(A note on Judaism 101 –  I do appreciate the author’s identification of his subject position as “Orthodox” on the home page; however I would like to point out his magical thinking about history, where he write that Orthodox Judaism “as recently as 300 years ago, was the only Judaism.”  This statement is far from a fact – there are opinions that Orthodox Judaism is actually a reactionary movement to Reform Judaism, started in mid 19^th century)

Below is a list of Jewish learning online resources.   Of course there are hundreds of websites with Jewish learning content – I limited this list to text grounded resources and large collection. I would  say that the websites below are presenting progressive content – progressive used extremely broadly to mean comfortable with criticism and exploration.

Textual Learning List (in no particular order)

1.     Mechon Hadar – some source sheets and streaming video; and a zillion podcasts. I just finished the Ethan Tucker class on Niddah – I strongly recommend.

2.       Bet Midrash Virtual - run by the the Conservative Rabbinical Assembly of Israel, this insanely obsure source has great chavruta or self-study resources. You can sign to receive a short text in an email with some ideas to explore.  Emails since the start of this project are archived. The Mishna study group is already on Bava Kama, the twelves tractate.

3.      Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance -   a comprehensive bibliography of largely academic articles with links to places where some of the articles may be found online. Particularly useful for its Aguna bibliography.

4.       Pardes -  a 30 minute weekly podcast on the torah portion,  and a variety of short articles, which are mainly reposted column from the Jerusalem post

5.       Ritual Well - a project of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College, this is collection of articles on developing and redefining traditional practices for lifecycle events and holidays. As its title suggests, this is a potluck of rituals – take what you wish.

6.       Yeshivat Chovevei Torah –  this orthodox rabbinical school posts ALOT of mp3, there are 154 Daf Yomi recordings, and at least 100 more recordings of a variety of lectures by super-star teachers in the somewhat progressive orthodox community.

If you can think of any places I left out – please add the link in the comments section.

I am Jewish, so is her father. We live a life within the Jewish community. At seven months, she has never gone for longer than two weeks without attending services.  All objective facts point to        Z being raised in a Jewish home.  However, I hesitate to say that we are raising a Jewish child, simply because we are raising a child jewish-ly.  (Just as I hesitate to assume she will choose her birth gender – nevertheless for now she is a girl).

Z may not always be Jewish and this does not worry me.  I worry that she may not find her voice in spiritual practice or progressive faith communities will fail her, that she will one day go to college and run into the likes of AISH, a super-conservative Jewish outreach organization and like it.

I wish for my daughter a deep and satisfying spiritual practice that rest tentatively on the edges of justice – today those edges are most clearly characterized by acceptance of homosexuality.  The edges are likely to be different for her, and when she finds her way to the edges, I will be immensely joyful if her spiritual practice is pushing her there.  If she does not identify herself as Jewish because her spirit leads her in some other direction – be it Buddhist, Christian, Pagan, etc…., I do not think that this will cause me any grief.

Within the progressive religious context, requiring fidelity to a natal religion does not compute, except perhaps for culture (more on this to come).

Much of what I love about Jewish practice is the ritualized meals on Shabbat: inviting, cooking, serving, praying. Lengthy multi-course meals reoccurring every week.

It would be wonderful if she adopted these traditions – but this is a wish for me, not a wish for her, because I do not see an absolute value in Judaism.

I would guess that many other progressive Jews feel the same way; then why worry about our children identifying as Jewish when they grow up – instead we should worry about our children joining Jewish religious communities that are non-egalitarian, homophobic and otherwise reactionary.

Today, I will discuss one of them: Kiddushin. There is no question that Kiddushin is not egalitarian. The ceremony is about ownership – it is the definition of less than human, less than free, less than a man.

Attempts to create prenuptial agreements that will decrees the likelihood that at divorce the man will try to extort his wife in exchange for granting her a “get” – (Jewish divorce) is absolutely besides the point. Kiddushin is not about divorce, it is about marriage. Kiddushin is about the structuring of relationships. And the structure it purports is one of patriarchal marriage – in exchange for protection, both physical and otherwise, the woman gives herself to a man. Patriarchal marriage does not protect women; it is what women need protection from.

Kiddushin is not “just” a ritual – ritual is an enactment of our values. Women continue to take their husband’s name, or even if they do not, they give that name to their children – this, by definition, is patriarchy. The “ritual” of taking the husband’s name is secular kiddushin. Kiddushin is not an isolated, archaic religious hokus-pokus; Kiddushin is how men and women are currently relating to each other. Kidushin is what we call love.

