Shabbos And Such

[debka_notion]

It was a hectic week. And then Thursday morning I was asked to do some laynen, and I said yes, and then agreed (because I like being useful and am not good at saying no to these sort of ritual requests) to read 2 aliyot and the rosh chodesh maftir (which I knew already and just had to look over quickly)- but that was still 31 psukim to learn from scratch. And the way Friday went, I ended up learning 19 of them Friday night after dinner. So- I was kind of nervous. Really, I was more nervous about that layning than I have been in a while. And it turned out alright. Not wonderfully, but certainly decently enough. Just not good enough for me to really be proud of, besides that I learned and retained them in a pretty darn short period of time. And I lead p'sukei d'zimra, because the only other people there on time were the gabbay and two folks who didn't want to lead.

Meals were interesting too- dinner I had with a hallmate and a friend of a friend. Lunch was a Brush potluck, and both a lot of fun and with good food. And it was fun and still ended in time for me to get a nap- although I woke up only minutes before mincha. And then the room was both sweltering and sans lights for mincha. But oh well.

And then there was tsuris with ma'ariv, because there were some people in the room singing, and they just kept on singing. And eventually they asked if they could daven with us and we of course said sure, but they kept singing. And then we started davening, and they were ticked off because they weren't given time to get siddurim. So- there was drama. There will probably be More drama. Ugh.

And this evening the women of my class had a Rosh Chodesh gathering, and it was a lot of fun- just very casual and very comfortable. Learned a lot about my classmates. And found out some rather surprising things of a variety of natures.

Comments

[hotshot2000.livejournal.com]

"I'm not totally opposed to maintaining occasional gender segregated spaces. Sometimes there are positive results of such."

I'm not either, but as I pointed out, I think we need to be extraordinarily careful about defining why we're maintaining such spaces, and whether we think we're doing that for the short-term or the long-term.

"It might serve the useful function of teaching folks who know only egal settings what some of the benefits of the way another part of the Jewish community lives..."

On the one hand, as tovah623 points out below, people in egal settings already have deeply-ingrained notions of gender separation/division. What I think needs to happen is that they be forced to confront those separations and question them at least as deeply as they've questioned (and rejected) the separations codified in halakha. On the other hand, I don't think that one can really empathize/understand the way another part of the Jewish community lives without really absorbing the narrative of that community, because it is only through that narrative that the practices of that community will make sense.

"When I started researching my senior thesis, which was on women who made Shabbat dinner without communal support"

Fascinating. What do you mean "without communal support"?

"Egalitarianism can feel very superficial. And that often really irks me. But I don't know what to do about it."

In addition to what you said, I'd suggest figuring out what implications the practice you're examining has both in terms of gender and not in terms of gender, and try to imagine what the consequences of changing that practice would be. (I like the Kantianesque thought experiment of "what would the world be like if the relevent everyone acted this way.") Ultimately, I think what's important is to place egalitarianism side by side with many other values and weigh it against them when making decisions. (This presumes that egalitarianism itself is a worthwhile value -- I think it is, but I also think it has to be more carefully defined.)

"To each their own, but- it seemed a bit confusing."

I think it's actually vital for a person to dredge as deep as they can in order to figure out why they are or are not comfortable with things, particularly when the implications are potentially quite broad.

[debka-notion.livejournal.com]

Insomuch as Rosh Chodesh gets used to confront the contact points between Judaism and gender and sexuality, I think it might be a good way of addressing those questions, if one could find a good way of structuring it. (Unlike many of the Rosh Chodesh rituals I've seen/read about, some of which were interesting and useful and many more of which were Really Incredibly Frightening.)

I think a lot of people in gender-egal settings haven't so much confronted the gender-differentientation in halakha and rejected it so much as they have either grown up with this system or adopted this and can't see halakha without it. I was in that position for quite a while- maybe I still am, it's hard to tell in some ways. I try though, at least.

That was one of the tricky parts. "Without communal support" ended up meaning Both "without any significant number of other Jews around" and "without any significant number of other Jews who make Shabbos meals around".

It's very hard to weigh out the component aspects of a practice that has almost no defined practice besides general timing and I guess the gender of the participants...

[hotshot2000.livejournal.com]

"I think a lot of people in gender-egal settings haven't so much confronted the gender-differentientation in halakha and rejected it so much as they have either grown up with this system or adopted this and can't see halakha without it."

You're probably right; David Fine argues that this reality has halakhic significance for those who hold by the Roth teshuva on egalitarianism. At best, I think this is a case of following a bet din she-ta'u (hashkafically, not necessarily halakhically).

Did your study correlate with more general trends of men vs. women who made meals for themselves and/or others during the week?

"It's very hard to weigh out the component aspects of a practice that has almost no defined practice besides general timing and I guess the gender of the participants..."

I can think of at least two: Perpetuating gendering in social/ritual matters and ad hoc creation of ritual. I'm sure there are more.