debka_notion (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
debka_notion) wrote2004-10-03 12:05 pm
debka_notion) wrote2004-10-03 12:05 pm
How Egalitarian is Egalitarian?
So in the last big-Jewish-post (on counting non-egal women in an egal minyan, where egal is gender-egalitarian, for my pickier readers), I remembered that Egal here also has an interesting attitude (which has been changing and vacillating: it's definitely an in-process thing) on people who don't use certain ritualwear. A lot of it is based on long-term social norms from the larger (read: Orthodox) community, certainly. But it certainly isn't gender-egalitarian in its assumptions there.
The particular issue I'm thinking of is divided into 2 areas, and I freely admit that I'm often as guilty of both as the next person. But I'm working on it.
Part 1: If a man shows up to the minyan, especially say, on a weekday morning, when people tend to assume that it's only people who are strongly committed to observance in an egalitarian setting who show up (little else will get a college student up to be somewhere at 7:45 when it isn't absolutely required), someone will dig up a spare kippah and offer it to him- and get offended if he declines (this has all happened). So for a man to be there with his head uncovered comes across as offensive or unacceptable at the very least. But there are generally several women there, often women who do wear a tallit or even tfillin at the appropriate times who don't cover their head in any way, and no one objects at all. No one offers them a kippah or other headcovering (and Egal is the only egalitarian minyan I've seen without a supply of the lace-doily-things. Kippot can pretty easily be seen as beged ish, even though I don't see them that way, especially the sorts that hand around in public-kippah-bins. Maybe minyanim (pl. of minyan) ought to keep a supply of cocktail hats*?). I know head covering is only minhag- but then why make such a fuss if a man chooses not to wear one?
Part 2: Both men and women are given assorted honors in the community, and with the exceptions of hagbah (lifting the torah) and candle lighting, these are given quite gender-neutrally. (I see another piece of writing coming up- but that is Off Topic For Now.) But when a man is given an honor and he is not wearing a tallit, he is often offered someone's for the period that he is specifically in public sight, and he will rarely refuse. There are men who don't wear a tallit customarily because they don't have one or think it is not necessary, and there are men who don't wear one because they wear a tallit-katan (a 4--cournered undergarment with the knotted fringes on each corner that fulfill the mitzvah-requirement that the tallit fulfills in a more decorative and prayer-time specific way), and don't believe that unmarried men should wear a tallit except when actively participating in a service. Either way, the offer is made, and usually accepted. Women (who yes, are less likely to wear a tallit: some folks feel like it's men's clothing, and therefore forbidden, or they jsut aren't interested in wearing one.) are less likely to be offered a tallit. I've noticed this even at mincha (the afternoon prayer) where no one besides the people actively participating wear a tallit. So a woman who normally wears a tallit in the morning will have an honor and not be offered a tallit when a man who doesn't wear one except when asked to will be offered one and accept. Here the folks at the minyan are getting better about offering- but it's an interesting statement that they/we have to think consciously to do so, when with men it's an assumption.
*Preferably the ones without veiling over the eyes: religious head coverings ought not to send sexual signals. I've swapped into footnotes here because I was stacking entirely too many parentheses.
The particular issue I'm thinking of is divided into 2 areas, and I freely admit that I'm often as guilty of both as the next person. But I'm working on it.
Part 1: If a man shows up to the minyan, especially say, on a weekday morning, when people tend to assume that it's only people who are strongly committed to observance in an egalitarian setting who show up (little else will get a college student up to be somewhere at 7:45 when it isn't absolutely required), someone will dig up a spare kippah and offer it to him- and get offended if he declines (this has all happened). So for a man to be there with his head uncovered comes across as offensive or unacceptable at the very least. But there are generally several women there, often women who do wear a tallit or even tfillin at the appropriate times who don't cover their head in any way, and no one objects at all. No one offers them a kippah or other headcovering (and Egal is the only egalitarian minyan I've seen without a supply of the lace-doily-things. Kippot can pretty easily be seen as beged ish, even though I don't see them that way, especially the sorts that hand around in public-kippah-bins. Maybe minyanim (pl. of minyan) ought to keep a supply of cocktail hats*?). I know head covering is only minhag- but then why make such a fuss if a man chooses not to wear one?
Part 2: Both men and women are given assorted honors in the community, and with the exceptions of hagbah (lifting the torah) and candle lighting, these are given quite gender-neutrally. (I see another piece of writing coming up- but that is Off Topic For Now.) But when a man is given an honor and he is not wearing a tallit, he is often offered someone's for the period that he is specifically in public sight, and he will rarely refuse. There are men who don't wear a tallit customarily because they don't have one or think it is not necessary, and there are men who don't wear one because they wear a tallit-katan (a 4--cournered undergarment with the knotted fringes on each corner that fulfill the mitzvah-requirement that the tallit fulfills in a more decorative and prayer-time specific way), and don't believe that unmarried men should wear a tallit except when actively participating in a service. Either way, the offer is made, and usually accepted. Women (who yes, are less likely to wear a tallit: some folks feel like it's men's clothing, and therefore forbidden, or they jsut aren't interested in wearing one.) are less likely to be offered a tallit. I've noticed this even at mincha (the afternoon prayer) where no one besides the people actively participating wear a tallit. So a woman who normally wears a tallit in the morning will have an honor and not be offered a tallit when a man who doesn't wear one except when asked to will be offered one and accept. Here the folks at the minyan are getting better about offering- but it's an interesting statement that they/we have to think consciously to do so, when with men it's an assumption.
*Preferably the ones without veiling over the eyes: religious head coverings ought not to send sexual signals. I've swapped into footnotes here because I was stacking entirely too many parentheses.
Need vs. want
While we may be allowing women to wear tallit now, and by allowing I mean not viewing it as strange or out of place, I really don't see it as that they need to; and I don't think they should have to.
A woman's motive to don tallit (or to observe other classically male-only mitzvot) is frequently assumed in the literature to be one of feminism and arrogance, not for the sake of heaven. Women, according to these works, inherently possess a greater ability to connect to Hashem and therefore do not need mitzvot such as tallit. Therefore, to adopt these stringencies is an implicit insult to Torah.
Alas, if only this were so! Whatever this mysterious female-only connection is, I don't seem to have it. If I didn't put on tallit and t'fillin I wouldn't pray. The presence of a physical obligation forces me to connect to Hashem every day, and I know from experience that the absence of the physical obligation results in non-performance my t'fillah obligation. Some women really do need these mitzvot. I know that I cling to them for they are what keep my Judaism alive and growing.
"Expectation" is one of the most damaging things to a congregation. Worrying about what other people think at the expense of building one's relationship to G-d is a major mismanagement of one's priorities. If a congregation cannot absorb deviation from the norm, it is to the detriment of the Judaism of everyone there.