This essay aims to elucidate how multiple voices and traditions should interact with one another in the practice of ethics. First, it explores some of the major ways in which questions of bodily autonomy function in secular feminist and Jewish bioethical discourses. It then uses case studies to illuminate ways each discourse's concepts of bodily autonomy can be deeply problematic, and argues that the strengths in each discourse can serve as important correctives for the weaknesses in the other. It suggests (...) that some formal features of rabbinic texts can serve as a model for a discourse of constant and animated mutual correction. Finally, it examines two case studies in light of this model. (shrink)

The hypothesis of this article is that Sarah was the equal of Abraham in establishing the faith of the Hebrew nation, and therefore, she was also a party to a constitutive covenant that was most likely concealed and omitted from the canonical version of the Bible. First, this article introduces research claims regarding Sarah’s central role as a formative leading matriarch. The article then goes on to examine the significance of the tradition of the covenant with Abraham in terms of (...) cultural symbolism. And finally, the article tries to identify this symbolic significance in the Hebrew scriptures in a feminine context, assuming that ritual or ceremonial expressions may be associated with Sarah’s covenant as a founding matriarch in Israel’s religion and heritage. (shrink)

This paper begins by attempting to define midrash as a distinct genre of classical rabbinic literature in order to understand the significance of the term in contemporary discourse. It will then examine what Jewish feminists mean when they apply the term, midrash, to their work and consider the extent to which such appropriation is useful or reasonable. The paper will then outline, with my own suggestions, how midrash might be usefully appropriated for feminist ends and the paper will conclude with (...) a concrete example. (shrink)

In ‘L'Animal que donc je suis’, Derrida analyzes the paradoxical use of discourses on shame and original sin to justify the human domination of other animals. In the absence of any absolute criterion for distinguishing between humans and other animals, human faultiness becomes a sign of our exclusive capacity for self-consciousness, freedom and awareness of mortality. While Derrida's argument is compelling, he neglects to explore the connection between the human domination of animals and the male domination of women. Throughout ‘L'Animal’, (...) Derrida equivocates between ‘man’ and ‘humanity,’ and between the biblical figures of Ish and Adam. In so doing, he repeats a gesture that he himself has insightfully criticized in other philosophers, such as Levinas. By articulating the distinctions that Derrida elides, I suggest a way of reading Genesis which avoids this difficulty, but also continues Derrida's project. (shrink)

The biblical, talmudic, midrashic, and mystical traditions, as well as contemporary Jewish feminist theologies, reveal a plethora of Shekhinah images. If tracked historically these readings, while diverse, reveal continuities even across traditions. These include Shekhinah’s ‘immanence’, ‘presence’, ‘exile’, and shared ‘suffering’. Another vital continuity is Shekhinah’s function as protective ‘shield’. Accordingly, in her gendered theology of the Shoah Raphael argues that Shekhinah was ‘present but concealed in Auschwitz because her female face was yet unknowable to women’. Raphael’s selectivist approach appropriates (...) and de-contextualizes texts from the biblical, rabbinic, Zoharic, Lurianic and Hasidic traditions. For Raphael this methodology is necessary given the tradition’s ‘androcentric and patriarchal’ underpinnings. This article’s reading of Shekhinah’s role in the Shoah, however, differs from Raphael’s theology. Indeed, while Raphael acknowledges the historical continuities of Shekhinah’s ‘immanence’, ‘presence’, ‘exile’, ‘suffering’ and protection, she justifiably claims that Auschwitz was not a ‘place of protection’. This is because Raphael understandably refuses associate Shekhinah with the ‘violent and abusive’ God of the ‘masculine Jewish tradition’. Yet a reading of the tradition, ‘warts and all’, reveals that Shekhinah’s presence but inability to protect the ‘victims’ is a break with precedent and requires explanation. This article therefore tracks Shekhinah’s protective role in Jewish tradition and history to suggest, using mystical texts, that the divine presence was sufficiently empowered to intervene in the Shoah and pleaded Israel’s cause, but was powerless because the Holy One, blessed be He refused to ‘consent’. In the process this article hopes to add another layer to Shekhinah’s story and to help ‘bring her out of exile’. (shrink)

In Zohar al Shir ha-Shirim, the Zohar’s reading of Song of Songs, Shekhinah, echoing themes associated with the Shulamite of the biblical text, consistently initiates cosmic union. Sexual desire in the zoharic texts is a form of capital necessary to facilitate sefirotic intercourse, although scholarly readings of the zoharic corpus often identify Shekhinah as a passive receptacle. This, however, is only true if the endemic contradictions within the texts are glossed over. In Song of Songs, the Shulamite’s sexual ‘initiative’ is (...) core. This was not lost on the author of Zohar al Shir ha-Shirim, who, in struggling to explain Shekhinah’s sefirotic role in line with the erotics of Song of Songs, inescapably echoed the ‘depatriarchalizing’ themes of the biblical text. As this article demonstrates, in Zohar al Shir ha-Shirim, Shekhinah is active and repeatedly encourages and frustrates cosmic sexual intercourse. Zohar al Shir ha-Shirim shows that it is possible to reread Shekhinah’s role beyond the androcentrism of the authors as well as scholarly assumptions about her passivity. (shrink)