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Christian Patriarchy Movement Shackles Daughters to Fathers, Homes

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What, me worry?11/30/2010 2:18:38 pm PST

I’ve been wanting to put in my $.2 all day, but have been so busy!

Speaking more to Jewish roles, women’s roles are grossly misinterpreted and misunderstood, both in the ancient world and today. Feminism and civil rights have always been an important part of our religion. In fact, many of our feminist leaders of the 20th century, Gloria Steinem and Betty Friedan, were Jews. It’s no coincidence that Jews are heavily drawn to civil rights issues (a Jew was the first president of the NAACP) and Jewish women to feminst causes. It’s in our DNA (well maybe not technically, but it feels like it).

In Jewish tradition, women are separate, but equal. Our responsibilities may be different from a man’s, they are no less important. In some instances, more important. The Sabbath, the central ritual in Judaism, is distinctly female.

Now you may think separate, but equal isn’t good enough. Personally, I am a Reformed Jew where women are rabbis and women and men pray together - not seen in more orthodox practices. However, if you look at other orthodox religions, being seen as equal is something that simply doesn’t exist in other religions. Separate? Sure, but equal? No way.

Another major difference from other religions, Gd is genderless; seen as having both masculine and feminine qualities. Gd is referred to as “He” but only because Hebrew has no neutral gender. Man AND women are created in the image of Gd (as Ludwig said). Most Jewish scholars believe man was first created with a dual gender and later separated, i.e. created in His image.

In traditional Judaism, women have a greater degree of binah - intuition or understanding - than men. Seven of the 55 prophets in the bible were women. Miriam is respected as one of the liberators of the Israelites, as important as her brothers, Moses and Aaron. Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel and Leah were superior to the patriarchs in prophecy. Women did not participate in the idolatry at Mt. Sinai (the golden calf). One of the Judges was a woman, Deborah.

Certain mitzvot (blessings) are particular to women and women alone.
We are “allowed” to have orgasms - to enjoy sex and have sex for pleasure, not just procreation.

Jewish women could inherit their father’s property if there were no sons. That wasn’t practiced in any other religion in the ancient world.

I could go on and on about the progressive role of women in both traditional and modern Judaism. Of course, the saddest part of this article is that women are meant to believe they are less and not worthy and that has never been part of Jewish life.