Women's Place at Sinai

ByAJWS Staff

AJWS On1Foot

Judith Plaskow, Standing Again at Sinai: Jewish Memory from a Feminist Perspective (Harper: San Francisco, 1986), p.1.

Original
There is perhaps no verse in the Torah more disturbing to the feminist than Moses' warning to his people in Exodus 19:15, "Be ready for the third day; do not go near a woman." For here, at the very moment that the Jewish people stand at Mount Sinai ready to enter into the covenant- not now the covenant with the individual patriarchs but presumably with the people as a whole- Moses addresses the community only as men. The specific issue is ritual impurity: an emission of semen renders both a man and his female partner temporarily unfit to approach the sacred (Leviticus 15:16-18). But Moses does not say, "Men and women do not go near each other." At the central moment of Jewish history, women are invisible. It was not their experience that interested the chronicler or that informed and shaped the text.... We cannot redefine Judaism in the present without redefining our past because our present grows out of history. The Jewish need to reconstruct the past in light of the present converges with the feminist need to recover women's history within Judaism. Knowing that women are active members of the Jewish community in the present, we know that we were always part of the community, not simply as objects of male purposes but as subjects and shapers of tradition. TO accept androcentric histories as the whole of Jewish history is to enter into a secret collusion with those who would exclude us from full membership in the Jewish community. It is to accept the idea that men were the only significant agents in Jewish history when we would never accept this (still current) account of contemporary Jewish life. The Jewish community today is a community of women and men, and it has never been otherwise. It is time, therefore, to recover our history as the history of women and men, a task that will both restore our own history to women and provide a fuller Jewish history for the Jewish community as a whole.

Original

There is perhaps no verse in the Torah more disturbing to the feminist than Moses' warning to his people in Exodus 19:15, "Be ready for the third day; do not go near a woman." For here, at the very moment that the Jewish people stand at Mount Sinai ready to enter into the covenant- not now the covenant with the individual patriarchs but presumably with the people as a whole- Moses addresses the community only as men. The specific issue is ritual impurity: an emission of semen renders both a man and his female partner temporarily unfit to approach the sacred (Leviticus 15:16-18). But Moses does not say, "Men and women do not go near each other." At the central moment of Jewish history, women are invisible. It was not their experience that interested the chronicler or that informed and shaped the text.... We cannot redefine Judaism in the present without redefining our past because our present grows out of history. The Jewish need to reconstruct the past in light of the present converges with the feminist need to recover women's history within Judaism. Knowing that women are active members of the Jewish community in the present, we know that we were always part of the community, not simply as objects of male purposes but as subjects and shapers of tradition. TO accept androcentric histories as the whole of Jewish history is to enter into a secret collusion with those who would exclude us from full membership in the Jewish community. It is to accept the idea that men were the only significant agents in Jewish history when we would never accept this (still current) account of contemporary Jewish life. The Jewish community today is a community of women and men, and it has never been otherwise. It is time, therefore, to recover our history as the history of women and men, a task that will both restore our own history to women and provide a fuller Jewish history for the Jewish community as a whole.

Suggested Discussion Questions

1. How do you personally reconcile the verse, "do not go near a woman?"
2. What does it mean to "redefine Judaism" and "reconstruct the past?"
3. How has Plaskow's understanding of Sinai impacted Jewish feminist history since this text was written in 1986? Do you know of other feminists who draw upon, or disagree with, Plaskow's understanding of the role of women in the biblical narrative?

Merle Feld, “We All Stood Together,” A Spiritual Life: A Jewish Feminist Journey, p. 205.

Original
My brother and I were at Sinai He kept a journal of what he saw of what he heard of what it all meant to him I wish I had such a record of what happened to me It seems like every time I want to write I can't I'm always holding a baby one of my own or one of my friend always holding a baby so my hands are never free to write things down And then As time passes the particulars the hard data the who what when where why slip away from me and all I'm left with is the feeling But feelings are just sounds The vowel barking of a mute my brother is so sure of what he heard after all he's got a record of it consonant after consonant after consonant If we remembered it together we could recreate holy time sparks flying

Original

My brother and I were at Sinai He kept a journal of what he saw of what he heard of what it all meant to him I wish I had such a record of what happened to me It seems like every time I want to write I can't I'm always holding a baby one of my own or one of my friend always holding a baby so my hands are never free to write things down And then As time passes the particulars the hard data the who what when where why slip away from me and all I'm left with is the feeling But feelings are just sounds The vowel barking of a mute my brother is so sure of what he heard after all he's got a record of it consonant after consonant after consonant If we remembered it together we could recreate holy time sparks flying