Progress
By Rebbetzin Feige Twerski
Compared with almost any
era in history, women in our times have made significant inroads in the
workplace. Although management analysts maintain that a "glass
ceiling" still prevents women's access to the highest rungs of the
corporate ladder, compensation and benefits levels for women vis-a-vis their
male counterparts have been equalized to some degree. Furthermore, harassment
litigation brought to national exposure within the last ten years has secured a
safer, more respectful work environment for women.
We have become empowered
and influential. We have become top executives, brilliant lawyers, respected
doctors, and wealthy entrepreneurs. For the most part, I think we have successfully
proven that, given the chance, we can "do a man's job."
Unfortunately, along with
this gain has come a loss. This loss relates to the de-emphasis of the
uniqueness of women. In order to properly put the matter in perspective, we
must first appreciate that men and women are different.
In our world of mass
production, there is a drive to standardize everything. This urgency to
eliminate the unusual or the different has affected even our understanding of
what it means to be human. Today, equality among human beings has somehow come
to mean that everyone is the same. But, throughout our history, the Jewish
people have maintained an unwavering and at times controversial stance: men and
women are different. Our 3,500-year-old tradition maintains that the genders
are parallel partners, unquestionably equal in importance, but definitely not
the same.
Adam and Eve
My child once asked me,
"When God created the world, why did God create men and women? Why not
make just one kind?" It's a profound question. God is infinitely powerful
and easily could have created a world populated by women only or a world of men
only and fashioned a mechanism to have the one sex reproduce itself.
Instead, what did God do?
"In the image of God He created him; male and female He created them"
(Genesis 1:27).
In creating two distinct
sexes, male and female, God was indicating there is a need for that which a
male can contribute to the world and a need for a female's contribution to the
world - and they are not the same thing. Everything in creation is necessary -
nothing was created without a purpose. Therefore the existence of two sexes
means we absolutely need the unique strengths of both.
Beautiful Balance
The male and female
contribution goes beyond the human realm; we find that the entire world is a
balance of male and female. Our mystical literature teaches us that the world
was created through the letters of the Hebrew language, and that Hebrew words
are not arbitrary symbols, but reflections of the inner reality of the entities
they describe. In Hebrew, there is no "it." Every noun is either of
male or female gender.
Take the Hebrew word for
body, guf. Guf is a masculine term. Then you have the Hebrew word for soul,
neshamah. Neshamah is feminine. In Jewish belief, the person is both neshamah
and guf.
One might argue about
which is more important, body or soul. Some might say the body. After all,
that's the part of our being we relate to most directly; it's what we see. But
what value is a body without a soul? It's like a garment without a person.
Others might argue that the soul is more important, for at the deepest level,
it is who we are. But what good is a soul if you don't have a body to put it
in? The body is the tool with which we actualize the potential of the soul.
You have the same
partnership in the Hebrew terms for tree and earth. Etz, "tree," is
male. Adamah, "earth," is female. Without the earth, you could not
have the tree, for it would not have a place from which to grow. Yet without
the tree, the earth has not fulfilled its purpose. The earth sustains the tree,
and the tree is an expression of the earth.
Within every human being,
too, there are female and masculine properties. When we speak about the
uniqueness of women or the uniqueness of men, we speak about the primary thrust
of the human, but each gender includes the properties of the other. It makes
sense that each human being has this balance of both masculine and feminine
attributes because we are created in the image of God, and God has both
masculine and feminine aspects.
This does not mean that
God is a man or that God is a woman. We can't really say what God is, because
God's essence is beyond human comprehension. When we say that God has both
masculine and feminine properties, we are looking at the ways in which God's
Presence manifests itself in the world. God acts in both masculine and feminine
ways. Understanding these manifestations requires an extensive background in
Talmudic and mystical teachings. However, even those without this background can
see hints of their existence in the Hebrew language itself: A common name for
God in Hebrew literature is HaKadosh Baruch Hu, which means "the Holy One,
blessed be He," a masculine construction in Hebrew grammar. But the
Shechinah, Gods Presence in this world, is a feminine construction.
Living in the Image of God
One of the
responsibilities of our being made in the image of God is that we are supposed
to act like God to the best of our abilities.
Men were given an extra
share of the God-like masculine way of being. They are supposed to refine the
masculine spiritual potential they have. Women were given an extra share of the
God-like feminine way of being. Our task as women, then, is to refine the
feminine spiritual ability we have and bring it to the highest expression we
can in this world, within the particular life situations in which we're placed.
This is not a small task.
Yet this very difficult assignment has become even harder today because women
are convinced that the womanly side of them is something either to be ignored
or, at best, relegated to an inferior role in their lives.
