrude. How old can
this woman be in order not to be alone with a man? Three years old is the
answer. Why three? Because a three-year-old is capable of having sex.
Someone younger than three can have sex, but her hymen will regrow, the rabbis
teach, so she is still technically a virgin, and her father can still marry her
off  as "unspoiled."

The Mishna states in Chagiga 1:08, that many of our precepts are as
"mountains hanging on hairs." This means that mountains of technical
details and laws are based on passing scriptural references. I can understand how
society then needed to function with women subservient to men. I can
understand also the use of slaves in this historical context. But I
cannot  condone nor can I tolerate seeing Jewish women or any women being
dragged  along, unwillingly, by their Talmudic hair. Granted that our Talmud is
said to protect women with a ketubah (marriage contract). But if one
reads  the tractate in the Talmud called Ketuvot one will find that the vast
majority of the text is to protect the man's investment in his wife (or
wives).

Dafs (folios) 6A and B discuss whether having sex with a virgin on
Shabbat is allowed. Rabbi Simi says that one may not stuff a piece of cloth to
seal a barrel. But Rabbi Shmuel says on Shabbat one may enter a narrow opening
even though he may make pebbles fall. Rav Ami says it is wrong to lance a boil
on Shabbat because pus in a boil is stored and outside the flesh, but
that virginal blood is stored, but inside the flesh. The pages go on like this
discussing how one gives back a bride who is not a virgin, and how one
can decide his wife's virginity. There is very little concern for the welfare
of  the bride especially when she must be forced to testify that she was a
virgin and to show proof of this with a bloodied rag. Remember also in any
traditional  ketubah, it is the husband who can release his wife from marriage and
"pay her off.' If a husband does not give his wife a Get (Jewish divorce), he
is free to remarry as he may have many wives. The abandoned wife cannot
remarry as she is still legally married. The liberal Jewish movement has made
monumental inroads into this problem by making part of the marriage
ketubah a promise of the husband to grant his wife a Get, in case of a civil
divorce.

There are Talmudic reasons for a ketubah to be voided so a divorced woman
is given nothing. This is not just for adultery. A woman's ketubah "rights"
are voided if she serves him food that has not been tithed, having sex with
him when menstruating, not separating the challah, breaking a promise, going
to the market with her head uncovered, speaking (!) to another man, or
spinning in public (sits with her legs spread). Whose purity are we protecting with
these taharat ha mishpocha? Whose family are we protecting? Or do these laws
just protect the man's investment in his wife under the guise of family
purity?

Judaism has never subscribed to the notion of men living together to gain
spirituality through celibacy like monks and priests. But
the church fathers got their interpretation of women as distractions to
spirituality from our teachings. The Talmud when written was
sex-segregated and patriarchal. Yes, we can be quoted passages about how God told
Abraham to "listen" to Sarah, as examples of how women have respect in traditional
Judaism. But what did Sarah tell Abraham to do? She told him to kick Hagar
and Ishmael out of the camp. A different reading might say that the
entire Arab-Jewish conflict was based on a barren woman's jealousy. The rabbis
of  the Talmud, as I will give you examples, were easily aroused by women.

The only time they spent with women was as small children with their mothers,
or in bed for a few moments with their wives. Because of their beliefs it
was necessary for them to live their lives, not with women, but parallel to
them. Some acted like monks during the day but had marital relations at night.

While there are Talmudic passages in which men recognized their own weak
sexual nature and made many laws to keep women separate from men, some say that
the  Torah shows women as "anomalous, dangerous, dirty, and polluting" writes
Jacob Neusner. Some write that the sages ascribe moral laxity to women
with  women incapable of sexual constraint. Leonie Archer claims that the
rabbis consider women to be the sexual aggressors.

In Talmud Kiddushin, Mishna chapter 4, law 12 disallows a man to be
alone with two women, as the rabbis posit sex could occur with one while the
other watched, or with both. The same Mishna allows a woman to be alone with
two men, as men are so Torah conscious, they would protect each other from
her advances. The Talmud teaches that if your business is with women, do not
be alone with them. A man should not teach his son a trade that will let him
be among women. (Can a traditional Jew be a gynecologist?) A woman can be
alone with two men, but not if one is a child, because "she is not embarrassed
to engage in sexual relations in the presence of a minor."

 

Rabbi Judah said that bachelors may not pasture small cattle (sheep, goats) because they would
do bestiality, but the Talmud allows this, as "Jewish men are not suspected
of  this." (Did the rabbis miss the passages in the Torah about how if a man
has sex with an animal both he and the animal are killed?)