I do not believe in love – because love is ownership. I believe in knowing, being, doing, building, fucking: together – kiddushin / love is none of these things, Love is about siphoning the fullness of women’s experience – with a fantasy about being possessed, about being “his.” The last blessing of the seven traditional blessings (sheva brachot) recited at a Jewish wedding bring this point to life. The blessing ends with the following “Blessed are You Who causes the groom to rejoice with his bride.” Notice that it could have said “who causes the groom and the bride to rejoice.” But no, the bride she is not the one who is rejoicing, it is the groom, who is rejoicing with “his” bride. The joy is his not hers – no wonder women are less happy then men.  She is a vehicle threw which he rejoices – she is not a person.

SO, if you must do Kiddushin, the next best thing is to invalidate your Kiddushin: Two simple ways do it.

1. Make sure the dude does not own the ring

2. Choose witnesses for Kiddushin who are either not Jewish or not religious.

Some bloggers have cited parallels to eating disorders. Both anorexics and the burka women are denying their bodies in order to make them “disappear”. Both are reacting to unattainable cultural ideals, be they size-zero thinness or increasingly stringent standards of modesty in the Charedi world, by taking them to an obsessive extreme. And anorexia is often understood to be a desperate way for women to assert control over at least one aspect of their lives. Surely, wearing a burka or vowing silence can be construed similarly. Jewish Chronicle.

The assumption behind the blog I cited above is that there is a kind of modesty that is good, and thus by comparison wanting to be skinny per se, is not the problem, it is just the twisty version that becomes a problem. This analysis does not implicate the “healthy” majority in the illness of the fanatics. I, however, implicate the very notion that a woman should strive to be thin or/and modest as the fuel behind this bazaar fire.

Women who strive to be thin or/and modest are doing so (most of the time) because they believe, that they are striving for an ideal of womanhood, an idea that is directly connected to pleasing men sexually (anorexia) and following men’s rules (modesty).

Tangent: Lesbians are at much lower risk of Anorexia. Doesn’t surprise me! (Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology 1994; 62(2):252- 260)

There is no “good” desire to be thin, and there is no “good” desire to be modest. Modesty, is a bad idea, not just at its extreme, it is a bad idea at its inception, because modesty is about women not tempting men by remaining silent and covered! Women silencing themselves for the sake of men is the very definition of patriarchy, if you ask me.

The perversion of modesty is only it progression. And anaraxia, is just the progression of the desire to be thin (aka, desirable, aka beautiful, aka for men).

Thus, the frame of reference must change. Twisty modesty is not going to disappear, until the ideal of modesty disappears, and of course the same thing can be said, and is often said about eating disorders. The change in these fields begins with a change in discourse.

Modestly aught to be a dirty word.

When, I heard this I was taken back by the stark clarity this outlook enables, the clarity is increased that much more when you add in the notion that the soul of Moses gets reincarnated in every generation, at least according to this particular woman (I’m not a chassidut expert, but the Chabad website does have a selection of prophetic predictions that the Rebbe made, which of course came true http://www.chabad.org/library/article.asp?AID=75574).

The belief in the Tzadik whose got the soul of Moses and a direct line to God is at the heart of Chabad authority; however, after some thought it occurred me that there is a similar concept from which Orthodox Feminism derives its authority, “continues revelation” a la Tamar Ross in Expanding the Palace of Torah: Feminism and Orthodoxy. According to “continues revelation” each generation has Torah to teach the world, and the will of God is continuously revealed through said Torah.

This is incredibly similar to the Tzadik, yet I embrace the notion of “continues revelation” yet, I reject the tzadik. Why? What is the crucial difference between the two concepts? Is it just the message? Could you in theory have a tzadik who speaks a message of egalitarian gender equality? Would I like it then? What if the Rebbe said, women from now one count in a Minyan, would I appreciate what he stands for then? After some brief deconstruction of both concepts – it seems that what is identical at first blush, actually represents two divergent ways of understanding God. When Tamar Roth talks about “continues revelation” she is referring to a the flexible notion of truth and the ethical wisdom of humans – both are constantly evolving – and because God is truth and God is justice, evolving truth and justice, necessitates evolving our understanding of Gods will. However, the Tzadik is a single individual with a special connection to God – there is an assumption of unfiltered God-speak coming out of the tzadik’s mouth, versus a changing spectrum of knowledge facilitated by our joint perspectives/minds/intellects. The differences go beyond the one – versus the many, to the very core of where authoritative knowledge comes from. For “continues revelation” our truth is the manifestation of God’s will by definition, but for the Tzadik his word is truth because it comes directly from God’s will. (This of course is a version of a classic question: Is murder wrong because God said so, or did God say saw because it is wrong? Plug it what ever you want for “murder.” Guess the answer the Tzadik concept grants this clasic question!) Also the tzadik continues to be relevant always – he is never wrong, not even in a thousand years, he is not bound by particularity of time and space.

Thus, go the Safed, stay at Accent, take some Chabad classes, go ahead, get a kick out of it, but when you get back back check out Tamar Ross’s Expanding the Palace of Torah: Feminism and Orthodoxy (for starters).