Unfortunately, our society
has bought into the masculine way of being and devalued the feminine way of
being - the special feminine contribution. Our success in the workplace has
often led to us acting more like men. We think that in order to succeed we must
act as aggressively as men, we must dress like men, and we must stifle
everything feminine. Its a man's world, we say, and the sad thing is, we
believe it.
The tragic result is that
a lot of really wonderful feminine properties are being lost along the way.
At a certain point in the
l960s, it became taboo to refer to the woman in conjunction with the home.
Thankfully, we have recovered somewhat from the excesses of that period, and
more women are realizing that raising a family is as honorable and important a
job as paid work is outside the home, if not more so. Still society today
usually sees the role of homemaker as secondary.
Our society has devalued
the home and offers little or no support for the courageous woman who chooses
the roles of wife and mother as her primary career. Nevertheless, I believe
these women to be the unheralded heroes of our time. They are the ones who
impact our lives in far deeper realms than do publicly renowned women.
These are the mothers,
grandmothers, aunts, and teachers who notice us and go beyond themselves to
show us care and concern. It is the memories of these women that fill us with
warmth and solace in the cold winters and fragile moments of our lives.
For Jewish women,
therefore, the question is not, are we able to be successful out there? By now
it is clear that we can be. The real question is, should being successful out
there be our major focus in life? When we look back at our lives, is that what
we'll be most proud of?
I am not suggesting that
women throw away successful careers and stay home exclusively. There is no
obligation for women to stay home. And for many, economic situations required
women to work outside the home.
At a deeper level, women
must consider their need for personal fulfillment. The Zohar, the foremost
kabbalistic work of our tradition, defines the commandment to "be fruitful
and multiply" in Genesis 1:28 to include a wide spectrum of human creativity.
Modern women especially often feel the need to be active outside the home.
However, the Torah
emphasizes the importance of the home. It should not be neglected or made
secondary. The single most important contribution most people will make to
society is bringing up good children. There is a story of a rabbi speaking
somewhere in the U.S., trying to explain to people how much happiness and
meaning Judaism can add to their lives. A woman gets up and says, "That is
very nice for you, Rabbi. You are studying and teaching. But where is your wife
-- in the kitchen cooking fish?" The rabbi answers, "I am proud to
say that my wife is a professional woman, in charge of a facility for eight
children. She is the director of the institution and is responsible for the
children's physical, emotional, and spiritual needs." The audience
applauds, and the woman who asked the question sits down, satisfied. Then the
rabbi adds with a smile, "Actually, the institution is my home, and those
eight children are my own."
This story describes a
common attitude toward family. As long as a woman is caring for children in a
professional mode, as director of a facility, it is all right and she is
considered a success. But running a home is not enough - the woman is secondary
and unimportant. In today's upside down world, it seems working with someone
else's kids is worthy of more applause than working with one's own.
The Power of Being Who We Are
Throughout the ages, in
history's glorious seasons and in times of persecution, trials, and travails,
Jewish homes have served as an oasis, resistant and free of the raging storms
plaguing civilization. Through it all, the Jewish people have survived because
the women among them refused to compromise their values and roles in the face
of the superficial and capricious fads of the societies in which they lived. As
our oral tradition states, "Everything is determined by the woman."
Throughout history, it has been women who have been the vigilant guardians of
the Jewish home and thereby its values, morals, and ethics.
If we refuse to be
ourselves, we stymie the very purpose of creation. God needs each one of us to
do that which no one else can do - to perfect that share of the world that was
given to us to perfect. It's only in being who we truly are that we can begin
to accomplish these lofty goals. And only with the strengths of both the male
and the female working together can we reach the ultimate perfection of the
world.
Furthermore, if we deny
our feminine sides, we will only damage ourselves. The heart of this idea may
have best been expressed by the Kotzker Rebbe, an outstanding Jewish educator
and philosopher of the nineteenth century. He said, "If I am I because I
am I, and you are you because you are you, then I am I and you are you. But if
I am I because you are you, and you are you because I am I, then you are not
you and I am not I."
In other words, the only
way that "I am I" is if I am true to myself - if I define myself
according to what I know to be true and important. But if I define myself
according to the predominant values of the society around me, then I am not
being true to who I really am. And if the predominant value of the society is a
masculine one, then I'm at risk of ignoring perhaps the most basic part of
myself.
REBBETZIN FEIGE TWERSKI is a descendant of a noted
Romanian chassidic family. She came to the United States as a young girl and
grew up in Brooklyn, New York. She has written for a wide spectrum of Jewish
journals worldwide and is a much sought after speaker on a myriad of Judaic
subjects. She and her husband, Rabbi Michel Twerski, founded the Torah
Foundation of Milwaukee, an educational center that reaches out to Jews of all
backgrounds.
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