The Talmudic law says that one man cannot accompany two woman and one of
their dead children to the cemetery for burial for fear that they will
seduce him. The Talmud also teaches that men should not hear a woman's voice
as they will find it seductive. This of course lends another validation
for a mechitza during worship. Should the women in our society be
subjected to humiliation because men
cannot control themselves? Are the wearing of wigs, frum clothes, and
hiding  behind a mechitza needed because men will not take a metaphorical cold
shower?

According to Rabbi Ismar Schorsch, Chancellor of the Jewish Theological
Seminary in New York City, where modern Orthodox rabbis are trained,
Judaism "avows the goodness of the human body. It is no less a mirror of God's
grandeur than the soul. Judaism does not dichotomize human nature into
body and soul, polar opposites locked in never-ending conflict. The flesh
is not the devil's domain or the seat of our passions, to be expiated by
the spirit."

 

Professor Jacob Milgrom in the new Anchor Bible commentary
on Leviticus explains that to the desert Israelites "blood was the arch
symbol of life. Its oozing from the body was not the world view of the
sign of demons, but was certainly a sign of death." If the intention
therefore of the author of the Torah laws was to have us appreciate life
in all people, segregating women for a third of each month may have
protected men from "a walking death," but certainly painted women as
carriers of death. As we can see from any reading of history,
scapegoating some group as bearers of evil, poisoners of wells, carriers
of plagues, destroyers of economies, blood suckers of a nation's life
force, can lead to pogroms, massacres, and shoahs.

Women are traditionally kept off the bimah as they could sexually snare
men with their looks and voices and because they may be "contaminated"
if they are in menses or recently gave birth. The Talmud says that women
are released from commandments that are time bound (praying three times a
day at specific times, for example) as their time is controlled by
raising children, and that mitzvoth comes first.

 

 But the Talmud does not say a
woman canNOT do these mitzvoth if she takes the obligation upon herself.
The Torah teaches men are just as contaminated as menstruating women if
they had an ejaculation of semen. Since the Talmud also teaches that it
is a mitzvah to have marital relations on Shabbat evening, who is
checking to make sure the men on the bimah at Saturday morning's
services, who are touching the Holy scroll of our Torah, have purified
themselves with a mickvah dip on the way to shul?

 

What would be the logical reason for not allowing women who have reached menopause, or who
have raised their children, from appearing on the bimah? The rules of
keeping women relegated to a position behind the mechitza barrier, not
only in synagogues, but outside as well, do not hold up to logical
inspection.

The Torah passages outlined in the d'var from this week's parasha that
have been brought into Western civilization's canon, civil, and common law
have served to keep 50 percent of the human race enslaved spiritually,
financially and emotionally. It was only relatively recently that women were given the
right to vote in the United States and the right to make decisions concerning
their own bodies.

Yet, there are those who will try to force women back into the back alleys for
abortions. There are those who say God wants women to submit willfully to
their husbands. Our teachings said that women's menstrual blood, men's
sperm, and the sex act caused contamination and needed a dip in the mickvah, as well as a
sacrifice to become pure. Our rabbis, by
teaching that the oral law was from God on Mt. Sinai, have caused
generations of suffering. These beliefs have caused an accepted
misogynistic culture that still exists and is approved of in many quarters. If the
pope can apologize to us for 2,000 years of mistreatment based on the Church's
teachings, is it not high time for those who say their semicha
(ordination) comes from traditional oral transmission to make amends
for 2,500 years of women's suffering?

This Sabbath is Shabbat Gadol, the "Big" one before the Passover holiday.

.Thank God that the liberal movement set aside
halakah like these laws early in our existence. Thank God that we
understood that these taboos were from a primitive new nation inculcated
with beliefs from the Pharaohs that enslaved them and the tribes that
lived around them. When we talk about liberation from bondage at our
Pesach seders, let us try to think of other customs, laws, notions, and
ideas, that we still cling to that may keep others and ourselves still
enslaved.

Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Arthur Segal www.jewishspiritualrenewal.org
Jewish Renewal www.jewishrenewal.info
Jewish Spiritual Renewal http://rabbiarthursegal.blogspot.com
Jewish Spirituality
Eco Judaism
facebook.com/RabbiArthurSegalJewishSpiritualRenewal
Hilton Head Island, SC, Bluffton, SC, Savannah, GA